Cynics Unlimited

Same-sex marriage is a burning issue in Canada and many other nations. In this country, it has been the subject of magazine and newspaper articles, radio and television shows, books, and, most recently, a debate in federal parliament in which members were called to vote on a motion to introduce legislation defining marriage as exclusively between a man and woman. The majority of members voted against the motion, so Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated that the debate was closed and would not be re-opened. Gay marriage is thus the “law of the land,” in the words of one website.

Meanwhile another so-called “alternative lifestyle” has garnered some, even if less, attention in the media: cohabitation. (For the purpose of this essay, cohabitation will refer to that involving heterosexual rather than homosexual couples.) This is due to the fact that the number of people living in de facto as opposed to de jure marriages has risen greatly over the last few decades in many Western countries. In Canada this figure grew by 20% just between 1995 and 2001, according to Statistics Canada. The rate is particularly elevated in the province of Quebec - once a hotbed of traditionalism - where almost 30% of all couples live common-law. Cohabitation has similarly increased in the United States and several European nations; in some, such as Sweden , it has essentially replaced formal matrimony. The trend has been less pronounced in other parts of the West. In Italy and Greece, for example, the ratio of married to cohabiting couples remains relatively high. Conversely, in Latin America common-law relationships, called “free unions,” have always existed alongside official marriages. Unlike in Europe or North America, cohabitation was not a sign of being “avant-garde” but lower-class: since weddings could be expensive, marriage in a church or city hall was something of a status symbol.

While again, cohabitation has not been subjected to the same scrutiny as same-sex marriage, it has not escaped public attention either. Much of this attention has been unfavourable. To a certain extent, criticism of gay marriage and common-law relationships has overlapped. Social conservatives, for instance, have condemned both types of unions as affronts to the laws of God – “living in sin” – or, in more secular terms, as threats to the survival of (heterosexual) marriage and family. However, certain critics of cohabitation have been supportive of gay marriage, such as Linda Waite, co-author of the book The Case for Marriage, or basically silent on the issue, like David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, the directors of the National Marriage Project. The Project’s website lists the purported dangers of cohabitation compared to official marriage: higher failure rates, greater risk of divorce if the relationship eventually leads to marriage, more domestic violence, and the sexual exploitation of women by men who prefer the convenience of “shacking up” to the commitment conferred by a wedding band.

At the same time another group, aptly named the Alternatives to Marriage Project, has sprung up in defense of common-law unions and those involved in them. This organization, run by an American couple who have lived together for a number of years without being formally married, is not anti-matrimony but feels that cohabitation should be accorded the same respect as marriage and that common-law spouses should enjoy the same rights, such as workplace benefits, that their legally married counterparts do.

I have reservations about the arguments of both the pro- and anti-cohabitation fronts. Some of the supposed risks of living together without the benefit of marriage stem not from the absence of a wedding ring per se but from the characteristics of those who choose to enter such relationships. For example, the higher rate of spousal abuse in de facto marriages may be due to the fact that in comparison to the general population people who cohabit have on average lower educational and socioeconomic status – factors that increase the risk of domestic violence. In addition, those who live together before deciding to marry may have a higher divorce rate because they are less traditional overall and might be more likely to view separation as an acceptable solution to an unsatisfactory marriage. One study from Germany found that everything else being equal, cohabitation actually reduced the chance of divorce by acting as a “filter” whereby future spouses could discover whether or not they were compatible.

I’m likewise skeptical of the notion that cohabitation is a way for men to “get the milk without buying the cow.” Similar things were once said about divorce. Easy divorce, it was alleged, gave men the green light to leave their wives for their nubile young secretaries. To use another animal analogy, one female parliamentarian in Ireland stated that a woman voting in favour of legalizing divorce was like a “turkey voting for Christmas” – we Canadians might substitute the word Thanksgiving for Christmas – an analogy I personally find demeaning to women and men alike. In reality, more women than men choose to end their marriages, and in most cases not because their husbands are abusive or alcoholic. Finally, contrary to the popular stereotype of the altar-phobic male, it’s not clear whether women really desire marriage more than men do. A New York Times poll found that 73% of teenage girls but just 61% of boys thought they could be happy without ever getting married (this figure taken from an article by Cathy Young).

