IS THE MATE A NEUROTIC?
And while you are at it you might ask yourself whether you are too. Answer yes or no.
An affirmative answer to any one of these questions does not mean the person is a neurotic by any means. But a pattern of neuroticism is apparently present in the person if he answered ten or more with yes. He appears to be maladjusted to life. Ideally every question should be answered no. If you feel you don’t know the person well enough to answer some of the questions, score only those you are sure of. Then, if two out of five of your answers are yes, it would appear that the person may be maladjusted. And incidentally, how did you make out yourself?
Chapter XVI
Will a Job Undermine the Marriage?
The Only thought couples usually give to their respective careers at the time they decide to marry is whether there will be enough income to support them. Actually, the type of work the groom does may produce irritations that may ruin the union. Or if the bride wants to continue her career after marriage, that may cause trouble if not handled carefully.
Let’s take the problem of the bride first. Should she continue her career or devote all her energy to managing a home? There is, of course, no final answer. We know of many married couples who have worked out excellent relationships while the wife continues her career. But we also know that such an arrangement is not normal and that it often produces difficulties because of psychological factors. It is apt to be a blow to the husband’s sense of mastery of his own home if the bride decides that he can’t support her properly on his salary. It deprives the wife of the opportunity to win the husband’s affection and appreciation for her homemaking skill. Believe it or not, one very important appeal of marriage to a man is to have his favorite dishes home-cooked and waiting for him when he comes home from work. If the wife has a career, the couple usually ends up eating out or eating warmed-up delicatessen specials. Finally a career makes it difficult for a wife to bear and rear children, and children are another of the big values of marriage that hold couples together.
Homemaking is a definite career, and if there are children, a full-time career. There is far more to making a home than the housekeeping end of it. A homemaker is a physician when the husband or child is sick; she is an interior decorator; she must be a good cook and dietitian; she must be an expert on clothing repair; she must be a good teacher and an expert on the psychology of handling children; she must often be a judge in settling arguments; she must be an expert purchasing agent because she will spend at least eighty per cent of the family’s income; she must be some sort of bookkeeper if she keeps the budget and pays the bills; she must be a repair man who can replace a fuse, repair an electric light cord, put oil on a squeaking hinge.
If the average husband gave as mediocre a performance on his job as many wives do as homemakers he would be fired. Unquestionably one of the reasons why divorce is on the increase is that careers and other diversions prevent wives from giving as much attention and care to the art of homemaking as they once did. Why do married women work? Here are the main reasons:
—Pure necessity.
—To enable themselves to have more luxurious and extra comforts than the husband’s income alone could afford.
—Because marriage is not too satisfying to them and they are bored.
—Because they do not want children.
—Because they want to be independent financially.
—Because they would rather hire somebody to do the housework than to do it themselves.
—Because they want an independent career.
Virtually all studies made show that the happiest married women are those who do not work after marriage. In the study by Dr. G. V. Hamilton, A Research in Marriage, only forty-five per cent of the women working after marriage had a “satisfactory” to “very satisfactory” marriage compared to some fifty-five per cent of the women not working after marriage who were happy in marriage.
Once a wife starts working, she may resolve to stop at the end of a specific period, but by the time the deadline arrives she usually finds a reason why she should continue a little longer. Frequently she and her husband have bought things like an automobile that prevent them from attaining enough stability financially to permit her to stop working. She continues to work, thereby putting off having children and perhaps never has them.
But now let’s take up the greater—and less understood—dangers involved in the types of work the groom does. Many wives today think they are dissatisfied with their husbands when actually they are dissatisfied with his working habits or his job.
For example, some jobs carry more social prestige than others. Here are some twenty-four occupations rated by college students (1940) on their prestige, with those with the highest prestige at the top and those with the least prestige at the bottom:
| 1. | Physician | 13. | Farmer (owner) |
| 2. | Clergyman | 14. | Insurance agent |
| 3. | Lawyer | 15. | Salesman |
| 4. | College professor | 16. | Bookkeeper |
| 5. | Manufacturer | 17. | Machinist |
| 6. | Banker | 18. | Carpenter |
| 7. | Artist or author | 19. | Barber |
| 8. | Man of leisure | 20. | Factory operative |
| 9. | Engineer (college trained) | 21. | Blacksmith |
| 10. | Factory superintendent | 22. | Soldier |
| 11. | School teacher | 23. | Truck driver |
| 12. | Storekeeper | 24. | Ditch digger |
Richard O. Lang, as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, made a study of marriage happiness based upon ratings made by acquaintances of more than seventeen thousand married couples. On the basis of his findings here is how fifty different occupations rated on the descending scale of marital happiness. The happiest are at the top and the least happy are at the bottom. Here is the approximate order:
One interesting statistic is that while eighty per cent of the clergy had happy or very happy marriages (as assessed by their friends) only forty per cent of salesmen had marriages at least as happy or very happy, again as assessed by friends. Only eleven per cent of the clergy seemed to be really unhappy in marriage while thirty-six of the salesmen were.
Obviously education is not the determining factor in an occupation’s happiness quota because physicians, lawyers and dentists, who require more schooling than almost any other group, are definitely less happy in marriage than engineers, teachers and ministers. Musicians rate very low, coming between truck drivers and real estate salesmen, apparently because of the mobility and impermanence of their jobs.
There are seven types of work that seem to be the major vocational troublemakers. They don’t need to produce trouble. In fact if both the man and wife are aware of the potential dangers involved and act accordingly trouble rarely occurs. But if they don’t possess such awareness, they may find it increasingly difficult to find happiness through marriage. Both will be resentful without knowing why. We don’t advise girls to avoid marrying men in these types of work. That would be ridiculous. But we do suggest that they take the job into consideration. Then, if they go ahead and marry the man, they will do it with their eyes wide open and with a plan to remove the danger by normalizing their married life as much as possible despite the job.
With that thought in mind let’s take up the seven big troublemakers.
The Man Who Travels a Lot. This includes not only the traveling salesman, whose reputation for waywardness has a great deal of basis in fact, but also traveling entertainers, truck drivers, professional soldiers, casual laborers, railroad workers, air pilots. There are also multitudes of others whose work requires stopovers or prolonged stays away from home. It is the mobility of the job rather than the fact that unreliable characters work in them that produces the trouble. Lonesome and dissatisfied, the mobile person seeks substitutes which create strife at home when they are learned of, and feelings of guilt with the man even when they aren’t. Such a mobile person is more likely to come in contact with other women who may seem very attractive to him since he is denied the companionship and daily affection of his family. There seems to be absolutely no doubt that those occupations which are somewhat fixed, that is, which require little or no traveling, provide happier marriages, other things being equal.
Wives can counteract the danger by frequently arranging to accompany the husbands on trips they may make. Even though the wife may have children, there are many trips on which she can accompany her husband. In most cases the husband, far from resenting her presence, welcomes it because he does get lonely and bored traveling in strange towns.
