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More Longtime Couples in France Prefer L'Amour Without Marriage
Sandrine Folet and Lucas Titouh, in their Paris apartment with children Lola and Tom, are part of a growing trend away from marriage.
(By Molly Moore -- The Washington Post)
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Both Folet and Titouh credit their parents' generation for laying the foundation for the social shifts of the newer generation. Folet said her parents were under pressure from their parents not only to marry in the church but to have their children baptized as Catholic. Her parents were lukewarm: They baptized Folet but bucked tradition and never baptized her sister, born four years later.
"Now parents are evolving," Titouh said. "They're not forcing their children to get married."
The couple said none of their parents has ever raised the question of marriage with them or made a comment about their unmarried status. Their children carry Titouh's family name.
Marriage is not an issue they discuss with each other. They don't necessarily oppose it; their feelings are much more ambivalent than that.
"I don't see how marriage would bring any more to our union as a couple," Folet said. "It doesn't take away anything, it doesn't bring anything."
That is not to say there aren't occasional awkward social moments, especially during introductions to strangers.
"Saying, 'This is my friend or my companion,' doesn't say you've been together as long as we have," Titouh said. "So I say, 'This is my wife,' not to have problems."
"When you say 'husband' and 'wife,' it's more concrete," Folet conceded. "More like a real couple, not a relationship in passing."
Researcher Corinne Gavard contributed to this report.
