Introduction

Slovakia (as well as other post-communist states) has experienced dynamic changes in family behavior since 1989, which is also reflected in the diversity of family forms. The dominant type of so-called nuclear family, consisting of two (married) parents and a child/children, is being expanded in the process of family behavior changes by such forms as, for example, a family consisting of one adult person or informal partner couples. The reality is that the type of nuclear (marital) family is increasingly being replaced by other types of family or partner cohabitation. It is evident that other types of households are gaining greater legitimacy and importance, ranging from various types of non-marital cohabitation through programmed life outside family ties or marriage, to cohabitation of homosexuals and lesbian families with an adoptive child. As Možný (2006, p. 191) states, the cultural pressure on one specific, universally binding model of family has weakened. Various solutions are being sought, and different people make different decisions according to their natural preferences, and because starting a family requires two people, negotiation about the family model toward which the couple is headed increasingly becomes part of partner selection.

The social institution of the family is undergoing changes in today's individualized society: it is changing its form and structure, acquiring new functions, changes are found in the area of demographic processes, parental roles, family relationships... In the process of change, an important role is played by social policy directed toward families and other new socio-political conditions that have created space for the diversification of family forms, including the increase in non-marital cohabitations as one of the typical current trends in family behavior.

Cohabitation as a Phenomenon of Contemporary Family Life

Cohabitation represents a form of cohabitation of two adult partners of different sexes who live together as a man and a woman over a longer period of time, share a household and jointly manage their finances without being married. Children of one or both partners may also live in such a union (Mládek – Širočková, 2004). According to Lehotská (2012), the presence of children is increasingly assumed, whether they are born into the cohabitation or come from another relationship or marital union of a biological parent. In many cases, children may be part of the motivation for cohabitants to enter into marriage. Despite the fact that there is no universally used definition, there are criteria according to which the cohabitation of two persons of opposite sex can be considered cohabitation. Trost (1979) mentions the following: 1. shared sexual life, 2. sharing a household or apartment, 3. shared economy.

Informal partner unions – cohabitations – have expanded massively over the past decades in most post-industrial states and have become a common form of partner cohabitation. The explanatory reasons are various. Mládek and Širočková (2004) consider the increasing educational level of the female population, higher female employment which ensures greater economic independence, and the high effectiveness of applied contraceptive methods together with the liberalization of abortion laws as significant factors in the expansion of the number and intensity of cohabitations. Smock and Gupta (2002, In Lehotská, 2012) generalize that changes have occurred at the cultural level, i.e., greater emphasis on individualism, decreased religiosity, and changes have also occurred at the economic level, i.e., better position of women in the labor market and their greater economic independence. According to Rabušic (2001), the cause of the spread of non-marital cohabitation may be a change in the traditional pattern of how to find oneself in a marital union. Rabušic presents the traditional pattern as follows: love – dating – wedding – regular sex – children. And it is precisely the phase between dating and wedding that non-marital cohabitation replaces. Možný (2006) leans toward the view that non-marital cohabitations arose as a consequence of the transformation of social norms. Their consequence is the postponement of marriage to a later age, and until then, partner life is lived predominantly in cohabitation, which partially replaces marriage. The author claims that even though non-marital cohabitation is highly tolerated and considered an alternative to marriage, this does not yet mean that it speaks to the future personal choice of young people.