Even though the wife is busy she should take time out to accompany her husband over his entire territory so that she sees some of the problems he faces and meets some of the people he has to work with. In doing this she serves two purposes: she is better able to talk to her husband intelligently about his work if she knows the operation and the people involved. This will encourage him to unburden his occupational problems to her rather than think she is just a dumb housewife and take them elsewhere or brood over them. The second purpose is that by letting his associates on the route see her she makes them more aware of the fact that he is a happily married man and they will thus be less likely to put temptations in his way.
In taking normalizing actions such as these, a girl can more safely choose a mate whose work keeps him mobile and with less fear that the marriage will be hazardous.
The Man Nobody Knows. If the groom earns his income outside the community where you will live and is seen very little there, he will feel less desire for social approval of his conduct. To put it in sociological terms, he will not be under close “community scrutiny.” Thus he is more susceptible to the temptation of heavy drinking, gambling, or other women than the man whose job does come under community scrutiny. Examples of the latter are teachers, ministers, storekeepers, and town officials. These men all come into a great deal of daily contact with the members of the community and thus are more concerned about “keeping up appearances.” Other things being equal, the greater the degree of social control exerted, the greater the happiness of the marriage.
If a girl does marry a man who doesn’t come under this scrutiny, she can to some extent bring him under it by being seen with her husband at many public places, encouraging him to join with her in participating in many community activities, by introducing her husband to many different people and letting them know the kind of work he does.
The Man Who Works at Abnormal Hours. During the war we came to hear a lot about the swing shifters. But in war or peace there are millions of men who keep unusual hours—policemen, newspapermen working on morning newspapers, bartenders, night watchmen, etc. They can make it difficult for a wife, particularly if she is a mother, to adapt her daily routine of living to the shifting hours of work. This is destructive to happiness because husband and wife have too little opportunity to be with each other. Furthermore not many men can change their hours of sleep from week to week without becoming irritable. If he has children he is denied the normal opportunities to play with them. All the evidence we have indicates that occupations which require working late are not as likely to be associated with marital happiness as those occupations which permit working during the daylight hours.
In one case a couple married seven years were on the verge of divorce within four months after the husband took a night job. He had become lonely because he missed all his normal associations and finally had fallen in love with a waitress at an all-night lunchroom where he ate. Happily the wife kept her senses and instead of agreeing to the divorce merely asked for a postponement of the decision for a few months. Meanwhile she got busy and made a greater effort to make home a more appealing place to him. She rearranged the schedule of the children so they could be with their father an hour every day, she began paying more attention to her own grooming and arranged her own schedule so that she could sleep at the same time her husband did two days a week. Soon the husband lost interest in the other woman.
The Man Whose Income Is Irregular. This includes all salesmen working on commission, free-lance writers, small business owners, seasonal workers, lawyers, physicians, brokers, plumbers, architects, etc. One fact that has been noticed repeatedly in marriage studies is that regularity of income has a considerable influence upon marriage happiness. Apparently couples having regular incomes are better able to plan their expenditures and savings, to be neither flush at one time nor impoverished at another, and are better able to work out long-term financial plans. At any rate there seems to be a good deal less bickering where the income is regular. To live happily with a man with a fluctuating income the mates need to show the wisdom of the Biblical Joseph, by saving during fat months for lean months, and by keeping an unusually rigorous eye on the accounts. If they can save up a real backlog, and can take a philosophical attitude toward the whimsies of his income, they should have no more trouble than the average couple. The savings will provide a psychological cushion as well as a real one.
The Man Whose Work Is Dirty or Nerve-racking. We know a farmer who says his wife is so annoyed by his dirty clothes that she won’t touch them and won’t let him inside her house until he puts on dress shoes. Such wives should remember that dirt is an honorable mark of a farmer’s, a mechanic’s, or a coal miner’s occupation. And perhaps if approached good-naturedly, he can be persuaded to change to clean clothes before leaving the site of his work.
Other husbands have jobs whose work is noisy, tense, or exacting. This includes steeplejacks, tunnel builders, foundry workers, pilots, etc. The jobs leave the husband emotionally exhausted and highly irritable. The wife of such a man will find herself involved in repeated quarreling and sniping unless she realizes the husband’s state of mind when he comes home and sees to it that he has a warm bath and an hour of rest and relaxation before she disturbs him or approaches him with any family problems.
The Man Who Feels Insecure in His Job. Job security, like regularity of income, is an important factor in marriage happiness. A number of studies have shown that the most contented and satisfied men are those who feel secure in their job. The assurance of permanence enables the man to be serene. When a man feels insecure in his job he is more likely to change jobs frequently, hoping to improve his tenure. This constant changing of not only jobs but the accompanying new neighborhoods and school systems for the family produce frayed nerves and many annoying problems. Loss of work, even though it is temporary, brings worry over where the next meal is coming from, brings in the possibility of public relief, lowers the man’s self-respect and may decrease his wife’s confidence in him as a worth-while husband and provider. Undoubtedly one of the reasons for the rise of the divorce rate after the great depression was the tension engendered by threat of unemployment which placed great strains upon family living.
If a girl marries a man in such a status she should be prepared to help her husband by not being critical of his work and by not throwing it up to him that he is unable to get a permanent job. She can even encourage, and sympathetically help him get some specialized training that may prepare him for a better job which offers greater security. Perhaps he can do it at night or by correspondence courses. Far more men than do would seek to improve their vocational skills if their wives would encourage and inspire them to become more competent.
The Man Who is Not Proud of His Job. Social prestige of an occupation is an intangible factor that nevertheless has a great deal to do with marital happiness. A man is more likely to work out a happy marriage when he is engaged in work that is approved and respected by the community. If the man is a gravedigger or bill collector or dogcatcher the wife, and particularly the children, may be sensitive about the lack of prestige involved. If such a marriage is to succeed, the wife must realize that her man is performing an essential function in the community. Further, she should realize that if such a family seems to live happily together, if they are active in church and community affairs and lead respected lives, they will be accepted for what they are and not for what the man’s occupation happens to be. One of the happiest, most respected men we know is the garbage collector in a New England town.
We repeat, the seven types of men we have just discussed are not necessarily to be shunned as mates. But girls marrying them should realize the problems that may be involved.
Chapter XVII
The Veteran as a Mate
Most of the marriages from now until 1955 will involve veterans of World War II. It is probable that at least eight million veterans will marry by then. During these years our marriage rate is expected to be the highest in our history.
For this reason, if for no other, it is pointless to make any special problem of the veteran, as so many people are trying to do. It is true that war changes men, but it also changes the girls who stayed at home—and for that matter the men who happened to stay at home. There is no need to discuss the question, “Should a girl marry a veteran?” because most girls will marry veterans anyhow, and there is no reason why they should hesitate.
But what we will do now is point out some of the changes that occurred while the man was away so that the veteran and the girl can understand each other better.
