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.
