Helen Alvaré, Esq., George Mason University School of Law

Empirically speaking, cohabitation has now proved itself a failure. Rather than providing a basis for a more stable future, it is associated with relationship instability, unhappiness and even higher rates of violence. A dispassionate analysis of its components — particularly its presumptions about the nature of human beings in the context of intimate relationships — indicates why it has failed. A side by side comparison of the “anthropologies” of both proponents and opponents of “institutionalizing” cohabitation indicates that the latter’s anthropology rings far more true. A new anthropolical tool — the “Theology of the Body” — helps indicate why this might be so.