In Aziz Ansari’s 2015 Netflix sitcom, “Master of None,” his character Dev develops a long term relationship with Rachel. After a few months of dating, they decide to move in together and their cohabitation is shown throughout the year. During the episode titled, “Finale,” they are then faced with the question of what the next step in their relationship is actually going to be. As they attend a wedding together, both characters imagine themselves in the place of the bride and groom. Dev’s character notes that the only options they have at this point is breaking up or getting married and since he does love Rachel and does not want to lose her, he concludes, “…getting married just is a safer bet at this point.” Rachel, also doubtful, then agrees…show more content… From this episode, it could be said that cohabitation falls short compared to marriage and merely serves as a stepping stone towards marriage, which is the ideal norm. The establishment of marriage as the normal thing to do is brought up by each of the characters, including the priest. Although cohabitation, which is when a couple lives together without getting married, has become prevalent, the idea of marriage being the end goal seems to still be engrained within our society as the ideal norm. In our society, being able to marry is a symbol of making it and it is a way to make your family…show more content… First of all, the majority of cohabitations do not lead to marriage in America (Heuveline et al. 2009). Even if cohabitation does lead to marriage, researchers note that it is done in a way that leads people to “slide” into marriage. Sliders cohabit and then, like in the example shown with Dev and Rachel, decide the next reasonable step is to get married. This is in contrast to deciders. Deciders get engaged first, so they go into cohabitation knowing that marriage comes next. Sliding leads to a higher risk of divorce and a lower quality marriage because that initial commitment is not there. Taking this into account, it does not make sense that all forms of cohabitation should be seen as a path that eventually leads to marriage, especially in Dev and Rachel’s case where they would be sliding into marriage if they had taken that option. This then might lead to the conclusion that only cohabitations undertaken by the deciders are successful, and other form of cohabitation are harmful. That is not necessarily true either because the quality of these cohabitations matter more than whether a couple has decided to cohabit after getting engaged. It has been shown that high quality cohabitations have more of a benefit to couples than low quality marriages