ARE YOU TOO JEALOUS?
Every person is a little jealous of his or her mate. But there is a point where the jealousy becomes excessive—and dangerous. Whether real or imaginary, the jealousy puts you in such a dark mood that anything you do may harm rather than improve the relationship.
If you answered fourteen or more of these with yes you are a victim of extreme and unhealthy jealousy. If however you answered less than four with yes you apparently don’t even love the person.
Chapter XV
People Who Should Not Marry at All
Every time the Marriage Counseling Service at Penn State has offered its course on the preparation for marriage, the class has been asked to list the qualifications they think a person has to have before he should undertake marriage.
It was interesting to note that the girls in the class consistently voted for higher qualifications than the men. We have averaged the responses of the many hundreds of students and present below those qualifications mentioned by at least fifty per cent of the students:
| Qualifications for Marriage | Percentage Voting for Them |
| Freedom from venereal disease | 100% |
| Freedom from feeble-mindedness (If sterilized, 24% would permit marriage) | 99% |
| Freedom from insanity | 97% |
| Freedom from criminality | 94% |
| Freedom from dipsomania | 91% |
| Freedom from drug addiction | 85% |
| Freedom from neuroticism | 76% |
| Proof by groom that he can support bride (This includes evidence of occupational proficiency and at least $150 in savings) | 69% |
| Record of no more than one divorce, if any | 50% |
Other qualifications suggested but receiving less than forty-five per cent of the votes were freedom from tuberculosis, cancer, epilepsy and fatal heart disease, freedom from sterility and from inherited physical defects. About ninety-seven per cent of the students thought that both men and women should have premarital physical exams that would determine freedom from venereal disease.
We feel that there is a great deal of merit to the qualifications raised by the students. With those as a starting point we have prepared nine questions which you should ask yourself—and be able to answer yes. They are minimum qualifications for marriage. We feel you should have serious doubts about the advisability of marrying another person if you answer no to even one of the questions. Here they are:
Is Your Mate Sane and from a Family in Which No Insanity is Present? Except in pronounced forms, psychoses are not easily diagnosed. The borderline between sanity and insanity is no more distinct than is the line between black and white. All shades of gray exist. Many paranoidal persons roam the streets of our country and in many cases are able to carry the responsibilities of normal life, at least until they encounter continued frustration which will bring the insanity into an easily recognizable form. Insanity is not easily detected unless there is uncontrolled behavior or pronounced incompetence in obeying normal standards of behavior. In a recent book issued through the National Committee for Mental Hygiene there is a statement that one out of twenty-five persons reaching adulthood should be confined. Another four out of twenty-five are severely neurotic and another eight are handicapped by milder neurotic disturbances. On the basis of these findings at least one person in four is severely maladjusted and at least one in two is maladjusted to some extent.
If you are concerned about the mental balance of any possible mate, you might ask yourself these questions:
Has he been confined at some time in a mental institution?
Has he been rejected or released from military service because of outright mental disturbances?
Does his family have a history of insanity?
Is he free from syphilis?
Has he ever suffered from severe injury damaging the brain?
Do you know if he has shown extreme aberrations on any psychological tests to measure abnormalities of mental function?
Has he failed to discharge the responsibilities of life in a legal, competent, conventional manner?
Has he any record of uncontrollable rages resulting in injuries to others?
Does his family physician question his sanity?
While it is possible that he might be sane though you answered yes to some of these questions, the odds are against it. You should keep in mind however that many boys discharged from this past war as neuropsychiatric cases are not insane and most of them will be able to settle down within a few months after their discharge and earn a livelihood and live a normal life.
Is Your Mate Law-Abiding, Does He Have a Record Free of Criminal Offenses and are His Parents Likewise Law-Abiding? Many employers, including the federal and state governments, hesitate to employ a person with a criminal record. The habitual criminal is not easily cured. Certainly three or more convictions for criminal offenses should indicate a personality pattern adverse to marriage happiness. In New York State, four convictions for criminal offenses automatically result in life imprisonment.
