Debate grows on "out of wedlock" laws

[n2doc]

Debate grows on out-of-wedlock laws
Some 1.6 million Americans in seven states are breaking old anticohabitation rules.

By Patrik Jonsson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
ATLANTA – In Black Jack, Mo., (pop. 6,792), the city council wrangled last week over precisely how to define a family.
In West Virginia, religious conservatives are getting ready to do battle with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) over the use of a law that aims to bolster marriage by outlawing "lewd and lascivious cohabitation." In North Carolina, a state judge in July ruled unconstitutional a law that states it's illegal for unmarried couples to live together. Still, 1.6 million Americans in seven states are breaking their states' laws for doing just that, according to Unmarried America, a lobbying group for singles' rights based in California. States enforce these morality-based laws - which can include fornication and "criminal conversation," sweet-talking a married woman with a mind toward adultery - only in select cases, experts say. Yet the debate about whether the laws should continue to exist is a flash point between secularists and traditional Christians over the definition of a family.

"These are archaic laws which are hardly ever enforced, but they are ... often used as a weapon to degrade someone else," says Dan Pollitt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Nationwide, the number of couples living together out of wedlock has grown from 500,000 in 1970 to more than 5 million today. For the first time, a majority of households in the US are headed by unmarried or single adults, according to a census report released last week. But until the 20th century, cohabiting was not acceptable in most places. In 1805, North Carolina enacted its law barring adultery and fornication as part of a host of puritanical social controls that included "keeping bawdy houses." North Dakota, Mississippi, Florida, Michigan, Virginia, and West Virginia also have laws banning cohabitation.

Christian activists say the state laws are worth fighting for, but acknowledge that cohabitation is "part of the life we live now," says Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney at the American Family Association's Center for Law & Policy in Tupelo, Miss. One reason: Unwed couples are more than three times as likely as married couples to report incidents of domestic violence, reports the National Survey of Families and Households. "Our forefathers were wise, and such laws as the cohabitation law here in North Carolina are really important for holding up moral standards," says the Rev. Mark Creech, director of the Christian Action League. "Cohabitation simply imitates marriage, but without actually creating the internal, the emotional, the moral and the legal structure that protects couples." About 144,000 unmarried couples in North Carolina live together, according to the 2000 census. The state law banning cohabitation was cited nearly three dozen times between 1997 and 2003.

Ironically, it is mostly used in marriage dissolution cases when a spouse is attempting to gain custody of a child by exposing a former mate's out-of-wedlock living arrangement. Criminal conversation charges have led to big jury rewards for several plaintiffs in divorce proceedings, state law experts say. The anticohabitation laws continue partly because politicians don't want to get involved in a culture battle. The North Dakota House voted 52 to 37 in January 2005 to keep the state's law that bans living together out of wedlock. They also remain because judges usually don't allow arguments on the constitutionality of laws banning cohabitation unless there is proof that a person has experienced real harm - beyond being labeled a criminal in a civil case.

more:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0823/p03s02-ussc.html

[bluestateguy]

1. That will be popular with young people

I want to encourage them to push forward with these efforts.

Well take all of the younger voters over here, thank you.

[RB TexLa]

3. except for the fact that they won't actually go vote

they'll get mad, say they are going to go vote, but in the end most of them don't.

[IsIt1984Yet]

2. Crock of shit. I love the fac that this law is mostly used in marriage

dissolution cases.

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. I think a better approach would be...

If they have children together, they MUST get married. And there can be no divorce until all of the children they have together have reached the age of majority.

If they are not able to get married for whatever reason, they are guilty of a felony. On conviction, their children are removed and turned over to good, Christian foster parents who will indoctrinate them completely to be decent, God fearing Americans while the parents spend 15 years in the state pen (or however long it takes to guarantee that the children haven't been corrupted by their parents.)


