Family Facts: Social Science Research on Family, Society & Religion

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This finding looks at the relationship between relationship status and domestic violence.

Compared with married people, cohabitors reported much higher levels of domestic violence, with 15 percent of the cohabitors and 5 percent of the married saying that they or their spouse hit, shoved, or threw things. Cohabitors who were engaged were no more likely to report violence than married couples. However, cohabitors who did not have plans to marry were much more likely to report couple violence than either married or engaged couples. The probability of male-to-female violence for married couples was 3.6 percent and 3.2 percent for female-to-male violence. Similarly, engaged cohabitors probabilities were 4.7 percent and 3.4 percent respectively. Cohabiting couples without definite plans to marry were more than twice as likely to experience violence in the relationship than either married couples or engaged cohabitors with a probability of male-to-female violence of 9.9 percent and a probability of female-to-male violence of 7.6 percent.

Source
Waite, Linda J., The Ties that Bind: Perspectives on Marriage and Cohabitation, (New York: Aldine de Gruyter 2000), pp. 368-391.

FindingID: 6827