SAC-Wk122 — Is Cohabiting called Marriage?

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For where???
co-habitation is simply what the word sounds like “co- people come together, habitation- to live in the same environment or place.

Marriage on the other hand is deeper. It is a spiritual covenant, the coming together of two people to essentially become one. This is the important difference in these two terms, in co habitation, they are still two different people who just decided to live under the same roof - this could be for many reasons, but with marriage, there is a joining, a fusion that goes beyond the physical. Beyond the dowries paid, and farewell bid them by families, two individuals decide to join their lives together, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, financially, to become one. This is the essential ingredient missing in cohabitation.

If someone lives with a woman and bears children without paying her bride price, do we say they are couples or married

• What exactly is marriage??
  Since children are involved that means they’ve had sex.

What does the word marriage mean in its original form??

The word marriage is derived from the Latin word “maritare” which means to “join, unite” Source
because essentially this joining was meant to bring about children and continue a family lineage, so Marriage happens when two individuals, get to know themselves in the most intimate way possible- that’s sex. Their blood, fluids and spirit have mingled and become one. At this point they’ve shared and merged.
I understand that for context and due process, they should go see the parents of the girl and pay a dowry and all that before they mate. We may say they aren’t legally or traditionally married because of customs that need be done, but in God’s eyes, they are married- Sex (the joining, mating, is what marries them.)

What's your view on cohabiting? Is it a short cut to getting married?

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Some say It affords the opportunity to better know the “character” of the person you’ll end up spending your life with. Others say, sexual compatibility issues, split bills and a lot of reasons here and there. These are but sentiments. I’ll draw my conclusion from a recent statistics ran by someone I know of. So he made an anonymous poll with questions on if cohabition was good and if it led to marriage, pros and cons and he had specifically asked that people who had co-habited before answer the questions. Since it was an anonymous survey, no one would know who was who. Results came back after running it through rigorous tests,and 85% of participants said they regretted their decision to cohabit. Some said they would have gotten married if not that they cohabited and that some of the issues they faced that split their relationship, they would have been willing to work on and fix if they were already married. So NO, co-habitation isn’t a shortcut to marriage. It is a misuse of a person’s supposed freedom to do anything they want and we all know from life experiences that this kind of freedom is disastrous and brings heavy consequences.

Are there advantages or disadvantages of cohabiting?

Advantages are ;

1. You’ll get to know your partner better.- sexual compactibility, etc.

2. Split bills: since we’re getting married soon, why pay for two houses, electricity bills, groceries etc when we can just live together and share the bills for one.

Disadvantages:

1. There is Lack of clear commitment:
   A partner can decide to back down from the relationship after a while: What happens then??
   If there are kids involved, whose are they? This is just a messy place to be for a growing adult.

2. There is uncertainty about their future.

3. This is a very weak and easy exit for any of the partners.

4. It brings shame to the woman and her family most especially as she’ll been seen as a cheap thing within community.
   There’s a saying that the world favours men. This I’ve found out to be true when it relates to issues like cohabitation. There is dignity in having a man follow due processes if he wants to marry you.

5. Unlike marriage, cohabition provides little to no legal protection. Nothing like rights to shared property, and no spouse rights in cases of emergency. Often times the woman suffers more here!

6. Cohabitation takes away the urgency to get married. There’s a saying that “ Why pay the price when you can enjoy the benefits for free?”

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Is it good to sexually test the person you want to marry before considering to marry them? What's your viewpoint?

I have heard of cultures where the more children a woman has as an outside wedlock, the more eligible she is to be a good spouse. I’ve also heard of cultures that abhor this.
Sex wasn’t made for testing, it’s not a pre sale marketing strategy, it is a deep and sacred thing that must be respected because it has the power to bind two individuals to each other in the sight of God and spirits- that alone should be a scary thought for anyone who wants to venture into it.

Whatever the pros or cons may be, Cohabitation weakens a persons ability to say No. You can get to know a person without cohabiting with them, because break ups are not caused by the lack of cohabition, they’re cause when there’s immaturity, inability of partners to properly communicate and bitterness from unresolved issues??
Clarity on what a person needs always beat proximity. Commitment always tramps convenience, let’s not get started on financial talks- if he’s not yet your husband, he doesn’t owe you squat, he’s not your father.

I invite my friends @nazomimatute1998 @blessedlife @radjasalman to participate here!!