living together essay

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Living Together: Essays on Aristotle's Ethics

• ISBN-10 0199969671
• ISBN-13 978-0199969678
• Publisher Oxford University Press
• Publication date August 29, 2023
• Language English
• Dimensions 9.29 x 0.99 x 6.46 inches
• Print length 336 pages
• See all details

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (August 29, 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0199969671
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0199969678
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.41 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.29 x 0.99 x 6.46 inches
• #363 in Metaphysics (Books)
• #1,313 in Ethics
• #1,691 in Humanist Philosophy

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Jennifer whiting.

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Marriage Vs. Living Together: Pros and Cons Essay

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There was a very long period of time in the history of human relationships when marriage was the preferred method of indicating a permanent coupling between a man and a woman. Since marriage had a huge historical significance in society, pairs who chose to live together or co-habit were shunned by society at large. However, the way soceity views the two partnerships has, like everything else in the world, evolved and co-habitation has since gained a degree of acceptance in the modern world.

The question posed before a couple who wish to share their lives in an intimately physical and emotional relationship has become, “Do we marry or live together?” With that thought in mind, I present to you a series of comparisons and contrasts regarding a marriage of co-habitation relationship. I have to point out that although both relationships have the potential to become lifetime partnerships, each have their own drawbacks and benefits.

There is some sort of maturity expected of a married couple. It connotes a higher level of expectations between a man and a woman because marriage seems to be some sort of business contract wherein each party is expected to conduct themselves in a certain way. Call me shallow but when a relationship which is supposed to be based upon love, trust, and a deep understanding of each other is formalized by a piece of paper called a marriage contract, it becomes a business arrangement and puts undue pressure on both parties. Whereas in a live-in relationship, the informal set up removes the pressure of undue and unrealistice expectations between the two parties involved. Such a set up allows them to instead enjoy each other’s company without having to think about any formal duties that each is expected to perform.

Marriage is only a state of mind in my opinion. It is something the denotes what happens in the relationship of two people who are living together legally, that means in the eyes of the law or God, if you are the religious type. Comparing it to a live-in couple’s relationship does not show any difference. Why? It all boils down to duties and responsibilities. In both scenarios, the couple act as a united party. Each with duties outlined in order to make the relationship work.

However, in a married scenario, there is no out clause for if and when the union does not work out. One either gets stuck in what slowly becomes a loveless, angry marriage or ends up spending an insane amount of money trying to get the marriage annulled or divorced. On the other hand, in a co-habiting relationship, if the partnership ceases to work, a mere discussion of the situation and an agreement to end the relationship will suffice. No pain, no hassle, but, just like marriage, still with the heartache that comes with the end of any relationship.

Actually, there is very little difference between marriage and the live-in relationships. Both require a serious commitment from both parties to make the union work. But in a married set-up, each spouse, by default, has all the rights as provided and protected by law. In the case of a co-habitation set-up, the parties will have to be involved in complicated legal document processing in order to insure that their rights as partners are covered by law in the same way that married couples do.

If we look back on the history of man, dating back to the dawn of mankind, one can deduce that co-habitation has a longer standing history in relationships when comapared to marriage. Marriage is simply a ceremony that was imagined and enacted by man in order to signify the decision of a man and a woman to live together in a forever sense of the word. Read the bible, The Book of Genesis to be specific and one will see that there was no formal marriage ceremony performed in order to unite Adam and Eve. Nowhere in the bible did it say that an intricate ceremony was performed when God gave Eve to Adam. All he said was go forth and multiply. So it is quite possible that Adam and Eve were the first couple to co-habit in the history or mankind. They were each other’s helpers and partners in life. This is a description that most often clearly defines a co-habiting relationship.

In today’s modern world, a co-habitation relationship is celebrated the same way as a marriage. While marriage requires a hugely expensive religious or legal ceremony that takes place over a series of days, a co-habitation relationship merely requires the choosing of a residence and the throwing of a party or the performance of an indicative ceremony that acknowledges the desire of both parties to live together. Isn’t that all that a marriage ceremony boils down to? The significant intention to share a life together?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating a live-in relationship. Neither am I endorsing marriage as the only way for a couple to share their lives together. The choice is actually one that the couple have to make for themselves. While not all co-habitation relationships end up in marriage, not all marriages end up as a forever partnership either. Therefore, in comparing and contrasting the two union types, I have come to discover that for all the perceived differences between the two, the relationships are actually cut from the same material, but in different styles.

• Cohabitation: Family Environment and Life
• Cohabitation Before Marriage
• Reasons for Cohabiting: Gender, Class, and the Remaking of Relationships
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• Chicago (A-D)
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IvyPanda. (2022, September 23). Marriage Vs. Living Together: Pros and Cons. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marriage-vs-living-together-pros-and-cons/

"Marriage Vs. Living Together: Pros and Cons." IvyPanda , 23 Sept. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/marriage-vs-living-together-pros-and-cons/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Marriage Vs. Living Together: Pros and Cons'. 23 September.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Marriage Vs. Living Together: Pros and Cons." September 23, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marriage-vs-living-together-pros-and-cons/.

1. IvyPanda . "Marriage Vs. Living Together: Pros and Cons." September 23, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marriage-vs-living-together-pros-and-cons/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Marriage Vs. Living Together: Pros and Cons." September 23, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marriage-vs-living-together-pros-and-cons/.

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Living Together: Inventing Moral Science

David Schmidtz, Living Together: Inventing Moral Science , Oxford University Press, 2023, 263pp., $35.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780197658505.

Reviewed by Michael Huemer, University of Colorado

Living Together is a series of 23 short essays on a variety of interrelated topics in moral and political philosophy. Topics include what the task of political philosophy has been and should be, the nature of justice and its function in human society, what sort of social rules and institutions promote prosperity, the nature and source of moral reasons, and the relationship between morality and self-interest, among others. Here, I will focus on what I found the most interesting and important ideas.

Schmidtz suggests that political philosophy is prior to moral philosophy. How so? Our moral reasons depend (largely, if not entirely) on social rules, but not just any social rules give us moral reasons; rather, only rules that are socially beneficial provide moral reasons (245). Determining which rules and institutions are socially beneficial is the task of what Schmidtz calls “moral science”, a field of study initiated by David Hume and Adam Smith but unfortunately neglected since then. (Aside: “Moral” and “science” both had somewhat different meanings in Hume’s day than in ours, so the phrase doesn’t exactly mean what it sounds like to modern ears.) Moral science, properly done, would draw on philosophy, economics, history, and perhaps other disciplines. As Schmidtz emphasizes, the conclusions of moral science rest on fallible inferences from empirical evidence—in particular, evidence about which institutions and rules have a track record of promoting human welfare.

In this picture, justice is a set of social rules with a particularly important function in enabling human societies to work and to prosper. Namely, the rules of justice manage potential conflicts and resolve actual conflicts among members of society.

To explain: Human beings gain enormous benefits by living together and especially by trading with other people. (Schmidtz suggests that our ancestors may have outcompeted the Neanderthals mainly due to our superior capacity for beneficial trade with each other (Ch. 22)). But social interaction brings with it a widespread potential for conflict due to the tensions among different people’s goals. Our goals may conflict due either to selfishness or to disagreements about what is good and true. My examples: Two people might each want to live (alone) on the same parcel of land, or two people of opposing religions might each want to promote their own religion as much as possible. All parties cannot get everything they want. Without some social conventions to resolve the conflict, there is a risk of the situation degenerating into violence. Without a solution to this problem, social cooperation would be impossible, and almost everyone would be drastically worse off than they are in any functioning human society.

Because it is impossible, in any realistic, large society, to get human beings to share the same goals, we need a set of rules and institutions that enables humans to cooperate peacefully despite deep disagreements. The most successful rules generally work by identifying which person in a given situation has the right of decision-making over which matters. These rules should not presuppose the correctness of particular goals, and they should seem to take everyone’s claims seriously at face value.. Schmidtz uses the metaphor of traffic management: When two or more cars come to an intersection, there is a potential conflict over who may proceed first. A traffic light tells them who has the right of way at the moment, without anyone needing to evaluate the destinations of the two drivers. This is important, since a system that required someone to evaluate those destinations would court interminable disagreement in some cases, and enormous wasted time in almost all cases.

Perhaps the most obvious application of this metaphor is to property rights. Return to the scenario in which two people each want to use the same land in ways that conflict with each other. We have a social institution of “property”, which tells the parties which of them (if either) may decide how the land is to be used. The rules don’t require evaluating the worthiness of the individual purposes . The rules might, for example, say that the person to discover the land first is the one with the decision-making power.

No human-made set of rules can anticipate every situation, so sometimes cases will arise about which the rules are either silent or ambiguous. For such cases, the rules of justice will specify a resolution procedure, generally involving an impartial judge. That judge should resolve the case with an eye toward the social function of the particular rules at issue. One case that Schmidtz cites is that of Hinman v. Pacific Air Transport , decided in 1936 (150–2). Hinman sued an airline company to enjoin them from flying over his land. As commercial air travel was a new phenomenon at the time, no pre-existing rules clearly settled who, if anyone, had rights over air space. But the court correctly reasoned that awarding the right to Hinman would cripple the fledgling airline industry, to no good purpose. Property rights exist to facilitate trade and cooperation, so their interpretation in an ambiguous case should not be such as to cripple commerce without good reason. So the court rightly sided with the airline, ruling that they need not obtain permission from every individual over whose land they passed.

