Interesting, the trouble with these kind of studies is that are observational and don't really test for a single variable in a controlled setting. This doesn't diminish the value, but it can skew the interpreation of which element is the predictive factor.
There used to be an old joke (only in academia), that physicians wrote studies thusly: if a terminal ill patient is given pea soup and recovers, then Pea soup cures that type of illness. If given to another patient who dies, the study reads: 50% of patients given pea soup recover.
You see the problem.
These types of reports come out regulary. And while I can't say with certainty that the authors have an agenda, usually there is a certain spin to them.
If I were a social science researcher analyzing the data, I would have done a little more statistical sifting (assuming they didn't) and started tracking couples for total time together also.
There was a study in the past that said that marriages that began without cohabitation lasted longer. Review of the data showed that usually the people that had cohabited were together
longer before the marriage than the non-cohabitators.
The total length of relationship time was about the same in each group adding up time before and after marriage. I think the average time of relationships was about ten years until seperation regardless of category.
If the cohabiters were together longer before getting married than their counterparts then maybe they were just closer to the end of their relationships . . although 2 years is not long into a marriage.
Someone mentioned to me that marriage longevity had lowered below 10 years and was like 6 now but I haven't seen anything myself.
Quote:
Originally posted by h2oot
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Researchers have found that couples who live together before marriage are more likely to have communication problems that could lead to divorce.
We found that those people who live together were more negative and less positive when resolving a marital problem and when providing support to their partner," Dr. Catherine L. Cohan, of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, told Reuters Health.
Cohan and colleague Stacey Kleinbaum interviewed 92 couples who had been married for less than 2 years. The couples were primarily white and college-educated, and none had children. Some of the couples had cohabited--before marriage with their current spouse or with others--while some had not.
The investigators found that husbands and wives who had lived together before marriage were more verbally aggressive, less supportive of one another and more generally hostile than the spouses who had not lived together, according to the report published in the February issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.
According to the authors, it is possible that people who live together before marriage enter the relationship with lower commitment. "The open-ended nature of the relationship," they note, "may cause them to be less motivated to develop their conflict resolution and support skills."
I've heard the argument that living together may help to determine if the two of you are compatible. This is an interesting counterpoint.
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