Between 1960 and 2000 there was a thousand percent increase in cohabitation in America. Today five million couples are living together without being married. It’s a significant social change. The explanations are many: birth control, the sexual revolution, later marrying age. But perhaps the best explanation is the fear of divorce. We have a generation of adults whose parents divorced and left them scarred. They don’t want to repeat their parents’ mistakes and somehow think living together first will increase the probability of having a good, lasting marriage. Their motivation may be good, but social researchers tell us that the outcome of living together before marriage is exactly the opposite of what is intended.

Unmarried partners living together are four times more likely to cheat on one another than if they are married. Secular researchers without any Christian agenda are now saying that couples who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce. The risks are so high that USA Today quotes researcher Scott Stanley as saying, “If you want someone to marry, choose someone who won’t live with you.”
One of the most interesting of quotes is from Dr. Nancy Moore Clagworthy. She started her research convinced that living together is a good thing and sought scientific documentation for her conviction. After ten years of studying cohabiting couples, she concluded that living together without marriage is “one of the worst things that can happen to anybody.”

God’s way, two people joined by the commitment of marriage, is still the best way.