co-habitation or “trial marriage”, and later marital stability: those whose marriages were preceded by a period of co-habitation are more likely to divorce quickly than those who did not live together before marriage’ (Stone, p. 413). ‘some say that living together before getting married makes divorce less likely, since people have had a “trial period” before committing themselves. However, Sweden and Denmark, the countries with the highest rates of co-habitation [45% of all Danes and 44% of all