Scott Stanley is fast becoming the expert on Commitment in marriage. One of his latest articles (co-authored with Howard Markman and Galena Kline Rhoades) is “Sliding Versus Deciding: Inertia and the Premarital Cohabitation Effect“.
The Journal of Family Relations is making this important article available to download at no cost: The article will only be available for free for two months, to download go to their web site.
Here’s the Abstract:
Premarital cohabitation has consistently been found to be associated with increased risk for divorce and marital distress in the United States. Two explanations for this “cohabitation effect” are discussed: selection and experience.
We present an empirically based view of how the experience of cohabitation may increase risk for relationship distress or divorce for some people beyond what is accounted for by selection. Specifically, using a commitment framework, we suggest that some couples who otherwise would not have married end up married because of the inertia of cohabitation.
We discuss practice implications for relationship transitions that are characterized more by sliding than deciding, especially where a transition such as cohabitation increases inertia to remain in a relationship regardless of quality or fit.
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Interesting. How hard is it to do a legitimate study on the relationship between co-habitation and divorce? It seems that it would be difficult because of the mitigating circumstances that would be extremely hard to account for, namely attitudes of those who would co-habitate. The divorce rate is higher because people who would co-habitate might be more open to the idea of divorce. It just seems that it would be very difficult to come up with accurate results, like being able to say with any certainty that people who co-habitate before marriage are more likely to divorce. I hope they are successful.
Jason,
I think Dr.’s Stanley and Markman would say the “attitudes” of cohabitating couples aren’t mitigating circumstances, they are, in fact, what is being studied.
So then, I guess my question would be in regard to the people who would tell a couple not to live together before marriage, because the data show that it leads to a higher divorce rate. They would not necessarily be right, no? It is not necessarily the co-habitation that leads to divorce, it is more the attitude of those who would co-habitate, believing that divorce is not as big a deal as others might think.
Please keep us updated on this study. Very interesting.