Assignment 6

1. Cohabitation is the sharing of a household by unmarried persons who have a sexual relationship. Prior to around the 1960’s cohabitation was only among the poor or near poor people so that they could share each other’s resources. Though, as stated in the text, over the past thirty years, the percentage of couples living in a cohabitation life style has drastically increased. 62% of marriages were preceded by a period of cohabitation. In 2007, the census bureau estimated that there were about 6.4 million household in the U.S maintained by two opposite sex couples who were not married. In all, cohabitation has increased for not only the poor uneducated people, but for the rich and educated people as well. This basically states that is becoming a big trend, and is something a couple will do before and if they get married.

2. Cohabitation can be put into three categories.
a.) An Alternative Way of Being Single- These couples move in together knowing that they both have zero intentions of getting married. They feel as though they are single because there is no paper that “binds” them together, so they just take advance of the fact that the other person is there to comfort them.
b.) A Testing Ground For Marriage- These couples move in together having every intentions of getting married. So they move in together first to basically “test” their relationship. They feel each other out, and really take a look at if they are happy with one another in the same house together.
c.) An Alternative to Marriage- This is when I couple moves in together who really do care and love each other, and want to be together forever. They just feel that they don’t need the legal documents to show it.


3. I would most definitely consider cohabitation. The meaning behind this that I feel as though I would use, is a testing ground for marriage. This is because I know that in the future I want to get married. But before doing so, I would like to really get to know my partner better and test him out. The only way this would truly work is if we cohabitated with one another prior to the marriage.


4. There are many rights that married couples receive that cohabiting couples want. Here are four, that I find most important;
1. They can file a joint income tax return, which may reduce their tax liability.
2. They can adopt children.
3. They can receive Social Security survivors’ benefits if their spouse dies, and they can inherit from each other even when there is no will.
4. The married couple are both responsible for their children, and each can give legal permission to schools, doctors, and the like, or trips, operations and so forth.


5.No, I do not believe that cohabiting couples should have the same rights as married couples. I feel as though, that is like cheating the system. If two people love each other that much, they should get married, so that they could have the privileges of the rights listed above. Getting married requires a lot of paper work, which I feel is worth it, in the end.