1. BACKGROUND In the last ten years there has been much popular discus-
sion and also a great scholarly interest in the so-called "alternative
lifestyles" (1). ESgecially, since the late 1J60's, a diversity of
lifestyles other than the nuclear family began to emerge, according to
demographic changes in household compositions during the past decade (US
Bureau of Census, 1979; Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 1930). One
lifestyle, non-marital cohabitation, has increased most dra- matically
during the ast ten years and is the subject of this study. The term
cohabitation will be used exclusively throughout the remainder of this
study to refer to hetero- sexual couples who are living together without
being married legally. Despite its recent rapid increase, one should not
overlook the fact that cohabitation, in comparison with legal marriage,
remains an alternative practiced by a minority of the couples at any
?oint in time. For the Netherlands, it is estimated that 7 percent of
all couples are living together unmarried, and 93 percent are married
(Straver, 1981). This cohabitation rate is about twice as low when
compared to rates in countries like Sweden and Denmark where they are 16
percent (the highest rate in Europe) and 13 percent (Trost, 1979), but
still about twice as high when compared to the 3 percent estimate for
the United States (Macklin, 1980).