Preparing for marriage : knowledge needed by newlyweds


Preparing
ĤI

JO Ot" TVSSleT.



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

https://archive.org/details/preparingformarrOOobri



Preparing for

Marriage

Knowledge Needed by Newlyweds

By

John A. O’Brien, Ph.D.

University of Notre Dame

A third of our 600,000 divorces a year could
be prevented if a wise counsellor talked the situa-

tion over with the young people before the wed-

ding. Frequently, his most helpful advice would

be “Wait!” or “Don't marry!”

Gretta Palmer, Your Life.

AVE MARIA PRESS

NOTRE DAME, INDIANA



NIHIL OBSTAT—T. E. Dillon
Censor Librorum

IMPRIMATUR — Most Rev. John F. Noll, D.D.
Bishop of Fort Wayne

Tenth Printing, 1957

All rights reserved. This pamphlet may not
be reproduced by any means in whole or

in part ivithout prior permission.

Copyright, 1948, John A. O’Brien, Ph.D.



Preparing for Marriage

“TTAVE a star, dear!” said Joe, as he
XX reached up in playful pantomime of

plucking one from the sky. “It’s not half

bright enough for you, Eleanor,” he con-

tinued. “I’d like to pluck the sun, the moon
and all the stars and set them into a diadem

to grace your lovely brow.”

The wistful sigh, the light burning in his
eyes and the tender glance at Eleanor’s

radiant face gave corroboration, if any were

needed, to his words.

“And if I could scoop up all the gold in
the mines of all the world,” murmured Elea-
nor, as she gazed at the moon shedding its
golden lustre on her rapt countenance, “I’d

give it all to you, Joe.”

The man in the moon smiled as he looked
down upon the lovely scene and chuckled,
“I seem to have heard that before.”

Standing in the garden with the June
moonlight falling upon their eager faces and
the perfume of roses in the air, Joe and Elea-
nor were the picture of love’s young dream.
Stardust was in their eyes. Love was playing
its age-old but ever new symphony upon
their heartstrings, as they uttered their

pledges of a love that would endure until
time should be no more. Such are the vows
of love which youth has spoken since the
world began.

s



Six months after the wedding. The scene
has changed. The romance has faded. The
melody has gone. The notes are raucous and
angry now. Instead of handing each other

the sun, the moon and the stars, they are now
handing out angry words and feel a pro-
nounced proclivity to throw anything but

rice at each other.

“He’s changed,” said Eleanor to her

mother. “He’s a different man from the one
I married. He’s a brute.”

“She’s got a temper worse than a tiger.

How’d I ever mistake that roar for love’s
purr,” wonders Joe, as their dreams have

vanished, leaving only the dregs of dis-

illusionment in their wake.

Misconception of Marriage

The incident just described is typical of
hundreds of thousands of cases which each

year swell the tide of divorce into a devastat-

ing flood. It shows the sorry ending of

marriage entered into under the spur of

romantic love, with little knowledge of the

true character and personal traits of each

other, with no real understanding of mar-

riage, or any glimmering of the manner of
solving the grim and serious problems with

which the conjugal life is studded. Like the

field bristling with hidden mines and booby-
traps planted by the enemy, is a considerable

4



area of marital life into which the heedless

and the unwary rush to their injury and

destruction.

Every investigation of marriage failures

has disclosed that not a few are traceable to

misconceptions of the nature, purpose and

responsibilities of marriage. Young people
often center their attention upon the wed-
ding, with the honeymoon in the offing,
without trying to glimpse the duties and re-
sponsibilities which lie hidden in the back-

ground. They are ignorant about many of
the problems, physical, psychological, social

and economic, which must be solved if the
union is to endure and succeed. Hence the
need for pre-marital instruction has become
widely recognized, and efforts are being

made in all parts of the nation to meet that
need.

The domestic life gives rise to problems
whose solution demands specific training. No
one can enter a profession without years of

training. No prudent person launches a
business enterprise in a field in which he is
a novice. No boy or girl can enter the re-
ligious state without long and careful train-
ing. Why should a young couple think they
can make a go of the complicated business
of family life without preparation, instruc-

tion or training? The large number of
shipwrecks on the matrimonial sea bespeaks
the results of such folly. All too late do they

5



discover the truth of Galley Gibber’s words
in Double Gallant: “Oh! how many torments
lie in the small circle of a wedding ring.” 1

Shakespeare expresses the mind and the
feelings of both of them in The Two Gentle-
men of Verona

,

wherein Sylvia says to Pro-

teus :
2

’Tis pity, love should be so contrary

And thinking on it makes me cry, ‘Alas!’

