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 want advice, but they want information and insight. They have become convinced that there are facts about marriage that people have learned through experience, especially through the searching of the scientists, and they ask that they be given the advantage of this knowledge.

These young men and women do not take kindly to a marriage program which merely lists the qualities that one ought to find in one's mate. Even from a very little courtship experience they come to realize that one does not desire to marry abstract virtues, however desirable, but a flesh-and-blood person whom one desperately wants. What they seek is a guidance which will keep them from wanting the kind of person they should not marry. They expect to fall in love, but hope to escape immature, untrustworthy emotions. They want to make a grown-up choice or at least to pick a mate in whose fellowship they can develop the character they know they need to achieve happiness.

First of all they ask for information that will help them make good use of their courtship opportunity. They rightly feel that if they blunder in this period, there is little hope of their making their goal later. They have grown suspicious of a strong feeling of attachment, because they have been forced to see in the experiences of many of their friends that this has not guaranteed later happiness. They expect to have sooner or later an overwhelming impulse to join their life to that of another human being, and they ask:

"How can I protect myself from giving my affection to the wrong person? How can I learn when it is safe to trust my own strong emotions? I know I shall be just as others are, unable to hold back, blind to the other's faults, but surely before this happens I can do something that will keep me from growing fond of a person whom I ought not to marry! People who study marriage and become familiar with its emotional demands must have learned some facts that offer guidance in choosing a life mate."

Indeed, there are such, and here are some that prove useful during courtship, the destiny-deciding period in most people's matrimonial career:

1. Don't let yourself fall in love with the first person who comes along; meet as many young people of the opposite sex as you can.

The young man or young woman should seek to know as many agreeable, companionable persons of the opposite sex as possible without the strain of attempting to establish a reputation for popularity. These acquaintances, as much as possible, should have a background essentially similar to one's own, and they should be sought as friends rather than as lovers. It is obvious that one's affection must turn to some one whom one knows, and before the awakening of strong feeling there should be as wide an experience—the man with women, and the woman with men—as possible. He or she who fails to go about with young people, as opportunity comes, loses the only way there is to gain the knowledge that is necessary later to make a wise choice of husband or wife.

2. Don't judge by party manners and dress; everyday life is different.

In this association with members of the opposite sex, the young man or woman should seek to know, in as many and as everyday situations as possible, those who prove attractive. The party and the dance need not be neglected. Anyone who proves interesting at such occasions must, however, also be known in other more usual and commonplace circumstances. The mere being with members of the opposite sex will not in itself bring insight. One must learn to observe the reactions, the attitudes, the emotional characteristics of anyone whom one likes. Effort must be made to explore the other's personality, not in a cold-blooded, analytical way, but naturally and yet with open eyes, so that there may be genuine understanding of the characteristics of those who seem to be good candidates for matrimony.

3. Study your own emotional reactions as you go along; your mate should bring out the best that is in you.

This association should also help the young man or woman to become better acquainted with himself or herself. Marriage happiness cannot be achieved merely by asking that the other give. There must also be one's own offering in the fellowship. Nothing helps clear up one's own motives, desires, and preferences so much as contact with others. We find ourselves liking some people better than others. We learn to understand ourselves through our own choices. This teaches us that self-acquaintance which measurably helps in choosing the right mate. It is particularly important that we see the effect that others have upon us. What we ourselves possess we are most apt to draw out from others. The kind of mate we need for happiness is one who stirs up the best in us, and not merely the most entertaining or the most physically stimulating of our acquaintances. Matrimony is not a short, hilarious excursion, but a serious lifetime undertaking.

Another thing we want to learn before we choose our mate is the wearing character of any courtship candidate.

4. Does he, or she, wear well? If you are bored now, think of what you may have to endure later.

Wearing qualities are not so easy to find out as some other things; but, if we are alert, we can notice whether a friend who has attracted us holds his own as we go about with him or there is a tendency on our part toward a letting down of interest. Many of those who lose matrimonial zest and merely have a tolerable relationship in marriage blunder at this point. Usually they have not thought of the need of finding out during courtship whether the friendship that started with promise keeps its pace; they have been unconscious of the drift toward a less meaningful relationship, or have assumed that that was an inevitable result of being together constantly. It is true that the emotions do somewhat settle themselves, but they do not become weaker because they are more stable and less violent in expression. Much association with the right sort of person in courtship should increase rather than decrease the emotional ties that hold the two young people together.

5. Will he, or she, grow with you—in mind and in character? If not, your own growth will make you unhappy.

Another of the more difficult tasks that must be assumed in a wise courtship program is discovering whether there are in the person one is beginning to like incentives toward growth. There is one certain thing in any marriage: it is impossible for those who enter such an alliance to remain stationary; either they grow in character or they lose ground. The mere possession of ambition is not evidence of the desire to grow up emotionally. One has to probe the ideals of the other person. The question is, "Does he or she have the character-vitality to develop emotional maturity?" If this is lacking, successful marriage is seldom achieved, and for one who has gained this trait to be tied to a spouse who cannot attain it is tragic for the well-matured person.

