More couples look
before taking leap
By AVA GACSER, Home
News Tribune Online, July 19, 2005
New Brunswick, NJ -- Beverly
Baskin of BBCS Counseling Services, a company specializing in marriage, career
and addiction counseling in Central New Jersey, has noticed several trends
during the last few years.
The first, she said, is that people are putting off marriage until they're
older. The second trend is that many couples are more likely to seek
premarital counseling.
And, she said, she has found that many young people want to live together before
marrying.
Her observations fit well with a new study by the National Marriage Project at
Rutgers University, which found that the divorce rate in the United States is
falling.
In the report released today, the co-directors of the project say they're glad
the divorce rate is on the decline. But report authors David Popenoe and
Barbara Dafoe Whitehead are concerned that more people are living together
without marrying, and especially worried about children of those relationships.
The study analyzed data gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau and other
researchers.
The divorce rate in 1960 was about 9 per every 1,000 married women. It
increased to more than 22 in 1,000 by 1980 and has steadily declined since, to a
little under 18 per 1,000 in 2004.
Meanwhile, the number of cohabiting, unmarried, opposite-sex couples has climbed
from 439,000 in 1960 to more than 5 million.
At the same time, the marriage rate has fallen from 1976, when 77 out of every
1,000 single women were wed, to less than 40 per 1,000 last year.
In an interview yesterday, Popenoe said the couples who have not exchanged
wedding vows are twice as likely to split up — an important factor considering
many experts agree that children living with both biological parents do best.
Popenoe and Whitehead also say that couples who live together before tying the
knot are more likely to divorce, which is why they oppose that practice, too.
But Baskin said "A lot of the young people I talk to just in general want to
live together — even if it's only for a few months — before marriage."
And there are benefits to the practice, she added. Couples experience the
"practical things" in a marriage or partnership, she said, such as paying bills,
sharing paychecks, and maintaining joint or separate bank accounts.
Melissa Meswick, 28, of Franklin Park, and her fiance moved in together this
spring. A major factor in her decision-making was, once again, finances.
Meswick and William Shaw decided to live together because they want to buy a
house.
"We decided once we got engaged to just go ahead and move in together so that we
could save money," she explained.
Although Meswick was already engaged when she and her fiance combined
households, she said both families had preconceived notions about couples living
together before marriage.
"My mom always thought you should be engaged before you move in together, and
his family felt the same way," she said. "But I think had it worked out
that we'd moved in together before we got engaged, it wouldn't have been that
big of an issue."
Meswick said some people have told her that living together before marriage is a
good idea, and others have warned against it. And although she and Shaw
have dated for over a year but have only lived together a few months, she says
"It's worked out wonderfully.
Robin Rushfield, 55, of East Brunswick is the contact person for Passages, a
self-help group for separated and divorced adults that meets in Spotswood once a
week. She was referred to the group while going through her own divorce
several years ago.
Rushfield believes that society's changing attitudes about marriage are
contributing to behavioral practices.
"I think that especially older people — the taboos on "living in sin,' so to
speak, are much less prevalent," Rushfield said. "Nobody feels that it's a
terrible thing, that it's a stigma to live with somebody without benefit of
wedlock. Social Security benefits are different if you're married, so more
people talk about not needing to be married."
Rushfield has a significant other, but they live apart. Finances also play
a role in her decision not to marry.
"I don't want to compromise my children's inheritance, and I don't expect to
inherit anything from him," she explained.
Since joining Passages in 1998, Rushfield said she has noticed that many of
those divorcing have been married from 15 to 35 years.
She also pointed out that the study's data may not be a true reflection of
divorce and cohabitation rates in New Jersey.
"This could also be an East Coast phenomenon," she said. "This is
(essentially) New York . . . I don't know if it holds (true) in Idaho."
Contributing: The Associated Press
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