Bill would end Virginia’s ban on unmarried couples living together

If you and your significant other live together in Virginia and are not married, you are breaking a very old law.

Now a bill proposed in the General Assembly would finally take the law off the books.
The law from 1877 makes it a misdemeanor for “any persons, not married to each other, [to] lewdly and lasciviously associate and cohabit together” according to the Washington Post.

Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) brought the bill with Del Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) before a Senate committee on Monday.

“I learned of it last year and thought that it is not only unnecessary but bizarre that Virginia would still have on its book a law essentially outlawing consenting adults from living together,” Ebbin said. “It’s obviously an outdated vestige from a very different time.”

Ebbin said only three other states still have cohabitation laws on the books: Mississippi, Michigan and Florida.

The law also prohibits anyone, married or not, from engaging in “open and gross lewdness,” meaning sex acts in public. That aspect of the law would still stand.

Read more at the Washington Post.