I think it helps because if you never lived together and then get married what if you cant stand the person 24/7? And besides you would be living together anyways so if it doesnt work out before marriage, its not going to work out after it

It almost certainly helps. It can let you know whether or not you can tolerate your "future partner". It will also allow you to work out the problems that arise from living together, instead of dealing with all of this after marriage. It's best to find out all the problems in a relationship before marriage, than after marriage.

Now, before I get to my argument, obviously living together cab easily drive two or more people apart, finding out they are not compatible to live together. However, I think to better analyze whether or not a coupe should marry/have a long lasting viable relationship in the same direction, living together before this would be the appropriate step.

Living together enables you to see what this person is like on a day to day basis, more than simply spending the day together.

In a rather awkward animal observance language; You get to observe them in their natural habitat.

Now, my intro to psych class a couple years back taught that statistics show those who move in together first before marriage have a hugger rate of divorce. I never understood how this could be directly related to living together before marriage, and so far hasn't been directly linked (that I am aware of).

Who knows really. Marriage is a beautiful yet tricky thing. If it works it works. If it doesn't it doesn't work. Like those above my comment have said, it's circumstantial.

I think it has equal potential to do both.

I'm on this side because - if you see the overall purpose of a relationship (or dating in general) to find a partner and settle down - moving in together will certainly reveal any oversights that would be problematic in a marriage, like incompatibility in regards to shared living space. In other words, if you can't live with a girl before marriage, there's a good chance you won't be able to live with a girl after marriage. And moving in together can be a good test of a relationship to see if both partners really are compatible enough to even live with one another, let alone marry one another.

And some couples find that living together destroys their relationship. Well, that's good news for them, because at least they called out their bad relationship for what it was before they went to the time and expense of arranging a marriage.

After all, one has to try on the shoe first to see if it fits.