Is Your Mate in Fairly Good Physical Health Generally and Free from Venereal Disease? Most of the states have passed laws providing statutory protection against syphilis. These states contain about three-fourths of the total population of the country. It is interesting that about one person in a hundred taking premarriage blood tests is found infected with syphilis. In these days of the miracle sulfa drugs and penicillin, cures of venereal disease can be effected in a matter of weeks. Syphilis is a blighting disease which, if uncured, will wreck any marriage sooner or later. Anyone who is in chronic bad health due to other ailments adds a severe burden to any marriage.
Is Your Mate Free from Using Drugs Such as Morphine or Heroin or Marijuana? Addiction to the traditional drugs is not a serious problem in this country but a great many young people have been taking to marijuana for quick “jags” under the impression that such jags are not dangerous. Musicians particularly often use this drug. But it is a dope just as surely as opium is, its effect can be just as vicious, and it is used only by persons who are unstable emotionally and thus poor marriage risks to start with.
If Your Mate Drinks, is He Temperate in the Use of Alcoholic Beverages? The dipsomaniac is an alcohol addict just as the opium smoker is a dope addict. He is characterized by an uncontrollable craving for alcohol. In some people alcohol produces a temporary feeling of well-being and elation, sometimes called euphoria. Because it does, people sometimes turn to drinking as an escape from their unsolved problems. Bit by bit the habit of drinking is built up. The person who marries a mate who is an excessive or habitual drinker in the expectation of reforming him is due for a bitter awakening. Marriage rarely cures drinking or any other abnormal condition. Expert treatment is needed. In skilled hands the drunkard is sometimes cured—if he really convinces himself that he wants to be cured. But the cure is long and arduous and the proportion of relapses is still great.
Is Your Mate Intelligent Enough to Earn a Living and Discharge the Responsibilities of Life Competently? There is no doubt that feeble-mindedness is inherited. Individual intelligence tests usually indicate that any person is feeble-minded who scores an IQ of seventy or less. (One hundred is average.) Even when sterilization of a feeble-minded person is performed it still does not seem reasonable to permit that person to marry since he can rarely contribute to the success of a marriage and often cannot earn a living.
Is Your Mate Fairly Stable, Well-adjusted and Able to Get Along with People? There are many shades of nervous disorders ranging from neurosis through psychoneurosis. The neurotic has a minor nervous disorder. The psychoneurotic has some ailment—without organic basis—which may involve hysteria, a paralysis or cramps. Many so-called miracle cures take place with persons who actually have no physical disabilities but have the disability in their mind.
In July 1945 such a “miracle” cure occurred at a military canteen. A 20-year-old soldier was walking painfully around on crutches. One of the junior hostesses asked him half-seriously if he would like to dance. He stated that he would but that he couldn’t even walk. She replied that she was a big strong girl who could hold him up. The soldier laughed, pushed his crutches under the table, stood up shakily, clung to a chair, then to the hostess. Getting started was difficult and he stumbled a time or two. Slowly they began to dance. Amazingly the soldier began having less and less trouble with his legs. They danced all through the evening and when the soldier left to take her home he was walking perfectly and left his crutches as a memento of his cure. As a result of a shrapnel wound he had become convinced he would never walk again. Under the stimulation of music, and the eagerness of a young girl to dance, the soldier forgot his crutches. So it goes with psychoneurotics. They are convinced that their neck is paralyzed, that they cannot hear or cannot see. Many such cases show immediate improvement once the war is over and the frustrations and fears of war lift from them. But others retain their bodily symptoms of psychological disturbance throughout their lives.
In this postwar world, marriageable girls will have to be concerned about the mental disturbances of some ex-service males. They should be sensible about these defects and realize they are merely a product of war-imposed frustrations. But they should be sure that they recognize the defects and are prepared to live with them. About twenty per cent of all war casualties returned to this country have been mental cases, and the fighting was so grueling in some theaters of war, such as the Solomons, that the percentages of psychological casualties have been known to rise at times to as high as forty per cent of all casualties.
