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Cartel

A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other as well as agreeing not to compete with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. A cartel is an organization formed by producers to limit competition and increase prices by creating artificial shortages through low production quotas, stockpiling, and marketing quotas. Cartels can be vertical or horizontal but are inherently unstable due to the temptation to defect and falling prices for all members. Additionally, advancements in technology or the emergence of substitutes may undermine cartel pricing power, leading to the breakdown of the cooperation needed to sustain the cartel. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Most jurisdictions consider it anti-competitive behavior and have outlawed such practices. Cartel behavior includes price fixing, bid rigging, and reductions in output. The doctrine in economics that analyzes cartels is cartel theory. Cartels are distinguished from other forms of collusion or anti-competitive organization such as corporate mergers.

Etymology
The word cartel comes from the Italian word cartello, which means a "leaf of paper" or "placard", and is itself derived from the Latin charta meaning "card". The Italian word became cartel in Middle French, which was borrowed into English. In English, the word was originally used for a written agreement between warring nations to regulate the treatment and exchange of prisoners from the 1690s onward. From 1899 onwards, the usage of the word became generalized as to mean any intergovernmental agreement between rival nations.

The use of the English word cartel to describe an economic group rather than international agreements was derived much later in the 1800s from the German Kartell, which also has its origins in the French cartel. It was first used between German railway companies in 1846 to describe tariff- and technical standardization efforts. The first time the word was referred to describe a kind of restriction of competition was by the Austro-Hungarian political scientist Lorenz von Stein, who wrote on tariff cartels:

"There's no more one-sided perspective than the one saying that such rate-cartels are 'monopoly cartels' or cartels for the 'exploitation of carriers'."

History
Cartels have existed since ancient times. Guilds in the European Middle Ages, associations of craftsmen or merchants of the same trade, have been regarded as cartel-like. Tightly organized sales cartels existed in the mining industry of the late Middle Ages, like the 1301 salt syndicate in France and Naples, or the Alaun cartel of 1470 between the Papal State and Naples. Both unions had common sales organizations for overall production called the Societas Communis Vendicionis ('Common Sales Society').

Laissez-faire (liberal) economic conditions dominated Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th centuries. Around 1870, cartels first appeared in industries formerly under free-market conditions. Although cartels existed in all economically developed countries, the core area of cartel activities was in central Europe. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary were nicknamed the "lands of the cartels". Cartels were also widespread in the United States during the period of robber barons and industrial trusts.

The creation of cartels increased globally after World War I. They became the leading form of market organization, particularly in Europe and Japan. In the 1930s, authoritarian regimes such as Nazi Germany, Italy under Mussolini, and Spain under Franco used cartels to organize their corporatist economies. Between the late 19th century and around 1945, the United States was ambivalent about cartels and trusts. There were periods of both opposition to market concentration and relative tolerance of cartels. During World War II, the United States strictly turned away from cartels. After 1945, American-promoted market liberalism led to a worldwide cartel ban, where cartels continue to be obstructed in an increasing number of countries and circumstances.

Types
Cartels have many structures and functions that ideally enable corporations to navigate and control market uncertainties and gain collusive profits within their industry. A typical cartel often requires what competition authorities refer to as a CAU (Contact, Agreement or Understanding). Typologies have emerged to distinguish distinct forms of cartels:
 * Selling or buying cartels unite against the cartel's customers or suppliers, respectively. The former type is more frequent than the latter.
 * Domestic cartels only have members from one country, whereas international cartels have members from more than one country. There have been full-fledged international cartels that have comprised the whole world, such as the international steel cartel of the period between World War I and II.
 * Price cartels engage in price fixing, normally to raise prices for a commodity above the competitive price level. The loosest form of a price cartel can be recognized in tacit collusion (implicit collusion), wherein smaller enterprises individually devise their prices and market shares in response to the same market conditions, without direct communication, resulting in a less competitive outcome. This type of collusion is generally legal and can achieve a monopolistic outcome.
 * Quota cartels distribute proportional shares of the market to their members.
 * Common sales cartels sell their joint output through a central selling agency (in French: comptoir). They are also known as syndicates (French: syndicat industriel).
 * Territorial cartels distribute districts of the market to be used only by individual participants, which act as monopolists.
 * Submission cartels control offers given to public tenders. They use bid rigging: bidders for a tender agree on a bid price. They then do not bid in unison, or share the return from the winning bid among themselves.
 * Technology and patent cartels share knowledge about technology or science within themselves while they limit the information from outside individuals.
 * Condition cartels unify contractual terms – the modes of payment and delivery, or warranty limits.
 * Standardization cartels implement common standards for sold or purchased products. If the members of a cartel produce different sorts or grades of a good, conversion factors are applied to calculate the value of the respective output.
 * Compulsory cartels, also called "forced cartels", are established or maintained by external pressure. Voluntary cartels are formed by the free will of their participants.

Effects
A survey of hundreds of published economic studies and legal decisions of antitrust authorities found that the median price increase achieved by cartels in the last 200 years is about 23 percent. Private international cartels (those with participants from two or more nations) had an average price increase of 28 percent, whereas domestic cartels averaged 18 percent. Less than 10 percent of all cartels in the sample failed to raise market prices.

In general, cartel agreements are economically unstable in that there is an incentive for members to cheat by selling at below the cartel's agreed price or selling more than the cartel's production quotas. Many cartels that attempt to set product prices are unsuccessful in the long term because of cheating punishment mechanisms such as price wars or financial punishment. An empirical study of 20th-century cartels determined that the mean duration of discovered cartels is from 5 to 8 years and overcharged by approximately 32%. This distribution was found to be bimodal, with many cartels breaking up quickly (less than a year), many others lasting between five and ten years, and still some that lasted decades. Within the industries that have operating cartels, the median number of cartel members is 8. Once a cartel is broken, the incentives to form a new cartel return, and the cartel may be re-formed. Publicly known cartels that do not follow this business cycle include, by some accounts, OPEC.

Cartels often practice price fixing internationally. When the agreement to control prices is sanctioned by a multilateral treaty or protected by national sovereignty, no antitrust actions may be initiated. OPEC countries partially control the price of oil.

Organization
Drawing upon research on organizational misconduct, scholars in economics, sociology and management have studied the organization of cartels. They have paid attention to the way cartel participants work together to conceal their activities from antitrust authorities. Even more than reaching efficiency, participating firms need to ensure that their collective secret is maintained. “However, the orchestrator, often the vendor with all information, typically remains unnoticed by antitrust authorities, raising questions about the culpability of unaware distributors.”

Cartel theory versus antitrust concept
The scientific analysis of cartels is based on cartel theory. It was pioneered in 1883 by the Austrian economist Friedrich Kleinwächter and in its early stages was developed mainly by German-speaking scholars. These scholars tended to regard cartels as an acceptable part of the economy. At the same time, American lawyers increasingly turned against trade restrictions, including all cartels. The Sherman act, which impeded the formation and activities of cartels, was passed in the United States in 1890. The American viewpoint, supported by activists like Thurman Arnold and Harley M. Kilgore, eventually prevailed when governmental policy in Washington could have a larger impact in World War II.

Legislation and penalties
Because cartels are likely to have an impact on market positions, they are subjected to competition law, which is executed by governmental competition regulators. Very similar regulations apply to corporate mergers. A single entity that holds a monopoly is not considered a cartel but can be sanctioned through other abuses of its monopoly.

Prior to World War II, members of cartels could sign contracts that were enforceable in courts of law except in the United States. Before 1945, cartels were tolerated in Europe and specifically promoted as a business practice in German-speaking countries. In U.S. v. National Lead Co. et al., the Supreme Court of the United States noted the testimony of individuals who cited that a cartel, in its versatile form, is "a combination of producers for the purpose of regulating production and, frequently, prices, and an association by agreement of companies or sections of companies having common interests so as to prevent extreme or unfair competition."

The first legislation against cartels to be enforced was the Sherman Act 1890, which also prohibits price fixing, market-sharing, output restrictions and other anti-competitive conduct. Section 1 and 2 of the Act outlines the law in regards to cartels, Section 1:

Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal.

Section 2:

Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $100 million if a corporation, or, if any other person, $1 million, or by imprisonment not exceeding ten years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.

In practice, detecting and desisting cartels is undertaken through the use of economic analysis and leniency programmes. Economic analysis is implemented to identify any discrepancies in market behaviour between both suspected and unsuspected cartel engaged firms. A structural approach is done in the form of screening already suspicious firms for industry traits of a typical cartel price path. A typical path often includes a formation phase in which prices decline, followed by a transition phase in which prices tend to rise, and end with a stationary phase in which price variance remains low. Indicators such as price changes alongside import rates, market concentration, time period of permanent price changes and stability of companies' market shares are used as economic markers to help supplement the search for cartel behaviour. On the contrary, when aiming to create suspicion around potential cartels, a behavioural approach is often used to identify behavioural collusive patterns, to initiate further economic analysis into identifying and prosecuting those involved in the operations. For example, studies have shown that industries are more likely to experience collusion where there are fewer firms, products are homogeneous and there is a stable demand.

