Individual Essay (First Draft)

Making an acceptable decision

It is known that the idea of living together before marriage has been always a taboo amoung many people who believe that they are still living in the last century and still consider it is a fact that could go against popular beliefs in this society, but what is needed to be taken into account is that cohabitating before marriage can provide couples opportunities to explore what marriage involves. Here, it is necessary to ask , what does marriage mean? Couples are inclined to believe that the only thing they need to have a good marrige is love, but what they do not realise is that the word marriage goes further than being love; it implies cohabitating, respecting, and sharing. It is said that couples do not know enough about each other until they start living together, and this can be one of the main reasons why people who get married and start to cohabitate after it fall into divorce. Therefore, couples should live together before marriage in order to know more about each other and convince themselves they are compatible.

Cohabitating before marriage is not a new topic. In the Inca’s culture, couples had to live together during a period of time before getting married for them to know whether they were compatible or not. If they agreed in what they had just lived together, they could get married[1]. Even though, what Incas used to practice seems to be the best route for a good marriage, there are some people who believe the opposite, for example, according to David Popenoe, Professor of Sociology and Co-Director, National Marriage Project, Rutgers University: “Those who live together before marriage have unhappier marriages and it can kill the romance” . Would you marry someone who you were not compatible with? One of the biggest problems couples face is to wait until they are married to realise that they do not have anything in common, and the only thing they can do to solve their problem is to get divorce. On the contrary, those who live together before marriage have the opportunity of not to do it if they feel that their relationship is not working out. On the other hand, it is normal to get confused when at first sight people assume they had fallen in love, and what they do not know is that there is a huge difference between taking a fancy to someone as long as love is alive and sharing their whole life with a partner accepting also their weaknesses.

According to Ansel Oliver, more than the third part of young christian people who were interviewed in Brittany said: “Cohabitating before marriage is necessary for the couple”[2]. Nevertheless, in Venezuela’s culture, it is not a secret that church consider that couples should not live together before marriage in order to avoid having sexual relations, and in this way, continue the tradition of get married being virgin, or what means the same, have sexual relations just after marriage. However, society should update church on the fact that sex represents a very useful tool for couples to know whether they are compatible or not. It does not mean that those people who have decided to live together do not want to follow anymore their beliefs in God, In fact, there are too many women who still have the dream of seeing themselves wearing white on their wedding’s day and who still desire to think that marriage will last for ever; but, insted of it they just want to try cohabitating in order to see if their couples are the best choice and to avoid a future desillusion.

Appart from guarantee couples that they are going to be able to make marriage easier, living together before marriage also helps them to save money for future plans, such as their wedding party, honey moon, and even their next home. What is also important is that during the transition of cohabitating before marriage, couples should live neither with the boyfriend’s family nor with the girlfriend’s one. It is typical in Venezuelan culture that couples move with their families, and it represents an obstacle that could perturb couples relationship; they should have their own space for them to avoid third people meddling in their relationship. Moreover, it would be easier, and require less work for the couple, to move into a space that one partner has previously occupied, so they will not have to spend money on renting a place to live.

Even if you are against or not the idea of cohabitating before marriage the point is to think why people make this topic as controversial as if it were a sin. Moreover, this is another time where young couples prefer to live together before to make a mistake they would not regret it. In the other hand, couples need to discover if they are compatible or not and they could do it just linving together before marriage.