---
"title": "Say Premarital Sex is Wrong"
"description": "That's the number of adult Americans who now say that sexual relations between a man and woman before marriage is always or almost always wrong."
"date": "2007-08-13"
"authors":
  -
    "name": "Russell Heimlich"
    "job_title": "Former web developer"
    "link": "https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/staff/russell-heimlich/"
"url": "https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/short-reads/2007/08/13/say-premarital-sex-is-wrong/"
---

# Say Premarital Sex is Wrong

Fewer than four-in-ten American adults (38%) now say that sexual relations between a man and woman before marriage is always or almost always wrong compared with nearly six in ten (59%) who say that it is only sometimes or never wrong. Not surprisingly, premarital sex is even more accepted as morally OK by adults who have themselves engaged in it. A recent Pew survey found that about a third of all adults (and more than four-in-ten adults under age 50) have, at some point in their lives, been in a cohabiting relationship with a person to whom they were not married. Among this group only 21% believe that premarital sex is always or usually wrong. Demographically, cohabiters are more likely than the rest of the adult population to be younger, black, and secular rather than religious.[Read More](https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/assets/social/pdf/Marriage.pdf)