Distant wedding bells?

**Distant wedding bells? **

So long, 1955! The long-held “cohabitation effect theory,” the idea that couples who live together before marriage will be more likely to divorce, has been debunked. Good thing, too, since rates of prenuptial cohabitation have spiked almost 900 percent since then.

New research from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro reveals that premarital cohabitation is not a statistically reliable predictor of divorce; rather, it’s age/youth and income. But we pass no judgment on Gari Melchers’s youthful couple here.

—Emma Bauer, Audience Engagement Assistant

March 13

**

Image: Kzenon/Shutterstock Source: Jessica Grose, “Call Your Dad: Living Together Before Marriage Does Not Lead to Divorce,” Slate, March 10