Marriage is a contract best undertaken by perfect strangers

Don't get your hopes up, Balki. Larry won't buy the cow if he can get the milk for free.

The National Pest reports today that y'all who are living in sin are really asking for it. 

Anne-Marie Ambert, a sociology professor at York University, said her review of recent research shows that couples who lived together before getting married face as much as double the risk of separation as those who lived apart.

Okay.  This is all very scientific-sounding, and easily proven.  You crunch some numbers, write a report, hypothesize about cause and effect, issue a press release.  The media picks up on it ("Carbohydrates are good for you!" "Carbohydrates are bad for you!"), and people absorb nothing but the headline, make a comment to their partner at breakfast, and promptly forget about it by supper. Pass the rolls, dear.  A researcher's year of work, neatly condensed into six hundred words above the fold.  Typical broadside, well done, you.  But what's with the opening sentence making it all about women?

A woman dreaming of a stable marriage should make sure she gets an engagement ring before moving in with her partner, according to the author of a new study exposing the downside of premarital cohabitation.

Ah.  Classic Post.  Putting the onus for maintaining relationship security on the woman.  Now, I'm not saying that there's a patriarchal imperative influencing the editorial decisions at the Post (hey, blaming the patriarchy isn't MY byline), and I'm certain that the spectacularly sexist opening of the article (by Graeme Hamilton, staff writer - can't blame this one on CP, Mr. Asper) probably has more to do with rhetorical effect than a mandate to endorse a systemic attempt to keep women domesticated.  As a writing teacher, I know that really, what's going on in the above sentence is mere metonymy, the "substitution of something closely related to the thing for the thing itself."

Because, you see, since men don't dream of "stable marriage", and since men aren't the exchanged property in a betrothal contract, there's no classic symbol for exchange as readily understood as the "engagement ring."  It's much easier for Hamilton to slip into a familiar "women like glossy objects before settling down and breeding" mode of journalism than it is for him to, say, actually make an effort to communicate genuine ideas.  Why write something new, after all, when you can just feed recycled images into the public consciousness over and over again?

But for me anyway, Hamilton's lazy writing isn't the main issue here.  What is positively precious is the following quotation from the study's author, Professor Anne-Marie Ambert of York University:

"If I were a young woman who wanted to get married and have children -- which means by definition that I want to have a solid marriage -- I would not cohabit before marriage or would cohabit only once I am engaged,'' she said in an interview yesterday.

Recognizing the dearth of quotable soundbites from ostensible scientists descrying the downfall of the nuclear family, Ambert has thoughtfully offered herself as an expert to bolster any wingnut appraisal of what women are doing wrong now.  In case you hadn't heard, we uterine-cases are going about the marriage thing all wrong if we think "stability" has anything to do with one's relationship to one's partner.  Apparently the definition of "a solid marriage" is "having children", and those of us happily enjoying our ovary-framing devices for other purposes are going about it all wrong. 

Nobody knows what the men think about all this, of course, because nobody thought to ask them.  What do men know about marriage anyway, right?

And of course, the Post article offers us all kinds of gooey statistics and sticky conclusions:

''We used to hear the term trial marriage, but it just isn't that. If living together was really a trial marriage, you would expect that those who lived together before would have a better relationship when they're married ... and therefore would divorce less,'' Prof. Ambert said.

''Well, quite the contrary happens. Those who cohabit have up to twice the rate of divorce after they're married.''

She cited a 2000 Canadian study that found, in the 20-to-30-year-old age group, a 63% separation rate for women whose first relationship was co-habitational compared with 33% among those who married before moving in.

I'm going to assume that Ambert's asinine use of the present tense of "cohabit" is an error. Otherwise, she seems to be suggesting that it's the act of living together which leads to divorce, putting her in the odd position of advocating that married couples who truly take their relationship seriously should live apart (in which case, Sandor and I are totally set).  "Cohabitation leads to problems!  Don't let your husband keep a toothbrush in your bathroom, or you've increased your risk of divorce by 15%!"

So assuming that what Ambert really means is "Those who cohabit[ed before marriage] have up to twice the rate of divorce after they're married," one might expect that she'd cite a study that actually says so.  Now this may be Hamilton's lazy writing appearing again, but it seems that in support of her position that women are asking for trouble if they give away the milk for free, she's  actually citing a study that says no such thing.  What a "a 63% separation rate for women whose first relationship was co-habitational compared with 33% among those who married before moving in" really means is that women in their twenties whose "first relationships" end in marriage are less likely to separate from their partners than those whose relationships don't end in marriage. 

Well knock me over with a feather.  That may be why they call marriage a legal commitment.  I've also heard a rumour that divorce is more complicated than simply divvying up the CDs and hiring a cube van - I wonder if that has something to do with it?

Oh, no, Ambert's got the interpretation of that study covered too.  Thank goodness for experts! 

