The Finer Points On Cohabitation

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='havok579257' post='1783461' date='Feb 17 2009, 12:52 PM']that's not being strict, thats accomidating everyone else in the world before your girlfriend/boyfriend.

1. you really think because people don't see the bedroom lights on people will assume they are not having sex? they assume all young men and women are all trying to get laid.

2. should the couple have to spend every minute out side during the summer? as soon as the go inside, the rumors can start and will start if one of the neighbors does not like them. you can't get everyone to like you in this world. all it takes is one person to not like you in your neighborhood and let the rumor fly. i have seen it in every neighborhood/apaertment i have lived in since a child.

3. not hiding the car will in fact start more rumors because they always see such and such's car over at such and such's house.

4. leaving by 9-10 is still considered night time and people could still assume they are sleeping together.

5. and what if the couple works during the day? how do they accomidate this plan? do they never spend time alone?

6. The neighbors can just assume things no matter what they see. i mean how many times do we happen to see something in public and we assume something that is not true?[/quote]

So what do [u]you[/u] suggest? Sounds like you have already given up.

[havok579257]

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1783660' date='Feb 17 2009, 04:30 PM']So what do [u]you[/u] suggest? Sounds like you have already given up.[/quote]


i think we stop worry so much about what others think and worry about what the good Lord above thinks. God knows what goes on every second of our life. He knows if what we are doing is right or wrong.

scandel will always be present because rumors will be spread. trying to accomidate what everyone else thinks and trying to make everyone else think something is a waste of time. people will alweays spread rumors about you and it will be viewed as scandelous. stop worrying about what every single person in the world thinks of you and w3orry about what the good Lord does. Act like how the Lord wants you to act. If you and your boyfriend/girlfriend can hang out all the time and not have sex, then so be it. does it really matter what your neighbors think? does it matter if they think your having sex, if your not and God knows that?

[havok579257]

[quote name='LouisvilleFan' post='1783630' date='Feb 17 2009, 04:03 PM']Bottom line is, we can't control what rumors people make about us. We can control our own actions. Avoid the appearance of sin as much as is reasonably possible. Encourage good behavior in those you're around and discourage sinful behavior. That's it.[/quote]


this is what i am trying to say. don't worry about what is considered scandelous because anything can be scandelous. do what is right in God's eyes. but ddon't make your entire life miserbale because your worried about appearing scandelous to one of your nosy neighbors. just do what is right in God's eyes and don't worry about what everyone else thinks.

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='havok579257' post='1783693' date='Feb 17 2009, 04:56 PM']i think we stop worry so much about what others think and worry about what the good Lord above thinks. God knows what goes on every second of our life. He knows if what we are doing is right or wrong.

scandel will always be present because rumors will be spread. trying to accomidate what everyone else thinks and trying to make everyone else think something is a waste of time. people will alweays spread rumors about you and it will be viewed as scandelous. stop worrying about what every single person in the world thinks of you and w3orry about what the good Lord does. Act like how the Lord wants you to act. If you and your boyfriend/girlfriend can hang out all the time and not have sex, then so be it. does it really matter what your neighbors think? does it matter if they think your having sex, if your not and God knows that?[/quote]

Our actions serve as a witness to Christ. If people assume we are sleeping with our significant other because of our questionable actions, then there is a problem.

[eagle_eye222001]

[quote name='havok579257' post='1783698' date='Feb 17 2009, 05:01 PM']this is what i am trying to say. don't worry about what is considered scandelous because anything can be scandelous. do what is right in God's eyes. but ddon't make your entire life miserbale because your worried about appearing scandelous to one of your nosy neighbors. just do what is right in God's eyes and don't worry about what everyone else thinks.[/quote]

So because there exists a possibility that people will jump conclusions and make assumptions, we can justify evil, sin, and wrongdoing?

----------------
Listening to: [url="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/green+day/track/basket+case"]Green Day - Basket Case[/url]
via [url="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/"]FoxyTunes[/url]

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='havok579257' post='1783693' date='Feb 17 2009, 05:56 PM']i think we stop worry so much about what others think and worry about what the good Lord above thinks. God knows what goes on every second of our life. He knows if what we are doing is right or wrong.

scandel will always be present because rumors will be spread. trying to accomidate what everyone else thinks and trying to make everyone else think something is a waste of time. people will alweays spread rumors about you and it will be viewed as scandelous. stop worrying about what every single person in the world thinks of you and w3orry about what the good Lord does. Act like how the Lord wants you to act. If you and your boyfriend/girlfriend can hang out all the time and not have sex, then so be it. does it really matter what your neighbors think? does it matter if they think your having sex, if your not and God knows that?[/quote]


I don't think that "hanging out with your boyfriend/girlfriend all the time without having sex" is what this is about. I think this is about living together with a boyfriend are girlfriend when the two are not married. I agree that in the situation you set up that people are "hanging out" and not "living together" then it does not matter what the neighbors say. For we answer only to God.

