Lawyers continue to argue about whether what's legal for a former Pender County sheriff's dispatcher and her boyfriend is legal for tens of thousands of other unmarried couples in North Carolina.

You may recall that a Superior Court judge decided in July that a 201-year-old state law prohibiting an unmarried man and woman from living together was unconstitutional.

Lawyers began to debate whether the ruling applied to anyone other than Debora Lynn Hobbs, who'd been told to get married, get out or get another job. According to the latest census, there are tens of thousands of such couples in our fair state.

Last week the judge, Benjamin G. Alford, said yes, the ruling does apply statewide. But some lawyers still aren't buying it. They say a different judge might rule the other way, and then the issue might have to go to a higher court.

Of course, there's an easy way to end the confusion. Easy, but highly unlikely. That would be for the N.C. General Assembly to repeal the "cohabitation" law, which was passed during Thomas Jefferson's first term and has only rarely been enforced.

To be sure, it's an interesting statute. For example, it doesn't prohibit people of the same sex from sharing a residence. The North Carolina of 1805 must have been much like the Massachusetts of 2006, only without the high taxes.

In addition, the law allows Tar Heels to live with someone of the opposite sex for up to two weeks without benefit of clergy, and then with someone else for another two weeks, and so on and so on - changing partners regularly, as if in a singles bar for square dancers.

So unless there's a definitive ruling by some judge or judges, the cohabitation law is likely to remain on our books, mostly ignored and entirely ridiculous.

More EditorialTalk about grade inflation PREVIEW HIDE If 84 percent of North Carolina students pass our state mathematics test but 68 percent fail the national assessment, what does that say about our expectations?

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