Smock crunches the numbers and analyzes the latest studies. In general, living together is not good for cohabitors' well being, says Linda Waite, a University of Chicago sociologist. Her book The Case for Marriage , arriving this fall, will detail research showing that living together can undermine marriage. Live-ins become less committed to marriage and that affects the quality of their married life later. Cohabiting and being married are not the same, she says.
Marriage forms a new unit.
Cohabiting is more like roommates with sex. Smock finds that fewer cohabitors are choosing to marry, and women are more likely to live with men than to marry if they get pregnant. The trends, she says, suggest cohabitation is becoming a substitute for marriage. The general public and even some experts don't realize the profound impact the exploding numbers of live-ins will have on the American family, Smock says. Reasons for the soaring numbers of cohabitors run the gamut, from the increased acceptance of premarital sex to the expanding economic independence of women, freeing them from the need to marry.