Premarital Cohabitation vs. Traditional Courtship: Their Effects on Subsequent Marital Adjustment

Abstract

The dramatic increase which has occurred in the incidence of unmarried cohabitation has attracted considerable interest. Much of this has been directed at discovering the characteristics of those who cohabit and the circumstances in which cohabitation occurs, as well as describing the relationship between cohabiters and their respective roles in comparison with those of married couples. Cohabitation has been seen as a new stage of courtship which, in replacing dating, may provide a more realistic basis for the selection of a mate. The research reported here investigated whether previously cohabiting couples would display a higher level of adjustment during the first year of marriage than noncohabiting couples who had entered upon their marriages in the more traditional way. Unlike most of the research on cohabitation which has been based on college populations which are nonrepresentative of the general population, data for this study were collected by means of a questionnaire which was administered separately to each partner of couples drawn from the general community. The use of Spanier's Dyadic Adjustment Scale provided a measure of adjustment for each of the 84 couples participating. A significant difference between the mean scores of cohabiting and non-cohabiting individuals was found. Unexpectedly, however, the higher mean scores were obtained by non-cohabiters. Possible explanations for this are suggested.