Heather Little-White, Ph.D., Freelance WriterIF YOU are single and in love, have you ever wondered what it would be like living with the person you love and with whom you have an intimate relationship?
Years ago, you could cherish the thought, but would find it difficult to move in with your lover because living together as an unmarried couple was not as widely accepted and as commonly practised as it is today.
Cohabitation, the appropriate term for 'shacking up' is increasingly practised in Jamaica, with unmarried couples living together, engaging in sex and sharing the same house or apartment. This practice has given significance to the term 'significant other' which adds a little more romantic sparkle when compared to other terms like 'roommate', 'housemate' or 'cohabitor'. A term growing in popularity, is 'spousal equivalent'.
When persons cohabit there is the expectation that one or both partners will get married eventually, so the duration of time as cohabitators may not reach that of many common-law unions. In many instances, 'shacking up' seems to be gradually replacing marriage.
The desire to cohabit is driven by passion, frequency of sex and to extend the feeling of being in love and give some permanency to being with your love. Compared to marriages, cohabitators are more likely to engage in sex more often than married couples.
Today's professional woman is more economically independent, so there is less desire on her part to get married, to become responsible for household chores and face more difficulty in getting out of a marriage compared to a 'shacking up' arrangement from which she regains her independence with little hassle.
Many relationships end up with the couples moving from being red-hot lovers to being simply good friends after the failure of a living-in arrangement.
Stress
What are the effects of a couple living together? Researchers say that cohabiting can be more stressful than being in a marriage. In many instances, where cohabitation takes place, it is said that wedding rings are replaced by non-commitment, which very often creates broken hearts. Women tend to suffer from broken hearts mostly, as they face shattered dreams of being a beautiful bride, moving on to have a family with children and to "live happily ever after."
The prospect of marriage for women eventually loses its appeal and the living-in arrangement drags along, leading to loneliness, anxiety and depression among women. Men, in a live-in arrangement, often find little motivation to move on to marriage.
Persons who cohabit are less committed than those who are married. The commitment may be prompted by the wedding ceremony, with vows taken "for better or worse", usually in a religious setting, witnessed by loads of family and friends.
Legal rights
When a 'shacking up' arrangement goes sour, great losses could accrue to partners when it comes to dividing property bought jointly or inheritance rights in the absence of a will. Unlike married couples, there are no legal rights for the cohabitating couple. It is best for cohabitants to seek legal advice before engaging in joint purchases and monetary arrangements.
Some persons strongly believe that living together prior to marriage is a good thing. Andrew asks, "If I love my woman, what difference does a little piece of paper make? I can draw up legal documents giving her all I have, just in case I go before her... It's not the ring thing because I have given her rings during our relationship."
Rema believes in marriage for life and she would want to know that she could tolerate her partner before making that lifetime commitment, so she has been "shacking up" for a while.
Research from Rutgers University indicate that cohabitation precedes 50 per cent of marriages in the US.