In many ways the veteran is a better prospective mate than when he went away. He may have acquired some good habits in the Army: getting up on time, taking care of personal belongings, orderliness. His horizon may have broadened and he may have learned to be more tolerant. He probably has matured beyond his chronological age. He has learned a great deal about loyalty to a cause, perseverance and patience, all of which will help make him a better mate. Often he has achieved a needed emotional independence from home and mother. He has become practical and very realistic.
Most important of all, perhaps, he learned while away to appreciate the value of marriage and the home. He yearns more than anything to settle down in some quiet place with a nice girl and raise a family. He has had enough running around and being at loose ends.
The veteran, of course, has lost and gained certain skills, he may seem crude and he may appear to have lower ideals and standards. He worries a great deal about the future, is somewhat unsure of himself in some civilian situations. Ernie Pyle the late, famed war correspondent pointed out some of these changes when he wrote:
Our men can’t make the change from normal civilians into warriors and remain the same people. Even if they were away from you under normal circumstances ... they would not come home just as you knew them.... They are bound to be different people from those you sent away.... They are rougher.... Killing is a rough business.... Language has changed from mere profanity to obscenity.... They miss women.... They expressed longings.... Their whole conduct show their need for female companionship.... Money value means nothing to them.... A man learns to get what he needs by “requisitioning.” It isn’t stealing, it’s the only way to acquire certain things.... War puts old virtues in a changed light. We shall have to relearn a simple fundamental or two when things get back to normal.
The standards of fighting men are those of men living without women, of men who have lost many of the moral values of our normal living. If they hadn’t lost them they wouldn’t have been good killers. Some of them have feelings of guilt and remorse from cheap women they have known. Others are shy and withdrawn because they have had long periods of isolation away from women.
As a result of the war many veterans have open or subconscious conflicts involving weakened morals, shattered values, duties to others, “debt” the government owes them, opportunities they have missed, war injuries or handicaps they incurred. They are bothered about whether to return to school ... whether to go back to the “old” sweetheart ... whether to remain in the Army. Some have feelings of inferiority as they try to make their way into a strange world or return to an almost forgotten world. In the Army or Navy they learned to let others take the responsibilities and the initiative. They made fun of the “eager beavers” and learned to regard “goldbricking” (evading hard work) as a virtue. But in civilian life, ambition and hard work are two of the great virtues.
In addition to all these issues to worry them, they face the job of deciding what to do. In one survey of soldiers, about seven per cent said they would return to school on a full-time schedule with or without government aid. Another twenty-eight per cent said they would go back to school if government aid was provided. That makes thirty-five per cent who hope to go to school. (But many of them probably won’t.) Most of these hoping to return were under twenty-five. About half of all the men hoped to return to their old job or to a new job in their same community.
The average veteran has four alternatives of action: He can go back to school; he can go back to his old or a similar job; he can go into a job for the first time; he can select a new field of work. Most of them want a vacation, a wife, and a job, though not necessarily in that order.
Some of the men will have feelings of insecurity. Some of them have never worked before. They are asking themselves: Can I get a job? Will my old job be waiting for me? (This particularly disturbs men who are being released relatively late.) Is my girl going to marry me? Was she loyal to me while I was gone?
If you are a girl considering the possibility of marrying a veteran, here are thoughts you might keep in mind.
—You must assume he is a normal person and treat him like one. Even if he doesn’t seem to be he should make the adjustment to civilian life within a few months.
—Don’t confess any “misdeeds” of your own—they will only upset him and add nothing either to the present adjustment or future happiness.
—Talk out your problem, your futures, carefully and in detail. This will help both of you be sure of the responsibilities you face in marriage and will cause both of you to plan systematically and not haphazardly about the future.
—If you agree to marry, go ahead and be married in church with a conventional ceremony with all the trimmings. Unless he is terribly opposed, don’t be contented with less than a church or home wedding with the friends and families of both present. Studies have shown that marriages that took place within the sanctity of the church tend to be happier than those that do not.
—In dealing with him during the first few weeks don’t tell him what to do or where to go. Make him feel relaxed, encourage him to wait on you, make him feel useful.
If you are a returning veteran you should accept the fact that you are going to find your girls different from when you left. And it won’t be all aging. They have been working in greater numbers than ever before and on the surface are more independent. In spite of this, remember that girls want to be treated gently and considerately. They still love soft lights and sweet music, they want to hear your compliments, they want that tender good-night kiss if they like you, and that romantic conversational interplay.
You must not forget that you have been away a long time. You may find your feminine psychology rusty. Girls are still soft and sentimental, still wanting to be made love to, still wanting to marry and make homes and have your children. Don’t let the inhumanity of war make you cynical. Such an attitude would keep you from finding the mate with whom you can be happy.
Will you pick your mate or will she pick you? Because of the surplus of women over men now you can do the picking. You don’t have as much ground for wondering whether you will marry as the girls do. But will you pick your own mate? Probably not. It has been said: “A man rushes after a woman until she catches him.”
Actually, picking a mate nowadays is a mutual process; both of you pick each other. It is a complicated process and probably neither of you knows quite what is going on. Part of the time one of you may be more aware of what is going on than the other; part of the time neither of you is sure.
What kind of a mate should you look for? These things have been covered in detail in previous chapters. However here are a few thoughts that take on particular pertinence when applied to veterans. Ask yourself:
Will she make me a good wife? Can she cook, sew, run a home? Is she the sort of girl I would like to have as a mother of my children? Will she wear well? Don’t pick her just because she is glamorous because glamour and good looks are largely cosmetic processes anyway. Is she selfish or is she considerate of me and my well-being? What are her good traits? What are her poor traits?
Don’t marry a girl who has traits that are opposite of your own unless she is opposite only in good traits which you lack. For example, if your own parents were unhappily married, pick a girl whose parents were happily married. If you feel unsure of yourself, pick a reliant, confident girl. If you are quite irritable, be sure to get a mate who is definitely tranquil.
What about the men who have been physically or mentally hurt by the war? Should a girl shun a man who has a war injury?
In World War II, which lasted some forty-four months, casualties of one sort or another exceeded one million men, with nearly three hundred thousand lives lost and with fifteen thousand veterans losing an arm or leg or more members of his body.
To learn how girls would feel toward marrying injured men, the senior author asked five hundred girls whether they would marry veterans with any of thirty-three different types of war injuries. The injuries included such things as loss of speech, loss of two eyes, complete deafness, recurrent malaria, loss of hair and eyebrows due to burns, several fingers missing, injuries to head including replaced nose, ear, teeth and jaw. Many of the girls queried were engaged to servicemen.
It was interesting to note that older girls showed a greater willingness to marry injured men than the younger girls. This may be due to the fact that the older girls are more concerned about their chances of marrying. Also, engaged girls showed a greater willingness than unengaged girls. The reason for this may be that engaged girls know the capabilities of their fiancés and can see how their men could be successful at a job and marriage in spite of an injury.
Of the thirty-three injuries, only four were checked by the majority of engaged girls as serious enough to impel them to withdraw from their engagements. Those four, in order were:
- Impotence
- Loss of both arms in such a way that they can’t be replaced with artificial arms
- Mental unbalance requiring institutional confinement for several months or longer
- Loss of both legs so that they are not replaceable.
