To Cohabit Or Not?

The practice of cohabiting has been applauded as well as criticized by the general public. Cohabitation is an arrangement where two people who are not married live together.

The cohabiting couples are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or sometimes on a permanent basis. There are several arguments which usually tend to tip the scale towards cohabitation.

Couples cohabit, rather than marry, for a variety of reasons like:

 Compatibility test

Some couples will prefer to test their compatibility before venturing into marriage. These couples may want to compare bathroom schedules as well as sleeping habits before committing to a union.

To protect the financial independence

In a bid to protect their individual assets as well as financial independence some couples prefer cohabiting without the joining of assets that marriage brings.

Fear of break up

No one embraces the idea of divorce, but until recently, fear of divorce was not generally a deterrent to marrying. What has changed? Have celebrity break-ups really had an impact? People fear divorce for different reasons psychological, emotional, and economic and whichever reason resonates with them can be enough to keep them from getting married at all and settle for the option of cohabitation.

The law is traditionally has been biased in favour of marriage. Public policy supports marriage as it is the basic societal unit.

To preserve the institution of marriage, the law only makes provision for a married couple instead of a cohabiting couple. Although, it has been said that cohabitation has all of the headaches of marriage without any of the other benefits.

What do you think about the idea of cohabiting?