If a man without any training in carpentry
undertook to build a house, would he not be
almost certain to make a botch of it? Why
then should we expect a young couple with
no preparation or training to succeed in

building the even more complicated and
difficult structure of a happy and successful
home? If an individual with no training in
the craft of watchmaking tried to make a
watch, would any sane person expect it to

tick? To make marriage tick requires even
greater skill and insight into a more com-
plicated set of factors. Why would any
sensible person expect a young couple with

no training to make the complicated mech-
anism of marriage tick with precision for any

appreciable length of time?

Concerted efforts are now being made to
induce every young couple to complete a
carefully planned course of pre-marital in-

struction. Pastors, physicians, psychiatrists,

6



family counsellors and men and women who
have achieved outstanding success in the

domestic enterprise pool their knowledge in

conferences and seminars for those planning

to marry.

Pre-marital Instruction

Such a course of instruction under the

title, “With This Ring/’ has been estab-
lished in Los Angeles. In Washington, D. C.,

the National School of Social Service is

sponsoring an eight-weeks course taught by

priests and doctors. In London, Cardinal
Griffin set up a Catholic Marriage Advisory
Council with quarters just opposite Parlia-

ment Buildings.
Confronted with a one-out-of-five divorce

rate—where the United States was in 1925

—

England has announced plans for the estab-

7



lishment of government-sponsored bureaus

to prepare young people for marriage and to

advise married couples. For some time

Holland has been operating 18 marriage

bureaus, with priest and medical consultants.
One Dutch bureau handled the problems of
569 persons in a year, with 347 going to the

priest members and 222 to the physicians.

The American Institute of Family Re-
lations in Los Angeles has registered notable

success along these lines. In the more than

18 years of its existence, only a handful of

the thousands of marriages which enjoyed its
pre-marital counselling service ended in di-

vorce—a record all the more remarkable in
view of its location in the county with the

highest divorce rate in the United States.

Notable Success

“The result of such educational effort,”
reports Dr. Paul Popenoe, Director of the

Institute, “before or even after marriage, has

been more successful than we could have
dared to hope. Leaving out of considera-

tion those abnormal individuals—the men-
tally diseased, the alcoholic, and so on—who
should never have gone into marriage in the

first place because they are not qualified to

make a success of any adult enterprise, it is
evident that the great majority of people

who loved each other enough to marry in the

8



first place can make a success of that mar-
riage if they really want to do so.”3

Dr. Popenoe then makes the following

significant observation concerning the futility

and tragedy of divorce: “The majority of
divorces are not only unnecessary but un-

desirable, and in many instances both
husband and wife are worse off after ter-

minating the marriage than they were before.

Among other difficulties, they have failed to
take into account the serious readjustments

which they will have to make after divorce.
Many of the divorcees find these readjust-
ments not only difficult but impossible; so

the death rate, the suicide rate, the insanity

rate, and the rate of commitment to prison
are two or three times as high for divorcees

as they are for married persons of the same

ages.”4

In many, if not most cases, divorce is the
tardy and costly expression of a mutual un-
congeniality that existed from the beginning.
How much disappointment and suffering
would be spared the young couple if that fact
were pointed out to them by an experienced
and kindly counsellor before they took the
plunge. An ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure. The time to tell young
people that they are unsuited for each other,

that there are radical differences in char-

acter, temperament, culture and religious
outlook which seriously menace the success

9



of marriage, is before the life-long vows of
conjugal loyalty are pronounced. That is
the time when counsel and guidance are
most urgently needed and will do the most
good.

“A third of our 600,000 divorces a year,”
points out Gretta Palmer, “could be pre-

vented if a wise counsellor talked the situa-

tion over with the young people before the
wedding. Frequently, his most helpful advice

would be ‘Wait!’ or ‘Don’t marry!’ ” 5

Before the Rice is Thrown

Marriage preparation courses, supple-

mented by individual counselling on prob-

lems of love and courtship, have achieved

notable success at Stephens College for

women at Columbia, Missouri. Although
the national ratio of divorces to marriages has

mounted to one in three, Stephens graduates
continue to stay married at a rate more than
six times as high as that of the married popu-

lation as a whole. Dr. Henry A. Bowman, in
counselling the students, stresses the necessity

of facing realistically the practical problems

which marriage inevitably involves.

A common tendency of young couples
planning to marry, he reports, is to fail to

make proper provisions for the arrival of a
baby. “Yet babies come to eight-tenths of
all couples,” he observes. “And marriages

10



based on a decision to ‘put ofF motherhood

until later years are highly vulnerable : three-

fourths of all childless marriages end in di-

vorce—nine times the rate for couples which
have children. It is better to remain engaged

until a marriage can be worked out that

permits a baby to be a blessing, not a catas-

trophe.”