Schmidtz promotes broadly libertarian ideas with a light touch (the word “libertarian” scarcely appears, and the most controversial implications of libertarian philosophy are left implicit at best). Thus, in discussing the problem of world hunger, Schmidtz observes that the social rules with the best track record of getting people fed have a lot more to do with protecting the rights of food producers than with protecting the rights of consumers . The reader is led to reflect on incentive structures. A socially enforceable right to be fed does not as such make people want to grow food. What makes people want to grow food is an enforceable right to do what you want to do with the food that you grow. It turns out, empirically, that the presence or absence of this sort of right has an enormous impact on the amount of food in existence, and thereby on the number of people who wind up going hungry.

(By the way, this point is broader than the familiar point that humans tend to be selfish. It applies as long as humans have different goals from one another, whether those goals be self-regarding or not. Even if I just want to feed the homeless people in Denver, I won’t grow food unless I can ensure that it will go to that altruistic purpose, rather than an unknown purpose devised by someone else.)

The point generalizes to other goods. The main way societies produce a large amount of value is through protecting the rights of producers. When there is scarcity, philosophers tend to focus their attention on figuring out how the limited goods should be distributed—what is each person’s fair share of the pie. But the better thing to focus on is how to reduce the scarcity, how to increase the size of the pie. It turns out that giving everyone what intuitively seems like a fair share of the pie tends to make the pie much smaller .

Schmidtz is on strong ground in criticizing other philosophers. Contemporary moral and political philosophy has spilled much ink over the requirements of justice and the problems of hunger and poverty. But most of that discussion is conducted in an unrealistic, armchair spirit. Philosophers rarely show awareness of empirical evidence and rarely consider the incentives generated by the social rules that they entertain. One can easily read an entire philosophical book about poverty and distributive justice without hearing mention of the fact that the world’s undernourished declined from 19% to 11% of the population from 1990 to 2014 (Schmidtz, 57)—nor any discussion of why that might have happened.

Consider the philosophical debate surrounding famine relief started by Peter Singer. Most of that debate concerns how much one must individually give to charity in order to be a morally decent person. Schmidtz doesn’t exactly disagree with Singer—he does not say that Singer is wrong about our duties to give to famine relief. But he wants to shift our attention to the question of why some societies have famines and others do not. As theorists who both want to understand society and care about how to improve it, that seems like a key question of interest. Perhaps if there was more understanding of how societies become famine-proof, the world could drastically reduce famine, without waiting for extreme degrees of altruism to arise in the human heart. I would add that some of the philosophical discussion of poverty not only fails to address the most important causes of poverty but actively promotes ideas that tend to exacerbate poverty (again, consider the point about rights of producers versus rights of consumers).

Another criticism of contemporary political philosophy concerns excessive idealization. Here, John Rawls appears as a primary offender. In devising rules of justice in his A Theory of Justice , Rawls proposed to set aside issues of compliance—that is, he proposed to assume that, once a set of rules of justice is selected, both citizens and the government will faithfully follow them. Schmidtz finds this an inappropriate idealization because, in his view, the issue of compliance is a central part of the problem that rules of justice exist to solve. I take it that part of the problem Schmidtz has in mind is that, once a government agency is directed to distribute wealth in the way that “maximizes the position of the worst off group”, the agency will use that power according to its own goals and beliefs. Powerful factions will vie for control of that agency. One cannot assume that what the agency comes up with will in fact maximize the position of the worst off group; all we know about human history rather suggests the opposite. This is not a minor detail; ignoring this problem does not produce an approximation of the correct result. Rather, taking this problem into account produces radically different recommendations.

As the reader may have guessed, I find Living Together extremely congenial. The book is filled with deep insights about how society works and about how social theorizing ought to work. As the author notes at one point, empirical research is what you do when you actually care about good outcomes (58). Most philosophers do not attend to empirical details about how the world works, which suggests that they may not care much about improving human society. David Schmidtz’s book is a call to care.

Are there any shortfalls of the book? Readers may find the theoretical discussion of ethics sketchy (though he has given more detail in other work (e.g., his Rational Choice and Moral Agency, 2015)). It is clear that, in Schmidtz’s view, we have moral reasons to follow social conventions that are highly beneficial. What is less clear is what one should do when confronted with social rules that are somewhat successful yet significantly sub-optimal. Should one still follow the currently accepted rules, or should one follow the optimal rules? What should one do in a situation where no social rules are established, yet one can see what the rules should be? Are there moral reasons other than those generated by useful social rules? Schmidtz’s claim that political philosophy must precede moral philosophy seems to require a negative answer to the last question, yet this does not seem to be correct. I have moral reasons for respecting the life of an isolated hermit. These moral reasons derive from the intrinsic value of that individual; I have no need to consult social conventions. If that’s right, then at least some moral philosophy can be done prior to political philosophy.

In a later chapter, Schmidtz discusses a way in which a person starting from purely instrumental reasons might acquire new intrinsic values, which could include moral values. Namely, a person might find it instrumentally valuable to adopt a new final end. For example, perhaps you wish to avoid loneliness, and you calculate that joining a campaign to save the whales would serve this end; however, you think that this will only work if you come to genuinely care, intrinsically, about the whales. In this case, you might adopt whale preservation as a new final end (204). Then, even if you later cease to be concerned about loneliness, you continue to strive to save the whales for their own sake.

I think this account works as a possible solution to a possible problem, yet it does not explain most cases. Schmidtz rightly notes that, as children, we begin with a very limited set of ends, mostly if not entirely self-centered, and somehow we later acquire more goals, and more sophisticated goals, including moral goals. However, I don’t think that this process needs to be explained by instrumental reasoning starting from the initial set of goals (nor does Schmidtz claim it must be), and I don’t think many cases look like that. As a baby, I had no goal of expanding the philosophical knowledge of my society. Today, I have that goal. But what happened was not that I calculated that adopting the goal of expanding philosophical knowledge would serve some other goal that I had as a child. I can assure you, I never thought that, and if I had, I’m not sure I could thereupon have willed myself to have the new final end. Rather, what seems to have happened is that (i) I came to understand what philosophy was (which the baby me could not understand), and (ii) upon thinking about it, I found it intrinsically fascinating. Most adult goals, I believe, are like that: Once we acquire the ability to understand them and we reflect upon them, we find them intrinsically attractive (see my Ethical Intuitionism , 2005).

Who should read Living Together ? In brief, anyone who is interested in the nature of justice, social philosophy, or what makes societies work. Schmidtz has a colorful yet fundamentally accurate way of putting things—for example, the point that justice is about traffic management, which works by deciding whose turn it is, not whose destination is best. Mainstream political philosophers have particular reason to attend carefully to Schmidtz’s message. It may hold the key to making social theorizing something simultaneously far more interesting and far more helpful to society.

David Schmidtz , Rational Choice and Moral Agency , Sagent Labs, 2015.

Huemer, Michael, Ethical Intuitionism , New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

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Living Together Essays on Aristotle's Ethics

• Author(s) Jennifer Whiting
• Publisher Oxford University Press

Print ISBN 9780199969678, 0199969671

Etext isbn 9780197682708, 0197682707.

• Copyright 2023
• Available from $ 71.50 USD SKU: 9780197682708R180

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Living Together: Essays on Aristotle's Ethics is written by Jennifer Whiting and published by Oxford University Press. The Digital and eTextbook ISBNs for Living Together are 9780197682708, 0197682707 and the print ISBNs are 9780199969678, 0199969671. Save up to 80% versus print by going digital with VitalSource. Additional ISBNs for this eTextbook include 9780199969685.

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Living Together Before Marriage

Here's what to consider before moving in together

Sanjana is a health writer and editor. Her work spans various health-related topics, including mental health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.

Dr. Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and a professor at Yeshiva University’s clinical psychology doctoral program.

Verywell / Theresa Chiechi

• Reasons Couples Live Together
• Factors to Consider
• Potential Effects
• Pros and Cons

Living together before marriage was once considered taboo; however, it has become more common and accepted over time. If you’ve been seeing your partner and things are going well, moving in together may cross your mind.

Moving in with your partner is a significant step because it marks a major progression in the relationship, says Sabrina Romanoff , PsyD, a clinical psychologist and professor at Yeshiva University in New York City.

At a Glance

Living together before marriage is common for many couples, but there are important pros and cons to consider. Cohabitating can help you get to know one another more and figure out if you are truly compatible, but moving in together for the wrong reasons can lead to bigger problems down the road. Keep reading to learn more about some factors to consider while deciding whether to live with your partner before marriage and some potential advantages and disadvantages of this arrangement.

Reasons for Living Together Before Marriage

There are a variety of reasons why people opt to live together before they decide to make a long-term commitment. Research has found that the primary reasons couples choose to live together are to spend more time together, to share expenses, and to evaluate their compatibility.

For many couples, it's a great way to see if they are truly compatible before deciding if marriage is the right choice for them. Co-habitating offers many insights into a person's habits, personality, and behavior. Sharing a space allows couples to truly get to know one another in a way that they might not if they lived separately.

But cohabitation isn't just about playing house or deepening the relationship—it's an economic necessity for many people. High living expenses mean that many adults must have one or more roommates to split expenses. For many, it makes sense to take that step with the person they are dating.

Research has found that around half of cohabitating couples end up separating. Economic factors appear to play a deciding role in whether couples who live together end up walking down the aisle. Simply put, wealthier couples are more like to wed.  

Living together before marriage may help you save money as a couple, offering greater financial stability and increasing your shared resources. While it might not be particularly romantic, research suggests that this factor alone may increase the likelihood of marriage.

However, moving in together because of economic pressure might mean that neither of you is as committed to the relationship as you might be if you take this step based on desire.

Factors to Consider Before Living Together

Below, Romanoff lists some of the factors to consider while deciding whether to live with your partner before marriage.

Your Reasons for Wanting to Live Together

The first factor to consider is your motivation for moving in with your partner. Partners who move in out of financial convenience or to test their relationship may be less satisfied with their decision in the long run and in turn, may not end up getting married.

