Talk:Cohabitation

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[edit] POV; US bias

This is a pov anti-cohabitation essay, not an encyclopedia article. Unless it is fixed soon, it will have to be deleted. --Zantastik talk 23:03, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I reverted the article to its original text. I recommend other users do the same if the essay is posted again. - Jersyko talk 03:38, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
I think the article is quite POV as it is now, even. I mean, although it is no longer anti-cohabitation, it is now very pro-cohabitation, to the point of being un-"encyclopedic." Robotbeat 21:00, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

More importantly than the pov, I think this article needs broadening beyond the US. When this article moves from the general concept of cohabitation into specifics, it is always about the US ("Cohabitation has been dramatically on the rise in the United States within the last few decades", "about two-fifths of Americans", "according to the U.S. Census Bureau", etc etc etc). Furthermore, this article reeks very much of original research, particularly in the "Gender differences" and "Risks" sections. In those sections, the OR is close to pov. The references are all American references. I'll see if I can find some European data on cohabitation to add to the article. Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 02:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Which states?

According to this, the states with laws against cohabitation are: North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi and North Dakota.

This article really needs NPOVing. It once again has been turned into anti-cohabitation propaganda.

A Craven County Superior Court judge struck down North Carolina's cohabitation statute today (July 20) on the grounds that it violated Lawrence v. Texas. I haven't seen the opinion as of yet (there may be a standing to sue issue for the plaintiff, so I wouldn't scratch North Carolina off the list yet), and the Attorney General hasn't as of yet decided whether to appeal to the NC Court of Appeals. Here are articles from the Raleigh News & Observer and AP. The law in question is N.C. G.S. § 14-184 (this also would also call N.C. G.S. § 14-186 into question, which deals with similar situations in public hotels) –Pakman044 01:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with definition

According to the article, cohabitation "is defined as an emotional, physical, and intellectually intimate heterosexual relationship which includes a common living place and which exists without the benefit of legal, cultural, or religious sanction." I have removed the word "heterosexual", since cohabitation is not intrinsically heterosexual: Homosexuals and bisexuals can cohabitate as well, provided the relevant laws allow them to do so. The obstruction to cohabitation in cases where that is not allowed is legal/moral/political. It is related to a specific view on social preferences, and not so much to the concept of cohabitation itself. Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 22:12, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds right. I was wondering about that anyways. Matt Yeager 01:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revert

This article has been reverted to the version of December 7th, in order to deal with the pov and OR textdump. If any non-or, non-pov edits have been reverted with it, I would like to ask you to reinstate them into the article if and where necessary. Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 20:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Uh, no. If YOU have a problem with the article, it's YOUR responsibility to take out the bad parts, not OUR responsibility to put the good parts back in. Right? Matt Yeager 20:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Please look at the page history before accusing me of having done anything, ok? Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 20:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
And if you revert the article, please revert to the right version. Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 20:50, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Both the top two tags you placed (the only two that I reverted just recently (after the above comments)) refer the reader to explanations on the talk page. (The section one only asserts that the author of the comment thinks that the section's unreferenced, which you apparently do. I'll leave it until the discussion finishes, in any case.) You have not explained yourself, and there are countless references at the bottom of the page, so the tags appear unjustified. I therefore took them out. Make your case before tagging them (or, at the least, make your case shortly after you tag them). You have made no attempt to show why the edits that have happened to this page over the last month or so are harmful, other than a blanket "they're POV" statement. If you can't explain your case or back it up, then don't put the tags on. Matt Yeager 22:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
This line reeks of POV:

Generally speaking, more conservative people who would not cohabit would also not entertain the idea of divorce. Yet, people with more liberal views would be more inclined to cohabit, as well as divorce more easily.

