Last year, 4,537 couples applied for a marriage license in Southwest Ohio's most populous county. That's the fewest since 1957, when 4,467 couples sought to tie the knot, according to figures provided by Probate Court.
The trend is also evident in other southwestern Ohio counties.
In Butler County, the 2,041 marriage license applications in 2009 were the fewest since 1970. Clermont County processed 1,115 marriage applications last year, the fewest in 21 years, and likely longer. (The county's Probate Court could provide numbers only back to 1988.)
In Warren County, 1,140 couples applied for a marriage license last year, the highest numbers since at least 1993. (The county's Probate Court could not provide earlier figures.) That does not necessarily mean Warren is bucking the marriage trend. Indeed, the county's population has almost doubled since 1990, but marriage applications have remained relatively flat.
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Reasons for the decline, the report said, include people delaying their first marriage until they are older; the growth of unmarried cohabitation; a small decrease in the tendency of divorced people to remarry; and an increase in lifelong singes, although the actual won't be known until the lives of young and middle-aged adults run their course.
Since 1960, the number of cohabiting couples has increased more than 15-fold from 439,000 to 6.8 million the report said.
As a person who previously co-habitated I can attest to the fact that living together is barely different than being married. Co-habiting is also so prevalent with the famous and economically smart (shared expenses = cheaper than single living) that I'm not surprised to see the "15-fold" jump.
A point the article didn't make that I think also contributes to the low marriage application rate is the fact that for some it's not financially advantageous to get married. Unfortunately (I say "unfortunately" because people taking advantage of the system unnecessarily frustrates me; for the record I am supportive of people getting help to make themselves better, I have very little support for people who could afford to be self-sufficient and aren't) we know several people who are using government assistance for food stamps, tuition, etc. that they would otherwise lose if they got married, hence why they specifically don't tie the knot. In fact, we had friends who wanted to get re-married but "couldn't afford to" because the government paid her so much on a monthly basis for her "single mother" status so they just lived together [again] all the while wearing their old wedding rings & acting like like they did before when they were married.
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While these numbers don't surprise me and the reasons hypothesized seem reasonable, I have to admit it makes me sad. It's the old-fashioned person in me who values the institution of marriage and thinks that the legal commitment, at least for me, made things more "official", even though, as I said, emotionally, financially, and physically there was no difference versus living together.
5 comments:
You know, I was actually thinking about this last week. The employee here who passed away was 74 and had a girlfriend with whom he lived. I'm fairly certain they didn't get married because of financial things. I know other older folks who are living together rather than get married for pension reasons - their pension payments would go down significantly were they to get married.
I'm old fashioned, too, and am glad to be married. Then again, it was obviously advantageous for Trey and I to get married. Had it been financially advantageous not to have gotten married, we may not have.
I do disagree that cohabitating is really the same thing, though. Having gone through a major issue pretty early in our marriage, I really believe that had we merely been cohabitating we wouldn't still be together. In hindsight I'm glad things worked out the way they did, but had we not been married, they wouldn't have worked out this way.
I agree with Viki about cohabitating being easier to leave...
I will say that some things you get as a wife, you wouldn't get as a cohabitating couple. For example, unless you specifically release your medical information to your significant other, the doctors wouldn't tell them what was going on because they weren't your spouse.
I agree with Mrs. J- living together without a commitment means when things get tough it's easy to bail out. Of course that is assuming people take marriage seriously and don't throw a divorce option out there every time they fight.
Well, I too, have an opinion on this, simply because of my religious convictions. It is very clear in the Bible about premarital sex, and that it is not the right thing to do. I am not real clear about living together and not haveing sex, but feel if you really love one another, that is going to become complicated.
I know society accepts this as ok today, but it still does not make it right. I personally respect anyone's wishes about how they need to live in today's world, but it is still not scriptural. The Bible is very clear about this and there are no acceptions. This is what I was taught as a young man.
I know folks don't want to here this, but it is the way I feel. It certainly has caused me problems, no doubt about that.
I have 2 daughters whom both were married and unfortunately got divorced. Had they lived with prospective boyfirends, I realize that maybe they would have had a better chance of finding Mr. Right possibly, but I had a moral dilemma on my hands as a Father to mandate that living with these differnt men was still wrong and I had to advise them as such. It caused a lot of division between us for a long time because they wanted to do "what every else" was doing. It has been very hard on me to watch them suffer through relationships that just kept failing, and when they would come to me for advise, I had to uphold the letter of the law in scripture and tell them it was still wrong.
I can not even begin to tell you how very hard it was to continue being their parent, and not be "their friend" and say it was ok...
I can say that this is the way my parents raised me, and I am just trying to pass on to them what was given to me.
A lot of you who read here are very young parents and you will face this same situation when your children become teenagers and then young adults. What will you tell them....? Very tough question in the not so distant future I suspect.
Your insinct will tell you one thing, and the parent in you will tell another I am sure.
You will need answers for you children and you have to be ready to stand firm on what ever you advise them.
It hurt me deeply to go through all of this with my daughters, but I know I had to be their Father first. They had to know that it was because I loved them them that I had to be honest with them and nothing less. I would only be lying to them had I said anything different.
Please understand, I never got on them about it, or called them and harresed them about it. They were over 18 and could do anything they wanted. When I met these different boyfirends, I never got on them or chastised them in any way, but eventually, my girls would call and ask what I thought of this guy or that guy, and they wanted my approval so badly that it was ok. I would always tell them,
"I hope you are happy, and I pray that the Lord find his way to you and that you please consider getting married if you are going to continue this relationship"..... Yes, it caused problems because I would not accept the relationsip as it was, and both of them wanted my approval so bad. I was never angry or cross with them........(Karen knows, I never even raise my temper on just about anything) but they knew I wasn't happy about it.
I want everyone to understand who may read this, that we all have to find our place and find our way through life's challenges, and I would never judge anyone or disrespect anybodys life style and how they choose to live.
If upon the chance I was ever asked my opinion about the subject I would tell you what I know to be true in "The Word" and the rest would be left up to you. I am not in any position to judge anyone.
That has been left to "Him"...not me.
I try to treat everyone I am associated with in my walk with respect and kindness. That is truely the way I really am.
I certainly respect all of your opinions, and I just ask you respect mine.
In Christ...
David
While I can respect David's opinion, I see too many couples that end up divorced because they didn't know enough about each other to say that I would object to Max living with someone before marriage.
I learned so much about Kendall by living with him for the 6 months before our wedding. Granted, we were engaged and had already made half of the commitment, but there are things that happened in that 6 months that really showed me we were made to be together.
I always respected that my parents differed in their opinion on living together first, but kept their opinion to themselves unless directly solicited (as I think I understood David to be doing as well). My m-i-l on the other hand was extremely vocal about it and we ended up lying to her. And that's way worse in my mind. I NEVER want Max to have to lie to me about something like that.
I, too, get very frustrated with people who take advantage of the system. My next door neighbor is doing it. I think she sucks. I am busting my ass to pay back our student loans and she goes to school for free. That's bullshit.
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