“I would be exceptionally cautious about concluding that Americans have really changed their definition of family,” Donovan said in reaction to the numbers. “We have never denied 'family' status to other arrangements, but we have also been clear to use such terms as 'broken family,' or 'fragile families' in the case of unmarried, cohabiting parents.”
Morse agreed that recognition doesn't necessarily signify approval. “Everybody knows someone who's living in a non-traditional lifestyle,” she said. “But do they approve of it? Do they think it's a good thing?”
Donovan thought that the frequency of non-traditional arrangements caused people to agree they could be called a family more out of civility than anything else.
“People are expressing compassion in these matters, but the Pew study shows they also retain ideals,” he said. “This suggests to me that not appearing judgmental – but holding on to the traditional value – is important to many Americans.”
The Increase of Cohabitation
Both Donovan and Morse conceded, however, that the Pew's statistics on the drastic rise of cohabiting couples proved troubling.
In the Pew Research survey, 44 percent of all adults – and more than half of all adults ages 30 to 49 – say they have cohabited at some point in their lives. Additionally, two-thirds of those who lived with someone said they believed that doing so with their partner was a step toward marriage.
“Cohabitation has been described not as a marriage preparation class but as a school for divorce,” Donovan said. “These relationships are more common today, but, in the American context at least, not more stable.”
“In all the research that's been done on cohabitation,” Morse added, “no positive contribution of cohabitation to marriage has ever been found.”
“When people are living together because they think it's going to give them a better marriage, that's completely false,” she said. Young people choosing to move in with their boyfriends of girlfriends because they want a good marriage is “completely counter productive.”
Morse went on to say that a primary reason young couples are cohabiting “is because they're afraid.”
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“Young people want to get married, stay married, they're afraid of divorce and so they think that cohabiting is a good alternative,” she said, noting that “running your life on the basis of fear is usually not a good idea.”
Donovan added that the “figures on the outcomes for children born to and raised by unmarried couples do not match up with those for children raised by their married, biological parents.”
“This is true for everything from juvenile delinquency rates, to educational outcomes, to relationship stability and marital happiness when these children become adults,” he said. “The best gift that parents can give their children is still the witness of lifelong married love, or at minimum a lifetime working at it.”
Marianne is a journalist with a background in writing and Catholic theology. When not elaborating on the cinematic arts, she enjoys spending time with people, reading thick books and traveling anywhere and everywhere.