The culturally acceptable, and even encouraged, practices of premarital sex and cohabitation before marriage are seen as good and healthy steps towards marriage. But the reality is much bleaker. The data shows that both premarital sex and cohabitation have negative effects on the quality and duration of future marriage — if marriage happens at all — and lead to much greater divorce rates. Both the Old Testament and Jesus prohibited premarital sex, a teaching not intended to be prudish or controlling, but rather as loving direction toward our true purpose as human beings made in God’s image, which is love.