Sexual Ethics: A Theological Introduction

CHAPTER 4. Cohabitation and the Process of Marrying

123 CHAPTER 4 l Cohabitation and the Process of Marrying Emmanuel Ntakarutimana expresses the Central African experience of marrying in the following words.“Where Western tradition pre­ sents marriage as a point in time at which consent is exchanged between the couple in front of witnesses approved by law, followed by consum­ mation, the tradition here recognizes the consummation of a marriage with the birth of the first child. To that point the marriage was only being progressively realized.”1 Four years of field experience in EastAfrica taught us the same thing.We offer three points of clarification.First,the Western tradition to which Ntakarutimana refers is the Western tradi­ tion of only the past four hundred years; it goes back neither to Jesus nor to the New Testament. Second, in the received Western tradition, as in the African traditions, becoming validly and indissolubly married is a process, which begins with the exchange of consent and ends with subsequent consummation. Third, two ongoing questions arise: What are we to make of the differences between the Catholic,Western tradition of marrying and other cultural traditions,and how long can the Catholic Church continue to insist that the historically recent Western tradition is the universal tradition for all? This chapter reflects on these points. In it we try, in Kevin Kelly’s words,to make“faith-sense of experience and experience-sense of faith.”2 That is,we come to the contemporary experience of cohabitation with a Cohabitation and the Process of Marrying 124 Catholic faith,and we attempt to bring that faith into conversation with the experience of cohabitation and how that experience affects the lives of cohabiting couples. We engage in this exercise conscious of the fact that human experience is a long-established source for Catholic moral judgments. This chapter is specifically about the process of becoming married in the living Catholic tradition of past and future. As it reflects on the history of marriage in the West, it necessarily uncovers two facts about the phenomenon contemporary society calls cohabitation. First, cohabitation is nothing new in either the Western or the Catholic tradi­ tion; second, as practiced both in the past and in the present, Western cohabitation is not unlike theAfrican marriage of which Ntakarutimana writes. The chapter develops in three cumulative sections. The first sec­ tion considers the contemporary phenomenon of cohabitation; the sec­ ond unfolds the Western and Christian historical tradition as it relates to cohabitation and marriage; the third formulates a moral response to this phenomenon in light of theological reflection and our foundational sexual ethical principle. Before embarking on this exploration, however, it is important to define precisely what is meant by the term cohabitation.The word derives from the Latin cohabitare, to live together. It applies literally to all situ­ ations where one person lives with another person: marriage, family, students in a dormitory,roommates in an apartment.An added specifica­ tion is necessary to distinguish the meaning of the word in contemporary usage and,therefore,in this chapter.Cohabitation names the situation of a man and a woman who, though not husband and wife, live together as husband and wife and enjoy intimate sexual relations.We offer a typology that distinguishes two types of cohabitation in relationship to marriage. The cohabitation of couples already firmly committed to marry we call nuptial cohabitation; all other cohabitations we call nonnuptial cohabita­ tion,because there is as yet no conscious intention to marry.Since some reviewers, including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, have misrepresented our position in an earlier book as promoting all cohabitation and all premarital sex, it is important to be clear from the outset that everything we say about cohabitation in this chapter is said 125 Cohabitation in the Contemporary West specifically and only of nuptial cohabitation and cohabitors,that is,those who are already committed to marry each other.3 Cohabitation in the Contemporary West: What the Sciences Tell Us The sharp increase in cohabitation is one of the most fundamental social changes inWestern countries today.Over half of all first marriages in the United States are preceded by cohabitation.4 Studies find a similar trend in Europe, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Germany, Canada, and Australia.5 Two social-scientific facts about cohabitation are frequently mentioned by Catholic theolo­ gians. The first is that unmarried heterosexual cohabitation increased dramatically in the United States...