Resources:
Living Together by Mike and Harriet McManusThis is by far the best single resource that I have found on the topic of cohabitation. Mike and Harriet are the founders of Marriage Savers, which is the ministry responsible for decreasing the divorce rates in communities by as much as 50% through the use of a Community Marriage Policy. In their program, churches work together to form a policy that helps couples to prepare for marriage by providing and requiring mentoring couples and other standards for those who are going to be married in a church. I have seen marriage policies before that were either too condemning or too impractical, but theirs are very functional and put the emphasis on working with each individual couple. It is definitely the most holistic approach I have seen.
This book is also loaded with stats that I tend to find very interesting. Since the book just came out in 2008, they are very accurate and up to date. Many of them come from the likes of Barna and Gallup. Here they are:
- 8 out of 10 cohabiting relationships will fail either before or after marriage.
- Both genders in a cohabitating relationship are much more likely than a married couple to be unfaithful.
- While nearly half of cohabitations result in marriage, couples who cohabited before marriage will divorce 67% of the time, as opposed to 45% for first marriages.
- According to cohabiting.org (a British website that actually helps people draw up 'cohabitation pre-nups', compared to married women, cohabiting women are three times as likely to suffer depression, according to the National Institute for Mental Health; Suffer from neurotic disorders (25%) more than married women (15%); and are ‘more irritable, anxious, worried and unhappy” than married women.
- As part of a 2003 Youth Survey, Gallup asked teens whether they feel that sex between unmarried men and women is morally acceptable or morally unacceptable. The resulting pattern is similar to that for cohabitation: Nearly two-thirds (63%) of churchgoers find sex between unmarried men and women morally unacceptable, and only a third (36%) find it acceptable. Among teens who do not attend church, the results are reversed -- 73% feel that sex between an unmarried man and woman is acceptable, and only 26% think it's unacceptable.
- Approximately 14% of those who cohabit admit to hitting, shoving, or throwing things at their partner during the past year compared to 5% of married people.
- At the time when children are born to unmarried couples, 70% of the mothers and 77% of the fathers believed their odds of marrying were high. Yet twelve to eighteen months later, only 12% of couples had married.
- The number of babies born out of wedlock has increased nearly sevenfold, from 224,000 in 1960 to 1,525,345 in 2005. This 1.5 million figure is the highest number of out-of-wedlock births ever recorded and accounts for 37.4 percent of all births. Fully 55% of all births for women aged twenty to twenty-four were out of wedlock, 28% for those aged twenty-five to twenty-nine.
- According to the Heritage Foundation, a child of divorce is 12 times more likely to be incarcerated than one from an intact family, whereas a child of a non-marriage is twenty-two times more likely to be incarcerated.
- Cohabiting men are twice as likely as married men to be unemployed.
- The average cohabiting relationship lasts only 1.3 years.
http://www.marriagesavers.org/
This is the site of Marriage Savers, the ministry of Mike and Harriet McManus. It has the best information and answers for questions about the Community Marriage Policy. It includes the list of over 200 cities that have instituted a CMP, as well as the statistical evidence to show its work.
http://www.marriagesavers.org/sitems/News/VIDABC071022/index.htm
This is a very favorable video that ABC News did on a community in Oregon that instituted the CMP. I would especially take a look at how they were careful not to simply add a marriage policy, but also how they instituted community date nights for couples where child care was provided. It makes it pretty clear that this just isn't a list of rules that a community instituted, but rather that this is a true effort of a community to transform marriages.
http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2008/marchweb-only/111-42.0.html
This is a short Christianity Today article by Mike McManus that will help wet your appetite for this issue.
This is a ministry put together by the churches in Evansville, IN that help equip people for marriage. A Google search will bring up hundreds of communities that have similar programs in place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShrYj97tWb8
A funny commercial that shows the truth about how men and women view cohabitation very differently.
This is the home of the National Marriage Project, led by David Popenoe and Barbara Defoe Whitehead of Rutgers University. It is a dry read, but is absolutely fascinating how secular researchers are coming to the same conclusions about the demise of the family in America. One quote by Popenoe even states the importance of faith in turning around the cultural demise that we are currently experiencing. The quote is below.
Quotes:
To reverse this trend of marriage and family decline would take a cultural transformation of some kind, and it is interesting to consider and evaluate what this might look like, and what could bring it about. One potential source of change would be a significant expansion in influence and authority of today’s orthodox, anti-individualist religions. Much has been written in recent years about the weakening of secularization, pointing out that modernization no longer necessarily means the demise of religion. The evidence for this comes from the newly modernizing countries of the world, however, where orthodox religions have actually been gaining, rather than losing, strength. There is no evidence that anything like this has been happening to date in the Western European and Anglo nations. Quite the opposite; with each passing year these nations—including the United States—are more secular than ever before. The National Cultural Values Survey noted above found that regular churchgoing has dipped below 50 percent and only 36 percent believe "people should live by God’s principles," concluding that "America no longer enjoys cultural consensus on God, religion, and what constitutes right and wrong." --David Popenoe, National Marriage Project
“When they first move in together, most couples intend to split expenses fifty-fifty. However, women often pay more than their share of the expenses, so they are actually supporting the men. Furthermore what may begin as an egalitarian relationship in which both genders supposedly share household tasks equally typically ends up as a situation in which women do most of the cleaning, cooking, and laundry. Such a relationship is very convenient—for men.” --Mike and Harriet McManus, Living Together
“The truth is that wherever a man lies with a woman, whether they like it or not, a transcendental relation is set up between them which must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured.” –C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Sermon Notes:
Two guiding principles for inside-out issues:
1. We must approach these issues with an attitude of absolute humility (Matthew 7:1-5)
2. We are a part of a fallen world that desperately needs redemption (Romans 1:18-25; 2:1-4)
What’s so bad about cohabitation anyway?
Issue 1: God designed sex to be shared only between one man and one woman within the context of marriage (Genesis 2:24-25)
Issue 2: God desires for people to be protected through covenant relationships with one another (Malachi 2:10-16)
Cohabitation falsely assumes that compatibility is more important than commitment.
How can we be a redeeming influence as the church?
1. Stand up for the rights of women and children.
2. Build trust through authentic relationships, especially with young people.
3. Build a Christ-like marriage.
4. Be there for people when their relationship either falls apart or desperately needs help.
