When Sarah’s college professor asked the class why they think that patriarchy continues to exist, she promptly raised her hand and cited Friedrich Engels; that monogamous relationships were one of the reasons that helped perpetuate this misery.
In The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), Engels had argued that primitive societies were often egalitarian and non-monogamous. It was then due to the rise of “private property” and its underlying economic framework that the structure of families changed- from non-monogamous and matriarchal to monogamous and patriarchal.
When the feminist waves arrived, his theory reached newer shores.
All across the globe, theorists who conformed to this viewpoint argued that the demise of heterosexual monogamous relationships would herald the emancipation of women from the shackles of the three-headed monster: Colonialism, Capitalism, and Patriarchy.
Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the liberal feminists argued that marriages served to subjugate women and limit them to the domestic spheres.
The argument was not lost on the masses.
A research study by Steven Ruggles found that the divorce rates in America continued to rise since the 1960s, as the propensity to marry declined.
While he attributed economic factors as reasons for that, the stigma attached to heterosexual marriages cannot be fully neglected.
The idea was simple, equality between men and women could only be achieved by not entering into marriages that perpetuated patriarchy through engendered roles.
However, that did not quite happen.
As women decided to forego the institution of marriage, a new phenomenon gained pace: Cohabitation, or live-in relationships.
Freedom from Marriages through Cohabitation
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, Cohabitation is defined as “the act of living and having a sexual relationship with someone, especially someone you are not married to”.
In a research paper published in 2008, data from the National Survey of Family Growth was analysed for cohabitation trends.
The researchers perused the data from 1995 to 2002 to conclude that not only had cohabitation increased in the country, but it had gotten integrated with the American family system and was actively shaping its contours.
According to the latest trends, approximately 15 million individuals older than 15 years of age in the US were reported to be cohabitating in 2022.
In fact, it is now more common to have cohabited than to have married.
An alternative to marriage, cohabitation allowed women to escape the marital responsibilities that weighed heavily in favour of men and put them on an equal pedestal as partners instead of wives.
Cohabitation was a win-win for both sexes.
It offered both parties the flexibility to take on the roles of husband and wife, without the responsibilities that come with those. Further, it provided both parties the window to indulge in carnal pursuits, something that was reserved exclusively for married couples in yesteryears.
As cohabitation became part of the mainstream, new dynamics emerged in the Dating culture of the US.
While marriage used to be an encompassing institution performing various functions, the newer dynamics were more segregated and transactional.
Soon, people started looking for people based on their specific needs instead of a one-stop solution: Marriage.
For example, if one wanted the solidarity of friendship along with the privilege of fornication, they entered into a Friends-with-benefits (FWB) relationship with someone.
If they wanted somebody to talk to in order to escape boredom, they entered into Situationships or Textationships.
However, this freedom from marriage has a cost that wasn’t accounted for earlier.
The Cost of Freedom: Happiness
Ostensibly, this freedom from getting married should’ve resulted in more satisfaction and happiness amongst the women.
However, a recent survey by The Institute of Family Studies reveals that when compared with married women and those who were dating, the ones in a cohabiting dynamic were less likely to be very happy.
While approximately 68% of married women said that they were “very happy” in the relationship, only 55% of women who were cohabiting with their partner but not married to them mentioned that they were “very happy.”
In contrast, the survey found that more men were happier when cohabiting with their partners than those married, with 67% and 65% respectively.
Why such contradiction, and why didn’t the freedom translate into happiness for women?
While the survey did not attribute this to any factor, we get a clue from other studies conducted on this topic.
As for men being happier in live-in relationships than women, the reason could possibly be traced to the evolutionary theory leading to differences in intentions between the two while dating or being in a relationship. We’ve explained it in detail here.
Now coming to why women in a live-in relationship were less likely to be happy than their married peers, thankfully, there are earlier studies on that.
According to a research study on cohabitation trends, it was found that while cohabitation allowed more frequent fornication, the relationships were qualitatively poor with less satisfaction.
The reasons were poor quality of interactions and aggression.
Interestingly, the researchers found that cohabiting couples with a child resulted in more aggression and negative communication within the family.
They also found that while the frequency of sex was higher in the beginning for the couple in cohabitation, it gradually declined over time- negating the benefits of live-in relationships.
What is even more intriguing is that couples who entered into a live-in relationship to determine whether they were compatible enough to marry were more likely to divorce if married.
As per the researchers, the possible reasons for that could be that the individuals enter into cohabitation relationships without any set future goals and only to test compatibility, in turn leading to indecisiveness that either resulted in a breakup or a divorce if married.
While the causes may have been unclear, the result certainly was.
The freedom from marriage had a cost, resulting in uncertainties and a lack of satisfaction.
The simplistic idea of finding an alternative to marriage wasn’t the panacea for patriarchy, especially when marriages continue to perform various manifest and latent functions in the lives of individuals.
We’ve sadly come to a juncture where women have a possible opportunity cost for freedom, a protracted uncertainty from their partner’s end in the form of a simple question- “What are we, exactly?”
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