–– Paul Schlehlein

The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Throughout history, marriage has strengthened society while mere cohabitation has lit the fuse to destroy it. This poses awful news for many of the world’s nations—including Sub-Saharan Africa—where marriage rates are plummeting, and cohabitation stats continue to soar. 

In South Africa, for example, registered civil marriages went from over 186,000 in 2008 to nearly half of that in 2023. Approximately 61% of births in South Africa occur outside of marriage. So desperate is the situation that when I visit the homes of our village school children, even to ask about the whereabouts of the father often brings embarrassment.   

In this post I would like to give three reasons why cohabitation destroys a nation, a few common scenarios, and then close with some words of counsel and encouragement.