born to unmarried mothers.
This includes 70
Cohabitation: Why Not?
by Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D
The Third section of the book, Women, Sex
& the Church: A Case for Catholic
Teaching, called Multiple Partner Fertility:
A Distinctive Problem of the Underclass is
reprinted here:
Many women view living together as a
stepping-stone toward marriage, with the
idea that cohabiting will help them enjoy a
better marriage in the future. This could not
be further from the truth. A recent survey of
the literature on cohabitation concluded,
“No positive contribution of cohabitation to
marriage has ever been found.”40
Not only is cohabitation not good
preparation for marriage, it is not a good
long-run alternative to marriage. Cohabiting
relationships are less stable than marriage,
and this instability creates a whole series of
problems. Demographers have come up with
a new term to describe this situation. They
call it “multiple partner fertility.”41
We can get an idea of the magnitude of this
problem with one statistic: of all unmarried
urban mothers with more than one child,
almost 70 percent exhibit multiple partner
fertility; that is, they have children by more
than one man.42
The children of racial minorities are more
likely to be born to unmarried mothers. In
2005, 37 percent of all U.S. children were
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
percent of African American children, 48
percent of Hispanic children, and 25 percent
of non-Hispanic whites.43
Rather than regale the reader with statistics,
let me tell the story of a hypothetical young
woman named Lucy. Not all of the
outcomes that happen to Lucy happen to
each and every unmarried mother. Lucy’s
story is a composite of the outcomes that are
systematically more likely to happen to
unmarried women, or to cohabiting women,
than to married women. (I have omitted the
hazards associated with drugs and alcohol,
so as not to cloud the marriage issue.)
Telling Lucy’s story illustrates what
multiple partner fertility looks like in the
lives of ordinary people of modest means.
Lucy has graduated from high school, has a
job as a dental assistant, and lives with her
boyfriend, Izzy. Lucy becomes pregnant. It
isn’t entirely clear whether this is an
“accidental” pregnancy. She has been on the
Pill, but she missed one or two. (The failure
rate for the Pill for low-income, cohabitating
women younger than twenty is 48
percent.)44
Lucy is glad to be pregnant. She has always
wanted to be a mother. Izzy isn’t so happy.
He isn’t ready to be a father. Pregnancy was
not part of the deal. He feels cheated. They
quarrel frequently, and he sometimes hits
her. (Domestic violence is more common in
cohabiting couples than in married
couples.)45
As her pregnancy proceeds, Lucy becomes
less and less interested in sex, and Izzy
becomes less and less interested in her. He
has sex with a former girlfriend. (Cohabiting
couples are more likely to have “secondary
sex partners.”)46 He feels entitled, since he
isn’t “getting any” from Lucy, and after all,
she cheated him by becoming pregnant in
the first place. They quarrel some more, and
he moves out for a while. By the time baby
Anna is born, Izzy has moved back in with
Lucy.
Now Lucy isn’t so happy. In fact, she
becomes depressed. (The presence of
children increases a cohabiting woman’s
probability of depression. Children do not
affect a married woman’s probability of
becoming depressed.)47 Izzy is caught up in
the excitement for a while. But the
combination of sleep deprivation, a needy
infant, and a preoccupied and depressed
Lucy are more than Izzy can handle. He
moves out for good when Anna is six
months old. (Cohabiting relationships are
less stable than married relationships.)48 He
never offers to contribute support to the care
of Anna. (Never-married fathers are much
less likely to pay child support than fathers
who were once married to the child’s
mother.)49 Lucy finds that she can’t handle
the demands of her job and the care of her
baby by herself. She goes to court to try to
get Izzy to pay child support.
The court orders him to pay an amount that
is nowhere near enough for Anna’s needs.
He does not have a very good job, so Lucy
seldom collects even the small amount the
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
court has ordered. (Cohabiting men earn half
the income of married men.)50 In the
meantime, Izzy does not feel like working at
a normal job with a normal payroll, since his
wages are garnished for Anna’s care. He
works under the table at informal jobs,
keeping for himself the little income he
makes.
Lucy moves back in with her mother.
Everything goes smoothly until Lucy
becomes lonely. She becomes involved with
Tom, who has a decent job and thinks Lucy
is pretty and the baby is cute. Lucy leaves
her mom and moves in with Tom.
Lucy becomes pregnant again. Tom
becomes less and less tolerant of Anna, who
is a toddler by this time, but Tom is very
happy when their new baby is a boy. Of
course, baby John takes much time and
energy from both Anna and Tom. Anna feels
neglected, cries a lot, and misbehaves.
Lucy is exhausted. Tom helps her with the
new baby, but he is not interested in Anna.
Both parents begin to show a preference for