Catholics are barred from cohabitation and also from divorce. They're generally conservative. That's enough right there to back up that sentence. You're going to have to do better than that. Matt Yeager 01:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Ok Matt, please take a deep breath and calm down. You didn't just revert the two tags on the top of the page and the unreferencedsect tag, you also reverted to the "heterosexual" definition of cohabitation. When I removed that reference, you basically agreed with me on that ("Sounds right. I was wondering about that anyways." in the above discussion). I also would appreciate if you wouldn't remove the original research tag. I have mentioned it above, but I'll repeat it here: "Furthermore, this article reeks very much of original research, particularly in the "Gender differences" and "Risks" sections. In those sections, the OR is close to pov." If you want me to elaborate on that, that's fine, but that's no reason to remove these tags. I'm sorry (actually, I'm not), but I'm reinstating those tags until the parts that have been mentioned on this talk page (basically all that has remained of User:Mwbuck's 152.163.100.202 (talk • contribs)'s essay textdump) have been dealt with properly: the interpretations need to be removed and the figures need to be referenced (and phrases like "This is supported by a study, which found that ..." just doesn't cut it.) or removed. It's better to be incomplete than to be wrong. Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 12:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the "unreferenced" tag: the article has a long list of references at the end. However, it is not clear on which reference or source many statements are based. I have added the {{Citation needed}}-tag behind just a few of them. It shouldn't be up to the reader to guess and search which article of the long list lists how many Americans are cohabiting, who has calculated that "one-quarter to one-third of children today will live with cohabiting parents before they reach the age of 18", how many hours married women and cohabiting women spend on household chores, how many cohabiter and non-cohabiter marriages dissolve, etc. Such statements need to be directly sourced and referenced. Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 22:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

(Breathe in... breathe out...) Okay, glad we're past that. I'll assume good faith here, which isn't hard to do in this situation. First, about me countering your revert... I believe you're an administrator, so you definitely should know this anyways, but just to remind you... on Wikipedia, we generally do not unilaterally revert a month's worth of good-faith editing without discussing it on the talk page. That tends to make people who have worked on the page angry. Of course I would revert it! Anyone would! This doesn't mean that I supported having the "heterosexual" bit in. Silly me--when I voiced my assent to removing "heterosexual", I didn't realize that I was giving you full license to wipe out a month's worth of edits!

(I hope it doesn't sound like I'm angry here. I'm not--I'm just a little unclear on your methodology here.)

On the tags... When you first put the tags on, I deleted the ones that pointed the reader to the talk page for a discussion, for the simple reason that there WAS no discussion! I'm always trying to think, "what would the reader think in this situation?" It would probably confuse most of them, I believe. When I browse Wikipedia, if I find a cleanup tag (or especially a POV tab!) on any random page with no corresponding discussion on the talk page, I just remove it on sight. That's what I did here.

Now that we've got a discussion corresponding to the tags, I'm not SO against them being there... but look at what you've done! Yes, every sentence (basically) SHOULD be referenced as per Wikipedia policy... but out of the 920,000+ articles on Wikipedia, I guarantee you that at least 900,000 of them are not referenced nearly as well as this one was (see Jet d'Eau, Bishop O'Dowd High School, North_London_Line...). Just press the "random article" button (which is how I found those articles). What it looks like to me is that you're SERIOUSLY trying to violate WP:POINT.

So... I'm not entering into a revert war (that's what I'm telling myself)... but the version you're proposing for the time being is UGLY. So I'm removing your "citation needed" things. I hope you understand. (Summing up: The tags are removed because I believe you're violating WP:POINT and you are applying an unfair standard to this article, as the references at the bottom are more than what would be expected on a normal Wikipedia page.) Matt Yeager 00:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