That being said. Disregarding scandal as rumors is not wise nor is it in keeping with the Bible. In Genesis, Cain asks God after he has killed his brother "Am I my brother's keeper?" The answer is yes. In chapter eight of Saint Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, he talks about how Christians should not engage in certain public actions that can cause scandal to those who also are in the faith. I think it is our responsibility to our brothers, as much as it is our responsibility not to sin, for us not to engage in actions that others see as a vice or may lead a brother/sister to believe that you may be engaging in a vice. (1 Cor 8:10-12)If someone sees you, with your knowledge, reclining at table in the temple of an idol, may not his conscience too, weak as it is, be "built up" to eat the meat sacrificed to idols?

"But make sure that this liberty of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak. Thus through your knowledge, the weak person is brought to destruction, the brother for whom Christ died. When you sin in this way against your brothers and wound their consciences, weak as they are, you are sinning against Christ." (1 Cor 8:9-12).

Whether you believe it is wrong or not, it seems obvious to me that "cohabitation" and not just "hanging out and people gossiping" but actually living together [b][i]is[/i][/b] a stumbling block and as such it should not be engaged in out of love of neighbor. To disregard scandal is to disagree with Saint Paul and I think that it could only sophistry to argue that cohabitation would not cause scandal to a Catholic who is looking to another as an example in faith.

[quote][i]HisChildForever[/i]- Our actions serve as a witness to Christ. If people assume we are sleeping with our significant other because of our questionable actions, then there is a problem.[/quote]

Amen! Good Point!

Edited February 17, 2009 by Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

[cmotherofpirl]

"Chaste cohabitation" is an contradiction in terms.
Chastity implies an opposition to the immoral in the sense of lustful or licentious. It suggests refraining from all acts or thoughts that are not in accordance with the Church's teaching about the use of one's reproductive powers. It particularly stresses restraint and an avoidance of anything that might defile or make unclean the soul because the body has not been controlled in the exercise of its most imperious passion. (Etym. Latin castus, morally pure, unstained.)

How can you seriously try to be chaste and cohabitate at the same time? If you are passionately in love with someone, chastity is the last thing your body/soul is thinking about, so to put yourself in constant temptation is insane.
St Paul said "it is better to marry than burn" and playing with fire is just bad strategy, so why do it?

[havok579257]

[quote name='eagle_eye222001' post='1783719' date='Feb 17 2009, 05:16 PM']So because there exists a possibility that people will jump conclusions and make assumptions, we can justify evil, sin, and wrongdoing?

----------------
Listening to: [url="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/green+day/track/basket+case"]Green Day - Basket Case[/url]
via [url="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/"]FoxyTunes[/url][/quote]


gee, look, you just assumed something about me that is not true. this is exactly what i am talking about. i never said this should allow us to sin. i said that we should not try to accomidate everyone else in the whole world and what they think of us. just because someone will assume that once a boyfriend/girlfriend are alone in one of their houses, they must be having sex does not mean they should never be alone together in one of their houses. just by being alone together does not consitute sin. although someone could assume they are having sex and that could be considered scandel. to try and accomidate everyone is unrealistic. i mean how many jewish priests thought jesus was presenting scandel to the people by doing what he did. should jesus not have done those things because others considered it scandelous?

[havok579257]

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1783699' date='Feb 17 2009, 05:02 PM']Our actions serve as a witness to Christ. If people assume we are sleeping with our significant other because of our questionable actions, then there is a problem.[/quote]


but what one person considers questionable actions may in fact not really be questionable actions. like some people might assume that because a couple has been dating for 3 years they have HAD to have had sex at least once. even if the couple tells them they haven't, people could just assume they are lying because they don't want to admit it.

[havok579257]

[quote name='Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam' post='1783727' date='Feb 17 2009, 05:24 PM']I don't think that "hanging out with your boyfriend/girlfriend all the time without having sex" is what this is about. I think this is about living together with a boyfriend are girlfriend when the two are not married. I agree that in the situation you set up that people are "hanging out" and not "living together" then it does not matter what the neighbors say. For we answer only to God.

