Hmmm... Tradition is right again!

Just to avoid confusion, a "de facto relationship" is a nice way of saying "living together", which is a nice way of saying "living in sin" or "shacking up". Unfortunately, even otherwise faithful Catholics often see nothing wrong with it. Even those who wouldn't do it themselves see nothing wrong with others doing it. Also common (and not unrelated) is the use of contraceptives, because it would be irresponsible to have childen in a "trial marriage" (and goodness knows they wouldn't want to act irresponsibly).

Love is better if it's not lived in sin

By Barney Zwartz
November 27, 2005

LIVING "in sin" can damage future married life, says a new study that also suggests devout Christians have better love lives.

"Having experienced a de facto relationship in the past is associated with lack of intimacy and greater insecurity in a current relationship," Andrew Cameron, one of the report's authors, said yesterday.

"Our research also shows that the greater security, intimacy and harmony experienced by Christian married partners can be only partly explained by the fact that far fewer Christians have had de facto relationships and multiple partners."

Dr Cameron said the fact that Christian belief was strongly linked to healthy relationship across all four of the study's indicators - security, intimacy, harmony and conflict over gender roles - suggested something more complex was going on.

The research - by a team from Edith Cowan University in Perth, the National Church Life Survey and Anglicare, based on a 350-question survey of 1500 Australians - was presented by Anglican researchers at a conference in Sydney yesterday.

The research found that religious people, especially orthodox Christian believers, experienced greater wellbeing than people with a secular or Eastern spiritual orientation. It found that marriage enhanced feelings of security and harmony, and gave a slight advantage in intimacy. De facto relationships were more strongly linked to insecurity than were such factors as poor health, poverty or work stress.

Nearly one in 10 people who once had a de facto relationship now reported a cold marriage, compared with one in 20 who had not had a previous de facto relationship. Only 7.5 per cent of married people doubted their relationship would last, compared with 21 per cent of de factos, and 42.5 per cent of married people said their partners treated them very well, compared with 31 per cent of de factos who felt that.

Dr Cameron, who is ethics lecturer at Sydney's Moore Theological College, suggested that "Bible-believing" Christianity enhanced the health of a marriage.