the percentage of first-time marriages preceded by cohabitation has risen substantially, from about 10 percent in the mid-1970s to over 50 percent by the mid-1990s, with an even higher percentage for remarriages. Among women, the percentage who cohabited by the time they reached their late thirties rose from around 30 percent to close to 50 percent in the same time period. These “trial marriages,” as Sheldon Danziger calls them, are more socially accepted than ever.9
