It seems social scientists have been wrong all this time, living together before marriage does not increase the likelihood of couples getting a divorce. Instead, it’s the age factor that influences the statistics. The younger the couple when they begin living together, whether married or not, increases their chances of the marriage ending in divorce.
In Stephanie Hanes’ article, “Best predictor of divorce? Age when couples cohabit, study says” on CNBC.com, historian Stephanie Coontz, director of research and public education at the Council on Contemporary Fitness, agrees this makes sense. “Marriages require much more maturity than they once did,” Coontz says. In the 1950s, husband and wives stepped into well-defined gender roles. “Nowadays, people come to marriage with independent aspirations and much greater ideas of equality. Maturity is so important, and negotiating skills are so much more important.”
You can read more of the article here.
