Marriage Or Cohabitation

Several days ago I received an email from my cousin and her husband,who will be renewing their wedding vows in the up coming weeks.
First let me say I never thought I would know someone,my age,who would have been married for 35 years,not because of all the divorce rates but because I'm just not old enough,well at least not in my mind anyways,to know anyone married all those years.
I recently read an article that cites that fewer and fewer people are getting married each year.
It suggested that most people are marrying at an older age,in their late twenties and mid thirties and most older people,in their fifties and sixties are simply not marrying at all.
The article said that many woman today opt to graduate college and choose not to marry until they have become comfortable in the work world.
Many younger couples choose to live together in order to establish themselves financially and obtain property before jumping into marriage and having children.
Older couples,on the other hand, do not feel the need to be married since many are equally self sufficient with both jobs, personal finances and grown adult children from previous marriages.
Also Social Security financial payments are more in favor with being single then being married,so to legally wed would turn into a monetary negative situation.
We have begun to lose the reason why marriage is so important and have decided that cohabitation is a more reasonable choice.
In my own case my husband and I lived together for many years before we decided to marry.
Both of us felt that it was in our best interest not to be married.
We mutually understood that a piece of paper was not going to give us a better relationship and besides we both owned separate properties,only adding to the complications if a divorce were to crop up.
Five years ago we decided to marry feeling that the time had come to make this very personal commitment.
I remember,weeks after being married our priest asking me if I thought things were in anyway different,to which I answered no,only to find out that I was wrong.
Marriage with the right person is a real partnership with deeper significance.
We at present are more committed to each other and seem more settled and harmonious.
When your married walking out is still an option but you put more thought into how can we work this out rather then just leave.
The Bible says and the two shall become one.
How is this done?
Basically through compromise,give and take and most of all growth with each other in new ways.
You learn to live for the betterment of the partnership rather then just your self centeredness.
Many people think marriage is an old idea whose time is coming to an end.
How sad is that.
We live in a world were fewer and fewer people are choosing to be married and soon the idea of knowing someone married for 35,40,50 or even 60 years will be an oddity, just a story book tale.
No more "and they lived happily ever after"...If they did for how many years?...