This is in contrast to couples who decide to move in together out of their genuine desire to spend more time together and deliberately fuse their lives. You should want to learn more about your partner and progress your relationship.

Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD

Remember the importance of choosing your partner because you want to be with them, and don’t let your decisions be made out of fear or convenience.

Your Age and Stage of Life

Age and stage of life are other important considerations. It can be helpful to give each other space to live alone or with friends before taking this step, so that each partner is able to experience a range of independent and peer living situations before committing to living with each other.

Once people have experienced these varied living arrangements, they tend to appreciate their partners and don’t feel as if they are missing out on experiences their peers are having.

Your Conversations With Your Partner

It’s important to make the deliberate decision to move in together instead of casually easing into cohabitation. Sliding into cohabitation can be risky because it bypasses important decisions and conversations that will cause more problems down the road.

For instance, you may slowly start to spend more time at one of your homes and think it makes sense to move in together out of convenience or financial incentive. You may then consider marriage because you’ve lived together for so long, already invested so much time into your partner, and think you might not be able to find someone else at this point in your life.

Instead, it is important to consciously decide to move in together and have conversations with your partner about financial arrangements, who will be responsible for maintaining what, and how space will be allocated to incorporate both people’s values and beliefs.

Implications of Living Together Before Marriage

Moving in with your partner can have significant implications for your relationship. Romanoff outlines some of these below.

Increased Commitment

Before you move in, there are more opportunities for refuge. If you have a fight, are annoyed, or are frustrated with each other, you can always return to your own space .

Moving in means committing to the good and bad in each other and in your relationship. You each are committing to show up and stay together on the good as well as the bad days.

Increased Investment

Moving in together means that you are investing in the relationship in a more substantial way. The next progressive step after moving in is usually a more formal commitment like marriage or alternatively, if things do not work out, a breakup.

Breakups after moving in together are significantly more complicated because you must separate your lives, which tend to become blended in elaborate ways.

Increased Trust

Living together also means that you’re pledging to show each other the parts of yourself that may have remained hidden up until this part of your relationship. You risk vulnerability and exposing all of your little rituals or quirky habits.

You have to trust your partner and make this commitment with the confidence that your relationship will not only survive but will become stronger after knowing these parts of each other.

Pros and Cons of Living Together Before Marriage

Romanoff shares some of the advantages and disadvantages that people commonly experience when they decide to live together before marriage.

You get to know each other better

It can deepen your relationship

It can be a sign of commitment

Feel more confident in your decision to get married

May decrease commitment to marriage

Can lead to staying together even if you're not compatible

You might feel you wasted your time if you break up

It may be harder to move on after a break up

Advantages of Living Together Before Marriage

The advantage of living together before marriage is the opportunity to learn how you would navigate a life together without the internal and external pressure that comes with marriage.

For many, marriage signifies a commitment that cannot be easily undone. The weight of that commitment, especially from family members or friends, can skew problems or conflicts that may arise in a relationship.

Living together may also help boost health and well-being. Research has long shown that marriage provides many health benefits, and evidence also suggests that living together can confer many of these same benefits.

The benefit of living together pre-marriage is that you can learn more about each other, strengthen your joint ability to problem-solve , and reinforce your relationship and ability to navigate stressors , which can instill more confidence in your decision to get married .

Disadvantages of Living Together Before Marriage

The downside of living together before marriage relates to the tendency for some couples to make less of a commitment to each other or feel less content with their arrangement.

Individuals who decide to cohabitate may have different expectations than their partners about the move. It can lead to challenges if one partner has more unconventional ideas about marriage and might grow complacent in this arrangement, whereas the other partner might expect marriage to follow this step.

It is important to consider the meaning of the move to each partner, especially if this move is motivated as a way to postpone making a commitment for one partner. And that meaning should be communicated to and by each partner as well.

Additionally, standards for cohabitating with a partner are usually lower than standards people have for marriage, which could cause some people to regret the time and energy spent on cohabitating if it does not ultimately lead to marriage.

Keep in Mind

If you and your partner have been going steady and you’re starting to think about living together before marriage, you should be sure of your motivations before you move in. You should genuinely want to spend more time with your partner and learn more about them while being open to exposing yourself to them.

It’s also important to discuss finances , responsibilities, expectations for the future, and other important aspects of your relationship with your partner before you move in so you’re both on the same page before you make this commitment.

Pew Research Center’s Social and Demographic Trends Project. Views on marriage and cohabitation in the U.S .

Huang PM, Smock PJ, Manning WD, Bergstrom-Lynch CA. He says, she says: Gender and cohabitation .  J Fam Issues . 2011;32(7):876-905. doi:10.1177/0192513X10397601

Ishizuka P. The economic foundations of cohabiting couples’ union transitions . Demography . 2018;55(2):535-557. doi:10.1007/s13524-018-0651-1

Perelli-Harris B, Hoherz S, Addo F, et al. Do marriage and cohabitation provide benefits to health in mid-life? The role of childhood selection mechanisms and partnership characteristics across countries .  Popul Res Policy Rev . 2018;37(5):703-728. doi:10.1007/s11113-018-9467-3

By Sanjana Gupta Sanjana is a health writer and editor. Her work spans various health-related topics, including mental health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.

• relationships

More People Think It’s Fine for Unwed Couples to Live Together. Here’s Why Many Still Think Marriage Is Better

M ore Americans have lived with a romantic partner than have married one, a new study from Pew Research shows . And only a small minority of people now see unwed couples living together as anything to get upset about. Despite this, married people still report more satisfaction with their relationship, more closeness to their partner and a lot more trust in them.

These two seemingly confounding trends — a societal acceptance of not marrying alongside a personal preference for being married — mirror much of what is happening to the institution in the U.S. It’s having an identity crisis. While marriage is no longer a must-do, it’s not quite clear what it’s becoming instead — a reward? A luxury? A parenting arrangement? It’s almost as if America and marriage haven’t had that Define The Relationship talk yet. A marriage certificate ranks low on the things people think are necessary for a fulfilling life and yet the number of Americans who are currently married (53%) completely dwarves the number of unmarried people who currently live together (7%).

Pew’s study , which uses data from a nationally representative survey of nearly 10,000 Americans over 18 as well as from the National Survey of Family Growth, heralds a turning point in the makeup of the American family. As recently as 2002, those who had lived with a romantic partner (54%) were outnumbered by those who had married one (60%). Now those proportions are almost reversed, with 59% of Americans having ever cohabited and only half having ever married.

Unsurprisingly, this change has been accompanied by a marked shift in attitudes toward the different kind of household arrangements. Almost seven in ten people see nothing wrong with lovers living together even if they don’t intend to get married. The remaining 30% are split; half think it’s O.K. if the duo intend to get married, and half find it unacceptable under any circumstances.

However, the U.S. hasn’t gone completely Scandinavian. A slight majority (53%) agreed that “society will be better off” if those who have shacked up do eventually tie the knot (probably because they consider it a more stable environment for raising children). “Even among young people, a substantial share still say it’s desirable for society if people get married,” says Juliana Horowitz, associate director of research at Pew and one of the authors of the report. Evangelicals and African Americans are more likely to express that view, according to the survey, but they were hardly the only ones.

Why do people still make it official when the stigma attached to unwed cohabitation is all but gone? One possible answer the report provided: security. The survey’s respondents, 57% of whom were married and 9% of whom were cohabiting, had notably different levels of trust in their partners. Two-thirds of the married individuals trusted their partners to tell them the truth; only half of the unmarried did. About three-quarters of married folks trusted their partner to act in their best interest; fewer than 60% of the unmarried felt the same way. And while 56% of married partners believed their partners could be trusted to handle money responsibly, only 40% of cohabiters felt the same way. (Those numbers are still quite low, which may explain the rise of the couples’ financial therapist ).

Of course, people are more likely trust those with whom they have a history, but this assurance was not necessarily the product of time and experience. “We did control for duration of relationship,” says Horowitz. Even among those who had been together for the same amount of time, “being married was still correlated with having high levels of trust.”

Scott Stanley, a research professor and co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver, Colorado, who was not involved in this study but has researched cohabiting extensively, suggests that’s because “marriage has a high signal value as to intention.” Married people are advertising their commitment. “When somebody tells you, ‘That’s my spouse,’ you know a ton of information about the relationship and the level of commitment,” he says. “But you could have 10 different couples tell you they’re cohabiting and for some of them it’s like dating with a lot of sleepovers, for others it’s a lot like marriage in terms of their intention, and for another few, which is the worst deal, it’s one person thinking it’s one thing and the other person thinking it’s not. Cohabitation doesn’t force clarity like marriage does.”

Pew’s researchers also found that married couples were more satisfied with the way their partners handled most of the usual couple chafing points: parenting, chores, work-life balance and communication. In the matter of sex, it was too close to call and a tad depressing: 36% of married Americans and 34% of those living together are very satisfied with their sex lives . This finding surprised the researchers. “Cohabiters tend to be younger and therefore more satisfied with their sex lives,” says Horowitz. “But that’s not what we found — and that was interesting.”

While nearly all of those surveyed named love and companionship as one of the major reasons for their shared residence, those who were not married were more likely than wedded couples to cite financial pressures, convenience and pregnancy as big motivations for moving in with each other. About a quarter of cohabiters said they had moved in together in part to test the waters for marrying each other. But more than a third (38%) shared an address partly because it made financial sense.

And just as money plays a role in pushing people together, it can also work to keep them from getting married. More than half of those who were cohabiting cited either their partners’ finances or their own as a reason they were not yet engaged. That’s more than those who said they weren’t ready, their partner wasn’t ready, their career wasn’t far enough along or they were not sure if their partner was The One. Those with a college degree were more likely to see moving in together as a step toward marriage than those without a college degree.

