Science on Cohabitation: It Basically Provides the Same Health Benefits As Marriage

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There’s always been a lot of data-based chatter in the scientific community about how many health benefits there are to tying the knot—both emotional and physical—but the findings of a recent study are challenging that a bit, surprising even the researchers.

Now, according to science, you should just go ahead and give the milk for free, because cohabiting, it would seem, might actually provide the same health benefits as getting legally hitched.

Researchers studied the answers to a survey conducted with some-8,700 people concerning their levels of “emotional distress” over the course of 10 years, and found that when it comes to the emotional benefits reaped in a relationship, shacking up with your person does just as well as marrying them:

For some of the people surveyed, living with their partner proved just as beneficial as marriage. “Past studies that compared those that are married and those that are cohabitating always found this sort of marriage benefit,” {study co-author Sara E.} Mernitz said. “But even when we look at individuals who transition from a current cohabitation into marriage, that transition into marriage didn’t really provide any additional emotional health benefits and we kind of thought it would.”

Additionally, researchers found that people who moved in with a new partner after breaking up with someone they lived with experienced even more emotional benefits than the first time around.

You can read more about it here, if you like—but if it’s all the same, we’re going to just go ahead and still cheer for Team Marriage.

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