Cohabitation Instead Of Marriage James Wilson Summary

The Breakdown of Marriage. In the article Cohabitation Instead of Marriage, James Q. Wilson showed the benefits of marriage versus the benefits of cohabitation. He showed that there are more benefits to marriage than cohabitation yet more people are choosing the cohabit. He concludes that people simply think that cohabitation has more benefits and forgot the benefits of marriage (Wilson). But is this the case? Or instead is the deterioration of marriage punishment for a people who has forgotten God. Wilson argued that the main problem with cohabitation is that people can just walk away. Therefore the custody of any children the union produced could be decided by one person up and leaving. Financially everything is typical split and offers no reason to stay together. Both partners in the relationship live in a constant fear of the other leaving. He states that the majority of people who choose to cohabit instead of marry are women who have carriers and lazy men who don’t want responsibility (Wilson). As for the benefits of marriage: children are in the custody of both partners, everything is shared financially, and there is not as much fear of the other leaving. He argues that marriage creates a situation where both people feel as though they are needed and
Historically, because of its Christian views, America has defined marriage between one man and one woman for the purpose of raising children. According to William Bennett, “The family is the nucleus of civilization and the basic social unit of society.” What happens when the basic unit of a society is abolished? A study done by Todd D. Kendall and Robert Tamura found that the out of wedlock birth rate has a direct correlation to the crime rate years later. If this is the case our society will collapse if the number of out of wedlock births continue to