Morag has just bent my mind on a topic I’ve been itching to get stats on – marriage versus cohabiting. She asks: What does this topic have to do with politics?
I say: Everything! It’s symptomatic of the whole screwball way our society has gone.
She continues: So, however much we don’t like it, there are some home-truths we might need to face up to. Here are a few things we may want to think about:
• Unions where people are cohabiting are more likely to break up than marriages.
• Most such unions last less than 2 years before breaking up (or sometimes changing to marriage)
• Co-habitations with children are more likely to end
• 50% of women who have children in a cohabitating relationship will end up as lone-unmarried mothers
• Looking at children born in 1997 show that 70% of those born into households where their parents are married will spend their entire childhood with both their parents, whereas only 36 % of those children born into cohabiting households will have that experience. (*Civitas.org.uk goes into all this in more detail)
More than anything children crave stability. Also there are often very radical financial consequences which cause additional changes and far-reaching repercussions for a very young child to deal with. I have walked this path and continue to do so. Morag is just a parent trying to close the distance between what we read in the papers and what we live in our own lives.
There’s nothing really to add to this.
This would make sense as cohabitations are often a testing period, a trying out, whereas marriage is a public commitment. Cohabitation does not imply the same commitment. There was a taboo on unmarried couples living together before so it didn't happen - you just courted.
ReplyDeleteI read Morag's piece with interest. At the end of the day, young children are totally innocent when born, but can be subjected to horrible scenes with parents constantly arguing, I do worry about how this will affect them in future years.
ReplyDeleteThere are many reasons why people don't commit today, expectations are different, and it all comes down to "give and take" - usually one gives and the other takes. I think you get my drift. The trust and respect does not seem so important any more. I must admit I love being married, I love being a mother, I would never have agreed to cohabitate.
Ladies, I appreciate these comments in a spirit of read and learn. It's not an area I'm competent in and I just want to know. So thank you.
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