So predictable:

1. Girl agrees to move in with guy to get closer to marriage but keep her options open.  Guy figures he’ll get more sex and save a little $.  The stigma vanished long ago, so why not?
2. Real-life challenges strain relationship, making him slightly less likely to want to marry.
3. Delays in him proposing make her increasingly irritated that he won’t commit, so that makes him much less likely to want to marry her.

The last step repeats until they both hate each other and break up – her deriding his ability to commit and regretting the time she wasted — sometimes years — and him thinking it was good that they lived together first so he could realize how awful she was (“Whew, dodged a bullet there!”).

Here’s another example:

The important part is that Jane has secured the status of public investment while keeping her options entirely open.  If Jane decides that she can do better, she will toss him aside as she has done with so many other men, and find a new man to have sex with. Eventually Jane finds that one of these men is the one she wants to marry, so she pressures him to propose. He could be man #3 in her quest, or man #53. If she chooses man #53 and he doesn’t propose, Jane loudly complains that all men are afraid of commitment. And Jane should know, given her wide experience with men.

Jane then says to any conservative who will listen, which is pretty much every conservative:

Look at cruel Bob. He moved in together with me for free sex, but now I’m afraid he isn’t going to commit. He was just using me!

And the conservative is outraged. Here Jane is following the sacred path to marriage, tirelessly sampling penises (poor Jane sampled 53 just to be thorough) until she finds the one whose owner owes her a marriage vow, and now that she found the one she wants to propose he is ruining the whole thing!

Of course, this is all un-biblical yet rarely challenged in the church.  It is terrible for the man, the woman and any children the union produces.  Abuse is more likely, they are more likely to get divorced even if they do marry and more.

There is a better way: No sex outside of marriage and one man/one woman unions in lifetime commitments.

Also see Global Spike In Cohabitation Is Destabilizing Children’s Lives (Hat tip: Glenn)

Also see The Economics of Sex (Hat tip: Stan).  This seems purely secular, but is deadly accurate from an economic standpoint and is supported by the Christian worldview. Don’t blame the “patriarchy,” blame the dissolution of women collectively keeping standards high.  They chose to compete against each other rather support each other, and they ended up losing.