There are a few small points I would like to respond to. Due to a hand injury, I'm currently unable to post an elaborate response. You said you "countered my revert" and that you "didn't realize that I was giving you full license to wipe out a month's worth of edits!" I'm not saying this to pass the buck, but I wasn't the one who reverted the article. I can't say I fully disagree with it (or fully agree, for that matter), but I don't like to be accused of things I didn't do. Secondly, I believe that "a month's worth of edits" is no reason not to revert anything. The warning below the edit box clearly says that you shouldn't edit an article if you don't want your contributions to be edited ruthlessly. What matters is the article, and if it's in the interest of an article, wiping out a month's worth of edits is a sad but necessary tool. Whether this particular revert was in the interest of the article is part 2.
I agree that many articles are a lot less referenced than this one. But that is exactly the reason why I added the citation needed tags: the person who contributed the edits knew every source. He/she knew where the figures and the research findings came from. He/she should've specifically listed them with foot-/endnotes, as happens in every scientific study. He/she might not have known how the annotation in wikipedia works, but that could have been fixed by an unwikified annotation, which would then have been wikified by an editor who knows how it should have been done. It is the presence of documentation but the absence of annotation that is the problem in this article. Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 13:18, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
PS. Rest assured, I have not been violating WP:POINT. And the lack of source needed tags (or similar tags) on articles that need it more than this one doesn't excuse or exclude this article from anything. If you do come across articles that fail to reference crucial parts, by all means make the community aware of this by adding appropriate tags.
The revert wasn't made by you, but the note of the revert on this talk page WAS made by you. I guess I just assumed that you two were the same person. My bad.
Anyways, out of respect for your injury (hope you get better soon!), I'll keep this brief so that you don't have to respond to much... I understand what you're saying, and I totally get your point. My point is this: I think that templates like the three at the top of the page should only be included on pages that have serious problems. I don't think that the article has serious problems.
Your point about "annotation, not documentation" is interesting... but what are we going to do about it? Should we just delete the references so that this page becomes just like hundreds of thousands of other unreferenced works? I'm not going to annote the countless statements; I don't think there's a problem (and the work involved would be enormous!). You're not going to, either; if you were, you would've already done it. The original authors are not going to do it; they're long gone, apparently. The "problem" is not going away--no one is going to fix it. Frankly, it's not important enough to. You may be right that it "should" be done... but that doesn't change the fact that nobody is going to do it. So, should we just leave the article in a state of disrepair indefinitely? I don't think so.
That's my point of view on this. Thanks for explaining yourself... I guess I now see that you weren't violating WP:POINT... I really do see where you're coming from, but I guess I'm too pragmatic to embrace your viewpoint. I hope your hand gets better soon! Matt Yeager 00:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm back in the game, so here's my reply. The revert indeed wasn't made by me. I posted this page on WP:CU, and Acjelen responded to it by reverting the page to the last version before 152.163.100.202 posted his essay. Most edits after that were attempts to tone down gross assumptions (like "Women involved in cohabiting relationships are also more likely to suffer from abuse than wives") and pov statements (like "people with high morals and standards"). The only edits that were not related to the essay were made by User:Suidafrikaan (who added a link to POSSLQ) and by User:80.201.53.181 (who added an interwiki link), and they were immediately reinstated by Acjelen.
I'll ask the IP address to come back here and source the statements and figures. I don't think it'll work, but it's worth a try. In the coming days, I will dig through the references, sources and google to look for the proof of the figures. I will then try to make the comments more encyclopedic and less pov. If you come across any figures (whether it's from old schoolbooks, newspaper articles or google queries), please add them. Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 23:10, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, I suppose this is where our discussion ends. I think that I'll leave this page to you... As I stated above, I do think that the page has enough quality references, but if you don't, then the best of luck to you in your quest to source it better. I just would hate to see a lot of information go down the drain because of a somewhat POV tone or an over-applied policy... but still, I do see where you're coming from. I guess you should do whatever you feel is best. If you still think that a straight revert (keeping the PosslQ and interwiki) is needed, I won't revert you back, now that I see the reasoning behind it. Good luck. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 22:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Original research issues

I have placed the OR tag on the top of the article because the article consists of a lot of interpretations, assumptions, projections and expectations. This stems from a major overhaul to this article, performed on December 7th, 2005 ([1]). An anonymous user (152.163.100.202 (talk • contribs)) added an unwikified textdump to the article. Considering the wording, the textdump is most likely a student's essay or thesis. The easiest way out of this is simply removing all that remains of this textdump. There are two reasons why I believe this is not an option. Firstly, it has been tried by User:Acjelen, which was almost immediately reverted by User:Matt Yeager. Reremoving would only lead to a revert war, which is not in wikipedia's interest. Secondly, the references section provides some credible and reliable sources that should not be overlooked and should be incorporated into the article. Using them properly and encyclopedically would imo add to the article. Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 14:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Since this information has not been cited or removed in all this time, I am removing it now. --Gmaxwell 06:31, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cohabitation cf domestic partnership

How does cohabitation differ from domestic partnership? Nurg 11:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Samaritan Woman

There is a major misunderstanding of Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman in this piece. Jesus is cited as meaning the exact opposite of what he means. The purpose of Jesus' pointing out the Samaritan woman's marital situation(having 5 husbands and now living with another man) is precisely to point out the extremely unacceptable position she is in. It is a not a offhand comment on his part that shows no sign of disgust or condemnation! Anyone who knows anything about Palestinian historiography knows that poligamy and cohabitation were completely unacceptable in Jewish society. --Geminatea(0:46 EST July 13,2006)

[edit] 'Living in sin' comment

The statement: "Such groups sometimes call cohabitation "living in sin", but this phrase is perhaps misleading as sin is not merely a matter of sexual behaviour. " seems to be logically confused. The phrase "living in sin" in no way implies that we are dealing "merely with sexual behavior." Because Christians believe cohabitation (an instance of sexual behavior outside of a Godly context) is sinful, they occasionally use the term "living in sin." There is no implication that this term referes merely to sexual bahavior. It deals with sexual bahavior within a specific context.

--Geminatea 1:02, 13 July 2006 (EST)

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