Cohabitational Relationships, Crime and Social Cohesion

Should Couples Be Required By Law to Live Together For Six Months Before Marriage?

By Faiz Ahmed
Oakland Community College - 2009

According to Act 750.328 of 1931 of the Michigan Penal Code, the law prohibits ‘the lewd and lascivious’ act of cohabitation of unmarried couples. And I must say I totally agree.

Why does the Michigan penal code have such a law? Is it just because God said so in the bible? Why did God say it? Did God just want us not to be happy? Let us see what happens to a society where cohabitation is widely practiced and accepted. The United States of America has two large population groups, those who cohabitate and those who do not. Let us compare these two groups with regards to population demographics.

Surveys taken indicate that “40 % of cohabitational relationships end before marriage” (Larry and Thorton, 913-927) and according to another statistical report, only “one sixth of cohabitational relationships survive for 3 years and only one in ten survives for more than five years” (Benett). It is needless to say that these rates are alarmingly high.

The fact is that when a couple lives together and breaks up, they always compare their present partner to their previous partner in terms of personality and intimacy. Another point to remember in the same context is that humans are neither perfect nor can they ever be satisfied.

This coupled with the fact that most cohabitational relationships are based on the understanding that there is an easy way out of the relationship just in case things do not work out, leads to people breaking up with their new partners even more. According to an article on CBS news dated Nov 21 2006, 37 % of all U.S. births are to unwed mothers and according to the University of Maryland, School of Public Policy, 66 % of all out of wedlock births occurred to women between the ages of 15 and 24. I think it would be safe to assume that most of these women are not as rich and privileged as Jamie Lynn Spears, the sixteen-year-old-sister of Britney Spears who became pregnant, meaning that their financial condition is not very attractive. They have to work night and day at multiple jobs that pay an average of 11 dollars an hour to stay financially solvent, and even after that at least 27% of single mothers and their children are under the poverty line (singleparents.about.com). Many single mothers who are under the poverty line rely on financial aid provided by the government, this again is taken from tax money of people among others who are living legal lives. I am not against supporting poor people financially but I think that this situation is intensifying the problem unnecessarily and I do not believe that women deserve this kind of a life.

Another problematic issue is in context to the unnervingly high rate of break-ups of cohabitational relations that I mentioned earlier. The problem created by cohabitational relationships breaking up at such high rates is that the children born out of these temporary relationships do not have a father to teach them what is right or wrong and neither does the mother have enough time to devote to her children, this means that these children who are yearning for parental affection are being disappointed time and time again.

This situation makes these children more susceptible to problems like bad company, criminal activity, smoking, depression, drug abuse, alcoholism, risks of suicide and a great multitude of other problems. Certain disturbing statistics have come to light and have been widely used in many articles. Statistics obtained from a non-profit public awareness group called ‘parents for justice’ state that “ According to U.S. Department of Justice special report of 1998, 70% of juveniles in state run institutions are from at fatherless homes. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. Statistics according to Fulton Co. Georgia jail populations, Texas Department of Corrections 1992 illuminate the fact that 85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home and according to the National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes.” (http://www.parents4justice.us/).

Surveys of over four hundred thousand cases of homicide between 1976 and 1994 indicate that women in cohabitational relationships are about nine times more likely to be killed by their partner than are women in marital relationships.(Todd Shackelford, 284-291)

Many people may claim that because divorce rates are so high, we must have a trial marriage before making a major commitment to ascertain how things work out. The problem however is that the rate of divorce is 50 % higher in couples that cohabitated before marriage than those that did not cohabitate before marriage (Larry and Thorton, 913-927). Moreover according to the results of a study found at ‘marriage.about.com’, “the risk of divorce between couples that cohabitated before marriage comes down to the level of risk of divorce between couples that did not cohabitate only after seven years of marriage”

American culture has been affected by the ideology of capitalism and by the sexual revolution to a very great extent. American people have been programmed to think in terms of individualism rather that the greater good and most people don’t see anything beyond their passions and desires. This ideology basically implies that you have one life, so live it to the fullest and the results of this ideology when practically implemented are devastating. Cohabitation leads to unstable relationships which very often end in break ups leaving behind a host of carnage. These are the problems that arise out of cohabitation when it is illegal but tolerated. If these are the results of voluntary cohabitation, then I must say I would be scared to think of what would happen if cohabitation was made mandatory by law.

Bibliography

About Marriage: “http://marriage.about.com/od/cohabitation/qt/cohabfacts.htm”

Bennett, W.J., “The Broken Hearth Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family, 2001”

Bumpass, Larry L. and Arland Thornton. “The Role of Cohabitation in Declining Rates of Marriage.”

Journal of Marriage and the Family. Vol 53, 1991. Pgs. 913-927.
By Mike Stobbe AP Medical Writer , Nov 21 2006


Patents for Justice: “http://www.parents4justice.us/statistics.html”

Todd Shackelford, “Cohabitation, marriage, and murder: woman-killing by male romantic partners” 2001, vol. 27, pp. 284-291



First published with East West Link News - ewlnews.com

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