Cohabitation Nation

More Cohabitation-Related Media | Posted 7:28 PM

Financial issues:
Dayana Yochim 's column [Fool.com]

More finances:
Exclusionary costs: Legal marriage could ease gay couples' financial inequities [Boston Globe]

A potential barrier to cohabitation I hadn't thought of:
Research, seminars can cure shy-bladder phobia [Boston Globe]

Media Roundup | Posted 8:32 PM

Non-Traditional Families More Common [Associated Press]

A First at Bride's Magazine: A Report on Same-Sex Unions [NYT]

Vatican Seeks to Stop OKs for Gay Unions [AP]

Should clergy endorse cohabitation? | Posted 9:47 AM

Rabbi Gerald L. Zelizer writes in USA Today:

Cohabitation is here to stay and on the increase, whether we like it or not.

Clergy members, therefore, should move beyond the moral condemnation of cohabitation to more practical approaches. We should encourage those who choose cohabitation to restrict their relationship to someone they intend to marry. That will maximize their chance for an eventual, successful marriage.

At the same time, clergy members should build on the many existing programs in churches and synagogues designed to deepen the stability of marriage. This would allow us to adjust to the reality of cohabitation before marriage in a manner that will fortify fidelity and stability in marriage.

Marriage promotion billboards? | Posted 11:31 PM

Speaking of both advertising and marriage promotion, I've been wondering what, if any, of the $300 million in marriage promotion dollars will be used for billboards. Billboards have long been used in various was to advocate abstinence (one interesting example here), and it seems a marriage campaign isn't out of the question.

Curious, my google searches for billboards, marriage, etc. turned up some disturbing results. I'll resist commenting on this article, and instead turn your attention to this one:

Also taking advantage of the outdoor advertising phenomenon is divorce attorney Paul Wailer, who after years of struggling just to keep his Lackawanna office open now has a team of ten full time lawyers with months of back logged cases. "It's been the most incredible thing," says Wailer. "Within a few days of my billboard going up on the 190 South the phone was ringing off the hook."

Katrina Clossen, from Orchard Park is a 29yr old mother of one says Wailer's billboard was instrumental in ending her 6year marriage. "You know," said a smiling Clossen, "the idea of divorce was always in the back of my mind I suppose, but it was seeing those big white letters on the billboard spelling out "DIVORCE" everyday on my way home from work that really motivated me to do something. It was a reminder that I didn't have to put up with that bastard who was going to start bitching at me the second I walked through the door about his dinner or some other shit. I called Wailer and found out I was entitled to everything, including my husband's dignity. It was amazing. I got the house, the cars, half his salary, half his pension- everything except his golf clubs, but even that has a silver lining because he's so broke he can't afford green fees. The one thing I'm not so thrilled about is that my daughter has to spend every other weekend in his trailer park and has to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag. The upside is that it affords me the chance to party and pursue other men. Right now I'm transitioning out of my Latino phase and think I'm going to go into a boy band phase, but I'm not really sure."

Postscript: The site is actually an Onion takeoff. Other news includes "A French Foreign Aid Worker Gave Me the Crabs" and "Area Feminist Won't be Burning Anymore Bras."

Ad creep | Posted 7:35 PM

Back in the summer '95, I got LS reading Adbusters, which along with the nascent and upwardly-mobile Wired magazine that LS introduced me to, provided ample fodder for conversation during our lunch hour. One subject for lively debate was the frequently cited stat by Adbusters that the average American is exposed to 3000 advertisements a day. The debate centered on whether if one saw the golden arches, or the Nike swish on a shoe, was that an advertisement or simply a logo, and were such images included in the count.

Neither of us could have predicted, I think, although in retrospect it was obvious (in the way that most things are obvious in retrospect), the proliferation of ads on the Internet, surely boosting our daily ad count to far beyond 3,000. I do my part to reduce your ad count by dutifully paying my $5 per month to blogspot for ad free living, but it appears ads are creeping into the archive pages of Cohabitation Nation. An accident? A conspiracy? Only time will tell, as even the disappearing archives came back eventually. If you know a fix, drop me a line.

Abstinence education for the divorced | Posted 10:49 PM

Thanks to $200 million in marriage promotion money coming states' way [Read more in this AP article, or our response], Texas is eager to put your federal tax dollars to work promoting marriage "abstinence for all unmarried persons, including abstinence for persons who have previously been married."

