Rules & Regs & Doing the Right Thing

In a 2007 edition of the New Oxford Review, Dr. A. Patrick Schneider II, who holds boards in family and geriatric medicine and runs a private practice in Lexington, Kentucky, did a statistical analysis of cohabitation in America, based on the findings of a number of academic resources. Here are five conclusions Schneider draws from his studies:

• Relationships are unstable in cohabitation. One-sixth of cohabiting couples stay together for only three years; one in ten survives five or more years.
• Cohabiting women often end up with the responsibilities of marriage—particularly when it comes to caring for children—without the legal protection. Research has also found that cohabiting women contribute more than 70 percent of the relationship's income.
• Cohabitation brings a greater risk of sexually transmitted diseases, because cohabiting men are four times more likely to be unfaithful than husbands.
• Poverty rates are higher among cohabitors. Those who share a home but never marry have 78 percent less wealth than the continuously married.
• Those who suffer most from cohabitation are the children. The poverty rate among children of cohabiting couples is fivefold greater than the rate among children in married-couple households. Children ages 12–17 with cohabiting parents are six times more likely to exhibit emotional and behavioral problems and 122 percent more likely to be expelled from school.

Living together as husband and wife is marriage. Period. Simple as as that. Men who "trick" women are just as evil when they do it without as license as when they obtain a license from the government. I know the government provides certain guarantees to women when they register their marriage with the state, which is really decent, since they tax you according to the registration, but the fact remains that dishonorable behavior is dishonorable behavior.

Men and women have been entering into partnerships since the garden. There was a snake in the garden then, and there are snakes around still today. Women need to choose carefully a partner who is trustworthy. The success and prosperity of the household, the security of the children, the stability and health of the future rely upon the discernment of the people involved--particularly the women.

But the fact remains, the snake in the equation is the person or persons who selfishly pursue their own interests at the expense of others. Christians have not so learned Christ. When we follow Christ, He leads us to love as He loves--holding the other's interests above our own, seeking the blessing and benefit of others at our own expense, forgoing our own pleasure for the benefit of others. When we give ourselves away, sacrificing self, redeeming and lifting up others, we are most like Christ. In so doing, we put ourselves in the optimum position to bring blessing and prosperity to the entire house. Ultimately, our greatest potential for blessing is never found in what we can take from a given situation. It is found in the hand of a loving God who gives every good and perfect gift, freely, from above.

When we love, bless, and live honorably, faithfully with each other, we are most like Him.