The Bosque Boys

My initial response is to point out that by choosing to live together rather than choosing to marry the couples are deliberately avoiding making a commitment - they are choosing to keep their options open. Once you do that you set yourself up exercise your options in the future.

I was not able to access the full article on line (not free anyway) but I did find the original study it seeks to replicate (see link below0. It is worth noting that the original study is of a more stringent reliable design - it followed the couples over time and involved direct observation rather then telephone calls asking individuals to recall their experience and behavior.
The original study reported some interesting findings.
Couples that moved in together only after getting engaged were different from those who did not get engaged. They were midway (more or less) between the no cohabitation before marriage and the no ring before cohabiting.
There were two categories of factors distinguishing the living together before marriage and the married before cohabiting.
1) Level of commitment - the no cohabit before marriage scored higher thn the engagemetn first couples on the level of commitment to the relationship. The cohabit befoer engagemnt scored lowest on commitment
2) Quality of relationship. Same pattern as level of commitment with even stronger effect in terms of predicting divorce
Should probably add a third, quality of individual character - Physical abuse before and during cohabitation was higher in the cohabit before engagement or marriage.
I did not find any evidence in the original study for the speculation in the news report regarding the "we may as well get married since we already have the same residence" hypothesis

original study http://cyber.gwc.cccd.edu/f...

(another study on committment
http://jfi.sagepub.com/cgi/...