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Is it so wrong to "live together"?

Never have I received such a torrent of angry mail as I did over a column I wrote last winter about living together. I received more than 1,300 letters, mostly upset about the advice I gave a young woman. I told her it would be OK to move in with her boyfriend, but only after establishing that the relationship was stable and happy, and after serious consideration about her ability to be independent from her disapproving mother. (Article, February 2, 2003)

Is that true? Is it possible I led this couple into a doomed relationship? I know many couples who continue to be happily married long after their living-together days. Are they more the exception than the rule?

A recent Penn State University study found that cohabiting before marriage is, in fact, linked to higher rates of separation and divorce. Why? Research psychologist Catherine Cohan, a co-author of the study, says the data suggest it has a lot to do with the easy-out situation cohabitation provides, as well as with the type of people who choose to live together before marriage. "Evidence indicates that people who live together have more liberal attitudes toward divorce, are less religious and lead unconventional lifestyles," she says. Often, people who choose to live together do so for convenience, not love. Living together is so strongly associated with divorce, Cohan says, that "if you take two identical twins, with all things being equal, the twin that lived together before marriage is twice as likely to get divorced as the other twin."

But Dorian Solot, co-author of "Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential Guide to Living Together as an Unmarried Couple," doesn't buy it. Her extensive research with couples indicates that live-ins aren't more likely to lose out. "As long as they take the time to really get to know each other and get on the same page when it comes to long-term goals, they've got as good a chance as a couple who hasn't lived together," she says.

Cohan agrees there's more to this debate. She notes that an upcoming study indicates that living together first does not doom a marriage -- if a couple is engaged when they cohabit.

Sounds good to me. The decision to move in together should be based on love and real commitment. If the goal is marriage, then getting engaged is a strong statement of that shared commitment. I do stand slightly corrected, but I also stand by my original advice: It's common sense and common goals, not cows and milk (as in "Men who get the milk free don't buy the cow," a comment in the original reader's question), that matters.