CBS’ Early Show Highlights Pro-Cohabitation Study, Ignores Critics

To cohabit or not to cohabit? It seems like every year a new study on the consequences of shacking up before marriage negates everything that had been said about it the year before. Cohabitation increases divorce - no, wait! It makes your marriage last longer – no! It only lasts longer if you were engaged before you cohabited … It’s a never-ending argument that keeps the presses happily rolling along. On March 9, CBS’ the Early Show joined the fray by inviting Hannah Silegson, author of “A Little Bit Married,” to cite yet another “new study” that claims “if you only live with one person before you get married, you’ll have a no higher chance of getting divorced.” CBS’ Harry Smith introduced Silegson’s book as a “cautionary tale,” saying that “playing house” could be a “losing game,” but the criticism of cohabitating ends there. Silegson and three other pro-cohabiting panelists discussed living together as “the new romantic right of passage.” “You want to try before you buy,” Silegson told Smith. “I think you actually need to move in with each other before you get engaged, before you get married because it’s such a big commitment and you want the next 50, 60 years of your life to work out nicely together,” said panelist Chris Edmund