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Reasons for cohabitation
Today, cohabitation is a common pattern among people in the Western world. More than two-thirds of married couples in the US admit to living together before getting married. This is a far cry from a few decades ago. Before 1970, cohabitation was illegal in the United States. Nowadays, it is seen as a normal step in the dating process. People may live together for a number of reasons. Cohabitants could live together in order to save money, because of the convenience of living with another, or a need to find housing. Today sixty percent of all marriages are preceded by a period of cohabitation. Researchers suggest that couples live together as a way of trying out marriage to test compatibility with their partners, while still having the option of ending the relationship without legal implications. Couples who have plans to marry before moving in together or who are engaged before cohabiting typically marry within two years of living together.

Cohabitation can be an alternative to marriage in situations where marriage is not able to happen for financial or other reasons, such as same-sex, some interracial or interreligious marriages. Other reasons might include cohabitation as a way for polygamists or polyamorists to avoid breaking the law, a way to avoid the higher income taxes paid by some two-income married couples (in the United States), negative effects on pension payments (among older people), or philosophical opposition to the institution of marriage (that is, seeing little difference between the commitment to live together and the commitment to marriage).

Cohabitation, sometimes called de facto marriage, is becoming more commonly known as a substitute for conventional marriage. In some states which recognize it, cohabitation can be viewed legally as common-law marriages, either after the duration of a specified period, or if the couple consider and behave accordingly as husband and wife. (This helps provide the surviving partner a legal basis for inheriting the deceased's belongings in the event of the death of their cohabiting partner). In today's cohabiting relationships, forty percent of households include children, giving us an idea of how cohabitation could be considered a new normative type of family dynamic.