Several authors (e.g., Tydlitátová, 2011; Možný, 2006) state that cohabitations, i.e., cohabitation of opposite-sex partners without entering into a marital union, are not a new phenomenon. To a limited extent, they occurred already in the distant past, but due to conservative public opinion, religious rejection, and economic disadvantage compared to marriage, they were not very widespread. The turning point occurred during the 1960s, while in Slovakia the situation began to move in a similar direction for political reasons only about 20 years later, after the fall of the communist regime. According to Možný (2006, p. 257), trial marriage was not unusual; at the beginning of the 1980s, about a third of engaged couples already lived together before marriage. However, the average non-marital cohabitation most often lasted about a year and led to marriage. It was more common in large cities, and the more frequent and longer it was, the lower the socioeconomic status of the couple. It is therefore indisputable that the number of couples living in non-marital cohabitation is increasing and the nature of its character is gradually changing. Even in the generation of mothers of today's young people, a strong traditional notion prevailed that if a woman becomes pregnant, the birth of the child is legitimized by marriage. More than nine out of ten children were born in marriage; fully half of first-born children were born within eight months after the wedding, i.e., they were conceived while unmarried. Since the early 1990s, the need to legitimize the conception of a child through marriage has weakened, as evidenced by the fact that the proportion of pregnant brides has gradually decreased. This fact also confirms that non-marital cohabitation is generally accepted by public opinion.

The proportion of children born outside marriage also tells us about the extent of non-marital cohabitations. This has been rising continuously and without interruption since 1989. While in the period immediately after the revolution this indicator was just under 10%, in 1991 it was 19.7%, and in 2009 the value already exceeded 31%. Compared to Western European countries, this proportion is relatively low. The highest values of this indicator are achieved by Northern European countries (Denmark 44.6%, Norway 49.3%, Sweden 55.3%) (Tydlitátová, 2011).

From the multitude of classifications and types of cohabitations, the authors Mládek – Širočková (2004, p. 426) identified two main types: I. Premarital cohabitations as forms of partnership in which the partners have agreed to cohabitation and, with a certain probability, their relationship will be formalized by entering into marriage. According to the intensity and development of partner relationships, the authors distinguish two subtypes: cohabitation as a testing partnership ("trial marriage"), cohabitation as a pre-stage of marriage, where stronger bonds and conviction about a future shared marriage are characteristic. II. Cohabitations – long-term purposeful cohabitations in which the partners share a household and have no intention of formalizing their relationship by entering into marriage; they have consciously renounced formalizing their union.

According to Lehotská (2012), the most common type of cohabitation is premarital cohabitation. These are mostly couples who plan to get married, and this type of relationship most closely resembles marriage in terms of relationship quality. Long-term cohabitations are the least common; they are perceived by partners as an alternative to marriage and often involve middle-aged couples consisting of divorced or widowed partners who already have experience with married life and for various reasons have no interest in entering into it again. Young single people are bearers of this form of partner cohabitation more often in a form where the goal is more to test the partner and mutual compatibility for future partner or marital cohabitation rather than a definitively shared partner life outside marriage. The motivation for marriage among cohabiting partners is quite often the partner's pregnancy or the partners' decision to start a family.

This corresponds to the findings of Fialová et al. (2000, p. 68), according to whom non-marital cohabitation – as trial cohabitation, i.e., as a transitional state of "dating" before marriage – is preferred by 68% of respondents, while lifelong non-marital cohabitation is preferred by 9% of respondents. The author also notes that non-marital cohabitation before the wedding is not as widespread as would correspond to the wishes of young people. Young people have created a new ideal of a partner relationship: first they live together and enter into marriage later. The impulse for marriage is often the woman's pregnancy or at least the decision to have a child. The authors of the aforementioned research asked about the reasons for choosing a given life option. People chose both variants of non-marital cohabitation because of the possibility of an easy breakup. People who preferred lifelong non-marital cohabitation appreciated that it provided them with independence, while those who understood it only as a transitional state valued it as an opportunity to get to know their partner better as a future spouse and to test the strength of the mutual relationship. These people assume that if they "try out" living together before marriage, they will to some extent convince themselves of the possible success or failure of a future marriage, even though reality shows that this assumption is not correct.

