Title

Links Between Premarital Cohabitation And Subsequent Marital Quality, Stability, And Divorce: A Comparison Of Covenant Versus Standard Marriages

Keywords

Cohabitation; Divorce; Marital quality; Marriage; Religion

Abstract

We extend prior research on the association between premarital cohabitation and marital outcomes by investigating whether covenant marriage, which entails more stringent requirements for divorce, minimizes the deleterious effects of cohabitation on subsequent marital quality and stability. Using a unique longitudinal data set of covenant and standard newlywed couples in Louisiana, we find that covenant marriage does not modify the effects of premarital cohabitation on marital instability, happiness, dependency, or divorce for either wives or husbands. In fact, once we control for sociodemographic characteristics, premarital relationship factors, and marital factors, the relationships between premarital cohabitation and marital outcomes reduces to non-significance, suggesting that selection factors largely account for the deleterious effects of premarital cohabitation on marital success. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publication Date

6-1-2006

Publication Title

Social Science Research

Volume

35

Issue

2

Number of Pages

454-470

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2006.03.001

Socpus ID

33646805768 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/33646805768

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