I’ve always been against the practice of living together before marriage and for the wonderful commitment between a couple in getting married. However, even though I disagree with a guy and gal living together before marriage I still understand why some people think it’s okay. There are many reasons why I disagree and of course among them is the Biblical teaching on the sanctity of marriage. However, I must admit (to my chagrin) that the Bible just doesn’t carry the initial influence that it once had in society (gasp!) and frankly a “religious” argument just doesn’t have any impact on “reasoning” with people that it once had. That doesn’t make the Biblical teaching invalid or worthless – it just means that I can’t make the assumption that quoting scripture is going to convince people that living together is not a good idea or is even living in… (whispers conspiratorily) sin!

Another problem with talking about living together before marriage is that (for the most part) we preachers (and many others who disagree with it!) approach the whole subject from a negative direction rather than positive. In other words, we spend more time talking about why living together before marriage is bad instead of emphasizing why getting married first is good. Anyway, I said all that to introduce this article I came across in my reading that is a good approach on the subject. In it Dennis Prager briefly outlines five good non-religious arguments for why marriage is better than living together. Some very wise words are written in this article and I’ll definitely add this to my file of articles I’ll give couples that I counsel in the future!