Dr. Bowman states many marriage failures
are attributed to mistakes made after the
rice has been thrown. The young couples
usually chalk up their failure to each other:
“It was his jealousy.” Or, “She nagged me
too much.” Or, “We both changed.”
“But such marriages—one-third of all that

fail—were wrecked before the announce-
ments were engraved,” remarks Dr.

Bowman. “Instead of marriage failures,
they are actually dating failures. No word
of advice to already married couples,”

he concludes, “is half as valuable as what we
say to those about to embark on a marriage
that is almost impossible of success.”

What society needs desperately to stem the
swelling tide of divorce is some form of
marriage control. It may well be that in-
telligent and conscientious pre-marital in-
struction and counsel will prove the most
effective control that has yet been devised,

especially for those unamenable to the sanc-
tions of religion.

A further evidence of the increasing
n



awareness of the importance of pre-marital

instruction is found in the action of the

Young Christian Workers of Canada.
Alarmed at the increasing divorce rate, they
sponsored the establishment of marriage

preparation courses which have evoked a
wide response throughout all Canada. In

the first five years more than 20,000 young
people have followed these courses.

Purpose of Engagement

The purpose of the engagement period is
to afford the couple a final opportunity to
determine definitely whether or not they are

sufficiently congenial to achieve a successful

marriage. During this period when their
affections are centered upon each other to
the exclusion of all others, they should learn

something of the family background, the

cultural interests, the personal traits, the

moral character and the religious outlook of
each other. The pair who spend this time in
mere romancing without exploring the in-
dispensable requirements for a stable union

will not infrequently discover, after the rice

has been thrown and the honeymoon has
ended, an unexplainable inclination to begin
throwing something heavier than rice at each

other. Instead of using the engagement
interval for the realistic appraisal of each

other, they squander it in sentimental ro-

12



mancing and star-gazing only to find out too

late that they have tumbled blindly over a

precipice into a fateful abyss.

Describing the purpose of the engagement

period, Professor L. M. Terman says: “This
engagement period gives an opportunity for

the couple to experiment with the experience

of being devoted to each other, or of belong-

ing to each other exclusively in certain

respects. They have an opportunity to find
out whether this intensified relationship will

prove intellectually and emotionally satisfying

or irritating. They have an opportunity of
trying out the social adjustments involved

—

introducing each other as their future

husband and wife, seeing how their tentative
partners get on with each other’s friends,

discovering whether the adjustments of emo-

tional and social partnership really work out
well or begin to chafe. Often the period of

bethrothal is also a time when the couple are
building up the economic resources and
status necessary to start the kind of home
toward which they aspire. The engagement
might well be characterized, then, as the

period during which the idea of marriage

with this particular mate is being explored
as a working hypothesis.” 6

During this period the young couple should
be given specific instruction concerning the

conjugal relation and family responsibility
and thus be afforded an insight into the need

13



for time, patience and mutual understanding

to achieve satisfactory adjustments. If such

guidance were given, how much disappoint-
ment and dissatisfaction would be spared the
bridal pair during the first weeks and months

of marriage.

One Out of Five

Investigation has disclosed that only about

one man out of five has been properly pre-
pared for the fulfillment of his new role in
the fundamental relationship of the family

life. The proportion of women properly in-
structed is probably even smaller. Not in-
frequently the sophisticated ones are the most

ignorant in this matter.

Stressing the need for such pre-marital in-

struction, Dr. John M. Cooper states: “If
not before engagement, certainly before

marriage, and a good time before, the parties
concerned should know in what marriage
and the marital relation essentially consist.
Notwithstanding all our supposed youthful

sophistication, it is astonishing how much of
nescience prevails, more often among girls,
occasionally among boys, and not so rarely
even among those of both sexes who pass for
and consider themselves sophisticated. Both
the man and the woman should have a talk
well beforehand with a highminded and in-
formed physician. So far as the girl is

14



concerned, it may be well to recall that
ignorance and innocence are not synonymous.

To let even the most ‘innocent’ girl go into
marriage ignorant of what the physical basis

of marriage consists in is to run the risk of

profound emotional shock that often has

grave consequences to both her own and her
husband’s happiness, and to their mutual

love and common welfare.” 7

Answer All Questions

It is evident then that no engaged couple

should allow this interval to pass without

completing a thorough course in pre-marital

instruction. Whether it be taken at that
particular period or not is a minor detail.