Leniency programmes
Leniency programmes were first introduced in 1978 in the US, before being successfully reformed in 1993. The underlying principle of a leniency program is to offer discretionary penalty reductions for corporations or individuals who are affiliated with cartel operations, in exchange for their cooperation with enforcement authorities in helping to identify and penalise other participating members. According to the Australian Department of Justice, the following 6 conditions must be met for admission into a leniency program:

 * 1) The corporation is the first one to come forward and qualify for leniency with respect to the illegal activity being reported;
 * 2) The Division, at the time the corporation comes in, does not yet have evidence against the company that is likely to result in a sustainable conviction;
 * 3) The corporation, upon its discovery of the illegal activity being reported, took prompt and effective action to terminate its part in the activity;
 * 4) The corporation reports the wrongdoing with candor and completeness and provides full, continuing and complete cooperation that advances the Division in its investigation;
 * 5) The confession of wrongdoing is truly a corporate act, as opposed to isolated confessions of individual executives or officials;
 * 6) Where possible, the corporation makes restitution to injured parties; and
 * 7) The Division determines that granting leniency would not be unfair to others, considering the nature of the illegal activity, the confessing corporation's role in it, and when the corporation comes forward.

The application of leniency programme penalties varies according to individual countries policies and are proportional to cartel profits and years of infringement. However, typically the first corporation or individual to cooperate will receive the most reduced penalty in comparison to those who come forward later. The effectiveness of leniency programmes in destabilising and deterring cartels is evidenced by the decreased formation and discovery of cartels in the US since the introduction of the programmes in 1993. Some prosecuted examples include:

 * The number of cartel discoveries per six-month period in the US.pnge Cartel: An employee of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) alerted authorities of the existence of the cartel within the Lysine industry.
 * Stainless steel: Buyers of the product complained to the European Commission (EC) about price spikes.
 * Sodium gluconate: Defendants in the lysine case informed authorities of collusive behaviours between corporations in this industry.

Price fixing
Today, price fixing by private entities is illegal under the antitrust laws of more than 140 countries. The commodities of prosecuted international cartels include lysine, citric acid, graphite electrodes, and bulk vitamins. In many countries, the predominant belief is that cartels are contrary to free and fair competition, considered the backbone of political democracy. Maintaining cartels continues to become harder for cartels. Even if international cartels cannot be regulated as a whole by individual nations, their individual activities in domestic markets are affected.

Unlike other cartels, export cartels are legal in virtually all jurisdictions, despite their harmful effects on affected markets.

Examples

 * The Phoebus cartel was established by lighting manufacturers in the early 20th century to control the pricing and lifespan of incandescent light bulbs.
 * The Quinine cartel existed among producers of the anti-malarial drug Quinine to control production rates and pricing, operating in the early 20th century with two incarnations. During the early years of its operation, Quinine was the only viable medical treatment for malaria.
 * The British Valve Association existed among British manufacturers of vacuum tubes to regulate the pricing, electrode structure, and part numbering system for its members.
 * The Seven Sisters was the name for the consortium of seven transnational oil companies which dominated the global petroleum industry from the 1940s to the 1970s. The contemporary equivalent is OPEC, an international organization of petroleum producing nations that sets production targets and prices among its members.
 * The Swiss Cheese Union, an industry organization of cheese producers, functioned as a cartel through the extent of its control on cheese production in the 20th century.
 * Between 1995 and 2004, several of the largest elevator manufacturers operated a market-rigging cartel, including ThyssenKrupp, Kone, and Otis, which were fined by the European Union in 2007.
 * The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, a government-sanctioned private organization that regulates the production and marketing of maple syrup in Quebec.

title: Cartel


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Cohabitation

Cohabitation is an arrangement where people who are not married, usually couples, live together. They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis. Such arrangements have become increasingly common in Western countries since the late 20th century, being led by changing social views, especially regarding marriage, gender roles and religion.

More broadly, the term cohabitation can mean any number of people living together. To "cohabit", in a broad sense, means to "coexist". The origin of the term comes from the mid 16th century, from the Latin cohabitare, from co- 'together' + habitare 'dwell'.

Social changes leading to increase

Today, cohabitation is a common pattern among people in the Western world.

In Europe, the Scandinavian countries have been the first to start this leading trend, although many countries have since followed. Mediterranean Europe has traditionally been very conservative, with religion playing a strong role. Until the mid-1990s, cohabitation levels remained low in this region, but have since increased; for example, in Portugal, the majority of children have been born of unwed parents since 2015, constituting 60% of the total in 2021.

In the United States, during the past few decades, there has been an increase in unmarried couples cohabiting. Historically, many Western countries have been influenced by Christian doctrines on sex, which opposes unmarried cohabitation. As social norms have changed, such beliefs have become less widely held by the population and some Christian denominations today view cohabitation as a precursor to marriage. Pope Francis has married a cohabiting couple who had children, while former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the Archbishop of York John Sentamu have expressed tolerance of cohabitation.

In recent decades, high rates of participation of women in the workforce and the widespread availability of highly effective long acting reversible contraceptives has led to women making individual choices over their reproduction with decreased reliance on male partners for financial stability. All these changes favored living arrangement alternatives to marriage.

In Central and Eastern Europe, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were major political changes, such as the fall of Communist governments. These societies entered a new era of increased social freedom, less rigid rules, and less authoritarian governments. They interacted with Western Europe and some became members of the European Union. As a result, the patterns of family life have started to change: marriage rates have declined, and marriage was postponed to a later age. Cohabitation and births to unmarried mothers increased, and in some countries the increase was very quick.

The deinstitutionalization of marriage refers to the weakening of the social and legal norms that regulate peoples' behavior in regard to marriage. The rise in cohabitation is part of other major social changes such as: higher divorce rate, older age at first marriage and childbearing, and more births outside marriage. Factors such as secularization, increased participation of women in the labor force, changing in the meaning of marriage, risk reduction, individualism, and changing views on sexuality have been cited as contributing to these social changes. There has also been a change in modern sexual ethics, with a focus on consent, rather than marital status (i.e. decriminalization of adultery and fornication; criminalization of marital rape), reflecting new concepts about the role and purpose of sexual interaction, and new conceptualizations of female sexuality and of self-determination. There have been objections against the legal and social regulation of female sexuality; with such regulations being often seen as violations of women's rights. In addition, some individuals may feel that marriage is unnecessary or outdated, leading to couples not formalizing their relation. For instance, in the European Values Study (EVS) of 2008, the percentage of respondents who agreed with the assertion that "Marriage is an outdated institution" was 37.5% in Luxembourg, 35.4% in France, 34.3% in Belgium, 31.2% in Spain, 30.5% in Austria, 29.2% in Germany, 27.7% in Switzerland, 27.2% in Bulgaria, 27.0% in the Netherlands, 25.0% in Slovenia.

The fact that many couples choose to live together without formalizing their relation is also recognized by the European Union. A 2004 directive forbids EU members from denying entry or residence of partners "with whom the Union citizen has a durable relationship, duly attested."

Reasons for cohabitation in the United States
Today, cohabitation in the United States is often a part of the dating process. In fact, "cohabitation is increasingly becoming the first coresidential union formed among young adults". In 1996, more than two-thirds of married couples in the US said that they lived together before getting married. "In 1994, there were 3.7 million cohabiting couples in the United States." This is a major increase from a few decades ago. According to Dr. Galena Rhoades, "Before 1970, living together outside marriage was uncommon, but by the late 1990s at least 50% to 60% of couples lived together premaritally."

People may live together for a number of reasons. Cohabitants could live together to save money, because of the convenience of living with another, or a need to find housing. Lower income individuals facing financial uncertainty may delay or avoid marriage, not only because of the difficulty of paying for a wedding but also because of fear of financial hardship if a marriage were to end in divorce.

When given a survey of the reasons why they cohabit, most couples listed reasons such as spending more time together, convenience-based reasons, and testing their relationships, while few gave the reason that they do not believe in marriage. The extremely high costs of housing and tight budgets of today's economy are also factors that can lead a couple to cohabitation.

Today sixty percent of all marriages are preceded by a period of cohabitation. Researchers suggest that couples live together as a way of trying out marriage to test compatibility with their partners, while still having the option of ending the relationship without legal implications. In 1996, "More than three-quarters of all cohabitors report[ed] plans to marry their partners, which implies that most of them viewed cohabitation as a prelude to marriage." Cohabitation shares many qualities with marriage, often couples who are cohabiting share a residence, personal resources, exclude intimate relations with others and, in more than 10% of cohabiting couples, have children. "Many young adults believe cohabitation is a good way to test their relationships prior to marriage." Couples who have plans to marry before moving in together or who are engaged before cohabiting typically marry within two years of living together. The state of cohabitation of a couple often ends either in marriage or in break-up; according to a 1996 study about 10% of cohabiting unions remained in this state more than five years. According to a survey done by The National Center for Health Statistics, "over half of marriages from 1990-1994 among women began as cohabitation."

Cohabitation can be an alternative to marriage in situations where marriage is not possible for legal or religious reasons (such as same-sex, interracial or interreligious marriages).

Cohabitation, sometimes called de facto marriage, is becoming more commonly known as a substitute for conventional marriage. Common-law marriage in the United States can still be contracted in nine US states, and in two others under restriction. This helps provide the surviving partner a legal basis for inheriting the decedent's belongings in the event of the death of their cohabiting partner. In today's cohabiting relationships, forty percent of households include children, giving an idea of how cohabitation could be considered a new normative type of family dynamic. In 2012, 41% of all births in the US were to unmarried women. In three states (Mississippi – 55%, Louisiana – 53%, and New Mexico – 52%) births outside marriage were in the majority; the lowest percentage of births outside marriage was in Utah, at 19%. During the period 2006–2010, 58% of births outside marriage were to cohabiting parents.

Contemporary objections to cohabitation
Contemporary objections to cohabiting couples include religious opposition to non-marital unions, social pressure for couples to get married, and potential effects of cohabitation on a child's development.

