问答题
Passage Five
Premarital cohabitation is becoming a way of life for more and more people in American society. While some argue that the phenomenon may be a good things, sociologists Alan Booth and David R.Johnson of the University of Nebraska reject the idea, based on a nationwide study of 1 872 married persons, 16% of whom reported cohabiting before marriage. Instead, they say, it leads to lower levels of marital interaction and higher levels of marital disagreement and instability.
One factor the researchers found that helps to explain the relation between cohabitation and lower marital quality is that some of those who live together already are poor marriage risks. Booth and Johnson report that those who cohabit are more likely to have drug, alcohol, and personality problems; and inability to handle money; and a history of unemployment and being in trouble with the law.
In a further analysis, they found that cohabitation itself created difficulties for the subsequent marriage. Living together caused problems with parents and in-laws, a number of couples reported. Other respondents explained that unwanted children were another problem-causing factor that carried forward into their marriages.
"The combination of being poor marriage material and the problems created by cohabitation itself account for the negative relation between living together before marriage and lower marital quality. Of the two, being poor marriage material and the risk factors that contribute to such a state are more significant. People whose cohabitation is trouble-free and who are good marriage material -- don’t use drugs or have personality problems, are able to hold a job, and so on -- have marriages that are of the same quality as those who do not cohabit."