6. Will he, or she, put father or mother ahead of wife or husband? Look out for apron strings.

There is something that the psychiatrist warns us about that we cannot wisely forget in our courtships. We must free ourselves from entanglements in our emotional make-up that may have had their beginning in childhood, and we must especially avoid marrying anyone who has such liabilities and makes no effort to be rid of them. An example is father fixation or mother fixation. We all know from experience persons who cannot grow up from their childhood dependency, and they make very trying husbands or wives. They are easily spotted if one is only keen in noticing what takes place, because they are constantly showing their childishness, and we can be sure that they will continue both to reveal and to nurse their weakness throughout life in such a way as to be discouraging and irritating in marriage and parenthood relationships.

7. Can he, or she, "take it"? You know what they call it in the army.

Although there are many virtues that one would like to find in any candidate for matrimony, there is one that we must look for seriously; if it is absent, turn away from an alliance that is almost certain to fail. That is pluck. Marriage, like life itself, puts upon persons demands that can be met only by courage. The fair-weather type of person is certain to be disappointing in the critical, character-revealing experiences that are bound to arise in marriage and in parenthood. It is difficult not to grow bitter if one finds himself or herself married to a mate who does not have the pluck to meet the disappointments, the hardships, the testing of ideals, that must appear in every husband-wife relationship.

It would be much easier for young people, we often think, if courtship did not make its start at the same time that the young man or woman is feeling in full force the body changes, the nervous readjustments, and the impulses to escape childhood dependency that come with puberty. The fact is, however, that our type of courtship largely results from using the energy of this adolescent upheaval. There is a redirecting of the forces that mark the awakening of puberty and then start flowing through the entire personality. Courtship becomes a sublimation, as the scientist says, a reshaping of this energy so that later there may be a higher, more mature satisfaction of the desires that follow along with this influx of new vitality, this strange, unexpected interest in members of the other sex.

Undoubtedly modern youth face in this experience a greater ordeal than did their parents. This comes about from changes in our way of living and the effect they have had upon marriage, particularly upon our expectations when we enter matrimony. In times past the economic advantages of being married were so great and, as a rule, the struggle of life was so hard, that there was no opportunity to overload marriage with expectations and make its successes and its failures so exclusively the satisfying or denying of emotions.

Of course our tendency is to ask too much of marriage. We demand that it fulfill every purpose of the heart; thus some disappointment, once one enters upon the career of marriage, is inescapable. The young man and woman who have entered marriage expect to grasp much too soon the happiness which their emotions demand. The imagination has such a free range while romance runs at full tide that it would be strange indeed if the imagination did not go far beyond the possibilities of any human relationship.

This readjustment of expectation is what we mean by matrimonial maturity. The young person who refuses to play the game of marriage, just as soon as it appears that complete fulfillment of youthful wishes is not to be had, cannot grow up and never comes to see that the greater satisfactions must come out of self-discipline, emotional restraint, and a love of response that does not ask what is beyond human achievement. Not through a bringing to life of his rosy dreams of contentment, but in a fellowship that deepens through the maturing of emotional life, must one find the values of either marriage or family life.

Although the wise use of courtship is the most important preparation for marriage happiness, it is not the only way we clarify and mature the emotions in our efforts to be happily married. Engagement brings its peculiar challenge, and again demands are made that surge with emotions and need to be dealt with consciously and practically. One of these has to do with sex, and in a very definite way. The modern young man and woman are familiar with the fact that wholesome marriage requires good marital adjustment. They think of this as the sex side of marriage. In recent years they have heard much concerning the need of adequate sex technique in marriage. Not only do they wish information that will prepare them to handle this problem, but often they also need to get rid of their worry that they may fail in this relationship. This anxiety is more common than one might expect, both in men and in women. Even those who are exceedingly sophisticated frequently have such fears. They wonder if they have in some way made their adjustment difficult.

The last days of engagement frequently stir up feelings of doubt. These, born of the thought of the seriousness of the marriage near at hand, easily become allied with the anxious thoughts regarding sex adjustment in marriage. There is every reason for giving young people at this time the information they need to enter marriage as easily and satisfactorily as possible. To give them a fair start we also have to take away the nervous dread that may become their chief difficulty. This must be done not by attempting to extract the emotion as we pull a tooth but by destroying the fear by building up its opposite, security. This is the way we always get rid of hazardous emotions: we destroy them as we alkalize acids.

The reason why so much is made of sex technique as a preparation for marriage is partly that in the past we have utterly neglected this side of marriage and also that it is the easiest problem to handle. Needed information can be clearly and definitely given, and there are a number of excellent books, widely read, that provide this preparation for young people about to be married. Such literature needs to be read calmly so as to avoid exaggeration and not in the spirit of panic that sometimes leaves young people worse off rather than better prepared for their marriage relationships.

Since sex is so highly emotional and its difficulties as they appear in marriage are almost always psychic in character—that is, born of brain experience as a result of earlier suggestions and happenings—it is fortunate that we have something besides a book to offer young people that they may be sure they are well prepared to deal with the sex side of marriage. Doctors have developed a counseling service designed to give young 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.

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