The rise in the number of cohabiting couples and children born out of wedlock in the Western world has made cohabitation a strong focus of sociological research. The rise in cohabiting couples in the United States, from around 450,000 in 1960 to 7.5 million in 2011 has been accompanied by US research performed on child development within cohabiting households. Opponents of cohabitation say non-marital parenting is an unsuitable environment for a child's development. One study from 2002 correlated lower numeracy skills and higher delinquency to children of cohabiting couples; however, recent studies that control for factors including poverty, the educational level of parents and violence in the home show children of cohabiting couples are developmentally similar to peers of comparable married couples.

Effect on children
In 2001, researchers compared teenage children in the United States living in a cohabiting household (a single mother and her boyfriend who was not related to the teenager) against peers in single-parent households. The results showed white and Hispanic teenagers had lower performance in school, greater risk of suspension or expulsion than peers from single-parent households, and the same rate of behavioral and emotional problems.

A study on the 1995 and 2002 National Survey of Family Growth found increases in both the prevalence and duration of unmarried cohabitation. The study found that 40% of children in the United States would live in a cohabiting household by age 12, and children born to single mothers were more likely than those born to married mothers to live in a cohabiting household. The percentage of women ages 19–44 who had ever cohabited increased from 45% in 1995 to 54% in 2002.

In 2002, 63% of women who graduate from high school were found to spend some time cohabiting, compared to only 45% of women with a four-year college degree. Cohabiting couples who have children often get married. One study found that children born of parents who cohabit are 90% more likely to end up living in households with married parents than children born to single mothers. 67% of unmarried Hispanic mothers are expected to marry, while 40% of African American mothers are expected to marry.

Religious views
Studies have found that religious affiliation correlates with cohabitation and marriage entry. People frequently cite religious reasons for their opposition to cohabitation. The Roman Catholic Church and nearly all mainstream Protestant denominations around the world oppose cohabitation and consider it to be the sin of fornication. However, others, such as the Church of England "welcome cohabiting couples in the Church and encourage them to regard cohabitation as a prelude to Christian marriage."

Religion can also lead to societal pressures against cohabitation especially within highly religious communities. Some couples may refrain from cohabitation because one or both partners fear disappointing or alienating conservative family members. Young adults who grew up in families that oppose cohabitation have lower rates than their peers.

The increase in cohabitation in the United States and other developed nations has been linked to the secularization of those countries. Researchers have noted that changes in the religious demographics of a society have accompanied the rise in cohabitation.

Non-marital and same-sex relationships are forbidden by the Islamic law of Zina, and cohabitation is against the law in many Muslim majority countries including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Kuwait, Maldives, Morocco, Oman, Mauritania, United Arab Emirates,  Sudan, and Yemen.

Likelihood of split
Conflicting studies on the effect of cohabitation on subsequent marriage have been published. In countries where the majority of people disapprove of unmarried individuals living together, or a minority of the population cohabits before marriage, marriages resulting from cohabitation are more prone to divorce. But in a study on European countries, those where around half of the population cohabits before marriage, cohabitation is not selective of divorce-prone individuals, and no difference in couples that have cohabited before and after marriage is observed. In countries such as Italy, the increased risk of marital disruption for people who experienced premarital cohabitation can be entirely attributed to the selection of the most divorce-prone into cohabitation.

In 2002, the CDC found that for married couples the likelihood percentage of the relationship ending after five years is 20%, for unmarried cohabitators the likelihood percentage is 49%. After 10 years the likelihood percentage for the relationship to end is 33% for married couples and 62% for unmarried cohabitators. One German study found that in regions with high rates of childbirth to cohabitating parents, no negative effect is observed in cohabitation. The study states "union stability of cohabiting mothers is positively related to their prevalence".

A 2004 study of 136 couples (272 individuals) from researchers at the University of Denver found differences among couples that cohabited before engagement, after engagement, or not until marriage. The longitudinal study collected survey data before marriage and 10 months into marriage, with findings suggesting those who cohabit before engagement are at greater risk for poor marital outcomes than those who cohabit only after engagement or at marriage. A follow-up survey by the researches of over 1,000 married men and women married in the past 10 years found those who moved in with a lover before engagement or marriage reported significantly lower quality marriages and a greater possibility of a separation than other couples. About 20% of those who cohabited before getting engaged had since suggested splitting – compared with only 12% of those who only moved in together after getting engaged and 10% who did not cohabit prior to marriage.

Another 2004 study of 92 couples linked communication to cohabitation and instability. They found that married couples who cohabited before they were married had more negative problem-solving and communication skills. They also found that those who had cohabited expressed more (verbal) aggression throughout their conversations. This negative communication could be contributing to the cohabitation effect and causing a larger amount of marital instability.

The researchers from Denver suggest that relationships with pre-engagement cohabitation "may wind up sliding into marriage", whereas those that only cohabit post engagement or marriage make a more clear decision. This could explain their 2006 study of 197 heterosexual couples finding that men who cohabited with their spouse before engagement were less dedicated than men who cohabited only after engagement or not at all before marriage. In some heterosexual couples, women are more likely to understand cohabitation as an intermediary step preceding marriage, and men more likely to perceive it without an explicit connection to marriage.

An analysis of data from the CDC's National Survey of Family Growth data from 1988, 1995, and 2002 suggests that the positive relationship between premarital cohabitation and marital instability has weakened for more recent birth and marriage cohorts, as the total number of couples cohabiting before marriage has increased.

Later CDC work found that between 2002 and 2006-2010, the number of couples in opposite-sex cohabiting relationships increased from 9.0% to 11.2% for women, and from 9.2% to 12.2% for men. Drawing on the 2006–2008 data, Princeton University researchers examined whether and to what extent variation in premarital cohabitation experiences influence marital stability. They found that the relationship between cohabitation and marital instability is complex and depends in part on marriage cohort, race/ethnicity, and marriage plans. Their analyses reveal that a 'cohabitation effect' exists only for women married prior to 1996, and that, until marriage plans are considered, there is no cohabitation effect among women married since 1996.

Recent research from 2011 by the Pew Research Center has found that the number of couples that cohabit before marriage has increased. 44% of adults (and more than half of 30- to 49-year-olds) say they have cohabited at some point. Nearly two-thirds of adults who ever cohabited (64%) say they thought about it as a step toward marriage. The report also notes a trend toward rising public acceptance of cohabiting couples over the years. Most Americans now say the rise in unmarried couples living together either makes no difference to society (46%) or is good for society (9%).

A 2012 study found that, among cohabiting individuals, those who were engaged prior to cohabitation or had "definite plans for marriage" were linked to lower risks of marital instability among women, but the relationship was not observed with men.

One study on low to moderate income couples living with minor children found that respondents who became sexually involved within the first month of their relationship were correlated to lower scores of relationship quality among women. Another study found respondents to a mail-in survey self-reported higher levels of commitment in the cohabiting group, as well as lower relationship satisfaction and more negative communication.

A 2018 study found that cohabiting before marriage was linked to a lower risk of divorce during the first year of marriage, but a greater risk of divorce in the long run. However, a report published by the Council on Contemporary Families that same year found that couples who cohabited before marriage were less likely to divorce than couples who did not.

Abuse and infidelity
University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite found that "16 percent of cohabiting women reported that arguments with their partners became physical during the past year, while only 5 percent of married women had similar experiences." Most cohabiting couples have a faithful relationship, but Waite's surveys also demonstrated that 20% of cohabiting women reported having secondary sex partners, compared to only 4% of married women.

According to an article by Judith Treas and Deirdre Giesen, cohabiting couples are twice as likely to experience infidelity within the relationship than married couples.

Fertility
Regarding cohabitation as a fertility factor, a large survey in the United States came to the result that married women had an average of 1.9 children, compared to 1.3 among those cohabiting. The corresponding numbers for men were 1.7 and 1.1, respectively. The difference of 0.6 children for both sexes was expected to decrease to between 0.2 and 0.3 over the lifetime when correcting for the confounder that married people have their children earlier in life.

A study of the United States and multiple countries in Europe came to the result that women who continue to cohabit after birth have significantly lower probability of having a second child than married women in all countries except those in Eastern Europe. Another study, on the contrary, came to the result that cohabiting couples in France have equal fertility as married ones. Also, Russians have a higher fertility within cohabitation, while Romanians rather tend to have childless marriages.

Survey data from 2003 in Romania came to the result that marriage equalized the total fertility rate among both highly educated and low educated people to approximately 1.4. Among those cohabiting, on the other hand, lower level of education increased fertility rate to 1.7, and a higher level of education decreased it to 0.7. On the other hand, another study came to the result that Romanian women with little education have about equal fertility in marital and cohabiting partnerships.

Financial effects
In the United States, married couples that submit a combined tax return may face a marriage penalty, where tax credits for low-income single earners are not applied to the combined income. In October 1998, Senate GOP leader Trent Lott decided to pull a bill to abolish "the marriage penalty, which in the tax code reflects the fact that married couples who both work for wages frequently pay more in taxes than if they earned the same amount of income but weren't married. And the more equal the incomes of the couple, the steeper the marriage tax penalty." The earned income tax credit (EITC) is cash welfare for low-income workers, but the problem is the EITC is not for married couples because they have to combine their wages, which again leads to "the marriage penalty". If couples do not get married then their wages do not have to combine and the EITC in a way is "paying for" low-income couples not to marry. Opponents of cohabitation believe that some cohabiting couples choose not to marry because they would suffer a tax penalty.

Despite the perceived disincentive to marry that the EITC provides, cohabiting couples suffer many financial losses as their unions are not recognized with the same legal and financial benefits as those who are legally married. These financial penalties can include the costs of separate insurance policies and the costs of setting up legal protections similar to those that are automatically granted by the state upon marriage.