(And lest anyone mistake my intent: :sarcasm: :hi: )

[msongs]

5. these laws are state imposed religion of the worst kind -

that everyone should have to live according to the christian terrorists' training manual, the bible.

believe and practice the religion of your choice in your own home and church and otherwise keep it to yourself.

all these hateful laws are unconstitutional.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[pooja]

6. Co-Habitation happens with young people because of a lack of money.

If you are starting out, you have less money.. you either live with a roommate, with mom and pops (killer on a relationship), or your mate. Its a product of financial strains. I would have loved to live independantly of my husband until we married. Believe me 4yrs of picking up after him before gaining the ring was not my idea of being wooed.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. "...grown from 500,000 in 1970 to more than 5 million today..."

I think both those numbers are vast underestimations. When I was in school in '72 I would guess that 1 in 4 couples were living together -- of course it was usually like she still had her dorm room while he had the apartment, but we're talking co-habitation here, not mailing addresses. If I knew 20 co-habitating couples in a tiny school in the midwest I would think that that would extrapolate to far higher numbers than 500,000 nationwide. I don't think I know a half-dozen couples my age who are now married who did not live together before getting married. Co-habitation is the rule, not the exception.

[Warpy]

8. I remember the late 60s like that, too

Cohab was what actually happened. The dorm room was a mail drop to keep the parents in he dark. Some of those couples went on to marry in their mid or late 20s, some didn't marry until their thirties, and some didn't marry each other but did go on to marry later. I seriously doubt it's any different now.

I don't think it was that different in the 50s, either, although one had to be much more meticulous about condoms and do a lot more lying and try to get a dorm room on the ground level to make exits after bed counts eaiser.

You can't legislate morality. The best thing you can do is provid the young specific knowledge that will help them negotiate the development of their own morality and live through the process.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. But it's not co-habiting if you still have a separate place you can live

if you want to. That's just "spending most of your time with them".

If the people you know nearly all end up getting married, rather than continuing to live together without being married, that could explain why the co-habiting numbers remain low.

The numbers come from the 2000 census, rather than being an estimate, I think:

How We Get Our Numbers

We take seriously the accuracy of the information we provide. If you have a question about a source or find data that doesn't match ours, please let us know. For instance, here's why our numbers don't match some other sources about the number of people living with an unmarried partner in the U.S.

* 11 million is the number of people who live with an unmarried partner in the United States, according to the 2000 decennial Census. This number includes members of same-sex and different-sex couples who told the Census they were "unmarried partners," not roommates, in the 2000 decennial Census.
* 5.5 million is the number of unmarried partner households in the United States, according to the 2000 decennial Census. Each household contains a couple; therefore, 11 million people.
* 4.9 million is the number of different-sex unmarried partner households in the United States, according to the 2000 decennial Census. This number excludes same-sex couples.

http://www.unmarried.org/statistics.html#numbers

[Coyote_Bandit]

9. I have often wondered

why the gay rights movement has not also sought rights for all unmarried Americans (gays as well as those who are cohabitating or completely unattached). Many of the issues the groups face are the same - work benefits, the right to make health care decisions and other matters having significant quality of life and financial implications. Granted, the right to legally marry is a separate issue - but many if not most of the remaining issues are similar. There are some folks who never marry and some who choose never to remarry after a divorce. Combined these groups represent the majority of American households. I would think it would be in their collective interests to work together. Also, each of these groups is stigmatized by the Christian right - albeit for different reasons - and some far more viciously than others. In the meantime, I'm not holding my breath for the straight singles to take up this issue. Too many view themselves as outsiders - or their status as temporary.

I'm not diminishing the need for gay rights at all. What I am suggesting is that the issues raised apply to other groups who ought to benefit from many of the same changes and thus should be willing to lend support in seeking those changes.

[beyurslf]

10. Sounds like a good way to circumvent Lawrence v Texas.

Can't outlaw gay sex, so you ban gay marriage and then say we can't live together unless we are married.

[GeorgeGist]

12. wedLOCK...

what a derisive term.