MARRIAGE PROBLEMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27384, 9 May 1950, Page 2

MARRIAGE PROBLEMS

NOTES FOR WO MEN

American Doctor Analyses Patterns Of Behaviour Seeking the fundamentals of human behaviour, Dr Margaret Mead, the American anthropologist has just published a book, “Male and Female,” in which she has recorded her observations on the patterns of family life existing in seven Pacific peoples and in her own country of America. It is clear from what she says that in America, and possibly in Western cultures, society has not produced a pattern in which both sexes can make, fully and generously, their full contribution. Boys are made resentful of girls, girls are made envious of boys. Yet in all known human societies there is some form of the family where the male helps to provide food for the female and the children and there should be room for both sexes to live constructively as colleagues sharing a task.

Attributes, thought of as belonging entirely to one sex, are not necessarily essential differences, but are learnt and imposed by the traditional culture of the country, says Dr Mead. The small Balinese girl early learns that she is a female, and will later become a mother, and the boy accepts this as something she will achieve which he never can. In some of the Pacific societies appreciation of women’s child bearing capacity goes very deep as a cause of envy to the other sex. But in American’and British civilisations the girl child is more often regarded as an incomplete and partial male It is possible that these Western cultures would gain by recognising a greater diversity of biological types, so that the social pattern would not enforce such rigid standards of behaviour or suggest such fixed occupations for the two sexes. The boy with artistic leanings would not then be suspected of effeminacy, nor the little girl with a mechanical mind be reproached as unwomanly. Many cultures have gone to the making of Americans, Dr Mead emphasises. There is no single traditional pattern to follow, but of recent years strong American patterns have been evolved. Boys and girls are consistently urged to success—to make good, to get on, to be happy, to be “ fulfilled.” In adolescence, they learn the social routine of “ dating ” and “ petting." To be popular is to be always on the go; those who prefer to be solitary are not on the way to making a success of their lives. “ Petting ” is almost another duty, in which the boy asks more than he expects to be granted', and the girl is

expected to refuse him, capably and with poise. This stylising of sex, says Dr Mead, has serious effects later, when husband and wife find it difficult to accept and settle down to a faithful, steady marriage. Easy divorce has added another anxiety to life, for couples are constantly thinking of their marriage, wondering if it is an absolute success, if they are ideally happy, or if one partner would develop more if they were free. “Staying married” tends to become a whole-time job, with constant emotional upsets and heartsearchings. Too much seeking for the ideal marriage leads to a social hyponchondria. but in the United States Dr Mead sees little possibility of returning to the old method of marrying for “ better or worse,” which at least gave some steady permanence to the relationship. The number of broken marriages in Britain and in New Zealand, it may he noted, has not as yet become as large as in the United States; but it is possible that one reason for couples seeking divorce is that more is nowadays expected of marriage. Romantic, idyllic notions, too often based on the American film, or alternatively a “ get your man ” theme, which makes of coquetry and social success a substitute for'true emotional feeling, are probably not the best foundations for lasting marriage. Putting up with one another’s imperfections,—getting along tolerably well and bringing up the children, if not so decoratively rosy and white, have at least hard wearing qualities, and should perhaps be placed before our young people as the homespun, practical attitude to the problem of staying married.