No effect
A conflicting study, published by the National Center for Health Statistics, with a sample of 12,571 people, concludes that "those who live together after making plans to marry or getting engaged have about the same chances of divorcing as couples who never cohabited before marriage".

Additionally, William Doherty, a professor in the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota has remarked that in his research he has found that "committed cohabiting relationships seem to confer many of the benefits of marriage".

A 2003 study by the Australian Institute of Family Studies found that "The differences in measured outcomes for those from direct and indirect marriages appear to be entirely attributable to other factors." The study concluded that the evidence suggests that premarital cohabitation has "little impact one way or the other" on the chances of any subsequent marriage surviving.

Canada

Canadian laws on the recognition of unmarried cohabitation for legal purposes vary significantly by province/territory; and in addition to this, federal regulations also have an impact across the country (see Common-law marriage). Family formation has undergone significant changes in Canada during the last decades of the 20th century, but the patterns vary widely across the country, suggesting differing cultural norms in different regions. From 1995, births to cohabiting parents have increased, particularly in Quebec. In Canada, it is difficult to obtain exact data on the percentage of births outside marriage, because data on the marital status of mothers is collected differently across the provinces and territories of Canada, and in some (such as Alberta) it is not broken down in detail in regard to whether the mother was legally married or not at the birth of her child. As of 2012, the statistical category of "single mothers" (defined as never married at the time of the birth) encompassed 28.3% of mothers, the category "divorced" (i.e. mothers who were unmarried at the time of birth, but had been previously married during their lives) encompassed 1%, while for 10% of mothers the marital status was unknown ("not stated"). There are, however, very significant differences by province/territory; for example in 2012, 77.8% of births in Nunavut were listed to "single mothers", by contrast, less than 20% of mothers in Ontario were listed in this category. Latest data from the Quebec Statistical Institute shows that as of 2015, in Quebec, 63% of children were born to unmarried women. In Canada, legal issues regarding cohabitation are very complicated by the fact that family law in this regard differs by province/territory, which is very confusing to the public, especially as this contrasts to criminal law which is the same across Canada, as well as to marriage and divorce law, which is also the same across the country, under the 1986 Divorce Act (Canada) (although provinces/territories have jurisdiction over some marital issues, including the solemnization of marriage, spousal and child support, and property division). The marital status of Canadians also varies by province/territory: in 2011, 46.4% of the population aged 15 and over was legally married; ranging from the lowest percentage of married people being in Nunavut (29.7%), Northwest Territories (35.0%), Quebec (35.4%), and Yukon (37.6%); to highest being in Newfoundland and Labrador (52.9%), Prince Edward Island (51.7%), Ontario (50.3%) and Alberta (50.2%). While today Quebec is known for liberal family formation and cohabitation, this is a recent development: during the first half of the 20th century, family life in the province was conservative and strongly dominated by Roman Catholicism; before 1968, there was no provincial divorce legislation in Quebec, and spouses could only end their marriage if they obtained a private Act of Parliament. One of the explanations of the current high rates of cohabitation in Quebec is that the traditionally strong social control of the church and the Catholic doctrine over people's private relations and sexual morality has led the population to rebel against traditional and conservative social values. While some provinces were early to modernize family law, in others this only happened in the 1990s and the 21st century, such as in Alberta, through the Family Law Act (Alberta) which came into force in 2005. This Act overhauled family legislation, replacing the Domestic Relations Act, the Maintenance Order Act, the Parentage and Maintenance Act, and parts of the Provincial Court Act and the Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act, which were seen as outdated. Also, the Adult Interdependent Relationships Act (S.A. 2002, c. A-4.5) amended 69 Alberta laws. The Canadian Prairies provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan have strong common-law spouses regulations, imposing rights and obligations on common-law couples. Nova Scotia has also been very slow to advance family law – it was only in 1999 that this province abolished discrimination against "illegitimate" children with regard to inheritance (through section 16 of NS Intestate Succession Act amended in 1999). In general, today, provinces in Western Canada give more rights to common-law spouses than those in Atlantic Canada and in Quebec. This may seem quite paradoxical, because it is the eastern provinces which have the strongest tradition of cohabitation; according to a study "unmarried cohabitation seems to be more common in Eastern Canada than in Western Canada, which might be related to internal and international migration". (as of 2012, 48% of births in New Brunswick, 47.1% in Newfoundland and Labrador, and 45.2% in Nova Scotia, were listed to "single mothers", way above the national average). In British Columbia, the Family Law Act came into force in 2013.

United States

Cohabitation in the United States became common in the late 20th century. , 4.85 million unmarried couples were living together, and, about half of all women aged 15 to 44 had lived unmarried with a partner. In 2007, it is estimated that 6.4 million households were maintained by two opposite sex persons who said they were unmarried. In 2012, the General Social Survey found that public disapproval of cohabitation had dropped to 20% of the population.

Researchers at the National Center for Family and Marriage Research estimated in 2011 that 66% of first marriages are entered after a period of cohabitation. According to the 2009 American Community Survey conducted by the Census Bureau, the proportion of 30- to 44-year-olds living together has almost doubled since 1999, from 4% to 7%. Fifty-eight percent of women aged 19 to 44 had ever cohabited in data collected in 2006–08, while in 1987 only 33% had. Cohabitation is more prevalent among those with less education. "Among women ages 19 to 44, 73% of those without a high school education have ever cohabited, compared with about half of women with some college (52%) or a college degree (47%)," note the Pew study's authors, Richard Fry and D'Vera Cohn.

Before the mid-20th century, laws against cohabitation, fornication, adultery and other such behaviors were common in the US (especially in Southern and Northeastern states), but these laws have been gradually abolished or struck down by courts as unconstitutional. "Cohabitation was almost impossible in the United States prior to the 1960s. Laws prevented unmarried couples from registering in hotels and it was very difficult for an unmarried couple to obtain a home mortgage. From 1960 to 1998, cohabitation moved from disreputable and difficult to normal and convenient."

As of December 2023, cohabitation of unmarried couples remains illegal in two states (Mississippi and North Carolina), while as of 2023 fornication remains illegal in two states (Georgia and South Carolina ). These laws are almost never enforced and are now believed to be unconstitutional since the legal decision Lawrence v. Texas in 2003. However, these laws may have indirect effects. For example, one consequence may be that one may not claim their partner as a dependent (for a tax exemption), whereas in the other states it may be possible to do so after meeting four criteria: residency, income, support and status.

In 2006, in North Carolina, Pender County Superior Court judge Benjamin G. Alford ruled that North Carolina's cohabitation law is unconstitutional. However, the Supreme Court of North Carolina has never had the opportunity to rule on it, so the law's statewide constitutionality remains unclear.

On 13 December 2013, US Federal Judge Clark Waddoups ruled in Brown v. Buhman that the portions of Utah's anti-polygamy laws which prohibit multiple cohabitation were unconstitutional, but also allowed Utah to maintain its ban on multiple marriage licenses. This decision was overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, thus effectively recriminalizing polygamy as a felony. In 2020, Utah voted to downgrade polygamy from a felony to an infraction, but it remains a felony if force, threats or other abuses are involved. Unlawful cohabitation, where prosecutors did not need to prove that a marriage ceremony had taken place (only that a couple had lived together), had been a major tool used to prosecute polygamy in Utah since the 1882 Edmunds Act.

Latin America
Cohabitation in Latin America is becoming more common. Indeed, although this is a largely Roman Catholic region, it has the highest rates of non-marital childbearing in the world (55–74% of all children in this region are born to unmarried parents). In Mexico, 18.7% of all couples were cohabiting. Among young people, the figures are much higher.

As of 2000, in Argentina 58% of births were to unmarried women. The percentage of births outside marriage has increased throughout Latin America during the past decades, and there is also a relation to place of residence: women living in the capital city are more likely to have children outside marriage than those living in other parts of the country. Recent data shows figures for non-marital childbearing to be 74% for Colombia, 69% for Peru, 68% for Chile, 66% for Brazil and 55% for Mexico.

Nepal
In Nepal, living together is socially acceptable only after marriage. However, cohabitation is an emerging trend in urban areas of Nepal. Reports have shown that there may be significant number of unmarried couples cohabiting in cities, especially in the capital, Kathmandu. Even when unmarried couples cohabit they either prefer to remain anonymous or pose themselves as a married couple. Cohabitation is not recognized by the law of Nepal and there is no special provision to secure the right of cohabitants in Nepalese law.

Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, there are no laws prohibiting cohabitation but it is still socially unacceptable. However, cohabitation is becoming more common in urban areas due to western influence. An unmarried couple may feel immense pressure to marry by their family, and will probably choose to live as if they were married and, if exposed, can be expelled from housing or university. Cohabitation has become tolerant in recent years, especially among youths.

China
In China, cohabitation has become popular among young adults. One study shows that the cohabitation rate before first marriage was over 20% for those born after 1977. Another recent study shows that cohabitation increases the divorce likelihood for those married in the early-reform period, but premarital cohabitation has no effect on divorce for those married in the late-reform period in China.

India
Cohabitation in India had been taboo in traditional Hindu and Muslim societies. However, this is more acceptable between upper classes in large cities, but is not often found in rural areas and smaller towns which are more social conservative. Live-in relationships are legal in India. Recent Indian court rulings have ascribed some rights to long-term cohabiting partners. Female live-in partners have economic rights under Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 subject to following conditions as laid by Honourable Supreme Court of India in case of D. Velusamy v D. Patchaiammal:

 * 1) The couple must hold themselves out to society as being akin to spouses.
 * 2) They must be of legal age to marry.
 * 3) They must be otherwise qualified to enter into a legal marriage, including being unmarried.
 * 4) They must have voluntarily cohabited and held themselves out to the world as being akin to spouses for a significant period of time.