And, as Stanley points out, money also keeps some people in cohabiting relationships when they don’t want to be. “In particular we find that when women say they’re moving in for reasons of financial convenience, that’s associated with negative characteristics of relationships,” he says. “It’s like, ‘I wouldn’t be here if I could afford to live on my own.'” His r esearch suggests that the commonly expressed view that people should live together to test the relationship is ill-founded . “Over seven published studies , we’ve found that living together before you’re engaged is just riskier,” he says.

In terms of partnering arrangements, there are three basic choices — alone, living informally with someone or married. They all have their upsides and downsides and there’s a lot of variations within each category. Plenty of cohabiting relationships have more commitment and clarity than plenty of marriages. But the Pew study suggests that if it’s commitment you’re looking for, being married is a pair of hiking boots and living together is a pair of stilettos. Both can get you where you want to be, but only one is designed with that in mind.

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Living Together

• Open Access
• First Online: 03 November 2021

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• Tuuli Lähdesmäki 8 ,
• Jūratė Baranova 9 ,
• Susanne C. Ylönen 10 ,
• Aino-Kaisa Koistinen 11 ,
• Katja Mäkinen 12 ,
• Vaiva Juškiene 13 &
• Irena Zaleskiene 14  

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In this chapter, the authors analyze the artifacts in which students explore the idea of living together as a peaceful interaction between people and mutual enrichment of their difference based on basic rights and freedoms as well as mutual respect. In the CLLP, living together is approached as celebration of diversity intertwined with solidarity, equality, and human rights. The analysis reveals that students often approach living together from their own point of view, but are able to see others’ perspectives. The chapter discusses how learning about solidarity requires sensitivity for difference and thus lessons on the subject need to be planned carefully to ensure inclusive cultural practices and respect for diversity and difference.

You have full access to this open access chapter,  Download chapter PDF

• Living together
• Human rights

Defining the Concept of Living Together

Living together is a theme of multicultural and intercultural education. These concepts have been broadly discussed in scholarly literature with varying emphases and definitions. Some authors prefer to use the term “intercultural,” since it captures the interactions between people from different cultures, similarly to “interpersonal” for encounters between people and “international” for interaction between nations. In contrast, the term “multicultural” may be perceived as simply referring to the presence of people from different cultural groups (Grant and Portera 2011 ). These people do not necessarily interact or form a group, but constitute an aggregation or a category. A multicultural school, college, or university, in this particular sense of the term, is an educational setting where the students come from different cultural backgrounds (Spiteri 2017 , 5–6).

In 2010, a group of “eminent persons” including European policymakers and scholars commissioned by the Council of Europe’s Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland, prepared a report on the resurgence of intolerance and discrimination in Europe. The report recognizes the confusion about and challenges to the concept of multiculturalism in Europe in the 2000s (see Lähdesmäki et al. 2020 , 4–15) and proposes that in response, Europeans should focus on living together (Council of Europe 2010 ). The authors of the report argued that living together is a concept that enables European societies to combine diversity and freedom and guides them to live in peace, mutual respect, and mutual enrichment based on basic rights and freedoms (Council of Europe 2010 , 34). A key to this is interaction and dialogue between members of different ethnic, religious, and cultural groups (Council of Europe 2010 , 48).

The report ends with a series of proposals to advance living together in European societies. It identifies educators as the key group of people able to change the way people in Europe think about each other and, thus, enable them to live together better. The report urges “educators and education authorities in all member states to develop ‘intercultural competencies’ as a core element of school curricula and to extend these beyond formal education to non-formal settings” (Council of Europe 2010 , 61).

The CLLP Approach to and Data on Living Together

The first step to learning to live together is celebrating diversity: Respecting and enjoying the variety of lifestyles, cultures, and religions, which includes learning to know one’s own culture, appreciating it, and developing cultural identity (DIALLS 2018 , 22). In the Cultural Literacy Learning Programme (CLLP), living together was discussed in terms of celebrating diversity, with the intertwined themes of equality, human rights (basic rights and freedoms), and solidarity. The latter theme extended the discussion to the idea of empathy and the will to act jointly sharing both advantages and burdens equally and justly (DIALLS 2018 , 23).

In the CLLP, the subtheme of the celebrating diversity was explored in five lessons stimulated by three wordless picture books and two short films. The books were  Naar de Markt  ( To the Market 2017) by Noëlle Smit;  ZaterDag  ( Saturday 2018) by Saskia Halfmouw; and  Excentric City  (2014) by Béatrice Coron. The films were  Head Up  (2015) by Mentor Gottfried and  Anders Artig  ( Otherwise 2002) by Christina Schindler. These deal with various aspects of diversity, ranging from physical to cultural differences, and explore how to overcome difficulties through teamwork and solidarity. Solidarity was the focus in two lessons based on the film  Novembre  ( November 2015) by Marjolaine Perreten and the book  Out of the Blue  (2014) by Alison Jay. Equality was the theme of one lesson that used the film  Isän poika  ( Papa’s Boy 2010), directed by Leevi Lemmetty to stimulate a discussion of gender roles. Human rights, particularly poverty, were addressed in one lesson stimulated by the film Όνειρο ζωής ( Dream of Living 2011), directed by Alkisti Kokorikou and Pinelopi Kokkali.

Our data for this chapter includes 695 individual artifacts from Cyprus (216), Germany (89), Israel (32), Lithuania (65), Portugal (204), Spain (49), and the UK (40). All three age groups explored the subtheme of celebrating diversity. The first two groups explored solidarity, only the second age group explored equality, and only the oldest students explored human rights. However, during the lessons and in the artifacts inspired by the books, films, and classroom discussions, the abovementioned subthemes intertwine.

Food and Everyday Activities as Signs of Cultural Diversity

Three of the lessons—stimulated by the picture books  To the Market ,  Saturday , and  Excentric City —were designed to spark discussions on celebrating diversity through accepting and respecting different ways of living.  To the Market , aimed at the youngest age group, centers on how food and material goods signal cultural differences. The book narrates a story of a mother and a daughter taking a trip to their local market where a multicultural and multiethnic array of tradespeople sell different foods and goods. The customers at the market look different and are interested in different products. At the market, everyday life unites people from different ethnic backgrounds into a harmonious and peaceful whole. The Dutch book ends with a picture depicting the daughter at home next to a table with different foods from the market that recalls still lives in old Flemish paintings. In their artifacts, the children were asked to explore their own cultural identity through material culture: “You have a stall at the market selling products from your country. What do you decide to display and sell?” Instead of a drawing, the children could “work in groups to create a soundtrack for your favorite double spread. What sounds do you hear? What do people say? What languages do you hear? What sounds do animals or objects make?”.

Most of the classes drew foods and goods. Their artifacts are images of market stalls with piles of vegetables, fruits, fish, and other products. For instance, a group of Portuguese children drew eight different market stalls with written texts: “Watermelon stall,” “Strawberry stall,” “Grape stall,” “Pork meat,” “Fish and fruit stall,” “Vegetable stall, carrots and broccoli,” “Sea fish stall,” and “Sardine stall.” The market stalls themselves look inviting with different forms and cheerful colors. Another Portuguese group created a collage of recipes and images of local dishes. The classes from other countries also focused on drawing or making 3D models of market stalls with various items representing the local material culture and traditional dishes. Their locality could be emphasized in the titles of the artifacts. For instance, the Cypriot children titled their artifacts “Traditional products” and include text labels in the images, naming dozens of local dishes and foods.

In the UK, the children also created a soundtrack by playing out an imagined situation in which they were at the market. The voice of a stallholder selling potatoes is at the center of this soundtrack. The teacher reflected on the task by reporting: “They loved the text [ To the Market ] and we spent a long time exploring each picture. The children worked in small groups to create their own market stall using pictures to create a collage. We then created the sound clip with the hustle and bustle you might hear at a market. They loved it!”.

The teacher’s comment reflects the enthusiasm with which the children responded to the marketplace as a space of cultural diversity. In the artifacts, the children focused on their own material culture and its local, regional, or national features. The instructions for creating the artifact led most of the children to draw products, not people, or to include only market stallholders, not the customers or people interacting in the marketplace. Only a few artifacts include children and explore the marketplace from a child’s perspective. In these pictures, the market stalls look huge and the items are placed on such high tables that they are difficult to see from the ground (Fig.  5.1 ).

A drawing made by a Cypriot child in the first age group depicting a marketplace with goods from Cyprus

The topic of food enables discussions on various cultural issues and social challenges in the classroom, such as: What do we know about the food of other cultures? Why does food represent someone’s native culture? Why do children starve in some parts of the world if there is so much food at the marketplace? How can we help people who are starving?

The lesson for the second age group shifted the focus from material goods to activities. The stimulus, the book Saturday , depicts a heterogeneous group of people doing all sorts of weekend activities in an unnamed town. The first double spread depicts a football game or tournament, the second a scene at the market, the third the inside of a grocery store, followed by other settings including a swimming pool, a library, the beach, and a museum. The scenes are depicted from a bird’s eye view. The different ethnicities, age groups, and lifestyles reflected in how people look are thus portrayed from afar. This creates distance between the readers and the protagonists. As Jewitt and Oyama ( 2004 , 147) put it in their study of visual meaning: “To see people from a distance is to see them in the way we would normally only see strangers, people whose lives do not touch on ours. We see them in outline, impersonally, as types rather than as individuals.”

In this lesson, students were first invited to discuss the following questions: What do you do on a Saturday? Do you have chores to complete? Hobbies? Prayer time for Sabbath? Rest time? Why do you take part in these activities? Next, the students were asked to collaboratively create a scene that would fit into the narrative of the book by depicting what they do on a Saturday. Many of the artifacts are filled with a bustle similar to the one on the pages of Saturday . Only a few artifacts depicted calm scenes.

