This article examines the practice of youthful unmarried cohabitation among heterosexual couples, most of whom later married. It attempts to identify the contingencies leading to cohabitation, the forms of adaptation to actual or perceived reactions by family to the relationship, and the consequences of these adaptations for the cohabiters and their relations with family. The analysis suggests that cohabitation can be understood as a gradual movement characterized by drift in a situation of opportunity isolated from immediate social controls. The form of adaptation to family varies by the awareness context (Glaser and Strauss, 1964) existing between cohabiters and family. The study points out the sources of change in awareness contexts and concludes that the enactment of traditional role obligations or marriage is generated by actual or perceived reactions of others, problems associated with various forms of awareness contexts, and other factors.
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