While, as you notice, these fiancées felt extremely reluctant to marry a man who had lost his sexual potency, only a small proportion (16%) would refuse to marry an ex-soldier who had become sterile. Inasmuch as most of the engaged girls would not marry a man who had become sexually impotent it is clearly evident that sexual activity is regarded in a far different light than having children. Most of the girls would marry if they could have sex even though there were no possibility of conceiving children.
When the unengaged girls were queried, eight injuries were listed by the majority, including the four mentioned by the engaged girls. The additional four were:
- Loss of speech
- Loss of one leg and one arm, when neither is replaceable
- General permanent bad health
- Mental instability that requires no institutionalizing.
It was interesting to note that neither group showed a majority opposing blindness. Also, note that these girls listed loss of limbs only where they were not replaceable. Most girls professed willingness to marry men if their lost limbs could be replaced by artificial ones. All of the girls seem to have been deeply impressed by the progress made in rehabilitating the injured. Many had seen the amazing results with their own eyes and so had lost their fears about marrying men with such injuries.
Probably seventy-five thousand returning veterans may have hearing impairments. But with hearing aids or lip-reading, most of these men can be fairly normal within a few months.
Even though a girl hesitates about marrying an impotent man, much of impotence is psychologically caused and if so is curable. Furthermore the newer sex hormones science has discovered are wonder workers.
Here are a couple of precautions that should be observed in marriages involving injured men:
—No girl should marry a veteran because of pity. It should be for love.
—No veteran should hesitate to marry just because he has a defect, providing the two love each other, one of them (preferably he) can make a living, and providing they have discussed the handicap and both understand its nature and limitations.
—They should give themselves a waiting period, just as any other two people who have been separated should do, for say six months before marrying.
—Remember that few people are one hundred per cent perfect physically. Under usual conditions, eighteen per cent of our working population has a definite physical defect or chronic disease. Of our war handicapped, it is believed that some eighty per cent can be placed, by careful selection of jobs, in work where they can be happy and just as productive in that particular job as they would be without the handicap. Another twelve or thirteen per cent will need rehabilitation before such placement can be made. Another five per cent will need extensive rehabilitation and even then will have to be placed in “sheltered” work.
What about the psychological casualties of war? Here we do have a real problem. Before the end of the war a third of the Army’s discharges were psychoneurotic cases of one form or another. But you should also remember that about one-sixth of the men rejected by the draft, the 4-F’s, were rejected for neuropsychiatric reasons. The fact is that close to one-fourth of all the single men in this country are maladjusted to some extent. This helps explain the terrific rise in the rate of divorce.
Psychoneurosis is a broad term covering “combat fatigue,” “war nerves,” ulcers and other psychosomatic disturbances. In World War I it was misleadingly referred to as “shell shock.” Don’t feel there is something lacking in a veteran who suffered a psychological breakdown because the facts show that unskilled “bad eggs” are less likely to break down than the men who had good records in clerical or skilled jobs in civilian life and were exemplary in their military conduct. Some of the factors producing breakdown in war service were long-continued tension, repeated expectancy of injury or death, terrifying experiences, loss of comrades in war from battle, excessive physical fatigue, insufficient sleep.
Perhaps it would help you to understand the psychoneurotic if we explained just how these breakdowns occur. Try to bear in mind that all of us have a breaking point, which varies from person to person. This breaking point is a “frustration climax” and is reached whenever the person has so many frustrations piled on him that he can no longer endure them. The ability to take it is frustration tolerance. Any one of us can break if the frustrations are intense enough and long continued. So when the soldier breaks, it simply means that his frustrations have been more than he can bear. It is nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to be hidden. In a war the soldier is constantly exposed to the threat of death, and never seeing his loved ones again. But in civilian life, death does not constantly threaten him and normally he is not so beset by frustrations.
Immediately after the 1918 Armistice was signed, thousands of soldiers who seemed to be neurotic, shellshocked, etc., recovered very quickly. Why? Because their lives were no longer threatened, they could return home and were relieved from the noise of battle and the emotional upheavals of seeing comrades shot down.
What does all this tell you? Simply this. When such a veteran comes home he may seem strange and nervous. He may be cynical about girls and disgusted with things in general. He may even break out in tears occasionally and will gripe a great deal. But he usually will return to normal soon. It may take a month, three months, even six months. If you are his girl just be patient. Don’t make him talk, don’t ask him for harrowing details of battle. Encourage him to get plenty to eat, sleep and rest. Don’t drag him around and show him off. Give him lots of love and affection. Keep him busy and occupied when he is in the mood. In short, be natural with him, but don’t pamper him too much or too long.
As for marriage, there is no reason why he shouldn’t marry. He will usually make a perfectly normal husband if he isn’t exposed to new, continued frustrations. If he is still unsettled certainly don’t marry yet because marriage, and the responsibilities marriage involves, will certainly not help him. The best procedure would be to wait at least six months and then marry—unless his doctor or psychologist advises against it.
Chapter XVIII
So You Agree to Marry: What Next?
We presume there are still young men who get down on their knees and make formal proposals but we aren’t personally acquainted with them. The average couple today goes about it more casually. In the course of a conversation they may discuss marriage and find that both like the idea.
Perhaps the old way was better. At least it was clear-cut. Nowadays a girl often cannot be quite sure whether she is engaged or not. The young man may talk good-naturedly about “When we get married” or may give her his wings or fraternity pin without exactly explaining what the symbol is to mean. Most girls tell us they have been engaged two or three times. Perhaps this vagueness is one reason why they fall in and out of engagements.
When is a couple engaged? According to our thinking, two people are not engaged until they definitely agree that they want to marry each other ... not until they inform their friends and if possible their respective parents that they intend to marry ... and not until the man gives the girl some symbol to display that will tell the world she is engaged and off the marriage market.
Four out of five men who become definitely engaged give their fiancées an engagement ring and that is probably most practical because a ring has been the one accepted, universal symbol of betrothal for more than twenty-five hundred years. Originally the symbolism was less subtle. The ring originated in the days of marriage by capture when the ankles or wrist of the girl were bound with sweetgrass. As the bindings became purely symbolic only the finger was tied up, with an engagement ring. If you decide on a diamond ring (and more than three-fourths of couples do) they range in price from a few dollars to many thousands of dollars. According to one of the women’s magazines, more than half the engaged girls get diamond rings costing about fifty dollars.
Whatever the symbol adopted, it should serve the purpose of taking the couple “out of circulation” and to provide exclusiveness for each other. That is one of the basic conditions of an engagement. Exceptions can be made if the man is away for a prolonged period, but as a rule there should be no extra-curricular dating.
Here are some of the purposes that an engagement should serve in addition to taking you out of circulation:
—Engagement provides a period of deepening love and affection during which there is an awakening of sexual feelings which will make the couple yearn for the full intimacy which marriage permits.
