Guidance for Marriage and Family Life

GUIDANCE in preparing for and working through the adjustments required, in our culture, by marriage and family life is sought increasingly today by both young and old from professionals in whom they have confidence. Observations of family instability and unhappiness in marriage, plus interior fear and frustration, increasingly compel young people embarking upon marriage to arm themselves against trouble, and married couples in difficulty to seek help before they are overwhelmed. In the social sciences, rapidly enlarging funds of knowledge covering various aspects of family life appear to be serving both as a response to man's bewilderment and at the same time as one of its causes. Progressive specialization within the professions, and among the laity the growth of the habit of reliance upon specialists also stimulate the seeking and the giving of guidance for marriage and family life. The practice of such life guidance today is not limited to this country. In Europe many physicians and birthcontrol clinics are reported to be giving sex hygiene and marriage relationship advice. In Germany alone, two hundred marriage advice stations are listed, most of which serve as reference bureaus from which clients are sent to physicians, birth-control clinics, and welfare offices. In England, one birthcontrol clinic specially organized for this purpose has experimented over several years with premarital examinations and sex education procedures. Methods there developed are now being introduced into other birthcontrol clinics. The publication of a handbook on marriage for the use of advisers of young people has recently been announced by the British Social Hygiene Council. In this country, following national patterns, marriage and family life guidance is both more highly organized and more closely integrated into the routine services of the professions. This study is concerned with marriage and family life guidance as it is now being practiced by an increasing number of individuals and groups within the professions of social work, religion, medicine, law, and education. It makes no attempt to consider the marriage and family life guidance work of such trained professionals as publichealth nurses, social-hygiene workers, camp directors, or community and recreation leaders; or of a number of free lancers in this field, not members of any professional group; or of such popular newspaper columnists as Dorothy Dix and Beatrice Fairfax; or of commercial marriage guidance bureaus whose methods of securing and holding clients are those commonly associated with rackets. The writer hopes that students of social trends and social

Family life · Family medicine · Habit · Political science · Premarital sex · Sexual behavior · Sociology · Welfare · Gender Studies · Health and Medical Studies · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Social and Demographic Issues in Germany · Social Psychology

• The Profession of Marriage Counseling as Viewed by Members of Four Allied Professions

  Richard K Kerckhoff•Marriage and Family Living•1953

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