‘Would you like to present me with a piece of your wardrobe?’ The fortuitous reasons for cohabiting

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyse the reasons for cohabiting. Or, in other words, the reasons for which marriage is postponed and not flatly excluded. In fact, from the data (interviews with 50 cohabitating couples) it appears that cohabitation is a fortuitous and occasional event rather than a conscious and reflective choice made by the couples: cohabitation is the best practice and a prompt solution to likewise practical and urgent problems. So, there is a sort of gap between intention and the effective realization of the decision which determines both the choice of cohabiting and the one of marrying. In fact, most of the reasons which could explain marriage (being Catholic, the solemnity of the marriage, a moment of joy) – which could reach or go beyond the moment of acting on the basis of a specific intention – have to face many other choices that continue to be attractive or based on other reasons (cohabitation is as if it was marriage, the wedding is expensive). And the couples act exactly following these reasons, ignoring the original or desired intention. On the contrary, this intention is further strengthened or confirmed by these other reasons. For explaining the behavior of the couples, the author thinks that the category of akrasia is helpful since it shows how the couple mirrors and reformulates those fortuitous reasons which, at the beginning, affected the choice of going to live together in an active way, trying to overcome the casual order.

Keywords:

• akrasia
• cohabitation
• house
• wedding
• marriage

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Prof. Riccardo Prandini for his help.

Notes

1. In fact, it should be very interesting to analyse these aspects of the distribution and of the partition between the two partners. Who has to do the dishes? Who has to cook? Any couple has its proper rules – for example, the timetable of meals – but how to divide any kind of home-duties or home-tasks and, in particularly, how to divide what each partner does and gives?

2. See, also, Simon Duncan and Miranda Phillips's essay in this issue.

3. The Public Insurance.