On 12 June 2020, the Uttarakhand High Court stated in the case of Madhu Bala v. State of Uttarakhand and others (Habeas Corpus Petition No. 8 of 2020) that consensual cohabitation between two adults of the same-sex is legal.

Indonesia
In Indonesia, an Islamic penal code proposed in 2005 would have made cohabitation punishable by up to two years in prison, but failed to pass. The practice is still frowned upon, and many low-end hotels and boarding houses have been raided by police for allowing unmarried couples to share a room.

Japan
In Japan, according to M. Iwasawa at the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, less than 3% of females between 25–29 are currently cohabiting, but more than one in five have had some experience of an unmarried partnership, including cohabitation. A more recent Iwasawa study has shown that there has been a recent emergence of non-marital cohabitation. Couples born in the 1950s cohort showed an incidence of cohabitation of 11.8%, where the 1960s and 1970s cohorts showed cohabitation rates of 30%, and 53.9% respectively. The split between urban and rural residence for people who had cohabited is indicates 68.8% were urban and 31.2% were rural.

Philippines
In the Philippines, around 2.4 million Filipinos were cohabiting. The 2000 census placed the percentage of cohabiting couples at 19%. The majority of individuals are between the ages of 20–24. Poverty was often the main factor in decision to cohabit.

Iran
In Iran, the cohabitation of two people is known as 'white marriage'. According to researchers, the number of white marriages in Iranian metropolises is increasing.

Under Iranian law, which is based on Islamic Sharia law, the cohabitation of a man and a woman outside the framework of official marriage is a crime.

It is estimated that the duration of a cohabitation in Iran is between one and three years.

Cohabitation has no place in Iran from traditional social, legal and religious points of view. However, cohabitation in Iran can be explained by considering recent cultural changes in Iranian society, including the growth of individualism, modernity, and fluid relationships, and the gaps and conflicts between values.

Various factors such as economic crises and cultural and social changes in cities are reasons for the increase in the number of cohabitation in Iran. In other words, the emergence of capitalism, the increase of job insecurity, the emergence of moral liberalism, the revision of cultural traditions, the anonymity of people in cities, the elimination of the concepts and functions of neighborhoods, changes in family structures and the emergence of temporary relationships are among the major reasons for white marriage in Iran.

New research published by social anthropologist Kameel Ahmady and his team under the title House with Open Door: A Comprehensive Research Study on White Marriage (Cohabitation) in Iran reveals the previously concealed and multi-dimensional aspects of this phenomenon at the macro level, focusing on the Tehran, Mashhad and Isfahan metropolitan areas. The research pieces argues that this phenomenon is more prevalent among educated and post-graduate young people who have migrated to metropolitan areas for work and education.

Europe
In the European Union, cohabitation is very common. In 2014, 42% of all births in the 28 EU countries were nonmarital. In the following European countries the majority of births occur outside marriage: Iceland (69.9% in 2016 ), France (59.7% in 2016 ), Bulgaria (58.6% in 2016 ), Slovenia (58.6% in 2016 ), Norway (56.2% in 2016 ), Estonia (56.1% in 2016 ), Sweden (54.9% in 2016 ), Denmark (54% in 2016 ), Portugal (52.8% in 2016 ), and the Netherlands (50.4% in 2016 ). While couples of all ages cohabit, the phenomenon is much more common among younger people. In late 2005, 21% of families in Finland consisted of cohabiting couples (all age groups). Of couples with children, 18% were cohabiting. Of ages 18 and above in 2003, 13.4% were cohabiting. Generally, cohabitation amongst Finns is most common for people under 30. Legal obstacles for cohabitation were removed in 1926 in a reform of the Criminal Code, while the phenomenon was socially accepted much later on. In France, 17.5% of couples were cohabiting as of 1999.

Britain
In Britain today, nearly half of babies are born to people who are not married (in the United Kingdom 47.3% in 2011; in Scotland in 2012 the proportion was 51.3% ). It is estimated that by 2016, the majority of births in the UK will be to unmarried parents.

The Victorian era of the late 19th century is famous for the Victorian standards of personal morality. Historians generally agree that the middle classes held high personal moral standards and rejected cohabitation. They have debated whether the working classes followed suit. Moralists in the late 19th century such as Henry Mayhew decried high levels of cohabitation without marriage and illegitimate births in London slums. However new research using computerized matching of data files shows that the rates of cohabitation were quite low—under 5% – for the working class and the urban poor.

Falling marriage rates and increased births outside marriage have become a political issue, with questions of whether the government should promote marriage or focus on the status of a parent rather than a spouse; the Conservative Party support the former whilst Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats support the latter. There are also differences between England and Wales and Scotland, with the latter being more accepting of cohabitation.

Bulgaria
In Bulgaria, there has been a rapid increase in cohabitation after the fall of Communism. The transition from communism to market economy had a great impact on the demographic behavior of the population. After the fall of Communism, the legal and social pressure to get married has declined, and the population has started to experience new life styles. As of 2014, 58.8% of children were born to unmarried mothers.

Czech Republic
The marriage rates in Czech Republic have fallen dramatically during the past decades. In the 1970s to 1980s, about 96–97% of women married; in 2000 it was estimated that only 75% of women would ever marry. The age at first marriage for women has increased from being in the range of 21.4–21.8 years in the 1970s and 1980s, to being 29.6 in 2011. In the early 1990s, predictions were made by some Czech demographers that cohabitation would increase during the next decades; and indeed, there has been a marked increase in the number of people who live in non-marital couple relations. In 2016, 48.6% of births were to unmarried women.

Germany
Until the 1980s, it was illegal for unmarried couples to cohabitate, which made it impossible for many same-sex couples to live together. At this point the Bundesgerichtshof ruled that cohabitation could not be banned as it was protected by the Basic Law. As in other western societies, patterns of family life have been changing in Germany during the past decades. This has not created a moral panic, but has been seen more as an ongoing social evolution. Cohabitation, divorce rates, lone parents, and people's reluctance to marry or to have children have increased. However, with regards to family formation and long term cohabitation instead of marriage, there are very strong differences between the regions of former West Germany and East Germany (which was formally Communist). Significantly more children are born out of wedlock in eastern Germany than in western Germany. In 2012, in eastern Germany 61.6% of births were to unmarried women, while in western Germany only 28.4% were. A longitudinal survey found that union stability was significantly higher for cohabiting mothers in eastern Germany than western Germany, due to differences in German society.

Greece
In Greece, family dynamics remain conservative. The principal form of partnership is marriage, and extramarital childbearing and long term cohabitation are not widespread. For instance, in 2016 only 9.4% of births were outside marriage, which is the lowest percentage among the European Union member states. Religion in Greece plays a very important role in society; it was only in 1983 that civil marriage was introduced in the country. The new laws modernized family law, abolished dowry, and provided for equal rights for "illegitimate" children. According to a 2008 study: "Greek society still remains conservative and birthing outside marriage, although protected by law, remains in many ways socially unacceptable." Despite this, there have been further legal changes providing for a modern "western" outlook on family life, including Law 3719/2008 dealing with family issues, including Article 14 of the law, which reduced the separation period (necessary before a divorce in certain circumstances) from four years to two years.

Hungary
The literature on second demographic transition argues as well that highly educated women are more prone to engage in cohabitation, although the reasons are different: they are less concerned with respecting the societal norms. Some scholars argued that cohabitation is very similar to being single in the sense of not giving up independence and personal autonomy.

In Hungary, cohabitation was an uncommon phenomenon until the late 1980s and it was largely confined to the divorced or widowed individuals. Among the ethnic groups, Gypsy/Roma tended to have higher rates of cohabitation, mainly due to their reluctance to register their marriages officially. Since the 1980s, cohabitation became much more frequent among all ethnic groups and it has been argued to have strongly influenced the decline in fertility. In 2015, 47.9% of births were to unmarried women.

Ireland

Cohabitation in Ireland has increased in recent years, and 36.6% of births were to unmarried women in 2016. Until a few decades ago, women who had children outside marriage were severely stigmatized and often detained in Magdalene laundries. The Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010 gives some rights to unmarried cohabitants (under this act same-sex couples can enter into civil partnerships, while long term unmarried couples – both heterosexual and same sex – who have not registered their relation have some limited rights and obligations).

Italy
In Italy, where Roman Catholicism had a historically strong presence, cohabitation is not as common as in other countries of Europe, yet it has increased in recent years. There are significant regional differences, with non-marital unions being more common in the North of the country than in Southern Italy. A study published in 2006 found that long term cohabitation was still novel to Italy, though more common among young people. As of 2015, the share of births outside marriage was 28.7%, but this varied by statistical regions as follows: Central Italy (33.8%), Northeast Italy (33.1%), Northwest Italy (31.3%), Insular Italy (24.2%), and South Italy (20.3%).

The Netherlands
Dutch researchers have found that research participants see cohabitation as a risk-reduction strategy in a country with high relationship instability. As of 2016, 50.4% births were to unmarried women.

Norway
Cohabitation is a common type of partnership in Norway. Cohabitants have some rights if they have joint children, or if they have lived together for five years. Cohabitants can also regulate their relationship through a cohabitation agreement. In Norway, in 2016, 56.2% of children were born outside marriage.

