Innovation in partnering, parenting

inspiration: Jeremy Gutsche

Jeremy Gutsche said it right. As CEO of TrendHunter.com, a global network that tracks and anticipates innovation in areas such as pop culture, fashion, technology, art and lifestyle, Jeremy knows where to look when seeking to find innovation.

In the realms of partnering and parenting one social trend is clear: the three-decade long replacement of marriage with cohabitation. In the UK, for example:

• The number of cohabiting couples increased by two-thirds over the decade 1996-2006, and by 2031 the number will double to 3.8 million.
• Cohabiting couples and single-parent households will outnumber married couples by 2014.

But not all ‘customers’ are the same. According to the diffusion of innovations theory developed by Everett M. Rogers, consumers can be grouped according to how quickly they adopt a new product, service or idea.

Thirty years ago, couples living together outside marriage were regarded as ‘visionaries’; ten years ago, as ‘early adopters’; now, in every developed country, cohabiting couples are the ‘early majority’.

In every developed country, it is not couples married to each other but partners living together that form the fastest-growing family type.

Cohabiting Couples: From Non-Marriage to New Marriage

Once cohabitation was merely the absence of marriage; now, slowly but surely, it is becoming a search for a new marriage. The first steps across the bridge from non-marriage to new marriage is the so-called 'cohabitation contract': a legal agreement, defined by the couple, that sets out their responsibilities to one another.

What family law has taken out of marriage – mutual commitment – a still-small but fast-growing number of couples are putting back in. In innovation terms, they are the relationship ‘innovators’. Soon the ‘early adopters’ will join them, to be followed by the ‘early majority’.

The Path to WeDo Marriage

But a cohabitation contract is just the first step towards a new marriage; to complete the transition, something more is needed: the wholesale rebuilding, outside the family law system, of a marriage that meets the description so eloquently expressed below by Professor Linda J. Waite.

« getting down to business  |  regulation not monopoly »

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