A new study touting the “benefits” of cohabitation is based on deeply flawed ideas about human nature and fulfillment, according to a leading scholar on the social role of families.
“It’s garbage in, garbage out,” said Scott Yenor, the Boise State University political science professor whose book Family Politics: The Idea of Marriage in Modern Political Thought (Baylor University Press, 2011) surveys changing ideas about society’s fundamental institution.
CNA spoke with Yenor about a paper published in the February 2012 installment of the Journal of Marriage and Family, entitled “Re-Examining the Case for Marriage: Union Formation and Changes in Well-Being.”
The study, Yenor says, “uses the ‘thinnest’ understanding of human happiness, one that requires the least of any human being, and judges relationships on that basis.”
Lead author Kelly Musick, a Cornell University professor of policy analysis and management, says her research “shows that marriage is by no means unique in promoting well-being, and that other forms of romantic relationships can provide many of the same benefits” to individuals.
“While married couples experienced health gains,” Musick says of her findings, “cohabiting couples experienced greater gains in happiness and self-esteem. For some, cohabitation may come with fewer unwanted obligations than marriage and allow for more flexibility, autonomy and personal growth.”
But Yenor says Musick’s study, co-authored with University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Larry Bumpass, reveals more about the authors’ flawed assumptions than it does about marriage and cohabitation.
“The standard that they’re judging institutions by is the self-assessment of individual happiness,” Yenor explained. “The questions that they ask these people are along the lines of: ‘Do you feel good about yourself?’ They use such low standards to judge these situations.”
“The lower the bar, the easier it is to hop over. They asked questions like whether married and cohabiting people were ‘satisfied with themselves.’ That’s a very low bar.”
Musick and Bumpass used data from the “National Survey of Families and Households” to examine the difference between married and cohabiting couples in seven areas: happiness, symptoms of depression, health, self-esteem, relationship with parents, contact with parents and time with friends.
The authors of “Re-Examining the Case for Marriage” focused exclusively on benchmarks for the well-being and social lives of individual adults. Their work is a response to other sociologists who have attempted to base pro-marriage arguments on findings about individual adult well-being.
Children thus receive few mentions from Bumpass and Musick, though it is noted they “tend to be part of the marriage package.”
As Yenor pointed out, none of the benchmarks they used to judge the “benefits” of marriage against cohabitation actually involved the respondent’s evaluation of the relationship itself.
Many kinds of questions, he said, could gauge the quality of a relationship between two people, rather than just the reported happiness of the individuals involved.
He suggested asking: “Do you trust the other person? Are you more ‘one’ with the other person? Do you pool your resources? Do you share labor? Do you share goals? Do you talk about the things you hold in common and try to make them better?”
“Those are the things I would expect marriage to be better for than cohabitation; not things like ‘Taken altogether, are you happy?’”
But Yenor observed that the authors of “Re-Examining the Case for Marriage” were responding, in large part, to pro-marriage studies that may have made the same kinds of troubling omissions.
In his opinion, these defenders of marriage may have given too much ground to their opponents’ assumptions by focusing on marriage as a source of individual fulfillment for adults.
“What a lot of conservative scholars have done with the family, and this is what the journal article’s going against, is to say: ‘Even given the pitifully thin goal of modern self-esteem, marriage is better than cohabitation.’”
“Usually you want to judge marriage on other grounds: ‘Is it good for the kids? Is love present? Are people living more virtuous lives?’ But since society’s rejected those kinds of standards, conservative defenders of marriage are willing to use the standard: ‘Does it provide happiness and self-esteem?’”
“What I try to argue in my book is that defenders of marriage and family life need to defend it on ‘thicker’ grounds,” said Yenor.
“Once we give up and say marriage is about promoting individual happiness and self-esteem, we’ve already lost most of the battle. The marriage that exists to promote those goals is already going to be a weak marriage.”
“We need to defend marriage as a serious community that requires commitment, time and investment, getting away from the goals that modern autonomy has set and back to what the family’s true goals are.”
Pro-family sociologists, Yenor warned, will find the institution of family “increasingly difficult to defend” on the basis of their opponents’ own assumptions about mere individual happiness.
Although Yenor is himself Lutheran rather than Catholic, his book Family Politics concludes with a discussion of Pope John Paul II’s ideas about love, marriage, the family and society.