—It serves as a period of planning for the future during which the two plan when they will be married, the kind of wedding they will have, where they will honeymoon, the sort of housekeeping arrangement they will make, where they will live, etc.
—It is a period of personality adjustment, of welding the couple into a union.
—It is a period of exploring each other’s interests to find what activities exist that both enjoy and can share.
—It is a time when the wise couple prepares for marriage. The man gets a job, saves some money. The girl learns and perfects her homemaking skills in cooking, sewing, and house managing.
—It is a time to decide whether they want children and how many.
—It is a time when antagonistic habits are broken and new habits which will permit a smoother married adjustment are established.
—It is a time when differences are recognized about religion, about parents, and solved or compromised.
Because of all these functions, the engagement is a period that requires time.
The beginning of the war saw a sharp rise in “gangplank” or hasty war marriages. And the end of the war produced another sharp rise. Thousands of couples rushed into marriage a few days after the returning veterans got off the boat. We can appreciate the desire of some long-separated couples to marry immediately but if they do they are only adding to the inevitable toll of broken marriages that will result.
Hasty marriages get off to a bad start simply because the engagement period, which is the period of planning and preparation for marriage, is cut short.
In one study that was made, forty-seven per cent of the married couples who had known each other less than six months prior to marriage were poorly adjusted! Of those who had been acquainted for five years prior to marriage, less than fifteen per cent were poorly adjusted. Of those who had known each other less than three years, about thirty-three per cent were poorly adjusted.
Similarly, about fifty per cent of the couples had a poor adjustment if they had been engaged less than three months before marriage. In contrast, less than twenty per cent had poor adjustment when their engagement period ranged from nine months to two years. And less than ten per cent of those who had been engaged more than two years were poorly adjusted. In other words, the prospect of an unhappy marriage clearly decreases as the length of the engagement increases.
And incidentally the same study showed that couples were more happily married if both sets of parents approved the marriage. Parents in general are more likely to approve an orderly marriage than one contracted in haste.
Many hasty marriages are contracted secretly. These take two forms. First, the elopement, which is characterized by a secret wedding, but not by a secret marriage. In the second type the couple not only are married secretly but keep the marriage a secret. All the evidence indicates that either type is less likely to be happy even than the hasty marriage performed in public. By their very nature, secret weddings should be avoided by couples. They rarely take place unless the persons are not sure they are doing the right thing.
For couples that involve a returning veteran, it is especially important that they be engaged at least six months after the reunion before marrying. This time will permit you to become reacquainted, to make up your minds if you still want to marry each other, and to adjust to the changes you two have had during your separation. It provides the veteran time to decide what to do about his career. And it provides him with a chance to get back into the routine of civilian living before he takes on the responsibilities of marriage. In the Army or Navy much of his thinking was done for him. Now he must think for himself and take on responsibilities. The transition may be relatively short for him if he decides to go back to an old job; it may be quite long if he elects to continue his vocational preparation.
Sex is a problem during engagement, because it is accepted as a period for greater intimacy, and properly so. In courtship restrained caressing may be engaged in without disturbing public morals, but petting as we define it should wait upon engagement. Our customs permit greater intimacy during engagement than during courtship but frown upon complete intimacy before marriage. On the other hand, society relaxes chaperonage of engaged couples, permits them to keep later hours, to be together for longer periods of time, perhaps to take trips together. Under such circumstances restraint must be applied if an engaged couple is to refrain from intercourse. Fortunately a girl has more inhibitions and thus can apply restraint more readily. However, if she loves her fiancé deeply she is torn between two desires: whether to do or not do what she has been taught; or whether to do or not do what her loved one suggests. If she gives in to him, it is usually because of the tenderness of her affection rather than because she has great sexual desire. Each couple should decide what their limits will be and stick by them. Both should remember that many engagements never result in marriage.
While an engagement represents an honest declaration of intention by the two people that they intend to marry, engaged couples should feel that if there is any question in their mind about the continuance of the engagement each should feel free to call it quits. They should discuss their apprehensions frankly. It is far better not to go through with a marriage that may prove unsuited or unhappy. (However it is foolish, of course, to break an engagement over a quarrel.) This chance of breaking off is another reason for a long engagement. The authors feel that everything should be done to encourage couples to be sure of each other before marriage is contracted. If couples were trained more for marriage and went through a longer preparatory period, then the more poorly matched couples would become aware of the shoals ahead and we would have far fewer broken marriages in America!
Regardless of how badly it may hurt a mate or parents or friends, you should never marry a person against your better judgment because wedlock will only aggravate an unpleasant situation. Nor should you be deterred from fear that the mate will be so upset emotionally that he will commit a rash act. Such a fear in itself should be proof that the person is not emotionally stable and so probably would not make you a good spouse. (Incidentally, a rash act is exceedingly unlikely.)
One of the questions engaged people frequently ask marriage counselors is how much of a “past” should be revealed by one mate to the other. One general principle should be followed completely, namely, that whatever is to be revealed should be revealed before marriage and not afterward. A second principle is that lurid confessions of the past do not provide a good basis on which to begin a marriage. In most cases, we believe, it is wiser for the young couple not to tell each other things that may build resentment or distrust or may create hurt or may produce problems outweighing whatever might be gained through telling. Just because one becomes engaged is no reason why every skeleton must be rattled. The only thing that a couple should tell each other are things that would have a bearing on their future happiness in marriage. Such things as concealed physical defects, previous marriage, legal embarrassments, debts, etc., should be told because they will come out sooner or later anyhow. However, if you do feel impelled—perhaps through feelings of guilt—to reveal disagreeable aspects of your past, discuss it with some trusted confidant or physician beforehand to confirm the wisdom of doing so. And when you do make the revelation, do it casually and without emotion and without making a great fuss over it.
Engagement is a time of growing tolerance and trust and understanding. Frankness characterizes it and you and your mate should be realistic with each other in facing your problems. Your major problems deal primarily with the present and the future rather than with the past. One evidence that you are trying to solve them is the willingness with which you freely discuss them with each other, with your parents and with your trusted confidants.
Chapter XIX
Getting Ready for Married Intimacy
In the course of counseling, one occasionally encounters a couple whose marriage has not been attended by complete physical intimacy. In one such case the two people had been married two years. More astounding, neither of them was aware that complete physical intimacy is quite common among married couples! Both had been reared in extremely sheltered atmospheres. The boy was a minister’s son. The girl had been reared by maiden aunts. They were completely naïve about sexual phenomena and had no understanding of what was giving them the feelings of frustration from which they suffered.
How important is sex in marriage? Does it have much to do with the happiness one derives from marriage? Or is sex merely important in reproduction?
While sex may not be the most important factor in marriage, it frequently makes or breaks a marriage. And a satisfying adjustment on the level of physical love is closely associated with marital happiness. Probably the most important thing in making a marriage successful is the determination of both mates to make the marriage work. Companionship and the mutual working out of problems together are the fruits of happy marriages. But couples are rarely good companions if they have repressions or fears or maladjustments which thwart their achieving a satisfying unity on the physical level.