Cohabitation without marriage is often justified by a feeling of freedom on the part of cohabiting partners. On the other hand, such relationships have pitfalls that are not considered in advance. In connection with the spread of cohabitations, it is therefore necessary to point out an important fact, namely, that in Slovakia cohabitation is not explicitly described in the law and the rights of cohabitants are not defined. If, for example, something happens to one partner, the other partner has no legal claims, for example, in the case of property settlement, in the case of illness or death of a partner, or in the case of inheritance or joint ownership of property. For spouses, the law automatically regulates these matters. Such cohabitation is neither prohibited by law nor regulated by law. Cohabiting partners do not have an equal position as married partners. This situation is apparently the result of the predominantly conservative and traditional attitude of the Slovak population and their preference for marriage as the only possible way of long-term cohabitation of partners. Nevertheless, cohabitation existed in Slovakia, occurs at present, and its occurrence will likely be higher in the future. Filadelfiová (2005) states that not only must families change to adapt to the new reality, but also cultural norms, public policy, and the legal system, together with other institutions, must adapt to new family patterns. And this is precisely what is missing in the case of non-marital cohabitation, as non-marital cohabitation is not legally regulated like a marital union.

Cohabitations as a mass social phenomenon have a relatively short history. In Slovakia, the necessary economic, material, social, and psychological preconditions for the spread of cohabitations are only gradually being created. However, it can reasonably be assumed that in the future, this socio-populational phenomenon, as an important part of changes in demographic behavior, will expand.

Differentiation between Cohabitation and Marriage

Given the focus of our paper, it seems important to clarify the difference between cohabitation and marriage. A fundamental difference lies in social status. Individuals living in cohabitation do not identify themselves as spouses and are not perceived as such by society (Thornton et al., 2007). Plaňava (1998) considers the main difference to be that non-marital cohabitation lacks a ritual such as a wedding. Another significant difference is the difference in the dissolution of the union. While marriage ends in divorce and the property settlement of spouses is determined by law in accordance with clear legal regulations, upon the dissolution of non-marital cohabitation no such rules are established as upon the dissolution of marriage.

Hamplová and Pikálková (2002) summarized the differences between marriage and cohabitation as follows:

  • people living in non-marital cohabitation are typically oriented mainly individualistically, while people living in a marital union are typically characterized by a social moral orientation,
  • marriage involves shared investments, whereas in non-marital cohabitation it is more or less based on the partner's momentary contribution,
  • family values are less accepted in non-marital cohabitation, and it is also less likely that a strong and lasting relationship could be formed in such cohabitation.

The differentiation between cohabitation and marriage was addressed by Nock (1995), who analyzed 2,493 married couples and 499 cohabiting couples. His research shows that cohabitation lasts a shorter time compared to marriage, although it should be noted that his analysis was limited to couples who had not lived together for more than 10 years. In the case of marriage, the average duration was 5.4 years, and in the case of cohabitation, 2.9 years.

Research on Attitudes toward Non-marital Cohabitation

How many couples live together without a marriage certificate is difficult to determine. Giddens (1999, p. 179) cites Sweden as an example, where in 1900 it was only 1% of couples, while today it is about 40%. In any case, it is a trend and their number is clearly growing. What we can determine with certainty, however, is the growing tolerance of society toward them. What was unthinkable several decades ago is common today. In the opinions of the Slovak public on informal partner cohabitation not legalized by marriage, acceptance clearly prevails. According to Bútorová and Filadelfiová (In Bútorová et al., 2008, p. 66), in 2006 only a small part of the population (15%) condemned such behavior as inexcusable, while as many as 59% approved of it.