But that it should be completed sometime

before marriage is of the utmost importance.

The course should present not only the ideals
of marriage but also the common difficulties
and the practical problems as well as the
means of solving them. No question in the
mind of either the young man or the young
woman should be allowed to go unanswered.

Friendly and experienced counsellors
should supplement their formal lectures by
having private conferences with each in-

dividual. During these chats they should
advise the person as to whether or not the
choice of the partner seems to be a judicious

and sensible one. If their keen and ex-

15



perienced eyes detect elements of radical in-

compatibility which seriously threaten the
success of the proposed marriage, or even

foredoom it to failure, they should so advise

the individual with the greatest frankness.

“A stitch in time,” runs the proverb, “saves
nine.” A word in time may avert a blunder
that will tangle up one’s whole life and spell
misery and tragedy.

“A Three-day Furlough”

To illustrate. Joe Smith is a young man
of 22, from the North. He meets a waitress
-in a restaurant in a Southern city near his

training camp. After four weeks of acquaint-

ance, during which he has dated her nine

times, they are married. She has explained

to him that her four-months-old baby is her
daughter by her first husband who was killed
in a plane crash. When Joe is discharged
15 months later, the couple go to live with

his family. They begin to discover radical
differences in temperament, tastes and cul-

tural background. On top of this comes
the discovery that her child is illegitimate

. . . and the marriage hits the rocks.

The case is typical of thousands of mar-
riages that are doomed from the start. Would
Joe have entered into such an ill-starred

alliance if he had been properly instructed
in the fundamental requisites for an endur-

16



ing and happy marriage? Would he not
have seen what a blind man could have per-
ceived, that the marriage didn’t have a ghost

of a chance?

Edythe had been listening to a lecture in

a three months preparation for marriage

course. The instructor had laid hare the
dangers of a couple’s rushing headlong into

marriage without a thorough knowledge of

the character, temperament, tastes, family

background, and religious outlook of each
other. He stressed the need of time, pa-
tience and consideration in making neces-
sary adjustments.

“Why didn’t they tell us about these things
beforehand?” she remarked to her com-

panion. Her face clouded and her red lips
twisted in painful recollection. “Then mar-
rage would have meant more to Bert and
myself than a three-day furlough and two
week-ends in a hotel room.” Alas and
alack! That was all that marriage meant
to thousands of young couples during the
war years. They rushed into it and out of
it with equal speed.

The Best Guarantee

So large a stake has society in the enter-
prise of establishing stable and successful
homes, that the force of enlightened public

opinion should require the completion of a
carefully planned course in marriage before

17



a license will be issued. More important than
the need for uniform divorce legislation for

all the states is the need for a law that

requires the completion of a marriage prep-

aration course as a condition for obtaining

a license.

A diploma testifying to the completion of
such a course would thus give society some
reasonable guarantee that engaged persons

are properly prepared for the supremely im-

portant task of establishing stable and suc-
cessful homes and the rearing of offspring
to be law-abiding and good citizens. Such a
diploma is of the same importance as the
medical certificate showing freedom from

the venereal diseases which make marriage
a nightmare and a menace to the health of
the children and of society as a whole.

18



To safeguard the rights of the marriage
partner and to protect the health of the off-

spring, states now commonly require both
parties to undergo a medical examination to

secure a certificate of freedom from venereal

disease. Most people regard it as a sensible

and a wise law, designed to safeguard the

physical health of society at its source. Not

less important, however, is its social health.

The best guarantee of this is the stability of
its homes. Hence the need for legislation
requiring all applicants for wedding licenses

to present certificates showing their comple-

tion of a pre-marital instruction course

which affords society a reasonable guaran-

tee of its social health in the form of stable
homes and wholesome family life.
That such legislation will soon be enacted

in all states, it is earnestly to be hoped.

Meanwhile much can be accomplished by
making such courses available in every com-
munity and by encouraging all our young
people to take advantage of them. Such
pre-marital courses might well be established
in every large urban parish. In towns and
cities with but two or three parishes, one
such course offered at a convenient center

two or three times a year might prove suffi-
cient to instruct all young couples.

Cana Movement

In this connection mention should be

19



made of the Cana Conference movement.
In January, 1943, Rev. John P. Delaney,
S. J., started what he called Family Renewal
Days in New York. They reflected similar
exercises in Europe. In 1944, several of the

Family Renewal Days were held in Chicago.

In October of that year the first St. Louis

meeting of 27 couples took place. Out of
this meeting came the name Cana Con-
ference. Recalling the joy which Mary
brought to the bride and groom at Cana,
these couples conceived the movement as
bringing Christian joy and gladness to
homes harassed by the mounting wave of
divorce and the lowered standards of family
life.