A further criticism of cohabitation is that “free unions” run a greater risk of breaking up than do formal marriages. This has indeed been shown to be the case. Perhaps at the end of the day, however, terminating a common-law relationship is less traumatic than officially divorcing. In my own personal experience, while splitting up with my fiancé of three years was not easy, I suspect it would have been far more difficult emotionally – as well as legally and financially – if we had decided to part ways after exchanging rings.

On the other hand, I’m not totally on-side with some of the positions put forth by cohabitation advocates, even though I commend them for trying to de-stigmatize the practice and dispel some of the misrepresentations by groups like the National Marriage Project. Marriage, in my view, is different from cohabitation – not better, not worse, but different. Married couples make a statement to each other, to their families, to their community and, if they are religious, to God that their common-law counterparts do not. It therefore doesn’t bother me that the law gives special rights and responsibilities to those who go this extra mile. Take the issue of workplace benefits. I believe that employers should have the option of offering spousal benefits to common-law partners of employees, and some may very well choose to do so in order to attract or retain potential workers. But it should remain just that, an option as opposed to a legal obligation. (Note: domestic partner benefits did have a place in Canada before same-sex couples could marry legally; now that they can, the situation no longer holds.)

On the responsibilities side, perhaps some cohabiters would rather avoid some of the obligations that come with being legally married. Let me clarify that I don’t agree with all such obligations. The regulation that upon divorcing a couple should divide their assets in half makes sense in a scenario where, say, a husband and wife managed a farm together but the farm was in the man’s name only. The 50-50 rule seems more questionable in the case of a woman who has to financially support a man who married her only to immigrate to Canada or a man whose ex-wife worked part-time hours but hired a maid to do the housecleaning (both real-life stories). Still, when leaving a formal marriage spouses should have certain duties to each another. On the other hand, I would have been greatly disturbed if my former fiancé had demanded some of my earnings or property on the grounds that he had lived with me for two years.

Going beyond the crassly material, it may also be that some people elect to cohabit rather than marry because they do take marriage seriously and don’t want to enter into it unless they are completely confident of what they are doing (which is my main reason for never having married). Granted, marriage has never been a huge priority for me: when I was engaged, it was my then-boyfriend who insisted on marrying. I would have been content to “live in sin”. This may have partly been caused by my parents’ marriage made in hell, which finally ended after thirty years. Nonetheless, even if my mother and father had had a fairytale relationship, I still might not have dreamt of walking down the aisle in a white dress. I’m not completely excluding the possibility of marriage in the future, but only if I were, as I told a colleague, 110% sure of what I was doing.

I also think we would do greater justice to both matrimony and cohabitation if we recognized that not every individual should marry and not every relationship should lead to marriage. Unlike in other societies, universal marriage has never been a feature in the West. Moreover, pressure to marry – whether from a partner, from family, or from society in general – may backfire in certain cases. It appears reasonable to presume that people legally or emotionally coerced into doing something they don’t want will be less likely to succeed in that endeavor. A telling anecdote is that of American writer Laura Fraser, author of the autobiographical novel An Italian Affair. Fraser had persuaded her former husband, with whom she had lived common-law for several years, to marry her. Coming from a broken home, he was reluctant to do so, but in her words, he “weighed his doubts” and proposed. He left her a year later, moving in with an old girlfriend. In a later interview Fraser stated that his ambivalence about marriage, rather than the “other woman,” caused their breakup and that perhaps the belief that every romance should “lead to the altar” had contributed to the failure of her relationship. Of course it’s impossible to know what would have happened if Fraser and her ex had simply remained lovers, but even if they had ultimately gone their separate ways, it might have brought both of them less pain than the divorce did.

Final thoughts on cohabitation: I am happy that it is becoming more acceptable in our society. I don’t think it’s in any way inferior to formal matrimony. Still, I’m content with the status quo: that common-law unions and marriages are different and that the law makes certain distinctions between the two.