Cohabitation--the Catholic view (an explanation by the bishops of Pennsylvania)

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I wonder if the Bishops will tell us the origin of their claim that: “In addition, countless studies have shown that couples who live together before marriage have higher rates of divorce and a poorer quality of marital relationship than those who do not.”
 
There are hundreds of studies on the internet that show that fornication before marriage leads to a high divorce rate after marriage.

Also the bible says

Galatians 5:19-21 “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, ADULTERY, FORNICATION, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, THAT THEY WHICH DO SUCH THINGS SHALL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD.”
 
dcharles said:
There are hundreds of studies on the internet that show that fornication before marriage leads to a high divorce rate after marriage.

Also the bible says

Galatians 5:19-21 “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, ADULTERY, FORNICATION, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, THAT THEY WHICH DO SUCH THINGS SHALL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD.”
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What you say is not what the Bishops said. they talked about cohabitation not fornication. And you have said nothing about the ‘quality of marital life’ claim. Any of those hundreds of studies back up the Bishops? Maybe not?
 
Hokomai said:
What you say is not what the Bishops said. they talked about cohabitation not fornication. And you have said nothing about the ‘quality of marital life’ claim. Any of those hundreds of studies back up the Bishops? Maybe not?
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The definition of cohabit from Dictionary.com

co·hab·it   [koh-hab-it]
verb (used without object)
  1. to live together as husband and wife, usually without legal or religious sanction.
  2. to live together in an intimate relationship.
Cohabitation IS fornication. It is simply fornication in which the fornicating couples live together instead of living separately and meeting together somewhere to fornicate.

I have studies from over 40 years ago showing that those who cohabit (live together) before marriage, only 18% ever stay married their entire lives.
All the studies are the same, whether it is just fornication before marriage or fornication and live together before marriage, (cohabit) they all lead to disaster. Very few of those who live together before marriage end up in happy marriages,

Why don’t you look up the studies. They are everywhere. Physicians for Life has some good ones.

Jesus is the light of the world.
That means Jesus shows us how to live and teaches us how to live so that we can be happy and not have a miserable life.

Jesus did not become man to open the gates of heaven. He did not become man for our eternal salvation.
He became man for our salvation from sin here and now because sin causes misery in our lives. Salvation from sin is defined as being set free from the slavery of sin. Opening the gates of heaven is only a side benefit.

It is amazing how many people don’t know this fundamental Church teaching.
Jesus founded a Church to teach us how to live our lives in happiness and to make available the grace to enable us to do so. The purpose of the mass is to make available this grace that frees us from our slavery to sin.
We cannot follow His teachings without His grace which we receive through the sacraments and prayer. But if we don’t follow His teachings we become enslaved by sin and this leads to misery. We are all born slaves to sin, and sin makes us miserable.

People who cohabit usually take birth control pills. See my other post on why would anyone ever use birth control pills. They are a disaster. They make marriages miserable, the men are constantly unhappy because they have to beg for sex, which leads to unhappy marriages, they lead to high divorce rates besides the medical problems such as increase in cancer and many others diseases

God condemns fornication because it causes misery. Men are 7 times more likely to attempt suicide if they live in fornication. Women are only twice more likely to attempt suicide. Look up Physicians for Life for these stats and many others about the effects of this type of sin. If they marry, their marriages seldom last long. If they have children, and split up and don’t marry the boys are 20 times more likely to end up in jail. If they divorce, which is the most likely outcome if they do get married, the boys are 5 times more likely commit suicide and 10 times more likely to end up in jail than boys in stable marriages. This is from the Wisconsin study at the Heritage foundation, where marital status those in jail were recorded.
If the women have children and cohabit with another man who is not the father the children then the children are 50 times more likely to die of child abuse in the american study and 70 times more likely to die of child abuse in the study from England.

These are only a few reasons why God condemns fornication over and over in the bible and the Church has always taught that fornication is a mortal sin.
No one is good but God alone. Everything Jesus taught was good. Nothing Jesus taught was evil. Since only God is all good, ONLY God knows what is good for us.
But, if you think you are smarter than God and if you think that God does not want you to be happy, and that Satan is right when he says to rebel against God, then try cohabiting and 50 years from now look back and see who was right. And don’t try to blame your misery on others. You made the decision to rebel against his teachings.

The ONLY way to break free from this sin is turn to God and love God with all your heart. We love God by following His teachings. His teachings, through the Church tell us how to receive His grace, which frees us from our sins and which enable us to follow His moral teachings, which guide us how to live a happy life.
Thus the sacraments and prayer, especially the mass and the Rosary are essential to break out of this sin. Mary will pray for you, even when you forget to pray, The more you love God, the happier you will be, because you can begin to love others, even your enemies, and the more you can be set free from the misery and slavery of sin.
 
Hokomai said:
I wonder if the Bishops will tell us the origin of their claim that: “In addition, countless studies have shown that couples who live together before marriage have higher rates of divorce and a poorer quality of marital relationship than those who do not.”
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The National Marriage Project, formerly at Rutgers University and now at the University of Virginia has done very thorough research on marriage, divorce, and cohabitation and the social and economin impacts associated with them:

virginia.edu/marriageproject/
 
Hokomai said:
What you say is not what the Bishops said. they talked about cohabitation not fornication. And you have said nothing about the ‘quality of marital life’ claim. Any of those hundreds of studies back up the Bishops? Maybe not?
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Seriously? That’s your objection? Are you honestly arguing that cohabitation doesn’t necessarily involve fornication? Get out much? 😉
 
dcharles said:
Cohabitation IS fornication. It is simply fornication in which the fornicating couples live together instead of living separately and meeting together somewhere to fornicate.
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I can see that from your point of view cohabitation is a subset of the category fornication, but I do not think you can reasonably say that the two words are the same, and that evidence of the result of the wider category (fornication) therefore applies to the more narrow (cohabitation)
 
1ke said:
The National Marriage Project, formerly at Rutgers University and now at the University of Virginia has done very thorough research on marriage, divorce, and cohabitation and the social and economin impacts associated with them:

virginia.edu/marriageproject/
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I can’t see anything in here that supports what the bishops say. Can you point me to the relevant bit?
 
mdgspencer said:
Some research studies on the problems of cohabitation are cited in the following document from the Catholic Church in the U.S. (see PART ONE, section 5 in this document):
www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/marriage/marriage-preparation/cohabiting.cfm
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the Bishops statement (mentioned by the OP) purports to compare married ‘cohabiters’ with couples who did not live together before marriage. The USCCB document does not seem to me to justify the clear and intended implication of the Bishops’ statement, which is that living together, in itself, leads to poorer outcomes in marriage. I also noticed that there is no mention in the USCCB document of the populations studied. This is an off omission. It also does not support the Bishops’ claim of ‘countless’ studies. I would have thought this would need a comprehensive literature review to support it, even considering the hyperbole.
 
You asked for research studies in the matter and this document from the US Catholic bishops does provide them in Part One, section 5. All these studies are in leading research journals in the social sciences. If anyone would like to know about the research that shows the major problems that cohabitation means, I suggest they check for themselves in Part One, section 5 of this document.
Hokomai said:
the Bishops statement (mentioned by the OP) purports to compare married ‘cohabiters’ with couples who did not live together before marriage. The USCCB document does not seem to me to justify the clear and intended implication of the Bishops’ statement, which is that living together, in itself, leads to poorer outcomes in marriage. I also noticed that there is no mention in the USCCB document of the populations studied. This is an off omission. It also does not support the Bishops’ claim of ‘countless’ studies. I would have thought this would need a comprehensive literature review to support it, even considering the hyperbole.
Click to expand...
 
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