Living together with a romantic partner has become the prevailing norm in our modern society. Religious views appear to be the most significant reason why couples wait until marriage to live together, while 9 out of 10 people without religious values express little inhibition. While I believe God makes the case clear for his followers not to cohabitate before marriage, I also think the non-religiously committed can benefit from this time-honored practice.

1. Satisfaction and Trust Goes Down

There’s almost a 20% greater chance of dissatisfaction with your relationship if you move in together. “Married adults have higher levels of relationship satisfaction and trust than those living with an unmarried partner.”[1] A separate study showed an 11% increased chance of marital failure for those who had cohabitated before their legal union.[2] The ceremony and celebration of married life seem to come connected with a higher degree of investment and fidelity in the relationship and are less prone to the mistrust and insecurity of casual commitment.

2. Experimenting With People   

Both married people and cohabitators cite love and companionship as reasons for coming together. Yet, for cohabitators, they view “moving in” as a next step in their commitment level, like shifting through car gears. 66% of cohabitators see it as a step towards a formal commitment, while other common reasons given include, convenience, testing out the relationship, or finances.

Dating and courtship are the traditional methods to protect individuals while they are experimenting with their relational compatibility and trust levels. These traditional methods aren’t flawed. The traditional boundaries around sexuality aren’t to keep people from “having fun;” they are given to protect individuals from emotional woundedness or social calamity.

Getting involved sexually while you’re testing a relationship is a bad idea. The act of sex, by nature, places a person in their most vulnerable state of emotional and physical exposure. Marriage is designed to protect that precious vulnerability and not take advantage of it. Making a person’s sexuality and privacy a part of the stage when people can still "walk away" from a relationship undermines the preciousness of being known, accepted, loved, and defended.

Women are especially vulnerable in environments like we’re seeing in the hook-up culture today[3]. Dating and courting, though slower, safeguard people from being taken advantage of or making choices that have unintended and life-altering consequences.

3. Thinking Less Clearly

Once two people are sexually engaged, their body chemistries release physical hormones that—especially for the female—bond her to her partner. In a marriage covenant, this chemical bond helps unify a man and woman together and potentially soothes any chaffed emotional wounds. But if a relationship is abusive or confusing, and partners are still “testing” each other out, the chemicals cloud their perception and make it much more difficult to disentangle from an unhealthy relationship.

Living together also makes it much more difficult for a vulnerable person to escape from an abusive relationship. Marriage certainly is not a remedy to this, but hopefully, a time of dating and courtship reveals the potential red flags and triggers that will ring alarm bells for yourself or observant friends and family.

4. Baby-Making Power

Possibly more than anything else, contraception has eroded the institutional protection around marriage and the bedroom. Nowadays, people can have sex without the natural side effects of making babies. Or can they?

Contraception isn’t bulletproof. If you’re not sterilized, using a hormonal shot, an IUD, or the best contraception—think injection, pill, or patch—still report 6 pregnancies out of 100 users. Users of the least effective contraception report practically 24 pregnancies out of 100.[4] That’s a high level of risk for a couple who is still rolling the dice to see if their relationship will work out. Imagine adding the life-altering responsibility of raising a kid to the mix.  

5. Confusing Family Structures

Creating a human life is way too important to be casual about. The development of children’s emotional, social, and cognitive faculties is proven most effective in a nest of affectionate, committed, loving relationships. A loving, traditionally committed family unit is the optimum design for children to flourish and become healthy adults.  

Yet, just over half of cohabiting adults ages 18 to 44 are raising children, including about a third who are living with a child they share with their current partner.[5] These arrangements can be done, but it is much harder for children to integrate into blended families with step-dads or siblings they don’t know or trust.

6. Designed for a Reason

When Jesus talked about traditional marriage, he cited Genesis 1:27, that “the Creator made them male and female,” and Genesis 2:24, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” Then Jesus added his unique interpretation to the texts, “therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Matthew 19:6).

God created this storyline. Changing it has unintended consequences. Marriage, sex, and raising children in an environment of maximally committed love—that’s the design. It values and protects the privacy and vulnerability of people at the core of their being. It also creates a calculated and stable institution for societies to endure and children to be raised in. It forces us to fight for love, grow through difficulties, and protect and serve one another instead of remaining detachable.

Conclusion

Divorce, sex before marriage, or infidelity are not unpardonable sins. God loves and heals us in our brokenness. Yet, we can choose now to safeguard ourselves and others by creating boundaries that follow this time-tested practice that honors life, commitment, sexuality, and the institution of family.

[1] Pew Research Counsel analyzes the National Survey of Family Growth.
[2] The Institute for Family Studies reports: https://ifstudies.org/reports/whats-the-plan-cohabitation/2023/executive-summary
[3] Nancy Pearcy discusses this at length in a chapter of her book Love Thy Body.
[4] Here are just two of the websites with exactly matching medical information:
https://www.healthline.com/health/healthy-sex/how-effective-is-birth-control 
https://www.acog.org/womens-health/infographics/effectiveness-of-birth-control-methods
[5] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/11/06/marriage-and-cohabitation-in-the-u-s/#fn-39398-1

Tags: family, marriage, sex, commitment, dating, union, divorce, cohabitation, courtship, contraception, casual, institution, hormones, experimenting, moving in