Back in 2019 the internet was buzzing about a new celebrity couple. Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzeneggar started dating the previous year, and were engaged in January 2019. Both are professing Christians, and Pratt is often outspoken about his faith. He has said that “I care enough about Jesus to take a stand, even if it costs me. It could cost me everything, but I don't care. It's worth it to me because this is what I'm called to do, it's where my heart is”.
As a celebrity Christian couple, Pratt and Schwarzeneggar made a surprising choice: to move in together before their wedding. It was a choice that made little splash in the headlines, since some 65% of Americans believe that cohabitation is a good idea, and two thirds of couples will co-habit before marriage. In the UK, the number of cohabiting couples has increased by 144% from 1996 to 2021.
Historically Christians have rejected the idea of living together before marriage. But the tide seems to be turning. Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzeneggar are not unusual in this regard. An article for Christianity Today branded living together a “new norm among young, professing evangelicals.”
Historically the Church has frowned upon the idea of cohabitation, but should we change our minds on this practice? Is it really wrong for Christians to live together before marriage?
Are we compatible?
Many couples choose to cohabit to see if they are ‘compatible’, usually meaning sexual compatibility. The idea is that if we go along with the Biblical idea of reserving sex for marriage, then how will we know if we are sexually compatible or not? What if we get married and the sex turns out to be bad?
This reasoning buys into the myth that sex should be ‘good’ or even ‘amazing’ the very first time. If a couple are sexually ‘compatible’ then this will be the case, and if sex is less than perfect straightaway it reveals an incompatibility that will never be overcome.
The reality, however, is much different. Many couples will testify how sex isn’t always perfect the first time, and might even be awkward, or difficult. Nevertheless, a couple’s sexual experience grows and gets even better as they get to know one another, communicate and commit to one another in marriage.
A 2025 article in Psychology Today concludes: “What’s the real secret to great sex? It’s effort. Plus a little chemistry, a lot of communication, and the willingness to learn, listen, and put in the work.”
For a Christian, the desire to keep sex within the boundaries of marriage reflects a desire to trust what God has said about sexual relationships. Sex unites a couple on a deeper level than just the physical, and brings them together as one flesh. As Paul tells the church in Corinth:
Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.
We are to flee from sexual immorality, that is sex outside the God-given structure of marriage, because sex unites us with the person we sleep with. C. S. Lewis explains this truth, writing in the guise of Screwtape, a senior demon instructing a junior demon on methods of temptation. He writes:
The truth is that wherever a man lies with a woman, there, whether they like it or not, a transcendental relation is set up between them which must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured.
Sex is not about compatibility, it is about commitment.
Testing the relationship?
Research suggests that something like a quarter of couples cohabiting are doing so because they want to ‘test’ their relationship. The idea is that living together is a necessary step to see if the connection is genuine and lasting before taking the step toward marriage. Polling from the Barna Group suggests that 84% of those who choose to cohabit do so to test their relationship.
This might seem very reasonable, after all, each one of us has faults and failings which are often not discovered until you find yourself sharing a home with another person. The actions of a couple on a date in the first flush of romance are very different to the actions of a couple living together every single day.
The trouble with this argument is that cohabitation reveals the faults of our partner without the protection of commitment. I might discover something irritating about the person I am living with and, instead of working through that issue, I am free to walk away from the relationship.
Michael McManus, president of Marriage Savers, found in research that “couples who live together are gambling and losing in 85 percent of the cases. Many believe the myth that they are in a ‘trial marriage.’ Actually it is more like a ‘trial divorce.’”
Couples who cohabit are much less likely to stay committed and stay together. One study found that six years after starting to live together, 54% of couples had broken up and only 33% were married. One study from the USA found that even a month’s cohabitation decreased the quality of the relationship.
‘Testing’ the relationship is also individualistic. It shifts the focus from “Can I remain committed to this person through thick and thin” to “Is this relationship satisfying me and my needs?” This is in stark contrast to the Biblical picture of marriage as a place where we look to the other person’s needs (Ephesians 5:22-30; 1 Corinthians 7:4).
Relationships will always reveal things about ourselves and the person we share our life with. We will never find the ‘right’ person to commit to, as the theologian Stanley Hauerwas explains:
The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that if we look closely enough we will find the right person. This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect to marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person. We never know who we marry; we just think we do. Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while and he or she will change. For marriage, being [the enormous thing it is] means we are not the same person after we have entered it. The primary problem is…learning to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married.
The key is not finding the ‘right’ person to commit to, and testing the relationship to see if that is the case. The key is making a commitment and sticking with it even when find out more about the person we are committed to.
It’s still a commitment?
“Let me just be clear. Marriage is a long-term commitment, and I think I want long-term commitment. I just don't need to get married“.
Those are the words of actress Charlize Theron, accomplished actress and single mother to two daughters. She is open to a relationship, even a long-term one. She just doesn’t feel the need to get married.
