H. Norman Wright - The Premarital Counseling Handbook

1977, 1981, 1992 by
H. NORMAN WRIGHT

This book is a major revision of Premarital Counseling.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Cover Design: Ragont Design
Illustration: Dwight Walles

ISBN-10: 0-8024-6382-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-8024-6382-1

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T he wedding service is about to begin. Three hundred people are crowded into the sanctuary with an air of expectancy. A popular couple from the church is about to commit themselves to one another for the rest of their lives. They have gone together for the past three years and seem so ideally suited for each other. Ever since they were in their early teens many people have said this couple seem destined to be together. They are intelligent, expressive, capable, involved in the activities of the church, and each has a stable family background.

Who would think that just four years later this couple would meet in a courtroom to finalize the details of the dissolution of their marriage?

Divorce happens. It has happened to a couple you know. Perhaps you even officiated at their wedding ceremony. Its painful for everyone involved. The loss of dreams, hopes, and expectations has a lasting effect not only upon the couple, but on their families and everyone involved in their initial coming together.

Marriage is the closest bond that can occur between two people. That was Gods original intent. But who is really prepared for the demands of living together in such a way that needs are met, dreams are fulfilled, harmony is attained, and God is glorified through their relationship? Very few. Someone needs to help couples of all ages enter marriage with a greater opportunity for it to last and for each partner to be fulfilled. It is safe to say that the church and its pastoral staff is the last agency to make an impact upon marriage and divorce today.

Marital breakup is so frequent, even among Christian couples, that it appears to be an accepted part of our society Even cartoons reflect this attitude.

The attitude toward marriage today was revealed in the office of a marriage counselor when a young woman said, When I got married I was looking for an ideal, but I married an ordeal, and now I want a new deal! A recent cartoon in the Los Angeles Times pictured a pastor performing a wedding. Instead of the usual till death do you part, he said, till divorce do you part. This is not entirely unreal.

Another cartoon shows a minister performing the wedding ceremony for a couple and he is saying, And do you, Mary, take Jim to be your husband, to have and hold, love and cherish, until things get a little tough, you get burned out, and split? Still another recent cartoon shows a couple in a pastors office working out the wedding vows and the woman is saying, And finally, wed like to change the until death do you part section of our vows to substantial penalty for early withdrawal.

This past year a Los Angeles paper ran an advertisement for a wedding chapel in Reno, Nevada. The ad read, Marriage Discount $22.00, includes wedding service, music, witness, cassette recording of ceremony, marriage scroll, parking. Unfortunately this reflects how little thought and preparation are given to one of the most important events in a persons life.

What is happening today with marriage and divorce? Family life is changing. Only 25 percent of the households are traditional anymoretwo parents with children. There are as many single-person households as there are traditional. The age for first marriages is significantly higher than it once was26 for men, 24 for women. This last fact is healthy for marriages since marrying too young contributes to divorce. The divorce rate for our country has leveled off and, because of the delay of age of marriage, the rate may actually drop during the nineties.

Within California, the divorce rate varies radically from county to county In Los Angeles County there were 41,326 licensed marriages and

Confidential marriages may take place when a man and woman have been living together and marry without first procuring a marriage license or obtaining and filing health certificates. This means they do not have to take a blood test and AIDS test, and the woman does not undergo the test for rubella. To be married, they are required to go through a ceremony of solemnization by a person authorized to solemnize marriages and to complete a special marriage certificate. The certificate is mailed to the county clerk and kept there as a permanent confidential record.

The original purpose of this law was to encourage persons living together, perhaps having had children, to legalize their relationship by allowing them to do so with a minimum of publicity and embarrassment. But it appears that many see it as a short cut to having a public ceremony And it runs counter to the purpose of the physical exam and blood testing, which were originally instituted for the protection of the couple.

The concern over the status of marriage and the family has been with us for many years. A pioneer in the field of counseling, Carl Rogers made the statement:

To me it seems that we are living in an important and uncertain age, and the institution of marriage is most assuredly in an uncertain state. If 5075 percent of Ford or General Motors cars completely fell apart within the early part of their lifetimes as automobiles, drastic steps would be taken. We have no such well organized way of dealing with our social institutions, so people are groping, more or less blindly, to find alternatives to marriage (which is certainly less than 50 percent successful). Living together without marriage, living in communes, extensive child care centers, serial monogamy (with one divorce after another), the womens liberation movement to establish the woman as a person in her own right, new divorce laws which do away with the concept of guiltthese are all groping toward some new form of man-woman relationship for the future. It would take a bolder man than I to predict what will emerge.

Marriage is one of Gods greatest schools of learningit can be a place where a husband and wife are refined. The rough edges are gradually filed away until there is a deeper, smoother, and more fulfilling working and blending together that is satisfying to both individuals. But this takes an incredible amount of time, energy, and effort.