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.