He told CNA that sociologists, like other scholars, can learn much from the late philosopher Pope.
“What he does is defend necessary connections,” Yenor recounted. “There are things that are connected in the created order, and there are many attempts in the modern world to sever those things that are connected.
“Love and marriage are connected, and when you try to disconnect them, you end up with less love and bad relationships. Likewise, contraception severs the connection between sex and procreation. When you sever that connection, you end up with people using each other and neglected children.”
“In a way, he’s a great sociologist,” Yenor said of Pope John Paul II. “The original French sociologists of the 1800s were trying to establish, through social science, the connections that exist as sources of order in the world.”
“What John Paul does is show that those sources of order and fulfillment,” particularly the lifelong marriage of a man and a woman, “are rooted in human nature, which can’t be changed and manipulated.”
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Musick has a track record of advancing flawed anti-traditional family notions see for example:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=kelly musick abortion&source=web&cd=15&ved=0CEkQFjAEOAo&url=http://as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/320/wu_musick_2008.pdf&ei=ooEtT47MEciviQL93b2aCg&usg=AFQjCNFF806HGDUXY93WNqFa0K8oUUGeYA&cad=rja
Personally I am growing awfully tired of shallow unchallenged pseudo peer reviews and having my fellow human beings being lumped into “Dumpsters” with phony “bourgeois, white collar, urban petite bourgeoisie, farmers or agricultural petty bourgeoisie, urban working class and agricultural working class” labels so as to provide a scientific sounding veneer that camouflages the snake oil chicanery of saying Good is evil and evil is Good. If you are selling stupid then we are full up here in America ... go back to Europe and sell some more “ZPG Climate Change” ... after all that is what is really driving the anti-family movements ... sorry got to go ... need to burn more incense to the earth goddess “gaia” ... she’s never satisfied she always needs more burnt offerings.
“For some, cohabitation may come with fewer unwanted obligations than marriage and allow for more flexibility, autonomy and personal growth.”
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Of course. Everybody’s ‘happier’ when nobody else’s needs stand in the way of their wants. Ask anyone who has ever had to relocate for a spouse’s job.
I would imagine that most people who use fulfillment as a pro-marriage argument know it’s a byproduct, not the end goal.
Co-habitation is not love. Marriage is love. Love defined is the desire to see that the other person receives everything that is good, honest and rewarding in their life. Co-habitation is LUST which is the arch-enemy of Love. It desires nothing of good for the other person, only LUST. True marriage takes on the idea of FAMILY which is the basic reason for us being here. Replication is the law of nature that sustains every living thing on this planet. To reproduce is the natural order of things as designed by GOD. Step two is to take responsibility for that reproduction through marriage and family. Otherwise it is evil and the work of SATAN.
Co-habitation is another word for Lust which is the arch-enemy of Love. Marriage and the family are the natural order of things in this world which God has created. We are to reproduce through marriage and a devout family life. Co-habitation does none of this however it does relieve the ones who Co-habitate from responsibility. It also is a part of the anti-establishment movement which is against all thing of the natural order designed by God. JPII said it very well and this should be read at mass every Sunday….
Blah blah blah - that’s all I hear from you religious people. You’re so full of hatred and judgement for anything different. What your “commentary” generally boils down to can be summed up as follows: “I don’t like things that are different. I enjoy judging others who are different and calling their differences ‘lesser’ than mine.” And then when the people who are different ask you to knock it off and keep your opinions to yourself, you scream “Stop being so intolerant of my intolerance!” My husband and I lived together for 3 years before we were married. We dated for 6 years before we had our very secular wedding. There is absolutely nothing wrong with what we did. We were both re-locating to a large city far from our parents’ homes and knew it would be safer and more affordable if we lived together. With the money we saved, we were able to buy our first home. You call co-habitation lust, I call it sensible.
The love in marriage is divine and the togetherness in co-habitation lacks obligation for unity.Marriage involves faith in stabilty and orderliness, faith in God and the natural laws. It is all a question of one’s attitude towards, life and love. One who is a materialist thinks in an entirely different way than a man who believsin religion and God. As a married man my family of my wife and my children is my wholesome fulfillment.
