Mental health

As one investigator has pointed out, the trend toward "equality" be- tween the sexes in marriage, without any clear division of labor and authority-as there was when the wife was expected to be exclusively a homemaker and the husband a breadwinner-creates "great potential for conflict and disillusionment." Under any circumstances, "boys and girls are bound to differ in some areas of role expectation." How they are able to modify these expectations when the honeymoon aura is over, and human weaknesses are revealed, is vital to the marriage. In describing how the health of a marriage can deteriorate when there is insufficient, or no, adjustment, Dr. Richard H. Klemer, of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Washington, Seattle, says: "Al- though it may not be intentional or even conscious, one partner or the other begins to have something less than complete acceptance for his mate. If it begins with the wife, the husband soon senses this change of attitude and begins to protect himself, again perhaps only half-consciously. In turn, the wife protects herself against the husband's slightly changed attitude.

Then she protects herself further, and so forth. This goes on till the partners arrive at a state of complete hostility-or worse, apathy-in their efforts to protect their own ego against their mate's disillusionment." It is this that Dr. Klemer calls the "modern marriage disease." It can be prevented and checked when husband and wife realize that some expectations have to be modified and proceed to modify them as soon as possible. There is no marriage that does not require adjustment. Obviously, a mature person who acts on the basis of reason, not just emotion, will have much less trouble adjusting to marriage than a person who may be physically adult but is still a child emotionally.

Marriage can be an exacting business. It was once thought that personality development virtually stopped at the age of five; now it is recognized that personality development can continue all through life. If it does continue, a marriage is likely to be a happy one. After devoting many years to marriage studies at Harvard Medical School's Laboratory of Community Psychiatry, Dr. RhonaRapoport finds that getting married is exacting because it involves a II critical transition from one social role to another." It calls for changes in behavior and social relationships between the individuals and entails "personality change of a more or less enduring nature. II Dr. Rapoport goes on to note: "Major social-role relationships are inherently disrupting. As an individual's social role changes, his image of himself is affected, the way in which others expect him to behave changes.

And his legitimate expectations for the behavior of others alter. As all this goes on, the individual may grow and develop under the impact of the stimuli or he may find them so burdensome and distressing that his functioning is impaired, in extreme cases involving symptoms of emotional disturbance:" Everything does not have to be mutually satisfactory in a happy marriage. Studies reveal that in most marriages that are happy, several phases of marital life are not what the partners would have liked. If adaptability and the maturity that makes it possible are essential, so is motivation. With strong motivation, the desire to make a marriage work, adaptability may be furthered. The Harvard and other studies suggest that what happens in the engagement period before marriage often indicates how a marriage will go. Couples best able to adjust to each other during the engagement period have least trouble moving happily from the freedom of single life to the demands as well as opportunities of marriage and family life. This is a good reason for a fairly long, relaxed period of courtship.