Poland
In Poland, after the fall of Communism, the influence of religion has increased. Indeed, Poland has one of the most religious populations in Europe (see religion in Europe). Cohabitation in Poland has traditionally been associated with the lower social classes, but in recent years an increase has been seen among the more educated. Family structure in Poland remains traditional: Marriages are contracted at relatively young ages, and the incidence of divorce is relatively low (by European standards). The exact incidence of cohabitation is not well established, but it is quite low compared to other Western countries. However, Poland is not completely 'immune' to Western influence and, in 2016, 25% of children were born outside marriage.

Slovakia
Slovakia is more conservative and religious than neighboring Czech Republic. The principal form of partnership is marriage, but extramarital childbearing and cohabitation are slowly spreading, yet this trend is not without criticism; and some view these phenomena as a threat to traditional values. In 2016, 40.2% of births were to unmarried women. Fertility in Slovakia has been described in a 2008 study as "between tradition and modernity".

Switzerland
Switzerland has a tradition of strong conservatism; which can be seen in its legal and social history: in Europe, Switzerland was one of the last countries to establish gender equality in marriage: married women's rights were severely restricted until 1988, when legal reforms providing gender equality in marriage, abolishing the legal authority of the husband, come into force (these reforms had been approved in 1985 by voters in a referendum, who narrowly voted in favor with 54.7% of voters approving). Adultery was decriminalized in 1989. Until the late 20th century, most cantons had regulations banning unmarried cohabitation of couples; the last canton to end such prohibition was Valais, in 1995. As of 2015, 22.5% of births were to unmarried women. Births outside marriage are most common in the French speaking part (highest percentage in the cantons of Vaud, Neuchâtel, Geneva, Jura) and least common in the eastern German speaking cantons (lowest percentage in the cantons of St. Gallen, Zug, Appenzell Innerrhoden, Appenzell Ausserrhoden).

Spain
Spanish society has undergone major changes since the fall of the Franco regime. Important legal changes which have occurred throughout the 1970s and 1980s include legalization of divorce, decriminalization of adultery, gender equality in family law, and removing the ban on contraception. The liberalization of the political climate has allowed for alternative family formation. In the mid-1990s, cohabitation in Spain was still described as a "marginal" phenomenon, but since the 1990s, cohabitation has increased dramatically in Spain. In Spain, in 2016, 45.9% of births were outside marriage. As in other countries, there are regional differences: in 2011, in Catalonia the figure was 42% – highest in mainland Spain in that year (Canary Islands 59% and Balearic Islands 43.5% were highest) while in Murcia it was only 30.7% (lowest).

Russia
In Russia, many couples express a desire to cohabit before marriage, then register a civil marriage, and then at a later stage have a large church wedding.

Middle East
The cohabitation rate in West Asian countries is much lower than in European countries. In some parts of the continent it is however becoming more common for young people. As of 1994, the rate of premarital cohabitation in Israel was 25%.

Cohabitation is illegal according to Sunni sharia law. Cohabitation, Bi'ah, is a legal status, "Yadua BetTzibbur", by the Jews Halakha (Halacha) religious Law.

Kuwait
Some legal recognition is extended to former common-law unions in Kuwait. Kuwaiti Family law applies the law of the father's, husband's or male partner's country in case of expatriate familial disputes. Hence, if the father's country of nationality recognises common-law marriages (like the United Kingdom), matters such as child support dues and maintenance can be considered in a Kuwaiti court. However, out-of-marriage sexual intercourse is an offence punishable in Kuwait with a prison sentence between 6 months and 6 years if caught in action by an official or an administrative deportation order. This meaning that common-law marriage recognition can only be practically seen in exceptional cases like where the illegitimate child was born aboard and/or former couples who have since expatriated to Kuwait. Single expat parents including expat mothers can legally sponsor their children for residency permits. Couples where one or both parties are Kuwaiti are covered by local family law and hence do not have recourse to the limited recognition of common-law marriage.

United Arab Emirates
Children born out-of-wedlock are given partial recognition. Their single expat mother or single expat father can sponsor them for residency. However, sexual relations outside of marriage were illegal in the UAE until November 2020, when restrictions were eased.

Australia
In Australia, 22% of couples were cohabiting. 78% of couples who marry have lived together beforehand in 2008, rising from 16% in 1975. In 2013, 34% of all births were to unmarried women. Australia recognizes de facto relationships. The proportion of births outside marriage varies by state/territory, being, in 2009, lowest in Victoria (at 28%), Australian Capital Territory (at 29%), and New South Wales (at 30%); and highest in Northern Territory (at 63%) and Tasmania (at 51%).

New Zealand
In New Zealand according to the 2001 census, 20.5% of couples were in de facto relationships. In New Zealand, 23.7% of couples were cohabiting as of 2006. In 2010, 48% of births were outside marriage. Like Australia, New Zealand recognizes de facto relationships.

South Africa
In South Africa, the 2011 census revealed that of South Africans aged 20 or older, 43.7% had never been married, 36.7% were married at the time of the census, 11.0% were living together like married partners. Civil marriages fell by 22,5% between 2011 and 2019 and declined by a further 31,1% in 2020.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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Mobile Bay

Mobile Bay is a shallow inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, lying within the state of Alabama in the United States. Its mouth is formed by the Fort Morgan Peninsula on the eastern side and Dauphin Island, a barrier island on the western side. The Mobile River and Tensaw River empty into the northern end of the bay, making it an estuary. Several smaller rivers also empty into the bay: Dog River, Deer River, and Fowl River on the western side of the bay, and Fish River on the eastern side. Mobile Bay is the fourth-largest estuary in the United States with a discharge of 62000 cuft of water per second. Annually, and often several times during the summer months, the fish and crustaceans will swarm the shallow coastline and shore of the bay. This event, appropriately named a jubilee, draws a large crowd because of the abundance of fresh, easily caught seafood.

Mobile Bay is 413 sqmi in area. It is 31 mi long by a maximum width of 24 mi. The deepest areas of the bay are located within the shipping channel, sometimes in excess of 75 ft deep, but the average depth of the bay is 10 ft.

History
Long occupied by cultures of indigenous peoples, this area was still under the chiefs of Mississippian culture at the time of Hernando de Soto's exploration.

The recorded history of Mobile Bay begins about 1500, when Spanish explorers were sailing into the area. On early maps, the bay was named as Bahía del Espíritu Santo (Bay of the Holy Spirit). The area was explored in more detail in 1516 by Diego Miruelo and in 1519 by Alonso Álvarez de Pineda. In 1528, Pánfilo de Narváez travelled through what was likely the Mobile Bay area, encountering Native Americans who fled and burned their towns at the approach of the expedition. This response was a prelude to the journeys of Hernando de Soto, more than eleven years later.

European exploration into the region
Hernando de Soto explored the area of Mobile Bay and beyond in 1540, finding the area inhabited by indigenous Mississippian culture people. During this expedition his forces destroyed the fortified town of Mauvila, also spelled Maubila, from which the name Mobile was later derived. It was a town of the paramount Chief Tuscaloosa, located in inland Alabama, well to the north of the current site of Mobile. The next large expedition was that of Tristán de Luna y Arellano, in his unsuccessful attempt to establish a permanent colony for Spain nearby at Pensacola in 1559.

Although Spain's presence in the area had been sporadic, in 1702 French colonists created a deep-sea port at Dauphin Island and founded French Louisiana's capital at Mobile, a few miles north of Mobile Bay on the Mobile River. Following a series of floods, the original settlement of Fort Louis de la Mobile was relocated in 1711 to the head of Mobile Bay.

Role in wars
During the American Civil War Mobile Bay was used as a major port for blockade runners bringing in badly needed supplies for the Confederacy. On August 5, 1864, Admiral David Farragut led a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and sealed off one of the last major Southern ports of the bay in the Battle of Mobile Bay. A number of Civil War-era shipwrecks remain in Mobile Bay, including American Diver, CSS Gaines, CSS Huntsville, USS Philippi, CSS Phoenix, USS Rodolph, USS Tecumseh, and CSS Tuscaloosa.

Mobile's role as a seaport has continued to the present day, though the commodities have changed through time. Cotton was the chief commodity in the nineteenth century. During the Second World War, Mobile's shipbuilding industry expanded, and the city's population surged as both black and white migrants moved there for work. Growth has been rapid since then.

Natural disasters in the area
The city has endured several devastating hurricanes in its history, the most recent being Hurricane Frederic in 1979 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Areas of low elevation, including the downtown business district, have been flooded repeatedly in hurricanes. However, much of the city is at an elevation exceeding 200 ft above sea level, which is unusually high for the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.

On September 13, 1979, Hurricane Frederic entered the bay with winds reaching 145 mph, destroying the bridge to Dauphin Island. On August 28–29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina pushed a massive storm surge into Mobile Bay; it measured 16 ft high at Bayou La Batre (Alabama), with higher waves on top, and 12 ft high at Mobile, at the far northern end of the 31-mile-long Mobile Bay. Thousands of boats, piers, and beach houses were damaged by waves exceeding 22 ft high, and the battleship USS Alabama (BB-60) was pushed off her moorings, leaving her listing to port (tilted to the left). Downtown Mobile was flooded several feet, and the south-end towns of Bayou La Batre and Bon Secour were severely damaged. Dozens of vessels of various sizes were left stranded inland.

Shoreline towns
The city of Mobile is situated at the head of the bay on the western shore. On the Eastern Shore of the bay are found several small communities, including Spanish Fort, Daphne, Fairhope, Point Clear, and Bon Secour. The town of Gulf Shores lies just outside the bay, on the Fort Morgan peninsula, while the town of Fort Morgan is located directly south of the bay. The Middle Bay Lighthouse has been located in the center of the bay since 1885.

