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After dating for four years, Amy Wood convinced her now-husband, Kevin, to buy a house. When he moved into the Canton house, she followed.Shacking Up
More couples say yes to sharing homes, no to marriage: Is that a problem?
"He wanted to get married, but I didn't," Brandi Bryant, 30, says of her live-in boyfriend, who financially provided for her and her 11-year-old son, Jarin.
Living together first
Is there anything wrong with “shacking up” before marriage? Tell us why or why not.
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Lakiasha Autrey and Ardie Hollingsworth moved in together shortly after graduating in 2002 from Michigan State. The couple reasoned paying rent and cable and utility bills for two apartments was a waste of money.
"He was always at my place or I was always at his place. If we were always together, we might as well conserve the money and pay rent together," said Autrey, 25. "It was a new step in our relationship."
After landing jobs in Metro Detroit, they bought a home in Warren. In January, Hollingsworth, 26, proposed. Autrey and Hollingsworth plan to wed on May 28.
Theirs is a common tale among the increasing number of American couples who live together before marrying -- or breaking up. About 10 million people live with a partner of the opposite sex, a tenfold increase from 1960 to 2000, according to the U.S. Census.
The burgeoning number of cohabiting couples -- about 8 percent of American households, and most between the ages of 25 and 34 -- has sparked a national discussion among sociologists and researchers about the political, social and economic ramifications of so many marriage-wary people living together. It also has prompted the Bush administration to push for more marriages with the Initiative for Healthy Marriage.
Some say the trend signals a further breakdown of the American family and the weakening of the institution of marriage. Others believe it's simply another change since the baby boom, a constellation of the 1960s sexual revolution, divorce, baby delay and the increase in children born outside of marriages.
"Dating is not what it was 50 years ago," says Pamela Smock, a sociologist at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. "Dating is evolving into this gradual process of moving in. It involves nights spent over at one or the other's place. There's the toothbrush, then a few items of clothing. All of a sudden, they realize they've moved in."
Autrey and Hollingsworth discussed the pros and cons of cohabiting before sharing an apartment. Autrey came from a religious family but says she decided to do it only because her mate assured her they would eventually marry.
Smock says that's probably not how it works for most couples living together. After interviews with dozens in Metro Detroit and Toledo, Ohio, Smock found most couples never discuss living together and just go with the flow.
Living together first
That's how Ken Wood describes how he and his now-wife, Amy, began living together in 1999. When they met, Amy Wood lived with her parents; he had his own place. After dating for four years, she convinced him to buy a house. When he moved into the Canton house, she followed. They lived together for five years before marrying a year ago.
"There was never a discussion, 'Hey, would you like to move in?'" says the 35-year-old systems administrator and actor, who is the Detroit Tigers' mascot, Paws. "I bought the house, and hey, there she was. I always said, 'I have no intentions on living with a woman before getting married.' I was bamboozled. I still tease her that she tricked me into this."
Researchers estimate at least half of all U.S. couples live together before getting married. Smock, though, puts it closer to 70 percent, noting most first and second marriages begin with couples sharing a home before getting hitched. "This cohabitation revolution is making people who don't live together first the minority," Smock says.
Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based research and policy group, calls it a substitution for marriage.
"It's occurring because they don't want the kind of permanent plunge they believe marriage represents," says Sawhill, whose organization is researching cohabiting with Princeton University. "They think that by trying out cohabitation, perhaps they will decide to marry."
But for many couples, living together creates the opposite effect, Sawhill says.
"What often happens is once you are cohabiting, it's comfortable and there isn't much incentive to get married."
Cohabitation vs. marriage
The arrangements tend to be bad deals for women, generally, because women tend to take on the same roles as wives, doing most of the cooking, cleaning and other household chores without the legal benefits of marriage, says Diane Sollee, founder and director of SmartMarriages.com.
"We hear people say, 'I'm never getting married because marriage kills love. I'm not going to get married and divorced,'" Sollee says from her Washington, D.C., office.