Many people choose cohabitation over marriage because they see living together as just as much of a commitment as marriage is. Why get married when you can have a long-term commitment to another person with whom you are living? Why not spare the expense of marriage just for a legal piece of paper?
Yet Charlize Theron reveals the problems with this approach herself. Speaking in a podcast, after saying the words quoted above, she explained: “I think a lot of that also has to do with the fact that I have a tremendous fear of not being able to get out of something, and that's, again, me just understanding me, right?“
The truth is living together is not the same commitment as marriage. It does not have the same weight as making promises in public in front of gathered family and friends. As writer Christopher Ash explains:
Private assurances are terribly easy to break; they evaporate like the morning dew. After all, it is only your word against mine when I say that you misunderstood me and I didn't really say or mean what you thought. We are deeply prone to self-deception in this area above all.
Marriage is public for a reason, so that the promises you make to each other are known and you can be held to account.
Cohabitation also fails to have the same legal commitment as marriage. There is little to no consequence to breaking an agreement to live together. (What is often referred to as ‘common law marriage’ has no real legal force.) Marriage, on the other, has entailments and entitlements when you make that bond, and if you choose to break it.
Ultimately, cohabiting rather than marrying already introduces the idea that the relationship could be broken, and this sours the commitment from the start. Pastor Tim Keller called cohabitation “one long audition” for this reason, and scholar Galena Rhoades explains:
But by living together already, both parties have likely developed a thought pattern of ‘what if this doesn’t work out,’ thinking you could just move out and move on, which can undermine that sense of commitment that is essential to a thriving marriage.
Commitment is essential to marriage, and cohabitation does not contain the same commitment that enables a relationship to grow and flourish.
An act of necessity?
For many couples, cohabitation is not a moral or ethical choice, it is a practical one. Money issues might mean that it makes financial sense to share a house but not get married. For many, the cost of a marriage ceremony, with its many expectations of guests, parties and honeymoon, is just too costly to contemplate.
For others, the drive to combine accommodation costs leads them to consider cohabitation. Why pay rent for two places when you can just pay for one? Renting housing, let alone buying a house, is an expensive proposition and if leases end at a suitable time, or are not renewed, then many couples decide to move in together because it’s ‘just easier.’
There is no denying that there are real practical considerations to any relationship, and potentially savings to be made by sharing a house before marriage. But for Christians, money should not be a primary motivating factor. Jesus warns his disciples: “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed” (Luke 12:15) and Paul warns Timothy that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10), noting that some have strayed from the faith because of money.
The financial implications of cohabiting might have more to do with fiscal prudence than greed, but we must be very careful not to let money dictate our morals. If we claim to follow Jesus as Lord, we need to follow what he says about sex and marriage as well.
Some Christians would argue that a short time of cohabitation might be necessary. Buying a new house together might make it sensible for them to move in a few months before the wedding, for example. They are going to move in after marriage anyway, surely it doesn’t make a difference? They may even commit to refraining from sex before marriage despite living under the same roof.
Again this seems perfectly reasonable, but is it wise? Is it a good idea to put yourself in the path of temptation, even if it is only a few months before marriage? Jesus tells us to take drastic measures to avoid sin:
If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.
There might be very practical arguments for living together, but if they lead us into sin then we need to be as ruthless with them as lopping off a limb.
An encounter with Jesus
In John chapter 4 we read about an encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman. Jesus had made the conscious decision to travel through Samaria, something that no self-respecting Jew of the time would have chosen to do. His disciples had left to find food, leaving Jesus by a well at the hottest part of the day.
There Jesus meets a woman who had come to draw water. He asks her for a drink of water, which leads to a deeper theological discussion, and an invitation from Jesus to receive the life that he offers. As the woman is intrigued to know more, we read:
[Jesus] told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
This woman has had quite the history with marriage and relationships! We don’t know all the details of her past marriages, but she has clearly struggled with the ups and downs of romantic entanglements. She is unmarried and cohabiting with her partner when she has a run-in with Jesus.
Jesus does not condone her living arrangements, and neither does he berate her for breaking the bonds of marriage. He tells her the truth, but speaks to her with grace and mercy. He helps her to see that he sees her, that he knows her situation, and still invites her to come to him for forgiveness and transformation.
Jesus’ example helps to guide us with the question of cohabitation. If those we know are considering living together, we need to respond as Jesus did. Tell the truth about the goodness of marriage and the failings of cohabitation. But speak with grace even if they have chosen a less than perfect path. We can help them to see that marriage is the right place for a lasting, committed relationship and that keeping sexual boundaries is good for all.
If you are a couple considering cohabitation, consider this: Do you want the best for your relationship? Do you want it to last, thrive and become stronger over time? If so, then cohabitation is not the answer. Living together reduces commitment, destroys sexual boundaries, and makes the relationship about me, rather than us. God has given marriage as the place for couples to love and grow, in the protection of lifelong commitment. Don’t take a wrong step into cohabitation but take the godly step into marriage when the time is right.