Why trial marriage?

The Practice:
Caution or not buying a pig in a poke seems to have been a trait of human beings since
prehistory. One of our elaborate methods of hedging our bets to avoid disastrous
consequences is the trial marriage. It goes back a long way.

In all its variations, it involves a simulated marriage situation--a rehearsal for the real
thing--in which a couple lives together, often for a set length of time, before making
a real commitment. Usually, if the couple wishes to separate after the trial marriage,
it is easy for them to do so without a feeling of failure or bad conscience. Dissolving
a committed marriage is far more difficult. If the prospective bride has a child or is
pregnant at the end of the trial period, marriage may be obligatory, though among
primitive people it often isn't. Trial marriage differs from casual sexual encounters
and "shacking up" in that the thought of eventual committed marriage lies at the heart of it.

Practitioners:
Some of the Essences (pre-Christian Middle Eastern sect) allowed couples to live
together without marriage; only if the woman became pregnant was the relationship solemnized.

In many European countries, trial marriage was once very common. German peasants
could, if they wanted to, try out a candidate for marriage in a series of trial nights. If
one series didn't work out, it was on to another. Since one person could with
impunity flit through an almost unlimited number of "nights," abuses of the system
were probably common. This custom persisted in rural Germany well into the 19th
century. In Scotland, during the middle Ages, trial marriages were more serious.
There, by holding hands and making a pledge, a couple gained approval to live
together a year and a day. After that, they could marry if they wished to. Pregnancy
or the birth of a child did not oblige them to marry. In Yorkshire, England, a man
could announce a trial marriage by saying, "If my bride becomes pregnant, I shall take her."

The colonial American custom of bundling, in which a single man and woman lay in bed
together with only a board between them, was a kind of trial marriage. The two did
not always get past the symbolic board to sexual relations, but serious intentions were implicit.

Some Eskimos, American Indians, Icelanders Africans, Arabs, and Sinhalese practiced
trial marriage. The length of the trial ranged from a single visit, as among the
Chippewa’s, to a one-year period, as among the Icelanders.
Where It Stands Today: Legally, trial marriage is in a kind of limbo. Not recognized by
the courts, except as common-law marriage, it could be prosecuted in the many
states where no marital cohabitation is against the law. However, so many single
people live together today that such prosecution is unlikely. Not all any marital
cohabitation is trial marriage, because many people who share bed, board, and income have no intention of marrying.

Margaret Mead, the noted anthropologist, suggests a two-stage marriage. The first stage,
individual marriage, would involve a commitment between two people, who would
agree not to have children. Easy to dissolve, individual marriage would last as long
as both spouses wanted it to. The second stage, parental marriage, based on the
intent to have children, would involve far more; the couple would have to show that
they could support a child, would go through a formal ceremony, and would be
expected to stay together for life. Bertrand Russell--philosopher, mathematician, and
iconoclast--believed in a similar arrangement.
Attorney Harriet F. Pilpel, who thinks along the same lines, suggests that a childless
marriage could be made official merely through a trip to a registry office. The
couple would then be considered legally married and eligible for some benefits, like
social security, but not for others, like the automatic right to inherit money from
each other. This marriage could be easily terminated by either party. In the second
kind of marriage, which would be far more formal, parenthood would be involved.