The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book | Page 2

this was the school course of one of their monastic orders."
HERBERT SPENCER
This quotation from the pen of Herbert Spencer arrested our attention this winter when we were reading a number of books dealing with various epoch-making periods in the development of educational method and theory.
We closed the book and pondered over the inferences made by this leader and we began to speculate on what an antiquarian of the present period might say of our textbooks, our curricula, and our examination papers. We hope in his search that it might be his good fortune to unearth the syllabi of some of our courses on Education for Marriage and Family Life, some of the worthwhile literature which is being written on the subject, even perhaps the Good Housekeeping Marriage Book. If these happened to be the only remaining record of the period, we might fancy him concluding, "Ah, what an enlightened people there must have been in the twentieth century. I perceive here preparation for real life problems. This must have been a school course for all the Youth of that generation."
This volume represents a definite step in the advancement of this ideal.
We wish to express to Dr. William F. Bigelow, former Editor of Good Housekeeping, our sincere appreciation for the kindly way in which he received the idea of publishing these valuable articles in permanent form and his readiness to help in every way possible in carrying this idea through to completion.
To each author we wish to express our gratitude for the important contribution he has made, not only in giving new interpretation and new meaning to the institution of marriage, but also for rendering valuable assistance in the solution of many of the problems which confront the Youth of today as they approach this most challenging, most demanding, most satisfying and most rewarding of Life's experiences.
H. J. B.

Table of Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
Introduction--Dr. William F. Bigelow v
Foreword--Helen Judy Bond vii
I. When He Comes A-Courting--Dr. Ernest R. Groves 1
II. Now That You Are Engaged--Dr. James L. McConaughy 13
III. Ought I to Marry?--Dr. Ellsworth Huntington 27
IV. Should Wives Work?--Eleanor Roosevelt 43
V. Learning to Live Together--Gladys Hoagland Groves 54
VI. Marriage Makes the Money Go--Elizabeth Bussing 66
VII. Children? Of Course!--Jessie Marshall, M. D 80
VIII. Detour Around Reno--Dr. Hornell Hart 97
IX. Sex Instruction in the Home--Frances Bruce Strain 111
X. Religion in the Home--William Lyon Phelps 126
XI. It Pays to be Happily Married--Stanley G. Dickinson 140
XII. The Case for Monogamy--Dr. Ernest R. Groves and Gladys H. Groves 154

Dr. Ernest R. Groves
CHAPTER ONE
When He Comes A-Courting
Never were American young people more conscious of the challenge of marriage. They are not willing to accept the idea they have often heard expressed by their elders that marriage is a lottery. Neither do they believe that when they marry, they are given a blank check which permits them to draw from the bank of happiness as they please. Instead, even though they do not know how to go about it, they feel more and more that there is something they need to do to give themselves a fair chance of achieving success. A mere acquiescent waiting for Fate to come and lead them into paradise is contrary to their spirit. They seek as best they know how some way of finding their proper mate and some means of becoming equal to the testing that even the most reckless of them in their better moments realize that marriage is sure to bring.
This fact-facing of the marriage problem shows, more fully than anything else could, how much our youth today are expecting from marriage. Even those marriages that peter out and sink to a barren drabness started out with high hopes, and, although the victims may not know what brought about their mishap, they generally feel there was blundering somewhere and that this need not have happened.
Some young people grow cynical because they are so familiar with matrimonial failures; but most of them, even when they have noticed that many of their friends are unhappily married, become more determined to find, if they can, the secret of success. This leads them to ask for help, for insight, and to become fact-seeking with a frankness that seems to be their most marked characteristic. They have not been led into this attitude by any influence from their elders; they have acquired it from their own realistic approach to the marriage problem, which they clearly see has more emotional meaning than anything else that is likely to come to them through choice during their lifetime.
This request for help by young people in courtship, in engagement, in their first years of marriage, and when they plan to assume parenthood, cannot be met merely by words of caution. They do not welcome just being told what they should not do. What they seek is positive assistance. They do not