In general, the artifacts reveal their creators’ familiarity with and interest in diverse cultural and social activities. A group of Spanish students, for example, created a drawing with multiple scenes that portrayed visits to the zoo, parties, the theater or cinema, and playgrounds (Fig.  5.2 ). Their class teacher reported that the task inspired the students:

They really enjoyed talking about what they were doing over the weekend and sharing it with the rest of the class. […] The students enjoyed the book (which we projected on the screen) and joint conversation. They liked being able to draw and explain it to classmates.

An artifact created by a group of Spanish students in the second age group exploring what they do on a Saturday

The book, the classroom discussions, the artifacts, and their explanations formed a continuum in which students explored diversity, plurality, and difference through their own everyday activities and interests.

Even though  Saturday  focuses on one day, it includes a broad temporal span and contextual variety. The scenes in the book represent different seasons and contexts: the streets during summer, a park during autumn, and a town-center skating rink during winter. In their artifacts, students represent several of the locations and activities depicted in the book. The students depict themselves, their friends, and families in the playground, swimming pool, or garden, or at an amusement park. A group of German students explained their artifact in a caption as follows: “We have decided that we will play with friends because we often meet friends on Saturdays. Here you can see that we’re in the playground.” Another German group explained: “Our group drew a swimming pool because we like to go to the swimming pool on Saturdays.” A group of Portuguese students wrote: “We chose the pool because we all went there and it is a fun, cool, beautiful activity and a good place to go for a weekend walk with family and friends.” Sports were depicted in the artifacts in all countries: Commonly, the children drew scenes in which they are playing football or cycling.

The oldest students explored living together as celebrating diversity in a lesson based on a leporello (concertina-folded book) entitled Excentric City . The book is made up of elaborate papercuts illustrating a plethora of stories and episodes set in this city. Similar to the two previous lessons, students were asked to create artifacts reflecting their interests in their hometown or city: “Create a leporello with a sequence of sketches representing their own everyday culture.”

The students responded to the task in two different ways. The first group of students made artifacts following the instructions to focus on their own everyday life and its episodes, locations, and activities from the point of view of “I.” Most of these artifacts illustrate carefree and happy living with one’s family and friends. Other students chose to depict struggles that they, their family, or others in general face in their everyday life. For instance, a student from the UK made a papercut depicting a room with a woman dressing followed by images of bombing, graves, and a crying face. In the caption, the student explains:

My story is called “life” because it’s about the daily struggles and worries families have in Afghanistan. It starts with a room showing a person waking up. As this person wakes up she puts on her abaya. An abaya is a black dress that is loose. As she goes out she can see a plane overhead. In Afghanistan bombs by the Taliban are usual, whether it be a suicide or an explosive. As the plane goes ahead it drops a bomb on a school and there’s a big explosion. This causes much grief and pain for mothers, fathers, and families as they have lost their children, siblings. I have chosen to write about this because it is a daily thing. For some it might be a happy day like weddings etc. But now going out is a struggle. I chose this because it is very dear to me as I have a lot of family members there and they are in constant danger because of the terrorists.

This artifact brings forth the multidimensional reality that many children with a migration history face in their everyday life: Life in Europe is intertwined with life on other continents.

The second group of students explored everyday culture in their artifacts from the point of view of “we.” These artifacts emphasize the differences between people and the variety of activities they do in their everyday life. In the captions of these artifacts, the students draw abstract conclusions. In one caption, students from Lithuania stress the idea of difference as the essence of social life:

We are all different. We painted our celebrations, friends, the gym, school, home – the things which are personally important to us. These drawings indicate our differences because we all think differently, everybody’s attitude to the same aspects is different. Everybody is creating a different life and we don’t see it as a problem.

Some of the artifacts and their captions reflect even broader openness to difference, which is understood as enriching. Another group of Lithuanian students explains their artifact as follows:

In this book, we wanted to show the world’s uniqueness and variety. The world on its own isn’t original but people make it such by coloring its parts. Each of us colors a little piece and together the world becomes a rainbow full of creativity and rich in its unique beauty. People’s originality was shown in the book. The book shows the brightness of the world. On all of the pages, we can see people. We can make an assumption that the world wouldn’t be bright without humans. The world isn’t created in colors, we color the Earth with different colors!

This kind of openness to difference can be seen as the premise for an open society in the terms of K. R. Popper ( 2013 ). He identified a radical difference between two types of social relations leading either to a closed or an open society. The members of a closed society are united by their ties and belonging to the same group (tribe, nation, family), while the members of an open society overstep the boundaries of these closed groups and use reason to open their minds to the different other, the stranger, the one who is not from their group. This kind of openness is key for living together.

Otherness and Challenges in Teaching Solidarity

The lesson aimed at the first age group used the film  November  to stimulate a discussion on solidarity reflects on negotiation between the ideas of open and closed society through the topic of help. In the film, a hedgehog escapes a flood—that threatens its and other animals’ habitat—by making a boat from a leaf, like the biblical Noah. On this trip, the hedgehog is accompanied by a snail and a worm—all of them different but sharing the same living environment. This lesson focused on discussing the events in the film: Who helps whom and who needs help. Students were asked to reflect upon occasions when they had helped others. The children were asked to create a freeze-frame drama (where they are “frozen” in acting positions like statues) about helping someone. They acted out these frozen positions in pairs and the teachers photographed them. The artifacts and their captions revealed a broad variety of situations where someone needs help and the children are able to respond to the need. The situations ranged from finding help for a peer injured in a game to making friends with a peer who is excluded from others’ play, and from covering one’s sick father in his bed at night to cuddling a lost puppy on the street.

A lesson for the second age group based on the film  Otherwise  dealt with solidarity on a more intimate level. In the film, a group of chameleons realizes that one of them is different: This chameleon cannot change its reddish skin color to adapt to the environment and behaves differently from others, acting independently and strangely. The group responds to the difference like the closed society in Popper’s ( 2013 ) theory, revealing the downside of group egoism—selfish defense of one’s own group interest and a tendency to expel difference. When a green chameleon is seized by an eagle, the group decides that the chameleon with a different color is guilty and starts to persecute him. While escaping the persecutors, the chameleon climbs up a mountain and by accident finds the seized green chameleon and rescues it. After this, the rescuer is accepted into the group. The story serves as a challenging starting point to discuss and explore solidarity.

In this lesson, the students were asked to create a drama freeze-frame to show scenes before and after someone is excluded or included. The artifacts and their captions created in that lesson imply that the exercise of first excluding and then including someone emphasized how the students are aware of the narrow social norms for becoming accepted and the difference as a “reason” for exclusion, and they are also able to critically assess exclusive processes. The task thus invited the students to critically explore exclusion and inclusion, or the practice of choosing scapegoats to be excluded from “us” (see Popper’s 2013 ). The exercise did not only provoke the students to recognize differences as reason for discrimination but also to question the logic of discrimination based on difference.

Discussions on difference require sensitivity since pinpointing difference may also deepen the stereotypes that lead to exclusion. It is nevertheless crucial to recognize cultural stereotypes and discriminatory practices in order to prevent exclusion (see Crenshaw 1991 ) and learn openness, empathy, and a will to understand the other’s points of view. Therefore, teachers need to make sure that the students do not only recognize existing stereotypes but learn to see how stereotypes are culturally and historically constructed. Only through this can they learn to overcome prejudices related to these stereotypes.

Solidarity with Nonhumans

Plants and animals are other for human beings as a species. Should people care about all the creatures living on the Earth? Solidarity as the idea of empathy and the will to act jointly, sharing both advantages and burdens equally and justly, can be extended to cover nature and nonhumans (see Chapter 6 ). In the CLLP, one of the lessons for the second age group sought to explicitly deal with solidarity as understood in this broad view. The lesson was based on the book  Out of the Blue , which tells a giant squid that becomes beached upon the shore. Holidaymakers, birds, dolphins, and sharks all work together to return the squid into the sea, demonstrating the interrelated connection between animals, humans, and nature on the coast. In the instructions for artifacts, the students were asked to create a comic strip showing the rescue of a sea creature stranded on the beach. The students were instructed that the comic strips should emphasize solidarity through collaborative—not individual—action and explore how different people have a different part to play in the rescue.

In the artifacts, the students depicted various kinds of sea creatures experiencing trouble. The most popular creatures in the artifacts were different types of whales that were, for instance, “bleeding,” “stuck in a plastic,” “taken by a storm to the beach,” or “trapped in a fisherman’s net,” as Spanish students explain in their captions. Furthermore, dolphins, swordfishes, jellyfishes, and octopuses were depicted as being stranded or as feeling unwell due to having eaten trash. These images highlight how the students recognize and utilize media images and discussions related to human impact on marine life. After all, the imagery of plastic reefs, stranded whales, and marine animals with their intestines full of plastic is typical media coverage today. A whale full of plastic may even be called a symbol of the pollution of the seas. The stories in the artifacts have, however, a happy ending as other animals and people show solidarity to the sea creatures and rescue them from the trouble. In many of the artifacts, the importance of the sea creatures is emphasized by their huge size compared to people (Fig.  5.3 ). The size also underlines the huge effort the humans have to take in helping them. This effort seems to be eased by the number of people and other animals helping the sea creatures.

A drawing by a group of children in the first age group from Cyprus explores solidarity through the rescue of a sea creature stranded on the beach

The captions of the artifacts bring forth the understanding of solidarity as empathy for all living creatures and nature and as a will to act jointly with humans and nonhumans to help others. For instance, a group of Portuguese students explained solidarity in the caption as “the pleasure of helping,” “particularly important for humanity,” and “a form of friendship.” The captions also emphasized the power of collaboration: “When we see a problem, we must help because it is better with more hands. Many people helping makes the problem easier to solve,” as another group of Portuguese students wrote. In the captions, solidarity as help and respect for others was extended to nonhumans. As another group of Portuguese students noted: “We have to help others and respect everyone. We must always help animals when they are in danger.”

