Marriage or cohabitation?

Families have changed in the last several decades. Instead of getting married, loads of people are living together or 'cohabiting'. In our society marriage is the structure which people use to create a stable family unit. Cohabitation is replacing marriage as the first living together experience for young men and women. Some of these cohabitating couples eventually get married, some of them break up. Marriage itself is easy. Two people can get married any time they wish. However the challenge of marriage is making it work for a lifetime. So I shall briefly discuss these issues.

On the one hand, it is worth striving for marriage on the grounds that solitude would not inconvenience anybody anymore. It is incredibly reassuring to be conscious of that there is a person who loves you and only you no matter what. That sort of commitment can give you a tremendous comfort and confidence.

What is more, being married may be connected with lower cost of living, financial strenght. A married couple tends to have either more free time or more money for this reason the cost and work of a household are shared by two. It helps to create a more equitable distribution of family responsibilities between the genders.

One other advantage is that warm, firm and fair parenting helps to promote healthy, emotional development and to foster emotional vigor in children. On average, children grown up in married parent families are less vulnerable to serious emotional illness, depression and suicide than children in broken families.

On the other hand, living together seems to be a proper way to achieve both the benefits of marriage and avoid the risk of divorce. Couples who live together can learn more about each other as well as find out if their partner has what it takes to be married. Cohabiting couples do not have to seek legal or religious permission to dissolve their union. Aa a result, if things do not work out, breaking up is easy to do.

Apart from this, the growth of cohabitation is also associated with the rise of feminism. Traditional marriage, both in law and in practice, typically involved male leadership. For some women, cohabitation seemingly avoids the legacy of patriarchy and at the same time provides more personal autonomy and equality in the relationship which means growing economic independence.

Furhermore, cohabitation is a right thing owing to people who are afraid of commitment and permanence, or who fear that these qualities can no longer be found in marriage. This is connected with both lower responsibility and higher independence.

For the above mention reasons, marriage is a personal decision that we must decide on our own. As some people have said, marriage is a risk we take. However it is believed that cohabitation fails to bring couples the happiness and stability they desire in a close personal relationship. I do not have any personal opintion considering these statements yet, one can only hope that both married people or cohabitators are aware of the dangers and can take full advantage of the benefits.