Friday July 21, 2006
Cohabitation Ends in Separation 90% of the Time
By Hilary White
NEW YORK, July 21, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A study published by the
journal, Demography, has shown that cohabitation is not the road to
happy marriage, or even to a happy relationship, but rather ends in
separation 90 percent of the time.
The study’s lead researcher, Daniel Lichter a professor of policy
analysis at Cornell University said, “The common view of cohabitation
as a steppingstone to marriage needs to be seriously questioned.”
“Instead, serial cohabitation may be an emerging norm as cohabiting
unions form and break up. If marriage promotion programs hope to target
poor cohabiting women, our results seemingly suggest that the
likelihood of success is not assured.”
The study showed that one-half of all cohabiting unions end within a
year and 90 percent within five years. The study showed that the common
failure of cohabitation affects poor women more severely since they
tend to rely financially on their live-in partners.
In the meantime a court in North Carolina has overturned as
unconstitutional a 201 year-old law that prohibited couples living
together before they were married. The suit was brought by the American
Civil Liberties Union who sued the state on behalf of Deborah Hobbs,
41, a former sheriff's dispatcher who lost job because she wouldn't
marry her live-in boyfriend.
The court cited a 2003 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Texas
sodomy law in ruling that the law protecting the state’s interest in
lawful marriage violated Hobbs’ right to liberty.
The law stated, in part: "If any man and woman, not being married to
each other, shall lewdly and lasciviously associate, bed and cohabit
together, they shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanour.”
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