Sinfully Together

It used to be called "living in sin." Now it is simply "living together," and the practice is so common that even the Census Bureau has spotted the change. In a report released last week, the bureau disclosed that the number of couples living together has more than doubled since 1970.

The 1970 census showed 530,000 unmarried male-female couples living together. Even then, the figure seemed unrealistically low, since many couples may have been too embarrassed to report such arrangements. Now the bureau lists 1.1 million "illicit" couples, with the sharpest rise occurring since 1977 in the under-25 category. Reasonably enough, the demographers attributed the trend to "an increasing desire among young adults to pursue nonfamilial interests."

The survey, which was taken last year, also reported that the proportion of women between 25 and 29 who have never married climbed from 10.5% in 1960 to 18%. Since 1970 the number of families headed by a woman rose 43%, from 5.6 million to 8 million. Divorce is now so common, the report added, that nearly half of all children born today can expect to spend a meaningful portion of their lives before age 18 in single-parent families. The report did not speculate on what psychological effects that may have on the young.

In addition, the bureau found that one of every five households now consists of just one person, up 54% since 1970. But it warned that the data "do not necessarily portend a sharp rise in lifelong singleness." Most of the increase is accounted for by widows and young people postponing marriage. Other studies show that living together is largely a way station en route from bachelorhood to matrimony.

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