Lack of Preparation for Matrimony
- Every marriage failure discloses somewhat the same tragic picture. Young people are rushing into marriage without knowing what it is all about. They center their attention upon the wedding day and the honeymoon without trying to glimpse at the duties and responsibilities which lie hidden in the background. They are ignorant of the problems – physical, psychological, social, economic, as well as spiritual – which must be solved if the union is to endure and succeed. Preparation for marriage is essential if couples are to make a go of it! Judge Theodore B. Knutson of Minneapolis pointed this up recently. Sixty per cent of the divorces granted since his court’s family division was established affected those marriages contracted when one or both parties was less than 20 years old. “In almost every case,” testified the Judge, “the young people had no premarriage counseling whatsoever.”
- Unfortunately, the amount of preparation available today appears to be far less than is needed. From his tour of 100 United States dioceses, Msgr. Irving A. DeBlanc, former director of the NCWC Family Life Bureau, found that 50 per cent of the Catholics who marry received no formal premarriage instruction and another 20 per cent got only one talk.2 Father Edward V. Stanford, O.S.A., author of Preparing for Marriage, in a recent Chicago address stated that in the 1957-1958 school year less than 5 per cent of the Catholic high schools in the United States were offering marriage preparation courses. In the 1958-1959 school year, the figure increased to an estimated 20 per cent.
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