A neurotic or psychoneurotic needs skillful treatment from a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist. A girl should hesitate to marry such a person at least until a medical authority has pronounced that he is competent to make the adjustments that a marriage entails and to fill the role of a mate successfully.
Is Your Mate a Person Who Has Not Been Divorced from Two Previous Marriages? Even a person with one divorce to his credit is a hazard when he remarries. A person with two divorces should definitely be shunned, if you hope to achieve a lasting and happy marriage.
Divorce is not inherited, but it does run in families. It is known that persons whose own parents are divorced are much more likely to seek divorce than those whose parents were not divorced. Divorce is marriage bankruptcy, and any person who has failed twice in marriage is unlikely to succeed in a third. A person with a record of two divorces should have his right to marry anyone seriously questioned. A bank would certainly hesitate to lend a man money who had failed to pay a previous loan, and certainly would refuse a loan to a person who had gone bankrupt twice before.
The couple that marries in haste frequently divorces in haste. Thus one reason for many of our wartime divorces. Likewise the couple that takes plenty of time before marriage rarely has to seek a divorce, especially if that marriage results in children.
Will You and Your Mate Be Able to Support Yourselves? This presumably will mean that before undertaking marriage one of the mates—preferably the man—should demonstrate through a work record that he is capable of earning a living. Under normal circumstances, about one wife in six or seven works to supplement the earnings of her husband. It is probable that not less than one wife in fifty is the sole support of the family. The best way to demonstrate ability to earn a living is for one of the mates (again preferably the man) to demonstrate occupational proficiency by at least one year of gainful employment.
It is also important that no couple should marry without a cash reserve after the costs of the wedding. Sickness, possible pregnancy, the furnishing of an apartment and other factors make some emergency fund advisable. The Penn State students thought this saving should amount at least to ten per cent of the estimated expenses for the first year.
In making sure you are both physically fit for a happy marriage we recommend that you submit to a premarital physical examination. In fact some couples like to have two premarital exams, one just before they become formally engaged, and the second just before they marry. It seems to us that if physical factors are found which might seem undesirable to either member of the couple, or to their families, it would be best that such conditions be discovered before the formal engagement, to avoid embarrassment. The second exam would be token just before the marriage because the laws of many states require that the physical exam be taken within thirty days of the marriage date.
Whether you plan one or two exams, there should be one thorough one, far more comprehensive than that required by law. The typical physician, in order to keep the exam reasonable in price, usually examines only far enough to find if the couple meet the legal requirements, which are primarily concerned with freedom from venereal disease. Here are some things that a comprehensive exam should cover:
1. Physical defects that may be crippling or later impair the ability of the individual to earn a living or make a home.
2. The hereditary history of each family should be checked for the possibility of insanity or feeble-mindedness or other inherited defects that might be transmitted to offspring even though not too apparent in the person being examined.
3. Because most couples will want children, the reproductive apparatus should be examined to see if reproduction is possible and that the individual is free from defects that would make conception impossible or childbirth hazardous. (This would mean pelvic measurements for the female.) The possibility of sterility or impotence should be checked and any physical factor that might impair or prevent normal sexual relations should be treated.
4. There should be an investigation of the integrity and normal functioning of the heart, respiratory apparatus and the central nervous system.
5. Freedom from venereal disease, both gonorrhea and syphilis, should be ascertained.
The physical exam gives the physician an unusually good opportunity to allay any fears regarding sexual adjustment that either person may have. At the examination just prior to the wedding, the physician can give the girl instructions in the role of the female in physical intimacy. There should be an explanation of orgasm, and if desired, there can be instructions about birth spacing.
Even though some factors may be adverse that does not mean you should refrain from marrying. It simply means that both of you go into marriage with your eyes open. Furthermore, most physical defects can be corrected, often even sterility. Much of the impotence among young men is caused by psychological rather than physical factors.