The growth of the movement, especially in
the Midwest, is traceable in no small manner
to the tireless zeal and vision of Rev. Edward
P. Dowling, S.J., of the Queen's Work. As a

20



member of the Institute of Social Order, he
had occasion to delve deeply into the whole

field of social problems and quickly preceived

that the Christianizing of the home is one of
the crucial needs of our day. There is need

for the family to recover the distinctive joy

and atmosphere of the Christian home and
to mirror in its domestic life the spirit of

the Holy Family at Nazareth.

While the Cana movement serves to
strengthen the marital bond and banish the
spectre of divorce from the domestic land-

scape, its primary objective is to make happy
marriages happier. Instead of having the

Christian family life creep along precariously

on two cylinders, Cana leaders strive to have
it purr along smoothly and joyously on all
six. Cana seeks to place the prosaic, mun-
dane activities of the home against the back-
drop of eternity. “It is to the unseen

spiritual factors,” observes Frank Riley,“sub-

merged in the preoccupying sea of wages,
bills and budgets, toward which the Cana
Conferences are directed.” 8

This movement, rich in promise, has
already spread to many dioceses and has
accomplished much in revivifying the ideals
of Christian family life and in encouraging
married couples to strive to weave those high
and holy ideals into the pattern of their
daily living. In many dioceses priests have
been appointed directors of the Cana move-

21



ment and are encouraging such Conferences
to be held in every parish.

Pledge to Christian Marriage

Typical of the ideals for which the move-

ment stands is the Pledge to Christian Mar-
riage recited by 1,400 married couples at the

closing session of the Catholic Family Life

Conference in Chicago. Attracting nation-

wide attention and receiving the acclaim of

the press throughout the land, the Pledge

runs as follows:

In gratitude to Almighty God for all the
blessings that family life has brought me, I

pledge myself always to uphold the great

dignity of Christian marriage.

Therefore, in the presence of the Blessed

Sacrament, I profess my belief in the sanctity
of marriage. I acknowledge it as a sacra-

ment and a syiribol of the union of Christ
and His Church.

I believe: “What God has joined together
let no man put asunder.”

I renew my deep reverence for fatherhood
and motherhood.

I believe that in family life parents co-

operate with God.

I believe that in family life the child is

paramount.

I abhor and condemn every sinful inter-
ference with the role of parenthood.

22



With the help of our Immaculate Mother

I pledge myself anew to wholesome family
life.

I resolve to do all in my power to foster
the virtue of purity, the bulwark of the

family.

May the Holy Family—Jesus, Mary and
Joseph—bless our families and our homes. 9

Prevent 200,000 Divorces

Through its constructive efforts to
strengthen and sanctify the family life and

to bring into the home the joys of the Holy
Family of Nazareth, the Cana movement will
lessen, if not eliminate, the likelihood of

divorce among its members. It constitutes a
powerful ally and supplement to the nation-

wide Movement for Pre-marital Instruction.
Even when the greatest care is exercised to
screen out inadvisable marriages and to pre-

pare suitable partners for the faithful dis-

charge of their conjugal duties through

systematic pre-marital instruction — human
nature being what it is—there will always be
need for Cana Conferences to safeguard and
strengthen the marital bond. But the most
effective time at which to give counsel and
guidance is before unsuitable and ill-advised
unions are formed. Since 92.7% of the men
and 93.5% of the women in the U.S.A. get
married, such pre-marital instruction, supple-

23



merited by individual counselling, should be

offered in every college and university.

Better than any remedy for disease is its

prevention. This can best be achieved

by heading off young couples before they

take the step that will bring disappointment,

frustration and unhappiness to both. When
every young couple is led, either by the force

of enlightened public opinion or through the

compulsion of law, to take a systematic

course of pre-marital instruction, divorce will

not become extinct, but it will shrink to a
fraction of its present gargantuan size. A
painstaking study

,
extending over many

years, of the causes of marriage failure has

deepened our conviction that more than
200,000 divorces could be prevented each

year through such careful and intelligent
preparation for the most serious and fateful
step which a young person can take in all

his life.

1 Act I, Sc. 2.

2 Act IV, Sc. 4.

3 Modern Marriages, pp. xf.
4 Ibid., xi.

5 Your Life, August, 1947.
6 Psychological Factors in Marriage, Louis M. Terman
New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1938, pp
198-199.

7 Cooper, op. cit., pp. 108-109.

8 Columbia, April, 1946.

9 Information, April, 1947, p. 164.

24