little John. (Men spend less time with their
partners’ children than with their own
biological children. The presence of a
stepfather decreases the time a mother
spends with her children.)51 Anna’s
behavior deteriorates. Lucy and Tom quarrel
about Anna’s poor behavior.
One night, Lucy takes baby John and Anna
and slips out. She goes back to her mother.
Tom is furious. He wants her back, and he
wants his son back. Lucy refuses. She gets a
court order for child support; he gets a court
order for visitation rights. He is trying to be
a good father, as he understands it. His visits
with his son are anguished. The little boy
doesn’t understand what is happening. He
wants to go home with his daddy. (Parental
divorce increases a boy’s probability of
depression, regardless of the quality of
parenting. Nothing seems to compensate for
the sense of sadness that boys experience at
the loss of their fathers from the home.)52
Meanwhile, Lucy finds a new boyfriend,
Joe. She, Anna, and Johnny move in with
him. You guessed it: she gets pregnant
again. The new boyfriend does not like little
John, the reminder of Lucy’s past
relationship with Tom. One day while Lucy
is at work, Joe slaps John. Lucy asks him
how Joe got a bruise on his thigh. Joe says
he fell. Lucy wants to believe him. The
second time she comes home to find a new
bruise on Johnny, Joe admits that he slapped
him. (Children are more likely to be abused
by their mother’s boyfriend than by anyone
else.)53 According to one study, children
living in a household with an unrelated adult
are fifty times more likely to die of inflicted
injuries than children living with two
biological parents.54
At the same time, Anna’s behavior is
deteriorating. She hasn’t seen her own father
since infancy. Neither Tom nor Joe has been
very interested in Anna. (Children in
cohabiting stepparent households are more
likely to feel sad and lonely, and have
poorer self-control.)55
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
By this time Anna is in first grade, and she
frequently misbehaves in school. Lucy gets
a call from the principal, Mr. Knowles. He
tells Lucy that he is concerned about Anna.
Mr. Knowles thinks Anna needs a father
figure, and would benefit from counseling.
(Fatherless girls become sexually active
earlier than girls who are with their
fathers.)56 They also get their periods
earlier.57
Lucy gets angry and says there is nothing
wrong with her daughter. Her boyfriend Joe
is a perfectly fine father figure. In her heart,
though, she knows all is not well with Anna.
The girl still wets the bed almost every
night. Joe complains about the odor, and
makes fun of her. Lucy can’t really stand up
to him. She doesn’t want to lose him, and
she needs his income.
Little Anna is on course for abusing drugs
and alcohol, for teen pregnancy, and for a
lifetime of multiple partner fertility
herself.58 Little Johnny is at a higher risk
for violence, delinquency, and drug use.59 If
Lucy had married one of those men and
stuck with him, her life chances and those of
her children would be greatly enhanced.
Some of her children might have had the
problems associated with stepfamilies, but at
least the subsequent children would have the
benefit of both parents married to each
other. Without marriage, the fathers of
Lucy’s children are unlikely to contribute
much, if anything, to the care of their
children.
One might object that some of these All resources can be found in the book,
problems are associated with teen pregnancy Women, Sex & the Church: A Case for
and poverty. That is partly true. But the Catholic Teaching.
deeper truth is that channeling sexual
behavior and childbearing through marriage Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is an
creates wealth rather than dissipates it. Men economist and the Founder and President of
behave differently when they marry, and the Ruth Institute, a nonprofit educational
especially when they become married organization devoted to bringing hope and
fathers.60 encouragement for lifelong married love.
She is also the author of Love and
One might also object that Lucy’s case of Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a
switching from partner to partner is extreme Village and Smart Sex: Finding Life-Long
and atypical. But once we jettison Love in a Hook-Up World.
permanence and exclusivity as serious social
norms, we are on weak ground in trying to
say that Lucy shouldn’t have ditched her
boyfriends quite so casually. If a husband is
an unnecessary accessory to childbearing,
why isn’t it okay to have multiple children,
each with different fathers? If one divorce
without cause is acceptable, why aren’t
multiple divorces? In other words, once
we’ve discarded Catholic principles,
alternative principles are not so obvious.

One might object that women of higher

income and education will not face as many
and as serious problems as Lucy. Perhaps a
more highly educated, wealthier woman
could cohabit, raise children, and do just
fine.

In some cases, this may prove to be correct.

After all, wealthier people have more
resources to face all kinds of life challenges
than those of lower income. Indeed, every
problem of the poor is exacerbated by the
failure of marriage.

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.