May God bless you in your naivete athenian_oracle for the “testimonial” ... perhaps by the grace of God you are one of those blessed exceptions that proves the rule ... as for myself I will look rather to solid statistics ... am sure that you “feel” that you are right but try looking at the wreckage that your counter cultural behaviour has made of what was once the shining light of the world ... wish you well none the less ... you are perhaps right in that sometimes I anyway come off sounding harsh but just as there are very good reasons to put guard rails on highways there are also good reasons for Society to put “guard rails” on behaviors ... it is for the general good of all ... look around you and see all the “wreckage” ... the pain and suffering that missing guard rails has wrought.
@Veritas - let’s see your “solid statistics” - from 3 or more studies conducted by 3 or more separate, secular research institutions. As for what I “feel” - I know in my heart what is right for me and what has worked for my husband and I. Don’t you dare belittle my relationship with your patronizing, condescending comments. You aren’t me and you aren’t living my life. My husband and I are best friends and are in such a wonderful emotional and financial position because of the choices we made. I bet you’d also put me down for not changing my name, but again, you know nothing about me. It’s funny how the bible supposedly teaches “judge not lest ye be judged” and yet, religious people are usually the most judgemental people out there. Enjoy your hypocracy, veritas. I bet God appreciates it even more than I do.
Still truly wish you well athenian_oracle ... really do hope that you and your husband remain the best of friends always ... as requested here are references ... drive slowly and watch out for the many missing guard rails on the highway of life ... judge how fast you are going as you approach the curves ... judge whether the other person is going to run the red light ... judge whether there is a child J-walking etc. ... always judge .. but use your judgement so as not to cause harm to others or yourself:
Here are a number of Non-Catholic References that flesh out the bell curve - well actually it is more of a Log Pearson Type III distribution:
The National Marriage Project, The state of our unions 2000: The social health of marriage in America (New Brunswick, NJ: The National Marriage Project, 2000).
Survey Research Center, “Monitoring the Future Survey” (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1995).
David Popenoe & Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, Should we live together? What young adults need to know about cohabitation before marriage (New Brunswick, NJ: The National Marriage Project, 1999).
Jeffry H. Larson, Should we stay together? A scientifically proven method for evaluating your relationship and improving its chances for long-term success (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000).
Linda J. Waite & Maggie Gallagher, The case for marriage: Why married people are happier, Photo Credit Comstock, Inc. healthier, and better off financially (New York: Dou-bleday, 2000).
J. Abma, A. Chandra, W. Mosher, L. Peterson, and L. Piccinino, Fertility, family planning, and women’s health: New data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Health Statistics 23 (19) (1997).
M. Daly & M. Wilson, “Evolutionary psychology and marital conflict: The relevance of stepchildren.” In Sex, power, conflict: Evolutionary and feminist perspectives, edited by D. M. Buss & N. M. Malamuth (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1996) 9-28.
R. Whelan, Broken homes and battered children: A study of the relationship between child abuse and family type (London: Family Education Trust, 1993).
E. Thompson, T. L. Hanson, & S. S. McLanahan, “Family structure and child well-being: Economic resources versus parental behaviors.” Social Forces, 73, 221-242 (1994).
J. E. Stets, “Cohabiting and marital aggression: The role of social isolation.” Journal of Marriage and the Family, 53, 669-680 (1995).
Linda J. Waite, “Does marriage matter?” Demography, 32, 483-507 (1995).
C. E. Ross, J. Mirowski, & K. Goldsteen, “The impact of the family on health: The decade in review.” Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52, 1059-1078 (1990).
Linda J. Waite & K. Joyner, “Emotional and physical satisfaction in married, cohabiting, and dating sexual unions: Do men and women differ?” In Studies on Sex, edited by E. O. Laumann & R. Michael (Chicago: University of Chicago, in press).
Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education; Institute for American Values; Religion, Culture, and Family Project, University of Chicago Divinity School, The Marriage Movement: A Statement of Principles (New York: Institute for American Values, 2000). Available online at http://www.marriagemovement.org
@Veritas - hard to find anything post 2000? Sorry but a lot of the “research” in the articles you posted is bogus. I do appreciate the effort, though. Don’t worry too much about my husband and I, we are very happy with our marriage and our small family.
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