Some experts have estimated that during the first few years of marriage nearly half of marriage happiness depends on the sexual adjustment achieved. This does not seem unreasonable because sex provides the first rush of desire that launches the marriage and continues to integrate the couple and bring a sense of harmony to their union.
As the years pass couples achieve an increasingly satisfying adjustment and the union of their bodies at frequent intervals in climactic pleasure provides a bond between them. The experience also is important in reducing the tensions that develop in both mates during the course of their daily living. These tensions are of many kinds but they include the sexual tension which results from hormones being poured into the blood streams of both the man and woman. The exhilarating orgasms that come as a climax in successful coitus break these tensions and produce satisfying feelings of relaxation and serenity.
One of the misfortunes of modern marriage is that so many married couples are not able to achieve a satisfactory sexual adjustment. Studies have shown that at least a third of all wives rarely experience orgasm and at least half of all wives do not experience it with any great regularity. The major reasons for their failure are:
—Most wives are more inhibited and repressed than their husbands.
—Most young wives have less actual sex drive than their husbands.
—The husbands in too many cases are inconsiderate of the wife and are primarily concerned in achieving satisfaction for themselves.
Too often sex—instead of being a bond—becomes a quarreling point between the couple. Both are resentful. Such feelings tend to increase tension rather than reduce it.
Because sex is so vital to the happiness of a marriage, we suggest that both you and your mate read a good book on sexual adjustment (see [bibliography]) so that you will know what to expect and won’t be frightened by the thought of it.
The girl (and perhaps the man) can learn a great deal by taking up the matter at length when she goes for a premarital physical examination a week or so before the wedding. She can ask the physician questions about sexual matters and clear up any points that trouble her. He can describe for her the sensations she can expect to experience during the physical intimacy. At the time of the examination she can also discuss any fears she has of immediate pregnancy before their marriage has a chance to become stabilized. He may suggest contraceptive devices or techniques to eliminate that possibility and may take her pelvic measures to see if the pelvis is too narrow for normal childbirth. Most engaged couples want to know about contraception, and the average young doctors and nearly all gynecologists are well equipped to give such information.
Couples should be careful to thresh out this matter of contraception before marriage because religion sometimes causes them to have strong—and dangerous—differences of opinion about it. The problem of whether to have or not to have children, and when to have children, should definitely not be left to chance. Most religious leaders are now in agreement on that. For those couples whose religion forbids contraceptive devices, the rhythm method can be followed, although this method is not recommended for couples whose religion permits them to use other methods.
Another thing the bride-to-be may discuss with the doctor is her hymen, which is the traditional mark of a virgin since it stretches across the entrance to her vagina. (Incidentally, the absence of the hymen as an obstacle is no evidence of non-virginity since it can be disrupted in childhood without the girl’s knowledge or through medical examinations.) If it is so thick that discomfort may be experienced during first intercourse or if it prevents intercourse entirely, the doctor may prescribe a simple treatment.
All couples entering marriage should understand that intercourse is not something people do by instinct but is a learned procedure and that it takes about three to six months for the typical couple to work out a thoroughly satisfying adjustment. Many brides have all sorts of baseless fears that must be dispelled.
There are three distinct phases to a sexual experience between a man and woman and many of the difficulties arise because the man slights phases one and three.
The first phase is that of arousal. The husband and wife caress each other and become physically and psychologically ready for a merging of their bodies. This first phase should not be hurried. It is especially important that the husband remember this because a woman’s passion arouses much more slowly than a man’s, particularly during the first few years of married life. By allowing plenty of time for the woman, the couple can help equalize their differences in sex drive. The presence of erect nipples is an indication that the woman is becoming aroused and may be receptive to further advances.
Phase two is the actual coitus. In the early days of marriage this should be engaged in gently. Later both may be able to enjoy the tumultuous vigor of unrestrained physical intimacy. The husband should not forget during intercourse to tell his wife how much he loves her, how wonderful he thinks she is, how much delight she is bringing him. Nor should the wife feel hesitant or bashful about doing likewise. If either can make suggestions to the other that will lead to greater enjoyment, both should feel free to do so. It is only by loving frankness and unashamed coöperation that husband and wife are able to achieve the beautiful harmony and the exquisite pleasure that only a satisfying sexual adjustment can bring them.
In many cases (unfortunately) the husband, because of strain and fatigue, will arrive at his orgasm almost immediately. The average couple, after some experience, find that actual intercourse usually lasts about five to ten minutes. Some wives require ten minutes or fifteen minutes before they are able to achieve orgasm. Some men, perhaps one in seven, are unable to hold back ejaculation for more than two or three minutes. All couples can bring their orgasms closer to each other if they will try to accommodate themselves to each other. The ideal is for both man and wife to have orgasm simultaneously.
Orgasm for a man comes with the flooding or ejaculation of seminal fluid. For the woman, orgasm is marked by the sudden relaxation of the muscles in her genital region. It is accompanied by a feeling of great tension reduction as well as great pleasure.
Now we come to phase three, which should not be slighted. It is a sort of postlude, an after the storm. The average wife derives exquisite pleasure from feeling herself and her husband relaxing. Further, in this phase the wife wants to be held closely by her husband and to be told that he loves her. She wants to be made to feel that he loves her for what she is, all the qualities that she has, all the traits that she possesses, and not alone for the sexual thrill that she has just given him. We might give the husband a practical suggestion at this point by telling him this. If his wife is slow in reaching an orgasm he can help her to reach orgasm more rapidly by making this postlude just as delightful for her as possible by being tender and romantic. Without realizing what is happening she will strive to achieve orgasm for the pleasure she derives from his deep and sincere appreciation that comes afterward.
Most young wives do not have an orgasm in the early days of marriage and so should not be distressed if they do not experience it on the wedding night. In Terman’s study of several hundred wives, less than twenty-five per cent stated they had orgasm at first intercourse. Another twenty-five per cent said they experienced it within a few days or weeks. Another twenty-five per cent roughly stated that they experienced it sometime between the first month of marriage and the twelfth month. And the remaining wives said they had either never experienced it or did not experience it until one or more years after marriage.
In scoring these same women on their marriage happiness, Terman found that those women who did not experience orgasm within the first year were significantly less happy in marriage than those who had been able to achieve it within the first year. More than half of the happiest husbands and wives seemed to be those in marriages where the wife had orgasm within the first few months of marriage.
It should be remembered however that the presence or absence of orgasm is not necessarily a criterion of marriage happiness or unhappiness. While absence of it is clearly an obstacle for many couples it is not a major cause of unhappiness in marriage, providing that it does occur within the first year. The happiest couples seem to be those where there is complete or fairly complete tension reduction experienced in intercourse whether an orgasm occurs or not.
What are the obstacles to happiness as far as sex is concerned? Terman found that many unhappy husbands complained most frequently about such things as these:
- Wife shows too little enthusiasm.
- Wife can not regularly reach an orgasm or is slow in reaching it.
- Wife desires intercourse too rarely.