In reality, she says, "cohabitation kills love off faster than marriage. It has a higher breakup rate, a higher infidelity rate, higher violence rate and lower sexual satisfaction rate for women. In cohabitation, you deal with the same things as marriage. You have one partner, share everything and deal with the conflicts. But you don't have the piece of paper."
Brandi Bryant, 30, made some of the sacrifices women often make in live-in relationships. Eighteen months after allowing her boyfriend to move into her Detroit home, Bryant says they are breaking up. Their decision to share living quarters in March 2004 was a pragmatic one. His apartment lease had expired; she wanted more security after a home burglary.
Bryant's partner financially supported her and her 11-year-old son, Jarin. She played the role of housewife, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and managing the home. Bryant acknowledges getting everything she wanted -- except her freedom. Unhappy, she opted to end the relationship.
"He wanted to get married, but I didn't," she says. "I was tired of being unhappy and uncomfortable in my home."
Divorce more likely
After five years, about half of higher-income cohabiting couples marry, says Daniel Lichter, director of Cornell University's Bronfen Brenner Life Course Center. But the number falls significantly, to 15 percent to 20 percent, for lower-income couples who cohabit for five years.
For those who do marry, divorce is more likely than for couples who don't live together first.
"The likelihood of divorce is 25 to 40 percent for those who cohabit than those who don't," Lichter says. "It's not a small amount."
Beyond that, cohabiting couples who marry are less thrilled with marriage after they do. "Cohabitation prepares people for a life that may not exist once they get married," Lichter says.
Other researchers and marriage advocates are most concerned about live-in couples with children. Sawhill says that's one reason why the Bush administration started the Healthy Marriage Initiative, an experiment that encourages lower-income cohabiting couples with children to marry by providing marriage education, counseling and conflict resolution to deal with ex-partners.
"Cohabitation is like single parenthood but not as permanent, not as good for children, with no economic benefit," Sawhill says.
She's not the only one who believes marriage is best, especially for cohabiting couples with children.
"People who cohabit don't always have children, but often they do," says Brad Snavely, executive director of Michigan Family Forum, a Lansing research, education and advocacy organization that works to strengthen Michigan families.
The trends in Michigan mirror national trends.
"We live in a free society and people make choices about relationships, and those are private choices," Snavely said. "The concern with the rising percentage of cohabiting couples is those choices will have some pretty dramatic public consequences. One of those consequences is that there is some strong evidence that those who live together before marriage are less likely to have a lasting marriage."
Not just a blip
But with all the discussion about cohabiting couples and unstable relationships, the researchers agree no one knows how to persuade live-in couples who don't want marriage to marry. And if they do marry, no one has figured out how to keep them together.
Smock points to quotes in journals from the 1800s indicating people had similar concerns about children, changing families, marriage and women's roles.
"Does living together threaten marriage? My view is that the family has always been changing," Smock says. "Marriage is changing and cohabitation is changing. I don't know how it's going to change, whether cohabitation becomes more like marriage or marriage becomes more like cohabitation. Society is recognizing it as an important phenomenon."
The ramifications are numerous. The legal system may change to accommodate these millions of people who live together. Some companies already offer benefits to opposite-sex partners, not just same-sex partners. Businesses with something to sell may launch advertising campaigns that recognize cohabiting couples make buying decisions as a unit. Perhaps the federal government may offer tax benefits to couples who cohabit two or more years.
These are a few issues society is just beginning to discuss, Smock says. "Cohabitation isn't going away. It's not going to be just like this blip, like this '60s counterculture movement."
You can reach Kimberly Hayes Taylor at (313) 222-2058 or ktaylor@detnews.com.
After landing jobs in Metro Detroit, Lakiasha Autrey, left, and Ardie Hollingsworth bought a home in Warren. In January, Hollingsworth proposed. Autrey and Hollingsworth plan to wed on May 28.
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