Anti-Cohabitation Law or also called Shacking Up

I found this interesting. My maternal Grandmother cohabitated for the very same reason listed below. She was a Army widow and did not want to lose her benefits. It forced her to live in sin;) for many years until her partner/boyfriend Bill died in 1987. She wasn't too worried about the living in Sin part, she too is an unbeliever. She is now 96 living in a home, with no memories.
This brings up another question, since she did live in sin and now does not remember it, does this mean she will go to hell. She can't confess to sins she doesn't remember commiting. Does a minister write her off and then tell his or her congregants this can happen to them if they do not accept Jesus into their hearts this very moment or risk eternal damnation.? Crazy huh. Poor, sweet Granma in Hell at almost 100.... Bummer
This is why I reject the whole concept of Hell in the first place.
I did notice this article doesn't bring up why there was a law like this in the first place.
Its called fornication or pre-marital sex which was a huge no-no back then.
My parents humoroulsy call cohabitation "Shacking Up'.

N. Dakota legislation targets anti-cohabitation law
By JAMES MacPHERSON Associated Press Writer
BISMARCK, North Dakota (AP) - Don Polries and Helen Vetter don't look like outlaws. She's 82 and nearly blind, and he is an 87-year-old World War II veteran whose only brush with the law was a traffic ticket or two, decades ago.But the retired farmers _ and thousands like them _ are considered criminals in the U.S. state of North Dakota because they are not married and live together.It makes Polries chuckle and Vetter steam."I will not have the state ruling us old people," Vetter said. "All we're trying to do is help each other out. ... Boy, I'd like to see the state come and try and split us up."Without each other, the Bismarck couple say, they'd be in a nursing home. They have lived together for about a year, after dating and living in separate apartments for more than a decade."I am legally blind," Vetter said. "I can't read and I can't drive _ Don does that for me. ... And when Don had his hip replaced, I helped him out. What's wrong with that?"
North Dakota is one of seven states that bar a man and woman from living together "openly and notoriously" as if they were married. The states of Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia have similar laws.The North Dakota law has been on the books since statehood, and lists cohabitation as a sex crime, along with rape, incest and adultery."It's misguided and a stain on North Dakota's Century Code," said Tracy Potter, a Democratic state senator who has sponsored legislation to repeal the anti-cohabitation law.The House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on the bill Tuesday.Tim Mathern, also a Democratic state senator, has opposed attempts to repeal the anti-cohabitation law, which failed in the last two legislative sessions."I think the majority of people think they ought to be married if they're living together," Mathern said.He said the present law was written to prevent fraud, not to prevent people from living together. The North Dakota Supreme Court has specifically rejected that interpretation, most recently in May 2001.The North Dakota Senate, with Potter's approval, changed his proposal to relabel cohabitation as fraud if a man and woman pass themselves off as being married when they are not. The bill keeps the punishment at a maximum 30 days in jail and a $1,000 (?760) fine.Jennifer Ring, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of the Dakotas, said the law has never been enforced, and she called it "unconstitutional and silly." The new version, if passed by the North Dakota House of Representatives, also could be challenged as unconstitutional, and is not needed, she said."Defrauding someone through a lie is already a crime," she said.Census figures from 2000 show 23,000 people in North Dakota living in de facto relationships, Potter said. Census figures from that same year show 5.2 million people nationwide lived in an "unmarried partner household."Representative Louise Potter, a Democrat who is not related to Tracy Potter, said her elderly mother-in-law and longtime partner wanted to move from Florida to a senior home in North Dakota a few years ago. They were not allowed to move in because they were not married, Potter said.Potter's mother-in-law, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, now lives alone in a seniors home in the state of Minnesota. Potter's husband, Tom, a Presbyterian minister, said he and his family never objected to his 78-year-old mother living with her partner for many years."One of the reasons she and her companion didn't get married is because she was receiving veterans' benefits after she was widowed," Tom Potter said. "She would have lost them had she remarried."Polries and Vetter met at a dance a dozen years ago. Both had divorced after more than 40 years of marriage. She has two children; Polries has seven, all of whom are married.The couple said none of their children object to their living arrangement. "We're never going to get married _ for what?" Vetter said. "You get married one year, and die the next."