- Wife not physiologically ready for intercourse.
- Wife has too little regard for the husband’s satisfaction.
- Wife does not express enough tenderness and consideration.
It was found that unhappy wives complained about such things as these:
- Husband has orgasm too quickly.
- Husband desires intercourse too frequently (or too rarely).
- Husband wants to go to sleep or get up too soon after the climax.
- Husband shows too little enthusiasm.
- Husband does not caress affectionately during the preliminary phase.
- Husband expresses too little tenderness.
If you wonder about the importance of physical love in marriage you might remember that very few husbands and wives are unfaithful to each other if their passions are satisfied and if mates are considerate of each other’s needs. The Marriage Counseling Service at Penn State has not found a single case of separation or divorce among couples who have achieved and maintained sexual harmony since the early weeks of their marriage.
Chapter XX
Getting Off to a Good Start
Marriage is a plunge, no matter how carefully it is planned. The man takes on the responsibility of supporting someone besides himself for the rest of his life. The girl gives up her name, her independence of action, and usually her career. Both mates must adjust themselves to an entirely new existence.
The pattern of wedded relationship that will persist for the rest of your married life usually sets during the first few months. Every day you will take first steps. And those steps are important. You start living together, planning together and sleeping together. At a hundred points you can make missteps that will leave scars on your relationship long after the original incidents are forgotten. That’s why the first few months are so important.
For a girl, the wedding day will undoubtedly be the biggest day she will experience in her life. Because of this the groom should hesitate before he discourages a church wedding or suggests that they be married by some roadside justice of the peace. While being married in the church is not necessary for marriage happiness, it has been found that those couples who are serious-minded are more likely to achieve happiness if their wedding is under the auspices of the church. Then it is planned, it is dignified, and the vows—which seem to take on added meaning in a church—are uttered before friends and relatives.
The bride should have the privilege of setting the date of the wedding. In doing this she should try to set the date so that it will follow a few days after the menstrual period has ended. She does that not only because of anticipated physical intimacies, but because the menstrual period frequently makes a girl irritable and depressed—hardly the best mood for a honeymoon.
In planning the wedding and the honeymoon it is important to avoid all situations that might produce tension and worry, and especially the feeling of “hurrying somewhere.”
If you can manage a honeymoon, take it by all means. It doesn’t need to involve a long trip or staying at an expensive resort. Here are some suggestions on the site of the honeymoon that may be helpful:
It should not be spent with friends or relatives.
It should be spent at a place where the couple is not well known.
It is better to spend it in the country or a small town rather than in a bustling metropolis.
It should be spent where there will be no obligations to attend social functions or to meet definite schedules.
It should be spent where both will be completely free of outside responsibilities, such as cooking their own food so there will be no limit on the time they can be together.
It should be spent where there are things to do and activities to enjoy whenever they feel in the mood for such diversions.
The first adjustment faced by the typical married couple is sexual, for the typical couple engages in sexual intercourse on that first night. If they have discussed their attitudes on sex before the wedding they have paved the way. Nevertheless many couples feel self-conscious on their honeymoon night. Perhaps they would be even more self-conscious if they realized that marriage happiness during their first few years will depend a great deal on achieving a good sexual adjustment.
Often a husband can make that first night easier for a wife if he finds an errand to perform while his bride is preparing to retire. He may even suggest to her that he will be gone for fifteen or twenty minutes, which will give her a chance to be in bed when he returns. However if she seems eager for him to remain he should do so because she may be a little fearful of being left alone. In any case it is important that both respect each other’s privacy especially carefully during the first few weeks. Marriage, as we say, is an abrupt step and each should strive to ease the impact of the transition as much as possible.
If the new husband is ever romantic it should be now! The bride is probably a bit nervous about what is to follow and this can be largely dissipated if the groom is gallant and endearing and considerate. This is not only the decent thing to do but is sound psychology. It will build up in her a feeling of pride in him and a desire to share with him everything possible.
Actual intercourse should not be launched on that first night if the passions of both are not genuinely aroused. It is important that both the bride and groom be completely agreeable before the first intimacy is experienced. If the bride remains apprehensive about it they should content themselves with milder intimacies and take up the matter another night. They should not feel there is some hard-and-fast tradition that they must have an experience that first night.
If the bride is a virgin and still possesses the impediment of one, both should understand that some pain will be experienced during the first intercourse and neither may achieve a climax.
Further, both should understand that sexual adjustment is learned, not inherited. The initial learning may be somewhat awkward and not too satisfying. It’s not a natural, spontaneous thing, contrary to the average young person’s notions. It is this misconception that frightens many brides into frigidity when they find intimacy doesn’t come naturally to them immediately. Many feel that there must be something wrong with themselves when they don’t enjoy it from the start.
But if they are patient and gentle with each other within a few weeks they should sense the deep thrills that lie in store for them. And within six months at most, they should have achieved a grand and satisfying relationship.
If they are to achieve anything beyond animalistic excitement, the aim of both the man and girl should be not to receive satisfaction but to give satisfaction. It is this considerateness that makes the act sublime and enriching. It welds them into a strong union.
As the honeymoon progresses, something usually happens toward the end that jolts the couple back to reality. For the first time, perhaps unconsciously, the groom starts acting like a husband or the bride like a wife. Usually it is the groom. Perhaps he forgets to kiss his bride when he leaves her for a few hours. Perhaps she catches him thinking of something else while she is confiding her love. Or perhaps he just refuses to get up and look at the gorgeous sunrise that is thrilling her.
This little “baptism” comes sooner or later and brides should prepare themselves for it. It signifies that the honeymoon is just about over and that they are returning to the day-to-day job of living together as two human beings. The bride may feel let down or heartsick. She may even cry a little or flare up and upbraid him. Or worse she may retreat into her shell. If she fails to handle the incident calmly and retain her sense of proportion she may develop an attitude that will get them off to a bad start.
As they get down to the day-to-day job of adjusting themselves to married life the wife will find that the major burden of the adjusting falls on her. That is because the woman normally must rearrange her life, upon marriage, more than the man, despite the fact that they are partners. For example:
He stays in the same community whereas she often must leave hers, and her friends, to live with him.
He keeps his name whereas she drops hers to take his, with a “Mrs.” in front of it.
He keeps his job whereas she usually quits hers to learn an entirely new occupation—homemaking.
He continues to make his own money whereas she becomes dependent upon him even for spending money.
He lives the role of husband an hour in the morning and a few hours in the evening whereas she spends fifteen hours a day functioning as a wife.
He continues spending the greatest part of his energy trying to please his boss, whereas she starts devoting her energy to winning her husband’s approval—approval for the way she cooks, dresses, runs the home, takes care of the children, if they have them. Normally the wife spends at least eighty per cent of the husband’s income on such things as these and naturally is anxious to convince him she is using his money wisely.
What adjustments must two people make in their attitude toward each other in order to live together happily?
