Cohabitation+&+Marriage

=__Trends of Marriage__= Even thought marriage has been established since our ancestors, the structure of Marriage has been changed overtime throughout the history. As an individual grow up, each of them are reaching the stage of looking for a intimate relationship and forming a union, which define as a stable, intimate relationship between two people who live in the same household but may or may not be married. From institutional marriage its emphasis is on male authority, duty, and conformity to social, to companionate marriage where its focuses is on affection, friendship, and sexual gratification, these different forms of marriage also changed the amount of control their parents have on their relationship. In these years, more and more people are having cohabitation, which is the sharing of a house by unmarried persons who have a sexual relationship. Nowadays, people are cohabitation instead of marriage for various reasons, such as serving as a testing ground for marriage, or for pooling financial resources together, etc. There has been issues about whether marriage is good for people or not. Research showed that being married actually causes people to feel better and live longer, and mentally and physically healthier people are more likely to get married and stay married.

It is so important for professionals to understand different forms of marriage and various reasons of cohabitation especially when helping couples with conflicts from each other. Even different ethic backgrounds have different views about marriage and structures they have in terms of relationships. It is essential for professionals to respect their forms of marriage and using their structures and how the couples' families can involved to help the couples to solve the conflict. Same for the couples' families that it is so important for them to understand the different trends of marriage and concepts of cohabitation the society is having from what they have been having back in their times and they need to respect their way of building their intimacy rather than over-controlled their relationship and without respecting them.

Cherlin, Andrew J. //Public and Private Families//. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008. Print.


 * __ Cohabitation __**

In today's society, more and more people are cohabitating, or known as "living together." A living arrangement in which two adults who are not married to each other but who have a sexual relationship share the same house or apartment (Cherlin, p.238). It's hard to know whether or not cohabitating with another individual is always a good idea. Many people cohabitate just because of the convenience and others cohabitate because they want a test run of how the married life would be together. There are many pros and cons to cohabitating with a significant other. Pros of cohabitating can include the most obvious reason, testing the grounds to see if they are really ready to get married. At the same time, it's a great way for couples to get to know each other and get a taste of what responsiblities each other would take on in the married life. One major con to cohabitating before marriage is that it may kill the excitement of getting married to one another. Cohabitation can either make it or break it for couples. Cohabiting before marriage may as well lead to more couples wanting a divorce. Cohabitation is still evolving: Each year it becomes more common, and its role in the family system increases (Cherlin, p.240).

It is important for professionals to understand the concept of couples cohabitating before marriage and their reasons behind it when it comes to helping the couple build a stronger relationship with each other, especially conflicts that each other are dealing with one another. Cohabitating couples are more diverse in today's society and it's important for professionals to understand that everyone has different views on marriage so it's good to know the facts about each of the different backgrounds people may come from. Heterosexuals aren't the only ones who cohabitate, in fact, gays and lesbians cohabitate with each other. Although similar to heterosexuals, it's important for professional to respect them for who they are and that these couples want to focus more on self-development than commitment. It's good for professionals to understand this form of a lifestyle and to intervene when it's most appropriate to help couples solve their problems and lead the couples to a healthier lifestyle with each other.

Cherlin, Andrew. (2008). //Public and Private Families: An Introduction. // New York, NY: McGraw-Hill

**__Marriage Today__** Marriage in the United States is very different today than it used to be. Today, people aren’t getting married until they are much older. The average age of marriage today is around 27/28 for men and 25/26 for women, whereas in previous generations, people would often marry quite young. There are several reasons for why people are waiting to get married. Today, young people are looking to be financial stable, debt free and homeowners before they decided to marry. Education is becoming more and more emphasized and people are more independent than they once were. Women are out getting college degrees and competitive jobs in a workforce that was once only male. Women rely less on finding a partner to take care of them and are becoming more and more independent. Another reason is that more people are choosing to cohabitate before marriage. This goes along with the independence and waiting to get married. With the ever growing number of homosexual couples, this idea of cohabiting has really increased, because the majority of the states don’t allow gay marriage, but that is starting to change. Gay marriage is legal in only a handful of states as of right now, but more and more states seem to be making it legal. This shifts the institution, dynamics and idea of marriage from the traditional form. This is a huge difference in marriage today compared to marriage in earlier generations. All of these things are based upon a buildup of changes occurring over several generations. Marriage today will most likely be vastly different from marriage when our children are ready to marry. Knowing about the trend and changing institution of marriage, is very important for parents and professionals to understand and continually learn about. The fact that our generation is waiting to get married until a later age because they are wanting to be more stable and independent means that they may rely on parents more for a longer period of time because they aren’t married and aren’t looking to marry until much later in life. This may not be what the parents had initially expected so this changes the ideas the family had and may cause conflict. For professionals, it is important that they keep up with marriage trends because in order for them to help couples, they have to have a pretty good understanding of them and the lifestyles people lead in today’s society. Where once marriage was only between a man and a woman, today its expanded to same sex partners with interchanging male and female roles. Being knowledgeable in this area and all other marriage trends makes it easier to help them.

Cherlin, Andrew. (2008). //Public and Private Families: An Introduction. // New York, NY: McGraw-Hill