Living Together and Complex Child–adult Relationships

The CLLP included three lessons, one for each age group, in which students explored the relationship between children and adults through different problems. In their lesson, the youngest age group looked at living together and solidarity through the film  Head Up , the story of a baby goat who helps an adult goat to jump over an abyss. The baby goat teaches the adult goat, which can be interpreted to be his parent, to look at the sky when he jumps to overcome his fear. The second age group discussed equality using the film  Papa’s Boy , about a mouse boy who wants to be a ballerina, which also reflects the power relations between a child and a parent. In the film, the father mouse, who used to be a famous boxer, is sad as his son is more interested in ballet than boxing. Yet the boy’s dancing skills come in handy when a cat attacks the father: He escapes the clutches of the cat and saves his father. This helps the father appreciate his son’s interest in ballet. The oldest students explored human rights by watching the film  Dream of Living . The story is about another child–adult relationship: A homeless person’s family attempts to encourage him to return home. All three films end with the child and parent living happily together.

The students in each age group created different types of artifacts. To respond to  Head Up , the children were given the outline of an adult’s hand and asked to draw the outline of their own hand inside it to depict a situation where a child helps an adult. As a response to  Papa’s Boy , the students were asked to draw a comic strip showing the father’s and son’s emotions at the beginning, middle, and end of the story. In response to  Dream of Living , the students were asked to design crosswords or puzzles with key words from their discussion during the lesson.

The drawings by the youngest children indicate their close relationship with their families: typically, they drew themselves helping either their father or mother, sometimes a sibling. The children depicted various situations where they help their parents with different tasks and depicted themselves as caring for their parents’ feelings and emotions. For instance, a Cypriot group of children wrote:

I cut flowers from the garden and I give them to my mum to make her feel happy. I cut flowers from the garden for my mum. I help my dad with his tools and we do crafts. I remind my dad to clean the excavator and I help him do it properly. I hug my mum in the dark so that she is not afraid. I cut flowers from the garden for my mum’s vase so that our home is cozy and we can be happy. I help my mum to prepare my school bag. I tell her what I want so that she doesn’t make any mistakes. I hold my mum’s hand when it’s raining so that she is not afraid. I hug my mum and dad to make them feel happy. I help my dad clean the truck so that he is happy.

The artifacts illustrate various everyday situations in families very colorfully but also reflect typical gender roles: Children help their fathers repair things, and help their mothers “sweep the floor” and “wash the dishes,” as some Portuguese children put it. Besides the film, the children seemed to be inspired by their peers: Cutting flowers for one’s mother is repeated by students throughout the Cypriot group. The children’s enthusiasm for the idea of being able to help adults was recognized by a Spanish teacher who reported that they “felt very important in explaining to other classmates their experiences about how they help people older than themselves.”

After watching  Papa’s Boy , the children’s task was to reconstruct the plot, following its emotional dynamics. Most of the students depicted the emotional turning points: The father’s shift from sad to “proud” (as it was commonly expressed in the artifacts or their captions) and the happy ending where both father and son are cheerful and thankful. A group of students from Cyprus describes the emotions at the end of the story with imagined lines: “Bravo son! You can continue ballet and become a famous ballerina,” and the son replies: “Thank you, Dad.” In such responses, typical to our data, most of the students uncritically explore the characters’ emotions and ignore the father’s authoritarian pressure on his son. Nevertheless, in each country at least one group of students questions the gendered expectations in the film. In one of the artifacts from Israel, the cat teaches the dad, saying “one has to accept the difference of the different person.” Students from different countries wrote captions emphasizing that parents support their children’s choices. “Our parents are different from the mouse’s father, because our parents believe in our dreams,” a group of Portuguese students wrote. These students underline a liberal discourse of “staying true to ourselves” (as stated by a group from Lithuania) reminding that “you can be anything you want and don’t let anyone hold you back” (as stated by a group from the UK). The right to individual and equal choices is expressed by a group from Cyprus as follows:

We can choose whichever dance, sport, or activity we want regardless of a member of our family being a champion in something else. In addition, we can wear the clothes we want because each of us should be ourselves. We can also work in a job we want. Father – a radiologist, mother – a doctor, children – YouTubers or accountants.

The data reveals that already at this age, some children saw their future choices as their right and themselves as independent actors uninfluenced by pressure from social norms or their parents’ expectations.

In the lesson stimulated by  Dream of Living , the students were asked to explore the theme of living together through abstract concepts inspired by the film. While the artifacts reveal different interpretations, some concepts recurred: Help, company, support, solidarity, and home. The film seemed to raise empathic emotions in students, but they did not explore in the artifacts its core struggle, poverty forcing one to beg, with the concept of human rights—although this was the key subtheme of the lesson.

Instead of making conceptual crosswords, some Lithuanian students reflected on the film through drawings. These artifacts include some explorations of the causes of poverty. One group of students noted how the key in life is to feel happy and not to be alone, but “sometimes people feel unhappy because of their life situations. Sometimes because of using alcohol/drugs, playing in the casino, etc. Sometimes because beloved people leave us alone.”

The film inspired another Lithuanian group of students to draw pictures illustrating the challenges of living together. In one of these artifacts (Fig.  5.4 ), a father is close to his family but at the same time enclosed in a cage. A child, presumably their son, is with his mother, but the father stays apart, alone, and unhappy—emphasized by the grayness of the cage. The father is holding a cigarette and surrounded by bottles, playing cards, and money. The family relations are not further explored in the caption but the students explain the illustrated situation through loneliness:

All humans need warm feelings, attention from others, everyday communication. Everybody needs to come back from work and somebody has to wait for them, listen to stories of what happened during their day, share good and bad feelings. When somebody stays alone, he loses self-trust, becomes depressed, uses alcohol. That is why he needs help from others.

A drawing by a Lithuanian student in the oldest age group exploring the themes of living together and human rights

In the CLLP, all three age groups of students explored the theme of living together through books and films about celebrating diversity, solidarity, equality, and human rights. Their artifacts demonstrated that the students, particularly the older ones, explored different aspects of the themes in an abstract and multifaceted manner, not only from an “I” but also from a “they” perspective. Learning about solidarity requires sensitivity for difference. Lessons on the subject need to be planned carefully to ensure inclusive cultural practices and respect for diversity and difference.

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Tuuli Lähdesmäki

Philosophy Institute, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania

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Susanne C. Ylönen

Aino-Kaisa Koistinen

Katja Mäkinen

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Lähdesmäki, T. et al. (2022). Living Together. In: Learning Cultural Literacy through Creative Practices in Schools . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89236-4_5

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We’ve been together 23 years and never lived together. Here’s why it works

He’s an Albanian-American introvert with Buddhist leanings. I was raised an Orthodox Jew. I’m somewhat loquacious and politely Canadian. How the two of us ended up together in Montreal as a couple is both baffling and amazing. The stuff of movies, one might say — befitting, since I am a filmmaker. But unlike the traditional trajectory of Hollywood movies, where the protagonists meet, fall in love, move in together and marry, we wrote our own ending, one that involved living happily ever apart. 

We are what I call apartners — committed partners who live apart. And we are about to celebrate our 23rd anniversary.

People often ask why we don’t live together. The truth is that there is no one answer. In the beginning, when David and I met, our schedules were completely opposite — he was up at the crack of dawn, working 10-hour days, sometimes six days a week. He works in the aerospace industry and was often on deadline. I have a more flexible schedule and often work late into the night.

For us, living apart made sense. We both lived in modest, rent-controlled apartments and really enjoyed having both time together and alone.

As time passed, it became increasingly clear that David’s temporary time in Montreal was going to become permanent — with me. We were in love, we were in this for the long haul, and we were also happy to live 15 minutes apart. Even though we have our own spaces, our lives are completely intertwined. I look at it like we’re a Venn diagram: We’re each a complete circle on our own, but then we have our overlapping part. That overlapping part is our life together. And that’s finite. That’s forever. 

Even though we have our own spaces, our lives are completely intertwined.

I’ve heard all the skepticism — “You’re just friends with benefits!” — to which I reply, “It’s been 23 years. Those are some benefits!” I don’t know too many casual daters who are the executors of each other’s estates and have each other’s powers of attorney.

Then there are those who confide in me, “Had I known this was an option, maybe I wouldn’t be divorced now.”

Our relationship is no different from any other committed, lifelong relationship — it just happens to operate from two separate addresses.

David and I have been through everything together — illnesses, deaths, the highs and lows of life, and we are always there for one another. What more can someone ask for?

I see apartnering as a fluid arrangement. There are times we do live together — when one of us is ill or recovering from surgery, for example. At the beginning of the pandemic, we were under curfew for months and I didn’t feel comfortable being alone, so he stayed with me then. And since David has retired, we’re looking into moving into a duplex, with me upstairs and him downstairs. So we’ll still be apartners, but in the same building. A new adventure.

David is a very important part of my world, but he is not my entire world.

David is a very important part  of my world, but he is not my entire world. Living separately allows me to have my needs met by others in addition to David, including friends and family. I feel that expecting one person to be your everything is setting yourself up for disappointment. It’s also unrealistic and puts tremendous pressure on a relationship. There are so many other people who enrich our lives. I’m a big believer in community. People in the past lived in villages or extended family groups, and I feel that a primary relationship should ideally exist within that framework. 