She identified several factors contributing to the unhappy outcome of relationships that began with cohabitation:

Oh, good.  Now all relationships that "began with cohabitation" are doomed.  Somebody tell Kit Marlowe that his "come live with me an be my love" business is so over.

- Some people choose cohabitation because they do not feel it requires sexual fidelity and, particularly among men, it represents less of a commitment than marriage. ''However, many of these less committed couples do move on to the next stage, which is marriage,'' she writes.

Clearly, polyamory is WRONG, a symbol of "less of a commitment than marriage."  Thank goodness people don't have sex outside of marriage, ever, or things might get complicated for sociologists like Prof. Ambert.

- One study found that in the first two years of marriage, couples who previously lived together tended to be less supportive of each other and worse at solving problems in their relationships than those who had not cohabited.

So, those who had lived together previously, having already solved the "you leave the cap off the toothpaste" problem, and the "your mother's painting is NOT going up in the bedroom, EVER" problem, have moved on to the considerably more complicated series of problems such as "you don't make love to me the way you used to" and "we always hang out with your friends".  In contrast, the happy newlyweds are blissfully laying down "No crackers in bed" rules and filling up their solved-problem dance card faster than you can say "logical fallacy."

- Women who cohabited before marriage report a greater incidence of premarital violence than those who did not cohabit, which in turn leads to more marital violence.

Gee, so women who are around their partners more often are more likely to get abused by them? You think?  And women are somehow to blame for this phenomenon?

- People who have lived together before marriage are more likely to approve of divorce.

Classic retrospective determinism.  If you approve of divorce, you're going to divorce. 

- Couples who cohabit are less religious than those who do not, and several studies show a correlation between religious faith and marital stability.

*Gasp!* A correlation between religious faith and marital stability?  How could that ever happen in a world where the Catholic church still outlaws divorce?

So, does pooling rent money before registering for china necessarily mean inevitable splitsville for childless heathens?  Well, no:

Prof. Ambert acknowledged many relationships that begin with couples shacking up end in long, happy marriages. And even if the statistics argue against cohabitation, she does not expect to reverse a growing trend. In 2001, 16% of all Canadian couples --and 30% of couples in Quebec --were living together outside marriage.

But hang on a minute, this is a BIG PROBLEM, says the sociologist.  It's gonna lead to the downfall of society as we know it, causing the crime rate to rise, and elevating cholesterol levels, and hallmarking a plague on all our houses:

''Who's going to listen to the message these studies give? Let's face it, nobody is,'' she said. ''The trend is that we're going to see more cohabitation.''

The under-25 age group is the most approving of cohabitation, she said, an attitude she predicted could lead to a higher overall divorce rate.

''As a researcher, you look at this for policy implications, and these statistics worry me,'' she said.

''I don't think that the impact on society is very healthy. More children are going to be born in more unstable family structures, so it's going to be costly for the welfare system, for the schools, mental health and even jail."

Stable family structures, it seems, being MARRIAGE.  MARRIAGE is the cure for welfare, for underfunded schools, for mental illness, and for the overwrought justice system.   

Ever hear the phrase, "to a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail"?  Somehow I think Ambert's a little too eager to martyr the institution of marriage on a cross, a Pilate washing her hands in full view of the multitude.   They brought it all on themselves, after all, those filthy cohabitors - they made the wrong decision, and doomed us all to the whims of that horrible red lady with the goblet riding the dragon.   Her and Satan aren't married, you know.  They just live together.

Comments

[Steph]

I'm a sociologist (of media and health--I don't do this statistical stuff) and all that I get out of the story is that those who cohabitate before marriage are more likely to divorce but mostly because they don't buy into the whole "sanctity of marriage" thing as much as people who don't.
cohabitate.

I think it would be more interesting to talk to people in these relationships to ask why they cohabitate, marry, divorce instead of trying to hypothesize why. That sociologist might learn something more than a correlation that way.

I suspect the romantic ideal of marriage is still something people strive for which is why people still seem to ultimately make it legal.

One other thing, why the hell do you read the Post? Are you a masochist?

[Philoillogica]

I don't really have a thing against sociologists, to be honest. I'm just especially riled by the way the media (and by extention, the public consciousness) engages with studies of social-cultural phenomena and makes pronouncements of what we should (or shouldn't) be doing. It's the same thing that drives me batty about linguistics: description makes sense to me - prescription doesn't.

I took a look at some of Ambert's actual writing, and she seems to take a rather parochial view of her role as a researcher of human nature. It isn't enough to study worldly activity - she seems to moralize most of her conclusions into recommendations.

I agree - a study on the nuances of cohabitation and marriage would be far more helpful and useful than this sort of correlative stuff.

And I read the Post because I'm a glutton for punishment - and because I like to know how certain repellent ideas wend their way into other media. Besides, I can't say that the Globe is especially better in much except for hiding its bias. The Post is refreshingly overt that way.