“The Fine Print”, by Michael Schrader

MEN & WOMEN SHOULD NOT LIVE TOGETHER UNTIL THEY SAY “I DO”

(Written and posted 27 August 2009.)

It says a lot about the day and age in which we live that when you tell someone that you have a girlfriend, they automatically assume that you are cohabitating. It used to be that POSSLQ, or Persons of the Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters, was looked down upon as sinful and shameful; not any more. We have lost our sense of morality and outrage, and that is not a good thing for the long-term health of our society and way-of-life.

When I was growing up, my father made it very clear to me and my siblings that he would not tolerate “shacking up”. He disapproved of cohabitation so strongly that he warned us that if he caught any of us cohabitating, he would disown us. He disapproved on strictly moral grounds, that cohabitation is code for “pre-marital sex” and that since pre-marital sex is immoral, then cohabitation, which enables pre-marital sex, is sinful and immoral as well, as it leads to the immoral act. Since I am the youngest of five, and there is a twelve-year age gap between me and my oldest sister, I was privy to my father’s monologues about the evil of cohabitation at an early age. It’s interesting how much of his opinion transferred to me.

My daughters are at the same age my sisters were when my father first started giving the talk about the evil of cohabitation. I share my father’s displeasure and disgust with cohabitation, and have relayed that to my children. Unlike my father, I wouldn’t disown my children if they chose to “shack up”, but I would strongly disapprove. But not for the same reasons as my father.

I don’t care about the sin thing – that is between you and God. My opposition to cohabitation is that it is demeaning and dehumanizing to women. When a couple cohabitates, it is the woman’s reputation that suffers, not the man’s. The woman in the relationship is viewed as a tramp or a whore by society; she is viewed as a person of lower morals, as “trash”. In almost every cohabitation relationship that I know of, it is the man, not the woman, who pushes the idea. It’s a way to save money. It’s a trial before marriage. If she loves him, she should agree; why do you need a piece of paper to say you love somebody? The arguments in favor of cohabitation are indeed strong, but they are still wrong.

When I was dating my ex-wife, I lived by myself and she lived with her parents. We tossed around the idea of her moving in with me, but I was cool to the idea. It just went against my moral fiber. There was a period of about a week that she couldn’t stand living with her parents and she moved in, but you really couldn’t call it moving in. It was more like being a houseguest. She stayed in the spare bedroom. The only possessions she brought were some clothes. My apartment was mine, I while I didn’t mind doing her a favor so she could get away for a few days, I viewed her as an interloper. I was relieved when she opted to move back home.

The second time she “moved in” was when I was recovering from my hernia surgery, and I needed some help. After a few days, I moved out and into my parents’ house to recover from the surgery. Things had gotten so bad between the two of us that we almost broke up, as I felt that her presence was very intrusive. It was my home, not hers, and I openly resented her attempt to make it hers. I wasn’t ready to share my home with a woman for another eighteen months when I put the ring on her finger and said “I do”.

Fast forward twenty one years. I am single and have a girlfriend again. Society’s view of “shacking up” is much more relaxed; it’s okay to “shack up”. But not for me. I was so disgusted by my ex-wife doing that that I had it written into the divorce decree that whichever parent has the children in his or her care cannot have an overnight guest of the opposite gender. I think it would be terribly confusing to a child to wake up and see his mother in bed with a man she is not married to, or see her father in bed with a woman he is not married to. Both my girlfriend and I struggle to pay the bills, and it has been suggested by more than one person that we move in together. Both of us agree that that will not happen until we say “I do”. First, it would be hard on the children, both hers and mine, if we were to cohabitate. It would be devastating to one of our children to grow attached to one of us and view us as a quasi-parent only to have that relationship destroyed if we were to break up, and it is much easier to break up when you are not married – just pack up your stuff and move out. Second, it would be degrading to her, as it would send out the message that she is not good enough to marry, only good enough to sleep with. Not only would it send out the message that she is cheap, it would also send out the message that I am a scumbag who is only interested in one thing, and I am not that kind of a person.

The reason why I despise my ex’s boyfriend so much, why I hold him in such contempt, is that he is destroying her reputation by shacking up with her. I expect every man to be a gentleman, to put a woman on a pedestal and treat her like a queen, not a piece of meat. As my daughter pointed out, I have very high expectations of the boys she dates. Yes, I do. I expect my future son-in-law to treat my daughter with dignity and respect, and to cherish her. I expect that my sons will treat women with dignity and respect and cherish them, and not demean them. There is no excuse why any man should not act like a gentleman, nor why any woman should accept anything less.

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