We have found that when you take away mundane things in life — who’s going to do the dishes, pick up the socks off the floor? — and focus on what’s really important, you can focus on what is really important in a relationship — support, care, intimacy and companionship. By having our own spaces, I feel that David and I are actually more present for each other. Of course we still sometimes argue, but when we do, David and I can take a timeout from each other. We have space to cool down and reflect and come back together in a healthier and more constructive manner. 

For me, the best part about being apartners is having the time and space to recharge my batteries. That can only be beneficial for any kind of relationship. If my batteries are depleted, how will I ever have the energy to devote to anyone else? 

I’m not advocating that being apartners is right for everyone. Not every couple is meant to live apart. But, not every couple is meant to live together, either. There is simply no cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all way to love. My intention with my upcoming film is to show that options exist.

Life is hard enough. If you can find someone who makes you feel loved and will stand with you through all the hardships, try to find a way to make it work for both of you, no matter what society dictates. We made it work, and for that, I count my blessings every day.

As told to Rheana Murray

Sharon Hyman is working on a documentary called “Apartners: Living Happily Ever Apart,” that she plans to release in 2022.

Sharon Hyman is a filmmaker in Montreal and the creator of a popular Facebook group for people who are curious about the "Living Together Apart" movement.

My best friend and I were both diagnosed with cancer before 40. Survivorship brought us closer

I have a painful condition known as the ‘suicide disease.’ This is how I got my life back

I worked with terminal patients for decades. This is what they taught me about life

I blamed myself for my ectopic pregnancy. Here’s what helped me get through it

My lung collapsed 6 times before I was finally diagnosed with a rare form of endometriosis

After my stroke, I didn’t know how to identify as someone with a disability 

I started running to lose weight. I never thought I’d fall in love with it

My shame over having an STD is one of the hardest things I’ve ever dealt with

I almost died after my routine C-section. Things got worse from there

I ignored my back pain. 5 days later I almost lost my leg

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• Published: September 2023
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this is the second of three volumes that collect essays drafted between 1980 and 2011. I have made small changes here and there, especially in punctuation, to make individual sentences easier to read. And I have added, in square brackets, cross-references to essays in the other two volumes along with a few notes. The essays are otherwise unchanged. I have arranged those within each volume in the order in which they were first drafted, since this best displays the evolution of my thought. But I have assigned the essays to their respective volumes primarily along thematic lines.

The single most important idea in Volume I—the one that ties the essays together—is Aristotle’s conception of the ideal friend as an “other self.” But the essays in that volume, though inspired by my reading of Aristotle, are concerned less with what Aristotle himself actually thought than with the ways in which views inspired by his might allow us to address contemporary questions about, for example, the nature of personal identity; the rationality of concern for our future selves; the nature of love and friendship; and ideal versus non-ideal forms of psychic structure. In Volumes II and III, I turn to the precarious task of attempting to determine what Aristotle himself thought on these and related issues.

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Home Essay Samples Life Marriage

Should Couples Live Together Before Marriage

Table of contents, the case for living together before marriage, concerns and counterarguments, alternative approaches: pre-marital counseling, striking a balance.

• Booth, A., Johnson, D. R., White, L. K., & Edwards, J. N. (1985). Divorce and Marital Instability over the Life Course. Journal of Family Issues, 6(4), 451-482.
• Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2010). Should I stay or should I go? Predicting dating relationship stability from four aspects of commitment. Journal of Family Psychology, 24(5), 543-550.
• Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., & Markman, H. J. (2006). Sliding versus Deciding: Inertia and the Premarital Cohabitation Effect. Family Relations, 55(4), 499-509.
• Wallerstein, J. S., & Lewis, J. M. (2004). The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: The 25 Year Landmark Study. Hyperion.
• Whitehead, B. D., & Popenoe, D. (2002). Should We Live Together? What Young Adults Need to Know about Cohabitation before Marriage. National Marriage Project.

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My partner and I have been dating for 8 years and don't live together. Living separately works for our relationship.

• My long-term partner and I don't live together.
• I've come to terms with the fact it doesn't mean anything about the seriousness of our commitment.
• I had to go of my own judgment and realize that commitment doesn't look the same for everyone.

My boyfriend and I have been together for over eight years, yet we don't live together .

It wasn't intentional at first. We went through the motions of apartment hunting. For the first several years after getting serious, we talked about neighborhoods and types of buildings that made sense for us — he has a son, and I have a dog. But the conversations about proximity to green space, how many blocks to the subway and his son's school, and where the nearest grocery store needed to be all felt laced with doubt. It was like planning a trip I knew I'd never take and maybe didn't want to.

In many ways, this lifestyle makes perfect sense for me. I haven't always followed the traditional paths and have progressive beliefs. Marriage was never a 'must-have' for me; I never wanted my own children . Independence within a relationship has always been a priority for me.

I thought I'd live with a partner eventually

Yet, this way of having a relationship still came as a surprise. I imagined I would live with a partner eventually. It was the one traditional step I figured I would someday take. I pictured it being a moment of joy to finally combine our books and decide on a couch we'd both end up on at the end of the day. In fact, in previous relationships, this was a step I not only felt OK with but thought I wanted.

With each lease renewal or apartment move, the topic came up. Should I renew for one or two years? Will we decide we're ready then? For a long time, it didn't feel dishonest to push it down the road, to pretend that I would want that someday.

There were financial and logistical reasons for us to delay, but when we hit the six-, seven-, and eight-year mark, it became clear that this was no longer a setup designed by circumstance but one we both preferred. We both enjoy our own space and the ability to have our own things without much compromise.

Related stories

Living in New York City also doesn't make cohabitation easy for people who aren't starting from scratch without kids, pasts, or baggage. My boyfriend had a long-term apartment with manageable, steady rent that fit him and his son perfectly but wouldn't work with an additional person on a full-time basis. More than that, we were both conscious of disrupting his son's life with a big transition, and I wasn't sure I was ready to fit my own life and belongings around theirs, even though we loved spending time together as a unit.

It took time to stop wondering whether this was the right decision

As I firmly entered my (upper) middle-30s, I remained alone among my coupled-up friends who had never cohabitated . While I've never been one for FOMO or peer pressure, it has occasionally made me wonder if something might be wrong with my relationship. Or perhaps, more acutely, with my own ability to commit and take it seriously.

Society has evolved, and it's more commonplace to have relationship arrangements that deviate from the classic milestones. But, there are still steps that show the outside world that a dynamic is serious and that commitments have been made. Moving in together is one of the clearest of those. It means something when you do, so what does it mean when you don't? It took a long time to see that I was conflating those steps with progress.

Our relationship has always felt different

I'd had boyfriends hold back that intimacy like it was a secret to be kept. Not living together felt like it said something about my place in their lives.

But my current boyfriend was different. Very early on, he made sure I had space in his home. I had my own dresser and section of the closet. I had an entire shelf in the bathroom and a hook for my towel. It was clear that even though my mail went to a different address, whatever home we were spending time in would become ours. It was only when I was readily given what I'd craved that I realized I might not need more than that. Preferences can flourish when options are on the table.

With this confidence, and knowing my relationship is stronger than it's ever been, I just got a new apartment, for just me and my dog, down the street from my boyfriend and his son in Brooklyn. We have dinners together almost every night and do things as a family unit. I've known his son for over half his life, and we have our own unique and strong relationship, despite the non-conventionality.

I can't say this won't change, but I can say I've stopped waiting for it to. We might decide moving in makes sense for us someday, but now I know it won't mean anything when and if we do. Or, if we don't.

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Readers respond to essays on long Covid, hypochondria, and more

By Patrick Skerrett June 22, 2024

F irst Opinion is STAT’s platform for interesting, illuminating, and maybe even provocative articles about the life sciences writ large, written by biotech insiders, health care workers, researchers, and others.

To encourage robust, good-faith discussion about issues raised in First Opinion essays, STAT publishes selected Letters to the Editor received in response to them. You can submit a Letter to the Editor here , or find the submission form at the end of any First Opinion essay.

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“Long Covid feels like a gun to my head,” by Rachel Hall-Clifford

Thank you for this. I’m a 65-year-old woman who’s Covid cautious and wears a mask in public places (yes, in 2024). I’ve never had Covid as far as I know, and I try to keep up with the research. I feel like everybody would be more cautious if they read this article on long Covid, because it helps to really understand the horrible ways that a mild case of Covid can affect your life in ways that are unimaginable.

— Hildy Hogate

“I’m a hypochondriac. Here’s how the health care system needs to deal with people like me,” by Hal Rosenbluth

Health anxiety is the less biased term, rather than hypochondria with all its comic baggage.

Though the writer likes full body scans for himself and they suit his particular fears, many, many people with health anxiety, including me, wouldn’t get within 10 feet of a full body scan. It would be the opposite of reassuring.

Even if it did reassure for the moment, anyone with health anxiety knows reassurance is short-lived. A scan done in, say, January, might reassure a non-anxious person for the next six months. But it would be the rare person with health anxiety who would feel reassured for more than a couple of weeks.

And why on earth would you want to create a separate billing code for this, which would, without question, be used to pick out, stigmatize, and limit access to medical care? That doesn’t help patients, it soothes and enriches insurers, who would undoubtedly limit access to care based on a scan. How long would it take before you called to make an appointment with your doctor and were told sorry, your insurance won’t cover an office visit — your scan said you have no problems?

The writer’s personal experience, psychology, and taste for scans are just that, personal. They don’t generalize to most, or even many, of those who suffer from health anxiety.

— Maria Perry

“NIH needs reform and restructuring, key Republicans committee chairs say,” by Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Robert B. Aderholt

I agree with the authors that NIH needs reform. I was an athletic, otherwise healthy person who was struck down and disabled by long Covid in January 2022. For over two years, I’ve watched life pass me by as NIH has fumbled the $1.15 billion allocated to it by Congress to study and treat long Covid. This initiative, known as RECOVER, has failed to publish any research that furthers our understanding of the underlying cause of long Covid and the vast majority of clinical trials they’ve launched are for drugs that people have already tried and found unhelpful.