The head of the bay is crossed by two major thoroughfares, Interstate 10, known as the Jubilee Parkway, and US 90/US 98, known as the Battleship Parkway. These two bridges serve as the primary connections between the city of Mobile and the Eastern Shore. On warm summer nights, the residents living around Mobile Bay sometimes enjoy the fruits of a mysterious natural phenomenon called a Jubilee, when fish and crabs swarm toward shore and can be easily harvested by people wading in the shallows.

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International Mobile Satellite Organization

International Mobile Satellite Organization (IMSO) is the oversight body of the satellite communications elements of the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) established by the IMO designed to provide a worldwide system for automated emergency signal communication for ships at sea. IMSO ensures that the provision of maritime mobile satellite communications services (currently provided by Inmarsat Ltd and Iridium Ltd).

INMARSAT
The International Maritime Satellite Organization (INMARSAT) was established under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization by the Convention on the International Maritime Satellite Organization, signed at London on 3 September 1976 and entered into force on 16 July 1979. The organization was modeled after Intelsat, an international consortium which provided satellite communications among the member countries. The Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT), a founding member of Intelsat, took the lead in the founding of Inmarsat. In coordination with the International Civil Aviation Organization in the 1980s, the convention governing INMARSAT was amended to include improvements in aeronautical communications, notably for public safety.

The first Director General was appointed in January 1980 and operations began in 1982. Olof Lundberg, who had previously managed and developed mobile and specialized services at Swedish Telecom (now Telia), served as Director General and CEO until 1995.

IMSO
In the mid-1990s, there was contrasting views among member states for the agency's future. There was a growing realization among the member states that the organization's business assets needed to be privatized, mainly because of the competitive nature of the satellite communication industry and the unwillingness of many member states to invest money into INMARSAT to improve its network. There were also many which believed in the importance of maintaining the organization's role in overseeing maritime satellite communication. The issue was resolved in a session in April 1998, which resulted in the amendment of the Convention on the International Mobile Satellite Organization, in which the operational assets would be split and privatized while the agency would continue as a regulatory organization.

On 15 April 1999, INMARSAT became the International Mobile Satellite Organization (IMSO). At the time, the operational assets of INMARSAT were separated to become Inmarsat Ltd., a private UK-based company which agreed to inherit, overseen by the IMSO, certain public safety obligations related to the satellite system's operation.

An agreement between the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the IMSO was signed in Montreal, Canada, on 20 September 2000 and addresses the relationship between ICAO and IMSO. As of November 2018, Inmarsat has 103 state parties that represent approximately 95 per cent of the gross tonnage of the world's merchant fleet.


text:
User:Brooke Vibber

Note to self, note to others:  Always remember to assume good faith!

I'm a Software Architect for the Wikimedia Foundation and am working on MediaWiki server-side support for mobile apps team with a side of tech debt cleanup, especially in multimedia support and documentation/devtools. I've been around for a while. Have seen some things, man. And some stuff.

Not doing a lot of active editing anymore, but I still love to make occasional fixes to articles when I'm looking things up. :)

 * I make no guarantees that things I write have any positive or negative relation to do with any company or person who might pay me; I am a human being with free will and will write on any subject I please within the confines of reasonableness.

 * See User:Brooke Vibber (WMF) for official business account.

Please report bugs to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/ to make sure we see them!

ar:مستخدم:Brion VIBBER da:Bruger:Brion VIBBER de:Benutzer:Brion VIBBER es:Usuario:Brion VIBBER eo:Vikipediisto:Brion VIBBER fr:Utilisateur:Brion VIBBER nl:Gebruiker:Brion VIBBER ja:利用者:Brion VIBBER pl:Wikipedysta:Brion VIBBER sl:Uporabnik:Brion VIBBER sv:Användare:Brion VIBBER zh:user:Brion VIBBER

title: User:Brooke Vibber


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Jubilee

A Jubilee is often used to refer to the celebration of a particular anniversary of an event, usually denoting the 25th, 40th, 50th, 60th, and the 70th anniversary. The term comes from the Hebrew bible, initially concerning a recurring religious observance involving a set number of years, that notably involved freeing of debt slaves. Emperors of ancient Rome customarily marked anniversaries of their rule with celebrations, although they did not use the term jubilee. Nonetheless, the term came into English usage from the Bible, together with customary celebration of a reign, and is now often used to denote the celebrations associated with the reign of monarchs after a milestone number of years have passed.

Religious usage
The Jubilee (יובל yovel) year (every 50th year) and the Sabbatical year (every seventh year) are Biblical commandments concerning ownership of land and slaves. The laws concerning the Sabbatical year are still observed by many religious Jews in the State of Israel, while the Jubilee has not been observed for many centuries, if at all (before the 'peshitto' era of the Vulgate-inspired bible). According to the Hebrew Bible, every seventh year, farmers in the land of Israel are commanded to let their land lie fallow, and slaves were freed. The celebration of the Jubilee is the fiftieth year, that is, the year after seven Sabbatical cycles. Jubilee was to recognize that by tradition all property belongs to God, not the individual Jew. For the Jew, returning of possessions to God was/is a religious vow or dedication.

However, there is no evidence jubilee was ever observed in actual practice, and there is no mention of it in biblical writings from the First Temple times. Further, Rabbis tradition confirms that jubilee, or the Holiness Legislation or Code which it's sourced (H Source), was never observed during the Second Temple period. (The Jewish Study Bible, 2nd Edition, 2014. Pp. 237 - 256).

In Roman Catholic tradition, a Jubilee is a year of remission of sins and also the punishment due to sin.

Terms for anniversaries
Following the model of Augustus, the Roman emperors typically celebrated major jubilees on the 10th years of their reigns. The decennalia marked the 10th year, the vicennalia the 20th, and—in the case of Constantine the Great—the tricennalia the 30th. Smaller festivals sometimes occurred on the 5th years between these. For modern monarchs, the dates are typically connected with precious metals and gemstones:

 * Silver jubilee, for a 25th anniversary.
 * Ruby jubilee, for a 40th anniversary.
 * Golden jubilee, for a 50th anniversary.
 * Diamond jubilee, for either a 60th or  75th  anniversary.
 * Sapphire jubilee, for a 65th anniversary.
 * Platinum jubilee, for a 70th anniversary.

title: Jubilee


text:
Talk:Jubilee

comments
My initiation of the topic, "Jubilee," leads me to ask a question that I hope a fellow Wikipedian will give me the answer to. When an entry is a word such as this, with multiple meanings, can there be multiple entries for it? How will/should this be handled? I'm sure this has been discussed and there it is probably addressed in the "rules" somewhere -- but I haven't been able to find it. Help!
 * You're looking for Disambiguation, Steve. If you post a comment, consider typing four tildes ~ so you sign with your name and time of posting. Three tildes will just sign your name. Here's me typing four tildes: JRM 14:34, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC)
 * I'm going to go ahead and make some improvements to the disambig page. Of course, you are still free to edit it as well! If you have any other questions of this kind, you can ask them at Help desk. JRM 14:34, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC)

Aztec Jubilee?
Doesn't Google. Only returns links to Wikipedia mirrors. Can somebody confirm some sort of Aztec Jubilee as real? I'm removing it for now. JRM 14:48, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC)

Calm of the Storm
That's cute, but I don't see why this page should direct wikiheads to somebody's personal homepage because their last name happens to be Jubilee. Shameless self-promotion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.89.68.162 (talk) 17:19, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Recent Split
I'm not sure I agree with your split of this article into Jubilee (disambiguation) and Jubilee, so I'm bringing it here to discuss. As I can see it, I don't think Jubilee has enough encyclopedic material on its own to not just be a WP:DICDEF with links to other Jubilees, which can also be served by the previous disambiguation. I also couldn't find any prior discussion of this, so I would love to know the reasoning. Thanks, menaechmi (talk) 18:32, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The disambiguation page had been flagged for a split for quite some time (see the last revision before the split). A jubilee is a specific type of anniversary and a separate article is justified—Wikipedia already has articles for Golden Jubilee, Diamond Jubilee, etc. This article provides context; it builds upon the biblical origins of the term, and its modern application in world religions and royal celebrations. A disambiguation page is ineffectual at tying these related concepts together. I find prose is better than a loosely-organised list. --Hazhk (talk) 18:54, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * ...you mean that giant tag that says "The present disambiguation page holds the title of a primary topic, and an article needs to be written about it." I think I may have completely missed that because I thought it was the current tag. Mea culpa. Thank you for clarifying, and I definitely can support it. menaechmi (talk) 19:05, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

oak jubilee
can i put oak jubilee (80 years on the throne)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:2C6:80:C23:44B9:B0FA:4500:B22E (talk) 00:35, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Jubilee


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User:Wesley

Quotes

 * He whose will and desire in conversation is to establish his own opinion, even though what he says is true, should recognize that he is sick with the devil's disease. And if he behaves like this only in conversation with his equals, then perhaps the rebuke of his superiors may heal him. But if he acts in this way even with those who are greater and wiser than he, then his malady is humanly incurable.

— The Ladder of Divine Ascent by Saint John Climacus Step 4, paragraph 48.

 * Quarrelling with people about what Christianity is, is a mistake, for with very few exceptions their tactics aim at warding off understanding or learning what Christianity is, because they suspect that it is rather easy to grasp, but also that it would interfere with their lives.

— Soren Kierkegaard

 * Q: I cant spell worth a dam. I hope your going too tell me what to do?

 * A: Don't worry about how your articles look. Remember it's the message
 * that counts, not the way it's presented. Ignore the fact that sloppy
 * spelling in a purely written forum sends out the same silent messages that
 * soiled clothing would when addressing an audience.