That being said. Disregarding scandal as rumors is not wise nor is it in keeping with the Bible. In Genesis, Cain asks God after he has killed his brother "Am I my brother's keeper?" The answer is yes. In chapter eight of Saint Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, he talks about how Christians should not engage in certain public actions that can cause scandal to those who also are in the faith. I think it is our responsibility to our brothers, as much as it is our responsibility not to sin, for us not to engage in actions that others see as a vice or may lead a brother/sister to believe that you may be engaging in a vice. (1 Cor 8:10-12)If someone sees you, with your knowledge, reclining at table in the temple of an idol, may not his conscience too, weak as it is, be "built up" to eat the meat sacrificed to idols?

"But make sure that this liberty of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak. Thus through your knowledge, the weak person is brought to destruction, the brother for whom Christ died. When you sin in this way against your brothers and wound their consciences, weak as they are, you are sinning against Christ." (1 Cor 8:9-12).

Whether you believe it is wrong or not, it seems obvious to me that "cohabitation" and not just "hanging out and people gossiping" but actually living together [b][i]is[/i][/b] a stumbling block and as such it should not be engaged in out of love of neighbor. To disregard scandal is to disagree with Saint Paul and I think that it could only sophistry to argue that cohabitation would not cause scandal to a Catholic who is looking to another as an example in faith.



Amen! Good Point![/quote]

living together is indeed a stumbling block and something i agree should wait till marriage. no disagreement there. but i say disregard scandel because there will ALWAYS be scandel from someone whom either is a gossip queen/king, loves to spread rumors or just does not like you. as long as we do what God says is right, we should not worry about what sally sue down the street thinks. if she thinks just because i have dated jane for 3 years it means we have had sex, then so be it. i should not change my entire life or go down and continue to tell her i am not sleeping with my girlfriend just so she will not assume something about me and spread rumors.

[Socrates]

[quote name='mcdeltatjg' post='1783086' date='Feb 16 2009, 10:52 PM']Statistics can be tricky. Generally, couples who do cohabitate are not chaste and don't really care about the rules anyway, including the proscription against divorce...

And also, staunch Catholics who would not cohabitate would likely avoid divorce once they are married, no matter how miserable their marriage is.

I suggested chaste cohabitation might be a good idea because y'all might be able to weed out potential problems and stuff. The goal I had in mind was not to reduce divorce but to reduce miserable marriages.[/quote]
I realize I'm a Johnny-come-lately to this discussion, and other people have already made a lot of good points, but I thought I'd reiterate the main points.

1) Cohabitation by an unmarried couple is primarily wrong because it creates a situation which constitutes what is known as a [b]proximate occasion of mortal sin[/b]. For almost any healthy young couple, living together in the same house would present a serious temptation to sinful sexual activity.
Morally, we are never supposed to knowingly put ourselves in a proximate occasion of sin unless there is a very serious reason for it.

God knows it's hard enough trying to be pure in a long-distance relationship, and sleeping in the same house together night-after-night would make falling into sin all too easy and convenient.

As shown, the idea that shacking up helps prevent bad marriages is contrary to real-life experience. More unmarried couples are living together than ever before, yet marriages are certainly no stronger, happier, or more lasting than they were in the past, when shacking up was a no-no.
And I don't think that simply shacking up minus the sex (presuming one is even miraculously able to pull that off) will do a whole lot to fix things. Marriage is about commitment ("for better or for worse") and the whole mentality behind living together for a "trial period" without commitment has led to more divorce, and more and more people never bothering to get married period. Cohabitation creates a culture of "serial monogamy," rather than lifetime commitment.



[quote]Come on... This is just semantics! How else can I say "fall in love"?



I think their are many things couples should be doing when they're dating in order to see how they fit together as a couple. Living together (chastely) would be a great way to see many things like:
[list]
[*]addiction problems (alcoholism, etc.) and the effect they would have on their marriage: Often, even if the other partner knows about the addiction, they often are in denial of the problems it would create in their marriage until they are already married. I had a stoner roommate before. I knew him before and I knew he was a stoner but I didn't know how much it ran his life before living with him (laziness, anger whenever he's not high, unemployment, etc.)
[*] Domestic task handling - they can see if they are able to get along and share household tasks and keep the house in order, etc. This is the cause of many fights in marriage.
[*] Finances - they don't have to make all their accounts joint at this point but they can see how they can manage paying the bills, etc. and even set up a joint savings account which they each commit to putting money into at regular intervals.
[*] Problem solving - They have much more contact with each other so much more opportunities for conflicts to arise and much more ability to see how they can work through them.
[/list]



I realize that this might be a problem. Interestingly, Muslims take scandal much more seriously for the sake of society. In fact, when they sin, they are not supposed to tell anybody about it, lest people think they can now get away with it... We seem to have much more of a mentality of individualism - i.e. What I do is my business. But to them, ensuring a cohesive society is one of their primary goals. But I digress...