The research findings that resulted from a diploma thesis investigation (Šulíková, 2014), conducted under the author's supervision, correspond to the above results. The research, focused on ascertaining attitudes toward non-marital cohabitation among three generations, aimed to determine the degree of tolerance or acceptance of respondents toward non-marital cohabitation and subsequently to compare the views of three generations on non-marital cohabitation. In that research, we assumed that the youth generation compared to the parent and grandparent generation would accept non-marital cohabitation as a form of family cohabitation to a greater extent. This hypothesis was confirmed, as demonstrated by the following results:

  • The youth generation compared to the parent and grandparent generation accepted non-marital cohabitation (cohabitation) as the most suitable form of family cohabitation to a greater extent. While youth indicated cohabitation as a preferred form of cohabitation in 58% and marriage in 40%, the parent generation indicated cohabitation in 40% and marriage in 60%. The least accepting attitude was manifested in the grandparent generation, expressed by the ratio: cohabitation 26%, marriage 74% as preferred forms of family life.
  • Young people prefer a new ideal of a partner relationship: first they live together and enter into marriage later. The perception of cohabitation as a "trial" cohabitation before the wedding is confirmed by results according to which 84% of respondents from the youth generation and 76% from the parent generation accept cohabitation before the wedding, while only 40% of respondents from the grandparent generation accept cohabitation as a form of premarital partner cohabitation.
  • Based on the research findings, we may assume that cohabitation does not represent competition to marriage; on the contrary, it is often perceived as a "pre-stage" of marriage. We infer this from agreement with the statement "It would be good if people living without marriage decided to get married." Almost half of the respondents (54% of youth, 40% of parents, 50% of grandparents) expressed agreement with this statement, which is evidence of a high preference for marriage. Even today, marriage retains its high value, as evidenced by the fact that almost two-thirds of all three generations of respondents (youth 78%, parents 66%, grandparents 76%) do not consider it an outdated institution; on the contrary, according to respondents, it still has great significance in contemporary society.

In conclusion, we can state the positive finding that non-marital cohabitation is not a competitor to marriage. This follows from the attitudes of three generations, although understandably the most accepting attitude toward cohabitation was taken by respondents from the youth generation. Given that starting a family is their future life goal and this stage of life still lies ahead of them, educational action in the area of education for marriage and parenthood is desirable and necessary, with the aim that marriage and family life become the highest life values for young people.

The research shows that marriage has significance for the respondents. We consider this a very important finding, which confirms to us that even though alternative forms of family cohabitation are emerging, marriage is considered very significant and non-marital cohabitation is considered in many cases only as a certain form of cohabitation before the wedding, but not as a long-term alternative. Since the size of our research sample was limited to a certain number of respondents (100 secondary school and university students, 50 parents, 50 grandparents), this result cannot be understood as the attitude of entire generations, but rather as a basis for planning educational action or for further research activity.

Conclusion

We have no doubt that the family will continue to persist as a very important institution; that is, its content is not changing, but rather its form. Despite the fact that cohabitation is an increasingly widespread and accepted phenomenon compared to the past, we do not consider it a competitor to marriage, as also demonstrated by the research findings mentioned above. Marriage continues to retain its high value, and most young people still intend to enter into marriage.

Non-marital cohabitation can serve as an important means of social learning and a means of preparation for cohabitation in a partner relationship. It can help increase the social maturity of "young adults" and contribute to a suitable choice of future partner for starting a family. It is evident that cohabitation at least increases the age at first marriage and first birth (Rabušic, 2001, p. 199). Non-marital cohabitation is not necessarily a rejection of marriage, because couples mostly plan to eventually enter into marriage. A certain number of first-born children who are born without their parents being married eventually end up in a family where the parents subsequently enter into marriage (after the child's birth).

Sociological research shows that in some cases cohabitation is a long-term alternative of partner cohabitation to marital cohabitation, while in other cases it represents only a pre-stage of marriage, meaning we do not perceive it as competition to it. The results of our research allow us to agree with the opinion of Džambazovič (2003, p. 243), according to whom non-marital cohabitation is not a serious threat to marriage, "because most young people perceive non-marital cohabitation as a suitable pre-stage of marriage and only a minority of them assume that they would live with their partner in an informal union permanently."

Author: PaedDr. Eleonóra Mendelová, PhD. Department of Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, UKF

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