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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Just curious as it came up in conversation the other day. My rather liberal mother is staunch on one rule in life - never live with someone until you are married. Her reasonings are that classic "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" idiom and that it just makes things 10x more difficult if things go south.

I understand those points of views but think it's a good idea to live with each other before marriage because understanding whether you can live well together is a BIG part of having a successful marriage. I would perhaps open up her rule to "never live with someone until you're engaged (or soon to be engaged)." Or I would say that living together (in a rental situation) before marriage is fine, but you shouldn't buy property together yet.

What are your opinions? [/quote]

I think living together without getting married for a woman is the worst of both worlds.  You get all the duties of married life without its perks. And you get all the annoyances of single life without its joys.

Whether you can live together depends very much on your commitment, more so than on actual compatibility.  [/quote]

Huh?  You are presumably splitting rent and utilities 50/50 and you divide the housework, cooking and errands between each other.  My boyfriend (now dh) and I both worked fairly long hours at the time and we learned to divide and conquer household tasks early on - together.  As a bonus, we didn't have to deal with other roommates and their guests.[/quote]

Yes, presumably, but you can do all that when you're married. There is nothing very special about it.  And you may not have to deal with other roommates and their guests, but you certainly became less free in the choice of your own guests.

It's not about housework even.  You are taking on the obligations of a married woman without getting very much for it.  The principal perk of single life is freedom, space and no need for monogamy. You lose this when you marry in exchange for commitment.  When you live together, you lose all this but don't get the perks of marriage in exchange.  That's my view.  I think living together is the culmination of the relationship, not the next step.  Well, before children, that is. It's a pretty big thing to merge your daily life with someone. 
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