Marriage and Cohabitation
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study Mindanao State University is a melting pot of diverse culture coming from different regions. Different people with different culture and tradition interact and socialize in the campus. Students studying in the university are Muslims and non-Muslims. Many of the non-Muslims studying here came from different places in Mindanao. Most students here engages to relationships with the opposite sex because having a boyfriend or girlfriend gives them inspiration and motivation in studying. Having a partner is very common to non-Muslim students because they are far away from their homes and their parents will not know that they have boyfriends or girlfriends here. We can observe nowadays in this campus that many students with opposite sex partners are living together in boarding houses. As the researcher first enter in this university, he also observed that it is normal or not new to every student who studies here to see partners living together. “Live-in partners” are very common in this campus. We all know that if the parents will know their son or daughter engage with this, they will not agree or be insulted. We can call this as cohabitation. Cohabitation is an emotional and physical intimate relationship which includes a common living place and which exists without legal or religious sanction. Living in together will sometimes ruin the studies of the students in a way that they start to engage in sexual intercourse and sometimes result to having an unexpected baby. This will lead to both partners to stop going to school. In the mid-1960s, only five per cent of single women lived with a man before getting married. By the 1990s, about 70 per cent did so. Some people think that living together will lead automatically to marriage, but that often is not the case. Much cohabitation breaks up. For many other couples, cohabitation is viewed as an alternative to marriage rather than a preparation for it. However, this
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study Mindanao State University is a melting pot of diverse culture coming from different regions. Different people with different culture and tradition interact and socialize in the campus. Students studying in the university are Muslims and non-Muslims. Many of the non-Muslims studying here came from different places in Mindanao. Most students here engages to relationships with the opposite sex because having a boyfriend or girlfriend gives them inspiration and motivation in studying. Having a partner is very common to non-Muslim students because they are far away from their homes and their parents will not know that they have boyfriends or girlfriends here. We can observe nowadays in this campus that many students with opposite sex partners are living together in boarding houses. As the researcher first enter in this university, he also observed that it is normal or not new to every student who studies here to see partners living together. “Live-in partners” are very common in this campus. We all know that if the parents will know their son or daughter engage with this, they will not agree or be insulted. We can call this as cohabitation. Cohabitation is an emotional and physical intimate relationship which includes a common living place and which exists without legal or religious sanction. Living in together will sometimes ruin the studies of the students in a way that they start to engage in sexual intercourse and sometimes result to having an unexpected baby. This will lead to both partners to stop going to school. In the mid-1960s, only five per cent of single women lived with a man before getting married. By the 1990s, about 70 per cent did so. Some people think that living together will lead automatically to marriage, but that often is not the case. Much cohabitation breaks up. For many other couples, cohabitation is viewed as an alternative to marriage rather than a preparation for it. However, this
References: Gelles, R.J., & Levine, A. (1999). Sociology An Introduction, 6th ed. USA: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Ritzer, George and Goodman, Douglas J Simporios, Louiseville. (2011). Cohabitation among MSU Students Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis. Department of Psychology, College of Social Sciences and Humanities, MSU-Main Campus, Marawi City. Online Sources