Report: More women moving in before marriage
By Emanuella Grinberg, CNN

(CNN) -- Taylor Spearnak met her boyfriend in 2002, during her third year of college, when they were both congressional interns in Washington.
A friend set them up, and they laughed for hours over cheap burgers and a terrible action movie. They kept the relationship going when they returned to their schools in Boston, and when they studied law at schools in different states.
In 2007, when they reunited in New York City, they decided it made sense for them to move in together, Spearnak said. They lived in one of the most expensive cities in the country, and had law school loans to pay off. They'd be busy as new law firm associates, and knew they'd be spending nights at each other's apartments, anyway. Spearnak's parents trusted them, and thought it was a smart decision.
"We knew we were serious, but not ready for marriage. This was the next step for us," the 30-year-old lawyer said. "We wanted to be able to spend as much time together as possible."
As the stigma of "living in sin" fades and more people delay marriage, researchers are finding that living together before marriage can be a stabilizing force in relationships. It is often leading to marriage and children, demographer Casey Copen said.
Between 2006 and 2010, 48% of women between the ages of 15 and 44 moved in for the first time with a man to whom they weren't married, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. In 2002, it was 43%. In 1995, it was 34%.

That's 1 in 4 women living with a man by age 20 and almost 3 in 4 by 30, according to the report, "First Premarital Cohabitation in the United States," which studied male-female relationships.

"Generations that were cohabitating less are now being replaced by a group of women and men that find cohabitation to be quite normal," said Copen, the study's lead author. "Overall, these unions are lasting longer, they're more stable and the highest proportion of them transition to marriage."
The increase doesn't surprise psychotherapist Lisa Kift, who counsels married and unmarried couples in her San Francisco, California, practice. Just as social mores are changing what families look like, long-term partnering is changing, too, she said.

The study, which is based on 12,279 interviews from 2006 to 2010, found a shrinking percentage of women moving in with a man for the first time because of marriage -- 23% in 2012, down from 30% in 2002 and 39% in 1995.

"Long-term commitments are more broadly defined and for many, can mean cohabitation without a legal docuмent or public declaration," she said. "Many couples believe they are doing their due diligence by having the experience of living together before making a commitment to marry."
But do these unions last? And do they lead to marriage?
The study found that 40% of women living with significant others for the first time between 2006 and 2010 transitioned to marriage within three years, while 32% of those relationships remained the same and 27% dissolved.
The numbers are growing across racial and ethnic groups, except for Asian women, the study said. Demographers use the information to explore how cultural and economic differences can change the experience, Copen said. Forty-four percent of white women married within three years of living together the first time, while 31% of black women and U.S.-born Hispanic women did so.

Fifty-three percent of women with a bachelor's degree or higher had transitioned to marriage by the three-year mark, while 30% of women with less than a high school diploma had married by then.

Spearnak and her boyfriend intend to marry one day. But, they've been together so long that it sometimes feels like they're already married, she said. Her parents want them to marry, she said, but by being committed and comfortable, they've pushed back against pressure. What's the rush?
"Neither of us feels a need to put a ring on it," she said. "We know we are solid. We survived the bar (exam), assembling IKEA furniture and moving."
Cohabitation leads to childbearing with greater frequency, the study found. Nearly 20% of women became pregnant within a year of moving in with someone for the first time, up from 18% in 2002 and 15% in 1995. The chances of becoming pregnant were higher among women younger than 20, foreign-born Hispanic women and women with less than a high school diploma.

Montclair, New Jersey, resident Sarah Groom lives with her boyfriend of nearly nine years, and recently gave birth to a baby girl. They met at a fraternity house in Boulder, Colorado, in 2003 and developed an relationship a year later. It was a passionate, impulsive decision when they moved in together in 2005, but stressful, too, she said. They broke up, moved out, argued over who got the dog and reunited more than once.

They live together now, and she wants to get married, but it hasn't happened. Along the way, there was "stress, chaos, self-doubt and even resentment," but it seems to have worked out, she said.
But, her experiences have taught her the importance of foresight, she said.
"I have a beautiful baby girl now, so it is hard to say I regret my choice," Groom said.
"I would advise people choosing to cohabitate prior to marriage, to not make the decision lightly and to discuss potential issues that may arise and how they would be handled well in advance."
There are still benefits to getting married, she said.
"One works harder to preserve a relationship," she said. "Its whole nature is less disposable."

Theologically, how is this different than divorce and remarriage among Protestants?

A joke was put forth on marriage and divorce: "One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, four to go." Rather disgusting.

