Is Cohabitation Immoral?

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No (Christian)

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serious question for those answering "yes, immoral" from a Judeo-Christian standpoint.  how should we take into account the fact that in Biblical times lifespans were much shorter and people married in their early to mid teens, vs the reality now?  certainly it is much more reasonable to ask celibacy before marriage if that marriage happens as the sex drive materializes vs 10-15 years thereafter.

The rules are the rules.  If you are going to rationalize everything then why even bother?  I'm pretty sure the life spans in the Bible were not uniformly shorter.  I mean Methuselah anyone?

Cohabitation is not really something that is controversial.  You go from culture to culture all over the world on all the inhabited continents and no one is going to look at you funny because you didn't shack up with every girl you dated.

I guess the real question is what is morality.  To me if you are just going to massage a religion to condone whatever desire your other head wants then there really isn't a point to having the religion.  It's no longer a religion.  It's more of a fashion statement.  Which is fine.  I'm friends with atheists.  They are some pretty honest people.

As someone who is not only religious, but plans on wearing the collar after I leave seminary, I have to disagree.  Not everyone believes morals are to be followed simply because they are morals, or that tradition should be followed simply because it's tradition.  Speaking for myself, I believe that morals are ground in natural law and pragmatism and that's what makes those morals worth following.

As Ernest eloquently explained, the primary reason for faithful monogamy was economic, and that is assuming a child is involved.  If people were promiscuous, then many children as well as their mothers could have easily ended up without support because no one would be sure of who the fathers are.

I think this was a problem back then mostly because there was limited birth control and no scientific way of identifying who the fathers are.  To be fair, there are obviously many Christians who oppose birth control, but I don't see what is wrong with cohabitation unless pure lust is involved or the life of a child is somehow jeopardized because of it.  Again, that is my view.  But the bottom line is morals can and should be rationalized.  It makes very little sense to follow them if there's no reason to.

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As Ernest eloquently explained, the primary reason for faithful monogamy was economic, and that is assuming a child is involved.  If people were promiscuous, then many children as well as their mothers could have easily ended up without support because no one would be sure of who the fathers are.

Actually, I said economics was the primary non-religious reason for the immorality of cohabitation, not that it was the primary reason. I said it that way because different people place different weight on religious reasons and I was trying to make my argument as broadly applicable as possible. Also it wasn't just the economic security of the children, but the woman that was protected by an insistence upon marriage instead of mere cohabitation, even if no children at all were involved.

But do all women who cohabitate need to be married and economically dependent on the man in order to live a good life?

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On the other hand, we humans sometimes have insufficient data to understand the rationale of God, so just because we can't comprehend the reasoning is by itself an insufficient reason to reject the moral teachings of one's religion.  I'm also going to have to disagree with you Scott in your belief that cohabitation is not immoral according to the scriptures.  However, like all sins, cohabitation can be corrected, in this case either by marrying or by ceasing the sin.
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I suppose we have different philosophies in regard to what makes sin sin, though I should ask you: how can we be sure that cohabitation violates the Judeo-Christian God's law?  Even Jesus said nothing about cohabitation, IIRC.  His main issue was with lust, which doesn't necessarily result from cohabitation (though it certainly can if taken the wrong way).