— Brad Templeton, Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette

Maintenance tasks

 * Help out with the admin backlog

title: User:Wesley


text:
User:Wesley/Talk

Ed Poor
 * 1) Help! I've made a mess of the Moria, Mordor, Evil Eye and Pippin articles. I don't understand the slash thing in Middle Earth/Moria for example.
 * 2) Nice article on Moria. Was that off the top of your head?

 * Yes, the Moria article was off the top of my head. Forgot to mention the dwarven name Khazad-dum for the place... thought that looks wrong without the accent, and I'm not sure how to add the accent to it. Also I think that's where Gollum started following the company.... I'll try to look at a couple of the others, though I think others are helping too. The more the merrier, eh?  --Wesley

You said when you edited Nicene Creed:

"Reorganized; When did U.S. Catholics start omitting the word "men"? Is this controversial?"

Unfortuneately, it has become contraversial in the U.S. Basically, a bunch of PC zealots don't believe that the word "men" can stand for humanity in general and for the plural of the masculine gender (homonym anyone?). It's really sad how the PC folks seem to want to revise history by doing such things as banning books like Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, because it uses the word "--" X times, and changing the Nicene Creed. Didn't anyone ever tell them, "Anyone who does not learn from the mistakes of past is doomed to repeat them."--BlackGriffen

 * I'm truly said to hear that. Changing things like that from the bottom up seems very Protestant.  Hope the change doesn't last.  --Wesley

Wesley, at the risk of further alienating LMS I think I owe it to you to respond, hopefully briefly, to some of your queries concerning the last thing I posted. I do think we pretty much understand each other and there may not be much need to continuing the discussion. Off-hand I would encourage you to draw selectively on things I and RK have written in the "talk" section in order to edit the article itself &#8211; I think as a Christian you are a better judge than either of us of what we have written that effectively communicates a Jewish position to non-Jews.

 * Wow. Thanks. Of course, that means I'll have to both understand and express your position. I'm flattered that you think I might be up to it, and comforted to know you'll correct me if I go too far astray in doing so. (grin) --Wesley

Anyway, you write
 * If you believe they were meant to incite physical violence, there ought to exist examples of such violence prior to the Middle Ages.

I was thinking of the desecration of synagogues by Chistians during Roman times that was alluded to in the passage I quoted from the Vatican document.

 * As I recall, that particular descration was part of a general trashing of pagan places of worship, which led me to think the Jewish synagogues were desecrated more because they were non-Christian than specifically because they were Jewish. And that was still several centuries after the New Testament was written. I suppose judging their actual motives is speculation on either side, in the absence of any documents saying "Synagogues should be destroyed because _____________ "  --Wesley

 * Uh, no, I honestly don't see how. I think RK said elsewhere that Jews have reinterpreted parts of the Tanach (or Torah?) so as to have the effect of erasing them,

Well, I realize what works for us may not work for you, but I do not consider what Jews have done to be an erasure since those passages are still read, aloud, each year in the synagogue.
 * In any case, it is God, not any Christian, who passes final judgment.

I agree &#8211; my issue is when people claim to know what God's judgement is.
 * But when it encounters a religion that denies pluralism, it is in a quandary.

An excellent point, and this is a big theoretical problem with "liberalism" in general. All I can say, and you may consider this an ad-hoc response, is that I do think that the problem I have with non-pluralistic religions is fundamentally different from the problem non-pluralistic religions have with other religions. For one thing, it is only the claim that Christianity is the only path for all people that I contest. I do not at all contest the Christian liturgy, the Catholic sacraments, etc. as means to reach God. Don't you think this is different from someone saying that Jewish practices will not serve as a means for people to achieve a living, meaningful relationship with God? Put more personally, I merely express my discomfort with the Christian position towards me. But although you now express some questions about my position towards Christianity, in fact the whole discussion was motivated by the Christian attitude towards Judaism as a whole (and not towards Jewish attitudes towards Christians). Finally, I will not do anything to compel Christians to change. I know that you won't do anything to compel me or other Jews to change, and I know that most if not all Christians today will do nothing to compel Jews to change. Nevertheless, the historical fact is, in the past many Christian movements did put pressure on Jews to change &#8211; and this is one of the things I and I think RK want Christians to take responsibility for (and which I think the Catholic Church, among others, has done). &#8211; SR

 * Forgive me for ignoring the rest of your paragraph; I want to press the problem with pluralism further. The pluralistic attitude towards Christianity might seem fundamentally different, but only if one ignores the nature of the Catholic Mass or Eucharist, for instance. And that is precisely what it seems to me that pluralists do. IF the Eucharist is effective as a means to reach God, it is because God became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. Central to Eucharistic theology is that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ, and by eating them, Christ literally dwells within us, becomes part of who we are. As Alexander Schmemann put it in his book For the Life of the World, most food is transformed by us when we eat it, but the Eucharist transforms us instead. In part, it is an affirmation of the Incarnation. So to admit that the Eucharist is a means to God is to admit that Jesus Christ really was God in the flesh. If in fact Christ was not God, but a man only, then Eucharistic theology falls apart, and the Eucharist cannot bring us closer to God in the way that classical Christian theology says it does. You cannot have it both ways. Unless of course you say that the Eucharist and the other sacraments are a means to God only because we think they are, and not because of any basis in reality; this would be asserting that the sacraments (and all practices of other religions as well) can have a marvelous placebo effect, but beyond that don't actually do anything.  --Wesley

 * Well, I think we have reached the end of our discussion -- I respect the sincerity of your convictions, which you have expressed well. And I am not sure I can add much to what I have written.  The paradox of pluralism that you call attention to is not one I am capable of solving, although I am committed to learning how to live with it.  As for your own spiritual life, I cannot ask you to sacrifice your convictions or practices.  And although I understand your convictions and your reasons for them, in another sense I just do not understand them and perhaps never will (not for any fault in your attempt to explain them, but perhaps because our different traditions and languages simply lead us to some point where they cannot actually meet).

 * All I can offer is an what I take to be an analogous case and yet in effect it turns out not to be a useful analogy, given all that you have said. It is this: Orthodox, fundamentalist Jews really believe that God really revealed His law to us at Sinai, and cemented His covenant with us at that time.  They do not consider this belief to be a metaphor or a surrogate or a subjective means to some transcendent end; they believe it really happened.  And they believe that everytime they obey the law, they are living within that covenant, that relationship, that when they say "Blessed are Thou, of Lord," they are really speaking to God and God speaks back to them.

 * And yet, they do not believe that this covenant and its obligations extend to non-Jews. Moreover, they do not believe that this means that non-Jews are excluded from a relationship from God.  They simply understand that God will have different kinds of relationships with other people(s).

 * And so from my point of view, the issue is not whether I believe that Jesus was God made flesh. The issue is whether it is possible that we Jews can believe that the Torah she Baal Pe (the Oral law) and the Halacha can be God's gift to us, and you can believe that Jesus Christ is God's gift to you.  And perhaps He has or will offer other gifts to constitute other relationships with still others.  I do not think I can add anything more to this.

 * by the way, I can now apologize for/correct a wrong assertion I made earlier, that early Christians did not believe in Jesus' resurrection. I reread the article in the New York Review of Books and this is not in question (really, I shouldn't be surprised since God brought Elijah to Himself, and someone else in Genesis -- I think Enoch.  According to this issue, the question -- just as profound -- was whether Jesus was fully human, fully divine, half and half, or fully both.  The article sugests that Christians debated all these views until the Council of Chalcedon in 451.  The article also cites books by two scholars, Geza Vermes and Paula Fredriksen who apparently have explored some of these issues in depth.

 * Peace, SR

Well, SR, I have to agree that there's not much more to say, except that I feel I have personally profited greatly from this discussion. If there's ever a religious pluralism article, I hope to include this in its Talk page. I think we share many of the same prayers, both literally and more generally. The phrase "Blessed art Thou O Lord, teach me your Law" occurs repeatedly in the Orthodox evening prayer liturgy ("vespers"), with at least a similar understanding of what we're saying. Perhaps you can help me enumerate Judaism's liturgical contributions to Christianity/Orthodoxy some time on the Eastern Orthodoxy page.

Peace, Wesley

Hey, Wesley, just a nomenclature note - I was looking at your To Do list and thinking that, strangely, the name I've seen John of the Ladder under most frequently is the Latin version - John Climacus. Before you write him you might check around, or it might just be worth a redirect from 'Climacus' to 'of the Ladder'. On the other hand, Catherine of the Wheel is always known as Catherine of Alexandria in western sources, and the redirect should go from 'of the Wheel' to 'of Alexandria'. Mmmmm, nomenclature. --MichaelTinkler

 * To be honest, I've been wondering if John Climacus was the same John for a little while now; thought he might be, but wasn't quite sure. Thanks for clarifying. I'll try to remember to set up the appropriate redirects. How much difference does it make, as to which name gets listed on the List of saints page? There's a real risk of duplication if someone doesn't realize two different names are the same person. Should we start listing alternate names in parentheses? But beg people not to list every single name for The Virgin Mary? --Wesley

Wesley, I started an entry on Religious pluralism. Please join in; the material you wrote in the "Talk" section of the other topics will ber very valuble here. RK

Wesley,

Please feel free to reorganize the articles relating to sin, salvation, original sin, fall of man, Garden of Eden. Sometimes I go stub-happy, making too many of the little suckers. In particular, fall of man is a major topic in the Unification Church -- with Original Sin as a sub-topic -- but that's no reason the wikipedia should have to conform to my minority view.

I might want to argue about politics or sex, but there is no way I want to be contentious in the slightest when it comes to religion. Ed Poor

title: User:Wesley/Talk