Cohabitation

Cohabitation refers to an unmarried couple living together, typically in a long-term romantic or sexually intimate relationship. This practice has grown much more common in Western countries since the late 1900s, driven by shifting attitudes toward marriage. The word itself dates back to the mid-1500s, with its current meaning recorded as early as 1530.

In Europe, Scandinavia led the trend, though many other nations have since followed. Mediterranean Europe, long conservative due to religious influence, saw low cohabitation rates until the mid-1990s; since then, they have risen. In Portugal, for example, a majority of children have been born to unmarried parents since 2015, reaching 60% in 2021. In the United States, the number of unmarried couples living together has also climbed over recent decades. Historically, Christian teachings against sex outside marriage shaped Western norms, but as social views evolved, those beliefs weakened. Some Christian denominations now see cohabitation as a step toward marriage. Pope Francis has married cohabiting couples with children, and former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams along with the archbishop of York John Sentamu have expressed tolerance of the practice.

Several factors have fueled this shift. More women have entered the workforce, and highly effective long-acting reversible contraceptives have become widely available, allowing women to make independent reproductive choices and rely less on male partners for financial stability. These changes encouraged alternatives to marriage. In Central and Eastern Europe, the fall of Communist governments in the late 1980s and early 1990s brought greater social freedom, less rigid rules, and less authoritarian governance. As these countries interacted more with Western Europe and some joined the European Union, family patterns shifted: marriage rates fell, marriage was postponed, and cohabitation and births to unmarried mothers increased, sometimes rapidly.

The deinstitutionalization of marriage—the weakening of social and legal norms governing marriage—has also played a role. Rising cohabitation is part of broader changes including higher divorce rates, older ages at first marriage and childbearing, and more births outside marriage. Contributing factors include secularization, women’s increased labor force participation, evolving meanings of marriage, risk reduction, individualism, and changing views on sexuality. Modern sexual ethics now emphasize consent over marital status, leading to the decriminalization of adultery and fornication and the criminalization of marital rape. These reflect new ideas about the role of sex, female sexuality, and self-determination. Some object to legal and social regulation of female sexuality, seeing it as a violation of women’s rights. Others feel marriage is unnecessary or outdated. In the 2008 European Values Study, the percentage of respondents who agreed that “Marriage is an outdated institution” ranged from 37.5% in Luxembourg to 25.0% in Slovenia, with several other countries in between. The European Union itself recognizes that many couples live together without formalizing their relationship; a 2004 directive prohibits member states from denying entry or residence to a partner with whom a Union citizen has a durable, duly attested relationship.

In the United States, cohabitation is often part of dating. It has increasingly become the first living-together arrangement for young adults. By 1996, over two-thirds of married couples said they had lived together before marriage. In 1994, there were 3.7 million cohabiting couples in the U.S., a major increase from earlier decades. According to Dr. Galena Rhoades, before 1970 living together outside marriage was uncommon, but by the late 1990s at least 50% to 60% of couples did so premaritally. Historically, legal bans on cohabitation for unmarried couples existed in Mississippi, Michigan, Florida, Arizona, Idaho, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Virginia, and West Virginia, though these laws eventually went unenforced. By 2023, Mississippi was the only state still criminalizing the practice. People cohabit for various reasons: to save money, for convenience, or to find housing. Lower-income individuals facing financial uncertainty may delay or avoid marriage due to wedding costs or fear of financial hardship if a marriage ends in divorce. In surveys, most couples cite reasons like spending more time together or convenience.