Outline:
Topic: living together before getting married
Thesis: Living together before getting married isn’t good for a relationship.
Supporting idea 1: the divorce rate of couples living together before getting married is higher than those not living together before getting married
Detail a: A study by the Yale University showed that couples who had cohabited before marriage had a 80% divorce rate.
Supporting idea 2: Marriage due to the fact living together
Detail a: prejudice from traditional thinking people
Detail b: illegal
Supporting idea 3: lower quality of marriage
Detail a: A report in the Journal of “family psychology” said that living together before getting married, the marital divorce rate is much higher than those living not doing this, their marriage satisfaction is relatively low.
Detail b: reduce the novelty between the newlyweds.
Premarital Cohabitation does harm to marriage
Over the past ten years, cohabitation before marriage has become a very common, very natural thing. According to a survey by Fudan University, over 40% young people who were born in the 1980s have premarital cohabitation experience, statistics show that the number of premarital cohabitation in China has doubled in 17 years. However, does living together before marriage benefit to marriage? I don’t think so.
First of all, the divorce rate of couples living together before getting married is higher than those not living together before getting married. Although some people argue that living together before getting married can help the lovers have a deeper understanding about each other. However, a study by the Yale University showed that couples who had cohabiting before marriage had a 80% divorce rate, but for couples who did not marry before marriage, the likelihood of divorce was 46%. Therefore, those benefits of living together before marriage are just in theory with no evidence.
Secondly, many couples get married just because of the fact that they have already live together, the marriage is reasonless. As we all know, living together before marriage is illegal in China. If lovers live together before they get married, and they finally break up, they will have to bear the prejudice from other people, especially women in the relationship. Therefore, most lovers living together before marriage tend to get married later. They make the decision not because they think their lover’s habits fit themselves, but the fact they have already live together. The thought is not good for a marriage in fact.
At last, premarital cohabitation can lower the quality of marriage. Some people think that living together before marriage will further the affection between the lovers. However, the fact is that premarital cohabitation will reduce the novelty between the newlyweds. A report in the Journal of “Family Psychology” said that for couples having premarital cohabitation experiences, the marriage satisfaction is lower than couples not
living together before marriage.
To sum up, although living together before getting married is a new trend among the young generation, and they have lots of reasons to do so, doing this does harm to marriage is a fact that have already been evidenced. Therefore, before living together with your lover, you should think twice before you do so.。