If you were to accept the word of certain newspaper “experts” on love and marriage, you might get the impression that all the new husband need do to make his wife happy is not to smoke in bed, to pick up his own clothes, and to wash off the bathtub ring. Likewise it would seem that all the new wife has to do is remove her lipstick before retiring and avoid talking to him before he has had his breakfast.
Marriage would be simple if those sorts of things were the essentials of marriage adjustment. Actually the essentials are much more basic.
For two people to live together successfully as husband and wife they must be able to understand each other as only true companions can.
They must recognize the needs of each other and be willing to coöperate to satisfy them. Perhaps the girl is easily upset emotionally and needs her husband’s calm disposition to steady her. Or perhaps he has feelings of inferiority which she can offset by building up his ego.
And they must be able to face the facts when differences arise (as over money), and be able to work out amicable solutions together. Mates who haven’t learned to compromise differences face a stormy future.
If you want your mate to be eager to please you instead of ignoring or defying you, learn to condition him by rewarding him with praise and caresses. When the husband does something that displeases a wife she must never reward him. Likewise, for example, if the wife wants a new dress which is too expensive and the husband tries to make it clear to her that he cannot afford it, and she has a temper tantrum, he should not give in and buy the dress. In this case, the husband would reward her temper tantrum.
Let this happen two or three times and thereafter she will use a tantrum to get the things she wants from him. She knows he hates such scenes and will give in. It will be much better psychologically if the much-desired dress can be given to her as a reward for something nice she has done.
While a husband or wife wants to feel that things are done out of love and for love only, the fact remains that love continues only if it is nourished. If a husband snarls at his wife, never gives her a kind word, never rewards her and is always condemning or punishing her, the day will come when she will absolutely despise him.
There is such a thing as deathless love, but it exists only when it has a firm foundation of considerateness between the two.
Another thing newly-weds should learn is the importance of tension reduction. The husband may come home from the office and lash out at the wife because supper is a little late. What has happened, probably, is that he had some disagreeable experience at his work but had to keep his temper under check there. He comes home seething and explodes at the first provocation. The young wife may retreat to her room crying unless she senses the real reason for his anger. Instead she should recognize that he is tied up in nervous knots, take his outburst philosophically and try to reduce the tension by caressing him, by talking cheerfully and complimenting him on something nice or laudable he has done.
By so doing, she brings pleasantness after unpleasantness and thus encourages him to bring his troubles to her rather than to his male cronies or to some other woman.
Married couples should also understand the importance of climactic sexual relations as a means of reducing tension.
Another psychological habit that should be helpful to newly-weds is the use of indirect methods to get what they want. You will have a happier, more loyal mate if you can get him to do things you want by making suggestions rather than demands. If the lawn needs mowing just mention how ragged the grass is getting. Usually he will then mow it on his own initiative.
On the practical side, it is very helpful if the two can work out some plan for handling the income during the early weeks of marriage so that they can see just where the money goes. A simplified but formal budget is helpful here.
Further, it is vital that the wife quickly acquire skill in managing the home so that the husband will be initiated pleasantly into the role of being a home-body. A messy home frequently produces irritations which disrupt cordial relations between the two mates.
The new wife should plan her housework so that the tasks fit into a pattern and are taken care of in order and at specific times. For example, Monday may be “wash day”; Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday may be “shopping days”; Wednesday may be “ironing day”; Saturday morning may be baking day. This really amounts to a budget of her time and her work.
If they are to five happily ever after it is important that the wife know her husband’s food likes and dislikes. The importance of food to marriage success is frequently misunderstood by newly-weds, and highly underrated. A large portion of the husbands who take their troubles to the Penn State marriage clinic disclose sooner or later that their wives are poor cooks or serve them late, slapped-together meals.
When a husband comes home tired and harassed from his day’s work, nothing will restore him to a genial mood as much as his favorite dishes of food, expertly prepared and served soon after he arrives.
During the first few weeks of married life the wife should make an effort to learn something about her husband’s food likes and dislikes. Some of this should already have been gathered by observation during courtship and the honeymoon by noting the foods that he chose in a restaurant.
Simply knowing the husband’s favorite dishes is not enough. The new husband may not throw the first batch of burned biscuits at his wife, but if the next batch is burned too he is apt at least to throw some caustic comments.
Soon after the honeymoon there will come a time when one or both of the mates may no longer be satisfied just to be with each other. They will become more independent of each other unless during the first few months of marriage they have explored each other’s interests and found things they can do together.
If he is to become anything more than the provider and she anything more than the housekeeper, they must establish a sound basis for companionship. How can this be done? The essentials of human companionship are pretty universal for any two people whether they are mates or just close friends. Comrades most frequently have these things in common:
They enjoy talking to each other. Mates should not feel they have completely succeeded as partners until each regards the other as the one person he or she can unburden himself to about anything that is on his mind. Each can help develop a strong feeling of “conversational companionship” in their union by being a ready and sympathetic listener to the thoughts that are uppermost in the other’s mind. Both should realize that a woman’s interests naturally are different from a man’s. After their own immediate preoccupations of the day, a woman’s interests tend more toward clothes, decorations and amusements whereas the man is more interested in money, world affairs and sports. A good middle ground is their mutual interests and hobbies and the activities of their mutual acquaintances.
Companions enjoy doing things together. One of the first things newly-weds should investigate, if they haven’t already, are the things they can do peaceably and enjoyably together. Perhaps both get a great deal of pleasure from listening to early jazz recordings, or skiing, or merely playing chess or being together every night and saying very little.
Visiting friends can be fun where the two husbands are congenial and the two wives are fond of each other. One of the sad things about marriage is that a bride’s best friend marries a man whom her husband can’t stand; or the man’s old roommate marries a flighty, affected girl the wife can’t stand. Such antagonisms should be sensed and the bride and groom should in such cases try to get together with their old friends on an individual rather than a family basis.
Companions respect each other’s opinions and abilities. The shrewd wife keeps up with the world so that her husband will respect her as an individual in her own right. Wives that become completely dependent on their husbands, and cling to them because they have no other interest, frequently lose the respect of their husband.
It helps if they are seeking a common goal. One of the very best ways there is for a couple to develop a strong basis for companionship is to have common aspirations which both believe in and talk about enthusiastically.
This means sharing in a long-range project. They map their plans together and carry them through. They share triumphs and disappointments. They may build or remodel a home for themselves. In the process of planning, waiting and dreaming together they become comrades for life.
While it may be argued that building or buying a home is more expensive in the long run than renting, nothing gives a couple a greater feeling of solidarity than home ownership, especially when they plan together in building, remodeling or furnishing it.
Even saving money can be a common goal that will develop companionship, especially if the couple are saving the money for something they both want badly such as a car or a long-dreamed-of vacation trip. In general a young couple earning between eighteen hundred and three thousand dollars a year can well aim to save at least five per cent and better still ten per cent of the income. If they strive for a percentage much higher than that they may find it entails too great a denial.
Similarly the goal of a couple may be to raise a large happy family. They plan the arrival of their children and, working as a team, guide the growth and development of each child.