Even as the American marriage rate has steadily declined, the cohabitation rate has steadily grown. According to a 2019 Pew Research study, more Americans have cohabitated at some point than have been married. Fifteen times more couples live together outside of marriage today than in 1960. Rather than being an option among many, cohabitation is a cultural norm when it comes to romantic relationships, one that reflects the belief that marriage is “just a piece of paper,” and all that matters for a couple is that they “live together and love each other.”  

In truth, cohabitation is a disastrous way to form a household. Recently on X, pro-life author Lila Rose highlighted the facts about “shacking up”: 

According to research, couples who cohabitate before marriage are 48% more likely to divorce. … Cohabitation doesn’t set you up for success—it undermines the success of your marriage. So, for those who are dating and in a relationship: build a strong foundation by growing together spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally. If this is the person God is calling you to marry, make the commitment first—get married, then build your home together.    

Reposting this advice, Brad Wilcox of the Institute for Family Studies reaffirmed how many young people accept the popular wisdom on cohabitation despite how wrong it is: 

My students [at the University of Virginia] think cohabitation is a great way to prepare for marriage. They don’t know: Cohabitation [is] actually linked to marital failure. [A] Stanford study found that Cohabiting [with an] extra partner boosted women’s odds of divorce by 3 times. 

How did this arrangement so prone to failure become the common choice? One reason is that the data about cohabitation is unknown. Another reason is that cohabitation is easy, especially for men. Rather than “defining the relationship,” planning for the future, or making a lasting commitment, men receive physical and financial benefits of a marriage-like relationship, but only on an “at will” basis. This helps to explain why cohabitation often fails to lead to anything permanent.  

Cohabitation also conforms to the widely held view of what love and sex are. If these things are purely transactional, as a source of producing personal happiness, then it makes sense to “try before you buy” and not “put anything on paper” until you are sure. However, the data suggests that cohabitation increases incompatibility. Why is that? 

Cohabitation fails to prepare people for marriage because it is fundamentally unlike marriage. As Wilcox explained, cohabitation causes partners to “adopt a less committed view of marriage,” and that “this low-commitment mentality makes them more vulnerable to marital dissolution when times get tough.” In cohabitation, both people are on trial, while implicitly telling the other, “You’ll do for now, unless I find someone better.”  

This is why most people would not enjoy the prospect of a life of going from one job interview to the next without ever being employed. Job interviews are high pressure environments, with constant scrutiny and the fear of being rejected. Cohabitation is like a perpetual job interview. The benefits of marriage only come when you have the job. 

In short, marriage is more than a piece of paper. Publicly committing to another person, especially in a religious and family context where couples call on the community and God to hold them accountable, makes marriage fundamentally different than other relational arrangements. The fact that it was created by God as part of the human order means that marriage makes people different too. As Glenn Stanton summarized in his book, which compared the outcomes of marriage with cohabitation, “the ring makes all the difference.” 

Wedding vows are more than window-dressing. They bring real, measurable, relational consequences. Too many young adults are unaware of those consequences and, as such, do not understand what marriage really is. The Church can help. In fact, it must, because the truth about marriage and cohabitation needs to get out there.