Premarital Cohabitation and Its
Effects Research
Siou-jyun Huang
National Central University
Author Note
Siou-jyun Huang, Department of
English, National Central University
This research was supported in
part by a grant from National Science Council.
Correspondence concerning this
article should be addressed to Siou-jyun Huang, Department of English, National
Central University, No.300, Zhongda Rd., Zhongli City, Taoyuan County 320,
Taiwan (R.O.C.)
Contact:s954421@gmail.com
Abstract
This paper would explain the
reasons why cohabitation becomes popular recently and the attitude toward
cohabiters in our society. Jing-li Yang(2004), the associate professor of
department of Sociology in Nanhua University, said that” there are 90% of the
Nordic population had experienced premarital cohabitation phase.” Jing-li Yang
also evaluated the overview of cohabitation in Taiwan, however, it turned out
that there were only 5.9% in over-15-year-old and unmarried people have had
cohabitation. The data shows that even it seems to be popular, but the
cohabiters are still the minority of the society. This paper would discuss
about this phenomenon and how the trend of cohabitation affects in three
aspects, such as social, economic, and legal aspects. The author used related
videos, research paper online, and books to approve the pros and cons of
cohabitation.
Premarital
cohabitation Research
Cohabitation, which means lovers
without the certification of marriage live together. It becomes more and more
popular in Taiwan recently, and the reason why it sprung up included social
factors and economic factors, such as the use of Internet let teenagers realize
their difference between countries and start to imitate it, or the economic
independence of women makes women no longer rely on the support of family.
However, the concept of cohabitation seems to be incompatible with our
traditional values. Many experts and TV programs starts to make comments on
this trend of cohabitation, most of them stand against the concept of
cohabitation. Their reasons vary from the safety of girls to the social
perception and parents’ feelings. From one episode of Dad and Mom Oh My God, young
people considered cohabitation a further step of relationship, while one
parenting expert, Den-han Huang, said that young people always misunderstand
that cohabitation was the necessary step toward marriage. The gap of generations
popped up in his statement, and it can connect with many differences between
their social backgrounds.
Discussion
Social
aspect
Dominance
of masculinity. The
dominance of masculinity has ruled our society since year 2 BC, this ideology
first occurred in Chun Qiu Fan Lu, which was written by Zhong-shu Dong. The
main ideas of Chun Qiu Fan Lu are all about the superiority of men. The
ideology was implied in many things such as emphasizing the virginity of women
and being a dutiful housewife, which depressed women for a very long time. That’s
why cohabitation has been always scolded for devaluing the chasity of women,
which contains so much prejudice. If people throw these stereotypes away, the
meaning of cohabitation would be more positive.
Women Independence.
However,
feminism suddenly appeared on the horizon in the late nineteenth century. They
figured out all these so-called truth were totally irrational. They waked up,
starting to receive education and participate in the polity and the labor market.
It was a big step that they started to try to fight for their rights that had
been deprived for a long time, such as legal rights, social right, and economic
status. Women started to enter the labor market and tried to get rid of the
restriction from men, so they stared to refuse marriage, which means they could
only be a ordinary housewife.
Trial
marriage.
In page 54 of"Living Together for Love", Yi-Xin Huang, published by
Gao-Lin International AG, it said "The Reasons to Support Cohabitation: 1.
To test if he or she would be an ideal mate. 2. Only care about what we had
once. 3. To learn how to face the real life. 4. To have an identity that
between single and unmarried. 5. To make the time that fighting together
earlier. 6. To make the relationship stable." All the benefit of
cohabitation mentioned above are steps to test if marriage is a good idea.
Comparison. In the research of
Li-Ya, Huei, she mentioned that Nock (1995) already pointed out there were
almost half of the US population had experiences of cohabitation before
30-year-old, and she also used the thought of Trost (1979) that cohabitation is
very common in Sweden than in the US is not complete, cohabitation is a kind of
social structure rather than deviant behavior before unmarried. Although
cohabitation seemed to be popular in other countries, Jing-li Yang evaluated
that there were only 5.9% in over-15-year-old and unmarried people have had
cohabitation in Taiwan. It shows the difference of our society and foreign
countries at culture aspect.