Perhaps straight-up co-habitation can be problematic but are there any opportunities to achieve the above-listed benefits from a learning-experience similar to that of "shacking up" but not quite. Like, if I invite a girl to my family's house for thanksgiving and she stays overnight in her own room, surely that's OK, yes?

Or if they are, say, working together at a summer camp or living in a community like Madonna House or doing missionary work together or something... I mean, some occasion where they live together but not on their own you know... Does anybody have any suggestions?[/quote]
It isn't really necessary to shack up together to get a pretty good idea of whether any of the things on the list will be serious problems. Frequent good communication with one's date, and doing a variety of things together and seeing how you handle different situations (which does not necessitate living in the same house together) can give you a good enough idea of how your gf/bf would handle things and her/his character.
Of course there are no 100% guarantees, and things can come up 10 years into a marriage which were not anticipated in the first years of marriage.


I think a lot of the difficulty over the problem of "scandal" on this thread comes from confusion over the meaning of the word, which is a bit different in the religious/moral terminology than in modern common usage.
The Christian duty to avoid scandal has to do with setting a good example, and not leading others astray than it does with whether your uptight great Aunt Agatha gets offended, or what the neighborhood gossips will say.
The fact is a couple living together almost invariably means sex, and thus unmarried Christian couples should not live together because (in addition to presenting a serious occasion of sin) it does not set a good example for others, and creates the impression to society at large of being okay with fornication.

Edited February 18, 2009 by Socrates

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='havok579257' post='1783948' date='Feb 17 2009, 08:07 PM']but what one person considers questionable actions may in fact not really be questionable actions. like some people might assume that because a couple has been dating for 3 years they have HAD to have had sex at least once. even if the couple tells them they haven't, people could just assume they are lying because they don't want to admit it.[/quote]

So long as the couple lives as true witnesses to Christ, they have nothing to worry about. Of course people will make their assumptions! But the goal is to make these people look silly when they point fingers at the devout Catholic couple who just came from Adoration. There will always be "nosy neighbors" (to use your words). However, the couple should not throw their arms up in defeat and say "well we are going to do whatever we want, they will gossip about us anyway" because this will just raise suspicions from otherwise innocent bystanders (those who would have defended the chaste couple against those nosy neighbors) and cause serious scandal.

I mean, come on. People are always going to make crazy assumptions about other people. The point is to not [b]encourage[/b] these assumptions.

[havok579257]

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1784017' date='Feb 17 2009, 09:20 PM']So long as the couple lives as true witnesses to Christ, they have nothing to worry about. Of course people will make their assumptions! But the goal is to make these people look silly when they point fingers at the devout Catholic couple who just came from Adoration. There will always be "nosy neighbors" (to use your words). However, the couple should not throw their arms up in defeat and say "well we are going to do whatever we want, they will gossip about us anyway" because this will just raise suspicions from otherwise innocent bystanders (those who would have defended the chaste couple against those nosy neighbors) and cause serious scandal.

I mean, come on. People are always going to make crazy assumptions about other people. The point is to not [b]encourage[/b] these assumptions.[/quote]


not encourage them but also not go out of your way to try and prove them wrong, like altering your life to try and avoid anyone person thinking what your doing is scandelous.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='havok579257' post='1783698' date='Feb 17 2009, 06:01 PM']this is what i am trying to say. don't worry about what is considered scandelous because anything can be scandelous. do what is right in God's eyes. but ddon't make your entire life miserbale because your worried about appearing scandelous to one of your nosy neighbors. just do what is right in God's eyes and don't worry about what everyone else thinks.[/quote]

Okay... we agree here, and I think the problem is we define "scandal" differently. You're talking about the scandal that develops from rumors. The scandal I'm talking about (and what the Church is referring to as the sin of scandal) is when we consciously lead a person into sin.

Encouraging a friend to get drunk is scandal. That friend hearing through someone else that you got drunk last weekend is a rumor. Whether or not the rumor is true, if they justified their own drunkeness through this rumor, that would also be a scandal, but you aren't guilty of this scandal. When we scandalize someone, we [i]directly[/i] encourage them to sin or discourage them from following Christ more fervently.

If someone is scandalized by a rumor, the person who told the rumor is guilty of scandalizing them.

Edited February 18, 2009 by LouisvilleFan

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='havok579257' post='1784025' date='Feb 17 2009, 09:38 PM']not encourage them but also not go out of your way to try and prove them wrong, like altering your life to try and avoid anyone person thinking what your doing is scandelous.[/quote]

The few suggestions I offered before certainly do not fit into "going out of your way." (If that is what you meant.)