(time) More than 5 million unmarried couples cohabit in the U.S., nearly eight times the number in 1970, and a record-breaking 40% of babies born in 2007 had unmarried parents (that's up 25% from 2002). Sure, there are plenty of baby-daddies in the Levi Johnston vein, i.e., young and accidental. But nonmarital births have increased the most among women ages 25 to 39, doubling since 1980, thanks in part to a small but growing demographic a sociologist has dubbed committed unmarrieds (CUs). These are the happily unwed — think Brad and Angelina, Oprah and Stedman, Goldie and Kurt — whose commitment to their partners is as strong as their stance against marriage. Celebrities, gay-marriage bans and fear of divorce are helping fuel the rise in unwedded bliss. "We love each other far, far too much to ever actually get married," says Raymond McCauley, 43, a biotech engineer in Mountain View, Calif., who has twin 2-year-olds with his partner of five years, Kristina Hathaway. His opposition to marriage is political, in solidarity with gays who can't legally wed in most states, and personal — he and his partner both got divorced in their 20s, an experience that has led McCauley to liken marriage to food poisoning: "You don't want to eat that thing again, even if you know it's perfectly fine this time."

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