Perhaps NIH would not have bungled the long Covid funding had it not completely ignored other post viral diseases, namely myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) for the past 40 years. ME receives only $15 million a year — the most underfunded disease per patient burden at the NIH.

NIH should reevaluate how it allocates funding to diseases and base allocations on objective patient burdens. HIV, a disease with treatments that allow people with it to live mostly normal lives, receives $3.3 billion annually through NIH. Meanwhile, ME patients are disabled, have no approved treatments, and suffer a higher patient burden. Covid long haulers are suffering the same fate, many struck down as first wavers in March of 2020 are still disabled and sick as ever over four years later. Despite this, there is still no yearly allocation for long Covid in NIH’s baseline budget, as funding has only ever come from one time appropriations. NIH should right-size funding for ME and long Covid and start taking these diseases seriously.

— John Bolecek, long Covid patient

“Addressing health care workers’ trauma can help fight burnout,” by Sadie Elisseou

Thank you for writing this essay on the trauma and burnout that are all too common among today’s health care workforce. I applaud you for underscoring the importance of trauma-informed organizations and the critical value of workplaces that are safe, supportive, and flexible.

As a nurse educator and researcher, I have come to understand the important role of resilience in the work that nurses do. Considering two-thirds of nurses (65%) experience burnout, resilience-building skills are critical to mitigating nurse exhaustion and preserving our nation’s nursing pipeline. If actions are not taken to better protect the physical and mental health of our healthcare workforce, patient care will suffer. Lawmakers must take notice.

Some efforts in Congress have been successful. Congress has introduced legislation to reauthorize the Dr. Lorna Breen Provider Protection Act , bipartisan legislation that recognizes the need for mental health resources and support programs for healthcare professionals. Since its original enactment, this act has been instrumental in funding grant programs for mental health training, education, peer support, and crisis intervention services.

The reauthorization of this measure would expand grants to more than 200,000 other types of health care settings as well as renew the focus on reducing administrative burden for health care workers. While this bill is not a perfect solution, it does provide needed to support for a workforce that is understaffed, overworked, and in need to relief.

I urge Congress to finish the job and fully reauthorize the Dr. Lorna Breen Provider Protection Act this year.

— Stephanie Turner, R.N., Ed.D., M.S.N., ATI Nursing Education

About the Author Reprints

Patrick skerrett.

Acting First Opinion Editor

Patrick Skerrett is filling in as editor of First Opinion , STAT's platform for perspective and opinion on the life sciences writ large, and host of the First Opinion Podcast .

STAT encourages you to share your voice. We welcome your commentary, criticism, and expertise on our subscriber-only platform, STAT+ Connect

To submit a correction request, please visit our Contact Us page .

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Election latest: Another Tory under investigation over election bets - as Labour to return £100,000 in donations

A former Tory candidate who was dropped for betting on the date of the election has vowed to clear his name, as the Labour Party and more police officers also become embroiled in the escalating scandal.

Wednesday 26 June 2024 00:16, UK

• General Election 2024

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Election betting scandal

• Labour candidate suspended | Party to return donations
• Welsh Conservative under investigation
• Dropped Tory candidate vows to 'clear name'
• More police officers accused of betting on election date
• Jon Craig: This has exposed quite a sleazy side of politics
• Live reporting by Faith Ridler and (earlier)  Tim Baker
• Car crash outside PM's country house
• Four arrested in grounds of Sunak's constituency home
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We'll be back at 6am with all the latest from the general election campaign.

There are just eight days of campaigning left until the polls open on 4 July, and political parties from across the House of Commons are busy trying to win your votes.

Join us from the morning for more live updates.

After days of furore directed at Rishi Sunak for the election betting scandal, now a Labour candidate is under investigation by the Gambling Commission for his own betting activity - and is immediately suspended.

Is this an equaliser in one of the grubbiest electoral sagas of recent elections? Quite possibly not.

There is no doubting the utter dismay in Labour HQ at the revelation that they too have a candidate caught up in the betting scandal.

It lends itself to the easy narrative that there's a plague on all politicians' houses - everyone as bad as each other.

However, if the facts are as presented, the scale of the challenge for the Tories is of a different order of magnitude to that now facing Labour.

Labour's Kevin Craig was  suspended immediately  after the party was informed by the Gambling Commission of the probe.

You can read more from our deputy political editor Sam Coates below:

It's 10pm - here's your late night general election bulletin.

Today has had a heavy focus on the Conservative betting scandal - but there's been plenty more for us to sink our teeth into.

• The Conservatives have announced they will no longer be supporting the two candidates being investigated over placing bets on the election date;
• Laura Saunders and Craig Williams will still appear in on their respective ballots - but won't be supported by the party; 
• Mr Williams has since shared a video statement, claiming he "committed an error of judgement, not an offence" and insisting: "I intend to clear my name" ; 
• And Russell George , a Conservative member of the Senedd, has stepped back from the Welsh shadow cabinet as he faces an investigation over alleged bets;
• In other news, four men have been arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass in the grounds of the prime minister's home , police have confirmed;
• The arrests are connected to a protest by the Youth Demand campaign group, which has staged a number of actions against both the Conservative government's performance and Labour's proposed policies.
• Labour has suspended a candidate today for betting that he would not win in his seat on 4 July .  Kevin Craig has apologised for the "huge mistake" he made in betting against himself;
• The party, meanwhile, has announced plans to tackle knife crime ;
• Sir Keir appeared at an event with actor Idris Elba as they discussed introducing a long-term strategy to tackle the issue;
• Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has taken part in an hour-long debate with Conservative Home Secretary James Cleverly , taking in both legal and illegal migration;
• The minister said he does not "envisage" a Tory government leaving the European Court of Human Rights, despite the PM's threats to do so;
• And Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has opened up about looking after his disabled son in an interview with Beth Rigby .

Don't forget, Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge is back tonight at 7pm.

And if you're heading home from work, you might also be interested in today's Electoral Dysfunction , all about that photo of Sir Keir and his wife enjoying a Taylor Swift concert at Wembley.

The latest episode of the Electoral Dysfunction podcast is out, with Sky political editor Beth Rigby chatting to former Scottish Conservative leader Baroness Ruth Davidson, and ex-Labour adviser Baroness Ayesha Hazarika.

You can listen to the podcast in full below:

👉  Click here to follow Electoral Dysfunction wherever you get your podcasts  👈

Scotland Secretary Alister Jack has tonight denied breaking any Gambling Commission rules "on any occasion".

It comes after the BBC reported he had told the broadcaster he placed wagers on June and July polling dates.

However, in a statement he said: "I am very clear that I have never, on any occasion, broken any Gambling Commission rules.

"Specifically, I did not place any bets on the date of the general election during May (the period under investigation by the Gambling Commission).

"Furthermore, I am not aware of any family or friends placing bets."

"And for the avoidance of doubt that based on my comment above the Gambling Commission have obviously not contacted me."

Our live poll tracker collates the results of opinion surveys carried out by all the main polling organisations - and allows you to see how the political parties are performing in the run-up to the general election.

It shows a drop in support in recent days for Labour and the Tories - with a jump for Reform and the Liberal Democrats.

Read more about the tracker here .

There are seemingly three things on the minds of British people at the moment - the Euros, the election, and Taylor Swift.

But while the Royal Family have been quick to send their backing to England's footballers and catch the pop star's Eras shows at Wembley, they'll be keeping their distance from the politics.

That's despite the fact that, apart from the monarch, the royals are technically allowed to vote in UK general elections.

Sky News explains why they don't.

Rhun ap Iorwerth, the leader of Plaid Cymru, was also asked about a manifesto commitment to make it a criminal offence for elected politicians to knowingly mislead the public.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson was suspended from parliament for misleading the Commons - does Mr Iorwerth think he should go to prison?

He says legislation to "make it clear there are consequences if you are found to be purposefully deceptive" could be "part of the world of building trust in politicians and politics".

It's noted how difficult it would be to prove someone had purposefully deceived parliament.

Building that trust is a key focus for his party, he says.

"We believe this is important because one of the questions that I've been asked a lot during the course of this election campaign and MPs over the past year, is how do we build trust in politicians?"

That brings our coverage of tonight's Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge to an end, but the show returns tomorrow at 7pm. Stick with us for more news and analysis throughout the evening.

Sophy Ridge  asks about a report into Plaid Cymru, published before Rhun ap Iorwerth became leader, which found "a culture of harassment, bullying, and misogyny".

Has he cleaned up the party's act?

"It was a difficult time for us," Mr Iorwerth admits. "We commissioned this report on ourselves. 

"And, you know, there's a suggestion that other political parties may well benefit from doing the same themselves.

"But this was our moment."

Mr Iorwerth adds that Plaid Cymru has been "through a wake-up" and have "ticked off" all 82 recommendations the report made.

Russell George, a Conservative member of the Senedd, has stepped back from the Welsh shadow cabinet as he faces an investigation by the gambling watchdog over alleged bets on the timing of the general election.

Mr George represents Montgomeryshire in the Welsh parliament - the same area that Craig Williams, the Tory candidate who has had party support withdrawn as he faces similar allegations, represented at Westminster.

Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies said: "Russell George has informed me that he has received a letter from the Gambling Commission regarding bets on the timing of the general election.

"Russell George has stepped back from the Welsh Conservative shadow cabinet while these investigations are ongoing.

"All other members of the Welsh Conservative Group have confirmed that they have not placed any bets.

"I will not issue further comment on this ongoing process, recognising the Gambling Commission's instruction for confidentiality to protect the integrity of the process."

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