In “Why We’re Not Getting Married” on TheDailyBeast.com, author Hannah Seligson outlines why her generation isn’t heading down the aisle, a trend she chronicles in her new book A Little Bit Married. Seligson attributes the trend to several factors: the ever-searching quest for a “soul mate,” fear of divorce, a longer transition to adulthood and career establishment, and, of course, birth control.

“These are relationships that 50 or 60 years ago would have most likely culminated in marriage, but today are just part of the relationship experimentation that’s endemic to many people’s twenties and thirties,” she wrote.

Thank God the Church doesn’t go with the cultural flow. As Danielle Bean, NCRegister.com blogger and editorial director of the Register’s sister publication, Faith & Family magazine, noted in a recent online post for the Register website, “These relationships mimic marriage in some fundamental ways — living together, sharing finances, even having children together. But all of them lack the fundamental foundation of a committed relationship and of course the relationship-saving graces that come with the sacrament of marriage. … We can pretend and we can play house, but in the end, there’s no such thing as ‘a little bit married.’” Well blogged.