It is also hard to reconcile this with what we say every time we introduce a Marriage Service. The multiplicity of social groupings today is an undeniable fact, and we should serve people, with humility and respect, whatever their circumstances. But to my mind this does not diminish the wisdom and truth of the Christian tradition that a married man and woman and their children should be the basic building block for family life. I want to emphasise two aspects of that tradition particularly strongly. First cohabitation is not, and cannot be, marriage in all but name.
Marriage is public and formal, whereas cohabitation is private.
Because marriage is a public event in which promises are made before others, there is a recognition that the wider society is involved, and has a strong interest in the stability and fidelity of family life. Those who chose to cohabit on the grounds that their relationship is a private matter and nothing to do with the wider society are, frankly, deluding themselves. As Something to Celebrate makes clear, they depend on the wider society in a thousand ways. Of course, we often see the marks of faithful love and goodness in many cohabiting relationships, but they remain private and provisional in status. And it is right that society's blessing and faithful support is accorded on the basis of solemn public promises, not some provisional and private arrangement.