The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book | Page 6

men and young women before they marry the assurance that they need. This is the premarital examination so popular among college people about to be married and becoming more and more a part of their routine of matrimonial preparation.
The young man and young woman, and especially the latter, either together or separately go to a physician who is interested in presenting the sex problems of marriage and is familiar with the technique of the premarital examination and can give young people a clear understanding of the meaning of marital adjustment. This examination includes finding out whether there are any structural or nervous obstacles to marital happiness, the giving of specific information regarding any worry, doubt, or ignorance felt by the person being examined, the giving of counsel that will help make successful adjustment easier to achieve, and, if this is requested, the giving of sound birth-control instruction.
The premarriage examination does so much to lessen the tension before marriage and to prevent temporary discouragements or ungrounded fears after marriage that it is no wonder that it has been accepted rapidly by young people who have come to know its value. Soon it will become a commonplace preparedness sought by all thoughtful, sincere young people who are about to marry. It is best obtained at least two weeks before the wedding. Since there are sometimes mild physical conditions that need treatment and that can be cleared up if there is sufficient time, many doctors prefer that the examination be made at least a month before the marriage. It is true that not every physician is prepared to give this assistance, but the number of those who can is rapidly growing as doctors become conscious of their responsibility for this new type of preparation for marriage.
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Generally a most useful part of this service is the opportunity it gives the doctor and the patient to talk together frankly and clearly about sex adjustment so as to take away the emotional handicaps that are the chief cause of maladjustment. These difficulties, when they are deeply rooted, and especially when they are unrecognized, play havoc in marital adjustment. Most often they are the result of some sort of suggestion or happening far back in the earliest days of childhood that led to fear, shame, or guilt, the three chief enemies of happy sex life in marriage.
The mere opportunity to talk over anything related to sex adjustment about which they are anxious brings to many young people a wonderful relief. The best way to get the full value of this service is to read first, as young people are so anxious to do, some sensible, honest, and reliable book that at least in part treats the problems of sex adjustment in marriage, and then to gather up the questions that are personally troublesome or that come because something is not quite clear and take them to the physician at the time of the premarital examination.
Young people should realize also that beyond the value of this examination in itself, it is helpful in that it encourages an intelligent attitude toward all later problems that may arise in marriage. It emphasizes the fact that the best way of dealing with any difficulty is to face it frankly, try to understand it, and then seek the best possible help.
Young people are so conscious of the help they need for the carrying on of their marriage and family career that in every part of the United States we have petitions from students asking college administrators for courses in preparation for marriage. But if every college were giving this instruction, we could not expect that it would reach all American youth. Other institutions and organizations must carry on in the same way, so that other groups than college young people may get their chance to have a modern entrance into marriage. The need of emotional preparedness for marriage must be stressed. The opportunity to start marriage right by bringing the resources of experience and of science should be the birthright of all American youth. These young people seek specific, practical information that will give them insight. They are eager to keep to the pathway leading not only to a satisfying marriage but to a marriage whose meaning goes forward along with our advancing civilization.

Dr. James L. McConaughy
CHAPTER TWO
Now That You Are Engaged
"Love is blind," says the adage. "Love should be open-eyed and wise," say the modern engaged couple.
A successful marriage depends upon two factors--emotions and brains; no marriage succeeds unless these are combined. "Falling in love" is essential, but one can fall out of love as well. Falling in love is the business of the emotions; staying there, holding your lover's affection, requires brains.
A lifetime of happy intimacy between two individuals as different as a young man and