Preparing Youth for Marriage

For one human being to love another: That is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks… the work for which all other work is but preparation.

Rainer Maria Rilke

In the past, preparation for marriage was done informally by family and community life. In the present era, this traditional training is proving inadequate. Too many couples divorce and too many youth lack the confidence to enter into lifelong marriage. "I want to get married but I don't know what it looks like," said one teenage boy.1 Indeed, some adolescents do not even know still-married adults to consult about how to make marriage last.

Nevertheless, teenagers and young adults are intensely interested in marital success. Psychologist Howard Markman reports they score higher than previous generations in interviews designed to gauge how committed they are to their relationships. "They know marriage is risky, but there's a stronger sense of commitment," he says. "The bad news is, they don't have a clue how to make their relationships work."2

It is ironic to contrast the sizeable investment of time and money young people make in preparing for career and financial success versus the meager investment put into conscious preparation for what is likely to be more critical to their future satisfaction-marriage. After their engagement, the average couple spends far more time and energy on organizing the one-day wedding ceremony than they do on readying themselves for the marriage itself, which they hope will last for many decades.

As a result, more and more schools are instituting formal classes in marriage preparation. Phyllis Hess, a counselor in Claremore, Oklahoma, decided to take action when she heard a teenager describing the plan for her life: "Go to college, get married, get divorced and then get married again." Hess says, "That spoke volumes to me."3 A 17-year-old girl explains the rationale behind her class. "Its preventative… They're doing this so we don't get divorced. Finally, society realized it has to do something."4

While marriage guidance still holds a stigma for older adults, the younger generation has fewer reservations about learning what research and experience can provide. "I want to find out everything I can," says Dipti, a high school senior. "Love is obviously not enough." Marriage education is romantic, asserts Diane Sollee. What could be more romantic than to say, "Beloved… I want to marry you and I love you so much that I want to learn everything the experts know about what makes marriage succeed or fail so that our love, and our marriage, has a chance to last"?5

Marriage Education Programs

Starting in 1999, the state of Florida mandated marriage education for all ninth or tenth grade students. In 1998, judges and lawyers in Oklahoma succeeded in getting a marriage preparation program developed by a divorce lawyer and the American Bar Association into all their high schools. South Dakota adopted statewide a relationships course developed by a high school psychology teacher. Minneapolis high schools now require a one-year program before graduation. Hundreds of other school districts nationwide likewise have adopted marriage preparation courses. Parents have generally applauded these programs. "I've had single moms and dads come back and say, 'This is great. I wish I had known this sooner,'" reports Char Kamper, teacher and curriculum designer.6

There is also a natural synergy between the new marriage education programs and character education. Parents, teachers and others involved with character education find their task is most challenging in the upper grades. This is a time when adolescents no longer uncritically receive guidance from their elders and their attention is more focused on outward success, especially in romance, than on inner virtues. Education in matters of love, however, captures their interest; marriage preparation courses are consistently popular. Character can be promoted in this context as furthering their hopes for lasting marriage.

1Carrie Abbott, "Parent Power," presentation at the annual conference of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse, Raleigh, North Carolina, October 23, 1999.

2Kendall Hamilton and Pat Wingert, "Can Generation Xers--Many of Them the Children of Divorce--Make Their Own Marriages Last?" Newsweek, July 20, 1998.

3Karen Peterson, "Schools to Teach Lessons of Marriage," USA Today, July 14, 1998.

4"Partners: A Curriculum for Preserving Marriages" promotional literature, American Bar Association, Chicago Illinois, 1998.

5Diane Sollee, "Shifting Gears: An Optimistic View of the Future of Marriage," presentation at the Conference on Communitarian Pro-Family Policies, sponsored by the Communitarian Network, Washington, DC, November 15, 1996.

6Lynn Smith, "The School of Heart Knocks," Los Angeles Times, September 10, 1998, p. E1.