The relevant section of the Texas legislation is below, or check it out for yourself by going to the state's website; clicking "Quick Bill Status"; selecting "78th Regular Session"; and typing in "HB2292" and flipping to pages 195-196. According to Tim Casey, of the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, "The legislation instructs the welfare department to develop rules for the program. It is not clear whether those rules will sanction recipients who fail to abstain from sex."

Sec.A31.015. HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM.

(a) Subject to available federal funding, the department shall develop and implement a healthy marriage development program for recipients of financial assistance under this chapter.

(b) The healthy marriage development program shall promote and provide three instructional courses on the following topics:

(1) premarital counseling for engaged couples and marriage counseling for married couples that includes skill development for:

(A) anger resolution;
(B) family violence prevention;
(C) communication;
(D) honoring your spouse; and
(E) managing a budget;

(2) physical fitness and active lifestyles and nutrition and cooking, including:

(A) abstinence for all unmarried persons, including abstinence for persons who have previously been married; and

(B) nutrition on a budget; and

(3) parenting skills, including parenting skills for character development, academic success, and stepchildren.

(c) The department shall provide to a recipient of financial assistance under this chapter additional financial assistance of not more than $20 for the recipient’s participation in a course offered through the healthy marriage development program up to a maximum payment of $60 a month.

(d) The department may provide the courses or may contract with any person, including a community or faith-based organization, for the provision of the courses. The department must provide all
participants with an option of attending courses in a non-faith-based organization.

(e) The department shall develop rules as necessary for the administration of the healthy marriage development program.

(f) The department must ensure that the courses provided by the department and courses provided through contracts with other organizations will be sensitive to the needs of individuals from different religions, races, and genders.

What's particularly unfortunate about this is that many of the above topics -- communication, violence prevention, parenting skills, heck, even "nutrition on a budget" -- are perfectly reasonable. And they're even willing to account for diversity in terms of religion, race, and gender. So why the need to insist on teaching abstinence for the unmarried? And what exactly will "honoring your spouse" look like in the classrooms of rural Texas?

Celebrating Freedom | Posted 9:59 AM

Devoted Cohabitation Nation fans have asked why I haven't provided commentary on the latest string of events. I'm so busy trying to keep up with the news myself that blogging has fallen behind. First Ontario legalizes same sex-marriage; then the Supreme Court delivers good news in Lawrence v. Texas; then the nation's largest private employer says it won't discriminate; and now the media is abuzz with daily commentary on the cultural changes that underway. My gosh! What could be next? Abolishing legal marriage altogether?

If you read nothing else, though, I recommend Wednesday's Wall Street Journal article on the World Wife Carrying Championship. Available online only to WSJ subscribers, you can at least get a sense of what it's all about here and here. I think I'll give it a try this holiday weekend-- a little domestic partner carrying, if Dorian is game.

Screening in... | Posted 11:39 PM

One of the problems with this information age society is that it allows people to gather information that they don't need. A case in point is caller ID, which is a useful device, I suppose, for screening out telemarketers and for being able to know who is on the other end of the line two seconds before they tell you who they are.

What I'm finding amusing of late is the use of caller ID not as a device to screen people out (i.e. not answer the phone if you don't recongize the number), but to screen pepole in. There are some who once they see a phone number of a friend or a relative on their caller ID box, but no voicemail message, they nearly die of curiousity until they've had the chance to call back, all the while itching with the question: "Why did you call?"

Today, I encountered an entirely new and troubling version of this. I misdialed a number I call frequently (messing up the area code -- a problem in ten digit dialing cities like New York and Boston when you intend to dial 646-XXX-XXXX and I actually dial 212-XXX-XXXX.) First I received a call back from a man, with a series of questions for me, "Who are you? Why did you call my cell phone? Etc." I responded by saying that if there was no message, no need to call back. Apparently, this was not satisfactory, as 20 minutes later a woman (his wife? domestic partner? mother?) calls back, asking the same questions. "It was a wrong number," I pleaded. "Don't call again," she said. "I'll try, I really didn't mean to," I said again. "Wrong numbers happen sometimes."

Add this to the list of topics for any couple considering cohabitation should discuss: whether or not you'll block caller ID on your household phone. And, more importantly, if you have caller ID, whether or not your partner screens out, or screens in.