Preparation For Marriage

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29983, 19 November 1962, Page 2

Preparation For Marriage

The role of marriage preparation, the need for balance between marriage and a woman’s professional career, the dual responsibility of man and woman in the establishment of the family unit and the reconciliation of values in the modern society were the main points discussed by a panel in the Christian Family Year programme in the Cathedral on Friday.

Canon M. Peaston was chairman and the panel comprised Mesdames A. K. Warren and B. Zeff, Dr. Philip Lawrence and the Rev. M. Jackson Campbell. Discussing "Shotgun” marriages, Mrs Warren said she considered the greatest cause for concern came from the prevalent belief of the young engaged couple that “there is no reason to wait.” To make clearer to the younger generation the total commitment involved in marriage, it was important that public opinion be educated to the vital necessity of adequate preparation for marriage in all its aspects, said Mrs Warren. Marriages entered into unnaturally and without sufficient preparation were a potentially harmful influence on the community. A woman should be prepared to become “first and foremost a wife,” but the potential value and richness to the home and community of the trained professional woman should ideally be reconciled with her basic role, said Mrs Zeff, and Dr. Lawrence.

Although marriage was itself a career, it was important that society and the community made it possible for a woman to keep her pre-marital career "in hand” for her later yearns. Within the family the outside interests of the wife and mother could bring an added stimulus to family life. Referring to the various reasons why many family men purposely devoted a disproportionate amount of time away frotn their homes, Dr. Lawrence said that it was not true to say that all such escapers were victims of home circumstances and marital strife. “It is also a fact that many men are selfish,” he said. “There are those who are not prepared to face the responsibility of a home life, much of which is quite routine and domestic. They are the type who will not face the fact that they are needed in the home. Feeling themselves failures, many men tend to run away by belonging to organisations and clubs in order to build up their own ego and importance which is not satisfied in their home life.” These men needed to be reminded of the profound importance of the role of the father in the household as a

leader and idol flor both sons and daughters during their formative yeans. Referring to the difficulties facing parents who had not been educated as much as their children, Mr Campbell said that though children were trained more today on the scientific experimental line, their knowledge of moral and spiritual values was not in any way superior to that of their parents, whose education was based on more classical, humanitarian traditions. Thus, there was no justification for false pretensions on the part of the young. "Deceptive hazards of the modern world which the parents of today should discourage amongst their young are four in number—pomposity, hambug, the closed mind and the ungenerous heart,” he said. “These are the things which we should guard against above all other.?