Essay #7

Cohabitation

Marriage has always been the symbol of love between couples. It is the institution of love and family but who says it is the only way to share with your partner all the feelings you have and the only way of form a family? Nowadays we are moving from a "marriage culture" to a "living together culture" (Stanton, 1995). One of these alternative forms is Cohabitation and it is growing around the entire world. However, there are some people who still oppose to this alternative. They argue that cohabitating women are more likely to suffer domestic violence. Also, these people say that children who are born of a cohabitating parents are more likely to grow in an inadequate environment and that people who live together before marriage have many side effects like anxiety and depression. Although, evidence demonstrate that those arguments are not completely true.

The advocates of marriage exposed the idea that cohabitating women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence. The growing rate of this kind of violence is not a secret for anybody at these times. Many women are victims of violence being their partners the aggressors. In one study, marital status was the strongest predictor of abuse ahead of race, age, education or housing conditions (How Cohabitation Differs from Marriage). Unfortunately, the statistics shows that law is not effective to avoid this problem. The number of women who die every year is higher and the government is incapable to do something. Many of the women who were assassinated have protection measures so it demonstrates that it does not matter if they are married or not because the law is completely inefficient. A contract that shows that a woman signed to be with a man will not protect her of aggression. To avoid it, it has to be a big change in education. If we educated children to respect each other it does not matter if it is a woman or man, it would mark a big difference.

The opponents to cohabitation also say that financially, children of cohabitants are worse than children whose parents are married. That is not true because marriage does not imply that both parents have to work or have a better job than those who are not married. It depends on the successfulness of every person not in the way they decided to share with their couple.

Another argument against cohabitation is that people could have many side effects like anxiety depression because of the guilty of committing a sin but if these people make the decision to live together they have no problem with this judgment of church. Also, according to a study reported in Pediatrics, early sexual activity leads to serious behavioral problems. Of 1500 girls studied, nonvirgin girls were 2.5 times more likely to have used alcohol than virgins, 6.2 times more likely to have smoked marijuana, and 4.3 times more likely to have attempted suicide. Boys were seven times more likely to have been arrested or picked up by police. These rates have to be taking into account because are very serious but it is something different to have sexual intercourse and cohabitation. There are many couples of an adequate age who choose to live together without get married and they have natural and healthy sexual life. This is a problem of education because we are not sexually well educated.

As a conclusion, if we analyze the statistics of domestic violence in our country, we could see that in the case of aggression the law is useless. So, it does not matter if are legally or not with an aggressor the consequences will be the same. Also, many cohabitating couples are very stable and they are completely capable to raise a child in a psychologically and economically good environment. Moreover, if they make a decision of living together as well as those who decide to get married they will have to undergo many proves that a contract will not help to pass through.