Not arguing in favor of this, but if divorce is wrong, then how is this any worse than divorce. Except divorce and remarriages are registered and regulated by the state and under the state, religion.

The protestant ministers are as valid as Matthew or any on the forum.

What this is an assault on in the 1950s America, which was never Catholic.

If 1950s America is what people are fighting to retain, then, yes, this is worse.

That's 1 in 4 women living with a man by age 20 and almost 3 in 4 by 30, according to the report, "First Premarital Cohabitation in the United States," which studied male-female relationships.

Women want to marry early in life, society does not afford them this opportunity. Taboo topics, shame, guilt, and worse come along with discussions of this.

This is both a rejection by women of the 1950s Protestant America and the wait till you are 25 or 30 or perhaps 40 to marry.

The fact that those shaping societies are not giving all young women a real option of lasting fulfilling marriage is the crime.

If someone comes to a group playing dominoes (or scrabble) and messes up the game and then tell them all the players are going to hell, something is unjust. 1950s America was created because people were not selfish. Tax rates among the rich were in the 80-90%, tariffs, unions for men, quality products over greed of cutting corners.

Women, yes, young women included, want what they have always wanted. To try to alter this you first have to alter biology. Biology has not changed since the creation of man. Women's fertility and and biological clock have not changed since ancient times.

Comparatively, this is like telling men, young men, you should not work until half of your peak working years are done with, to work during those years is some assault on your dignity and a major crime.

Allow traditional, ancient biblical marriage, allow men to learn trades at an early age, get away from corporate/industry economy (boom and bust) and back to sustainable economies where local men are empowered. To assault that power is akin to rape of the family unit, the very fabric of society, the worst crime any can commit. Keep the extended families together, respect of elders for their knowledge. The problem is the elderly are the people who currently believe in the system that is destroying humanity. Simply because they grew up during a boom times of the baby-boomers, they think the system is redeemable. As if corporations can be trusted, the companies they worked for were owned by local men, these men have long since sold the businesses to multi-national corporations and the like. Talk to your grandparents, they may have known personally their employer.

Each period or sub-period of time is not monolithic. There are vying influences, seeing events from the corporations down or from society up, knowing the motives (selfish or selfless) of each group trying to influence general society for their own end or for the build up of society and culture is imperative or else you are left to buy the advertisements of various selfish groups.

Women's desire for motherhood is not nearly as strong as people presumed.  It makes sense there would be some natural hesitation about it, because giving birth is a huge commitment.

One hundred years ago it was already foreseen what the consequences of contraception and teaching women to focus on career were going to be.

What is astonishing to me, is that trads think they can survive without actively combating these trends.

It seems that trads are going to be having smaller families with women marrying later and being "educated" - and these trends are going to undermine the faith of Catholic families in the future to an alarming degree.  To such an extent that I think the very existence of the "trad" movement is already seriously endangered.

To an outside observer, the entire traditional movement containing the SSPX, Indult, and the sede groups seems dysfunctional and cultish. I understand why Sigismund would opt to stay eastern rite Catholic rather than become a "traditionalist." The traditional groups appear protestant with their endless divisions.  

Is it possible for a truly organic traditional Catholic community to organically grow and develop in modern america?

Women's desire for motherhood is not nearly as strong as people presumed.  It makes sense there would be some natural hesitation about it, because giving birth is a huge commitment.

One hundred years ago it was already foreseen what the consequences of contraception and teaching women to focus on career were going to be.

What is astonishing to me, is that trads think they can survive without actively combating these trends.

It seems that trads are going to be having smaller families with women marrying later and being "educated" - and these trends are going to undermine the faith of Catholic families in the future to an alarming degree.  To such an extent that I think the very existence of the "trad" movement is already seriously endangered.

I don't recognize the separation of sex and family. Women may be told to go against their own bodies and suffer from it.

1/4 of women cohabitate with a man by 20, we are moving back to the 1950s with regard to women wanting to live with a man at an early age. But the 1950s idea of marriage is separate from tradition/ancient marriage women in their very DNA desire. The 1950s American traditional marriage is linked with I Love Lucy, Howdy Dowdy, The Three Stooges, Lone Ranger. This is why it never lasted with the next generation, apply new tv shows, new pop music and you change the culture.

Now the question can be raised whether comedy was needed to be inserted into the fabric of western society because of the trauma of the Second World War. The First and Second World Wars were devastating to family life, traditional family life.

The 1950s post-war economy was better than any previous economies going back prior to the French Revolution, precisely because of the insertion of Catholic principles within Calvinistic/Protestant Capitalism.