Waiting to get married to be able to afford the ring

Waiting to get married to be able to afford the ring and wedding
● Idea that we should be independently financially stable before
marriage
○ College -> Career -> Marriage
● Better career potential and earning potential for women
■ Technology
● Contraception
○ We can live longer portions of our lives without having children
● Reproductive technologies
○ Fertility treatments = later start at childbearing
■ Culture
● Sex outside of marriage accepted
● Freedom/emerging adulthood
○ Marriage is no longer equivalent to becoming an adult
○ Self-supporting, moving out, completing school, full time job,
financial stability, and finally marriage
● Cohabitation
○ To Partner: Unmarried partners involved in a close personal relationship who share
living quarters
■ Can be premarital or just general
■ Has become way more likely
● 900% increase since 1960s
● Less of a social stigma
○ Quasi-cohabitation (not to be confused with “Living Alone Together”)
● Living Alone Together: “Have an intimate relationship but reside at
separate addresses”
○ Refers more to people who have found that they cannot live
together due to differences in personality
■ Individuals spend most nights together but maintain separate residencies
(Quasi)
■ Why?
● Not ready to make the big step
● Hiding their living arrangement from family/others

● Maintain some independence
● Busy day/work schedules
● Dress rehearsal for cohabitation or marriage
● Passionate love: People don’t want to be apart
■ Benefits
● Get to know someone better
● Dress rehearsal
● Can save money
● Convenience
● Emotional wellbeing
● Shared responsibilities
■ Cons
● Accentuate each others problems or dislikes
● Give up independence/alone time
● Romance killer
○ Who cohabitates?
■ Pretty much everyone
● 70% of women age 30-34
● ⅔ of marriages take place between cohabitors
○ Is it a bad idea?
■ Answer to this question is changing
● Past studies: Cohabited couples were more likely to get married, then
more likely to get divorced
○ Why? Selection effect
■ Religion
● Less likely to cohabit
● Also less likely to divorce
■ Already married once = more likely to cohabit
● Divorce predicts divorce
■ Age at cohabitation, not cohabitation itself, accounts for differences in divorce
rates
● Move in before 23: Raised divorce rates
● Move in after 23: Lowered divorce rates
■ Some evidence that people are prolonging marriage due to cohabitation
● Make a commitment without a marital commitment
■ Some argue that cohabitation gives couple’s a chance at a trial run that allows
them to weed out bad relationships/partners
■ Serial cohabitors are at greater risk of divorce
■ Sliding into Marriage - BAAAAAD
● Higher chance of divorce
● “We’re basically already married, may as well just do it”
● “It would be too hard to break up. Maybe if we get married , it will fix
the relationship”
● Marriage
○ Are we still getting married?