Economic
aspect
Enter
the labor market. When
women started to be considered as a part of the labor market ,rather than just
housewives who only do housework without payment, their society status started
to prove as well. This fact indicates that women didn't have to rely on
marriage and their husband as a tradition because they already have economic
ability to make a living now. An article named” Cohabitation-Reasons for
Cohabitation” cited Gary Becker’s (1981) words,” An essential change in the
gender division of labor has followed women's increased participation in the
waged labor force. This change has reduced the economic advantages and
necessity of marriage.” It explained why cohabitation became a trend. And
Cherlin (1992) explained the rise of cohabitation as well, he remarked,
"Women's new-found financial independence and the spread of more
individual-centered values eventually contributed to the instability of
marriage. Changes in social standards meant that people no longer felt as
obligated to remain in unhappy marriages. Financial independence meant that
they did not have to. Besides increasing the divorce rate, changes in postwar
economics and ideas caused the rise in delayed marriage and cohabitation."
Standard
of life.
There is another economic research named “Living Together: The Economics of
Cohabitation”, which is written by Richard Fry and D’vera Cohn, it reveals that
“greater economic well-being is associated with cohabitation for adults with
college degrees, but not for those without college degrees”. (graph 1) This
fact indicates that between those who have well-paid jobs, cohabitation is a
way to show one self’s economic independence, while in those who aren’t so
lucky, cohabitation represents poor financial status. Whether the cohabiters
have college degrees or not, they choose cohabitation because of the cost of
marriage is too high to undertake, the difference between these two groups was
that those who don't have college degrees may be forced to choose cohabitation.
It seemed like cohabitation could be kind of negative that poverty lead to
cohabitation, but the education became widespread these years, so we could
assume that this effect on higher academic degrees would spread widely with the
education.
Financial
benefits.
From "Living Together for Love", Yi-Xin Huang, published by Gao-Lin
International AG, it talked about many benefit of cohabitation, in page 56 of
"Living Together for Love", it mentioned some economic benefits, such
as," The telephone charge that saved could buy two more clothes." Cohabitation
could make two people to share the cost of life, it could reduce the burden.
Legal
aspect
Some people are worried about their
rights after having cohabitation. They said that when the problem of finance or
estate occurs, people taking cohabitation would be helpless than people in
marriages. However, in page 26 of "Cohabitation", which was written
by Mireille Dewevre Fourcadeto, a professor of French
Le Havre University , " In number 1382 terms of the Civil Law, it
indicated clearly that if someone cause others' damages, this kind of fact
could force this person to be responsible for compensating others'
damage." It explained that if our rights were invaded in cohabitation
relationship, we could use laws to protect ourselves as well. And the other
people were worried about that cohabitation was not in the restriction of law so
people who take cohabitation were kind of being not indecent. This nonsense
could be broken in page 69, "In the total compilation of laws, only having
sex consistently couldn't be admitted as cohabitation. "
Conclusions
There is no right-or-false
question in the definition of cohabitation. Cohabitation is only a kind of way
for lovers to understand his or her lover deeply. That is exactly why the
author support couples to do the cohabitation at their will because
understanding is the most important part of a relationship rather than
freshness.
References
1.同居潮流，屋簷下的親密關係 /黃憶欣 著, 53-58
2.同居
/ 德韋弗爾-富爾卡德(Mireille Dewevre-Fourcade)著; 許連高譯
臺北市 : 遠流出版 : 信報發行, 1991[民80],p.26-69
3.Living Together: The Economics
of Cohabitation
BY RICHARD FRY AND D’VERA COHN
4.Cohabitation - Reasons For
Cohabitation
5. LI,YA-HUEI’s research
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