On the train trip from Lviv to Kiev we met Andrew. He's a lawyer who had a case the next day in Kiev. Ann and I joined him for breakfast. It was great to talk to a native Ukrainian with excellent English. In reading up before the trip I learned that Ukraine is a somewhat divided nation with the east looking to Moscow and speaking Russian, while the western part of Ukraine speaks Ukrainian and looks to Europe. Andrew epitomizes the western Ukrainian perspective: Learning English from American TV shows and getting excited with his friends a decade ago when they learned McDonald's was coming to town.
There were many interesting things we learned but one has stuck with me: Children live at home until married... and sometimes even after marriage. Housing is so expensive that it is simply not reasonable to live together before marriage. He recounted a story of a couple that moved in together. They were together six months before their parents admitted to neighbors and relatives that they were not still living at home.
While I laughed that off and said, "That's not the way it is in the US..." I paused and thought, "But that's the way it used to be in the US."
Which leads me to the question of the day: When did it become a no-big-deal for a couple to move in together unmarried?
For me? After my mother died.
ReplyDeleteWell for some parents, it's still never okay (i.e. mine!). But I think somewhere in the early 80s (at least from my perspective) living together before marriage started to become much more commonplace - and some time in the late 80s, it became relatively accepted. I could be way off - that is just my perspective.
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