Getting the most out of marriage : achieving the purposes of matrimony /WiJ ?2 GETTING THE MOST OUT OF MARRIAGE Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/gettingmostoutofOOobri Getting the Most Out of Marriage Achieving the Purposes of Matrimony By JOHN A. O’BRIEN, Ph.D. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother , and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.—Genesis 2:24 AYE MARIA PRESS Notre Dame, Indiana NIHIL OBSTAT—John L. Reedy, C.S.C. Censor Deputatus IMPRIMATUR— Most Rev. John F. Noll, D.D. Archbishop-Bishop of Fort Wayne August 31, 1954 All rights reserved. This pamphlet may not he reproduced by any means in whole or in part without prior permission. Copyright, 1954, by John A. O’Brien Getting the Most Out of Marriage “I’m so anxious/’ said Sue, “to make our marriage a happy and successful one.” “Yes/’ commented Helen, “there are so many marriages hitting the rocks now- adays, that one begins to wonder what’s in store for the newly launched marital bark.” “The divorce rate/’ chimed in Rose- mary, “is reaching a new high, and the end is not yet in sight.” “Domestic squabbles, divorces, and ru- mors of divorces,” added Peg, “are filling our newspapers these days.” “Yet,” mused Sue slowly, “there must be a way to make a go of marriage and to find happiness in it as well. Our parents are the best proof of this.” How many a Sue, and a Helen, a Joe, and a Jim, are asking these questions as they stand tremulously on the brink of marriage. There is so much uncertainty these days, so much disillusionment, that youth grows sceptical at times and won- ders. 3 Experience of Parents Yet their common sense and the ex- perience of their parents tell them that there is a way of making a success of marriage and of finding the greatest satis- faction and happiness of life in the mak- ing of a home. No institution in the world is so rich with the wisdom of human experience and so dowered with the Pentecostal fire of divine enlightenment as the Catholic Church. She points out to the youth of today as she has to the youth of the past the unfailing way to make a success of marriage and to achieve happiness in the home as well. Her teachings have been tried and tested not only by the acids of modernity but also by the alkalis of eter- nity. How is happiness in marriage to be found? The Church replies that happiness comes as a by-product of duty well done. It is earned, not found. The best way of achieving conjugal happiness, she teaches, is by fulfilling the ends for which mar- riage was instituted. Those who are look- ing for it elsewhere are seeking it where it can never be found. It is only through this intelligent approach to marriage that we can learn how stable homes of en- during peace and contentment can be 4 achieved. We proceed then by setting forth in detail the purposes, primary and sec- ondary, for which marriage exists. I. PROCREATION: The Primary End Marriage was instituted by God for the procreation of the race. This divine pur- pose is mirrored in the words spoken by Almighty God after the creation of our first parents: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.” For this reason, God creat- ed man, male and female. Out of the union of these diverse natures are begot- ten offspring endowed by the Creator with immortal souls. God does not bring human beings into existence save through the creative co-operation of parents. Mar- riage is, therefore, the divinely appointed means for the purpose of propagating the race. To fill the earth with good citizens, points out St. Francis de Sales, and to people heaven with saints, are the noble ends for which marriage was instituted. While the procreation of the race may be said to be the primary purpose of marriage, there are other important ends achieved by this divine institution. It fos- ters the love and devotion of husband and wife. It provides a legitimate expression for the divinely implanted hunger of sex. 5 It answers man’s craving for intimate com- panionship, sympathy, understanding and lasting friendship. It enriches the person- ality of man by increasing his unselfish- ness and deepening his capacity for love, friendship and sacrifice. Before considering these secondary ends in detail, it will be well to focus our at- tention upon the primary objective; for nature may be said to be only mildly in- terested in the satisfaction of the subjec- tive cravings of the individual. She is con- cerned primarily with the conservation of the race. Self-preservation is the first law of nature: deprived of the fruits of mar- riage, the race would speedily disappear. From the objective and racial viewpoint, then, there can be no gainsaying the truth that the primary end of marriage is to contribute to the continued being of the race through child-begetting and to the greater well-being of the race through child- rearing. Happiness—A By-product From the standpoint of nature the hap- piness of the couple is a mere by-product of marriage. To keep men and women from forgetting their primary duty to the race, God has implanted in the bosom of each the hunger of sex; it is this hunger which prompts them to fulfill their duty to the 6 race. Just as the hunger for food prompts the individual to take nourishment to con- serve his own existence, so the hunger of sex prompts the individual to unite in mar- riage with a member of the opposite sex to conserve the existence of the race. It is part of the divine plan that the satisfaction of both hungers be accompan- ied by feelings of pleasure and happiness. The hunger for food rings the dinner bell reminding the individual that it is time to provide for his self-preservation: the hun- ger of sex rings the wedding bells remind- ing the couple that the time has come for them to contribute in accordance with a divine plan to the conservation of the race. That indeed is a high, noble, and sublime vocation. The procreation and education of off- spring demand a stable union such as is found in marriage; for procreation through promiscuous or polygamous unions would satisfy neither the dignity of parents, nor the education of the children, nor the in- terests of society. The life-long union of one husband and one wife alone provides for the proper multiplication of the race. Why? First, because such a marriage requires the union not only of the bodies but of the souls of the parents in a deep and death- less love. Secondly, it provides for the edu- cation of the offspring, through the con- 7 tinuing interest, solicitude, and love of father and mother. Thirdly, it provides the offspring with a home wherein their physi- cal, mental, and spiritual needs can be pro- vided for with greatest effectiveness. It is important that the begetting of children be regarded in its true Christian light. Modern pagans, like their predeces- sors in ancient Greece and Rome, are not infrequently minded to look upon the pro- creation of offspring as a burden to be avoided. Foeticide was not uncommon then, nor is it now, as the abortion statistics abundantly show. Christianity has never ceased, however, to stress the sanctity of human life even in the embryo within the mother’s womb. Walking in the footsteps of her divine founder, the Church has rear- ed her mightiest fortifications to protect the life of the unborn child, unable to raise a hand in its own defense. The Greatest Blessing The greatest blessing which Almighty God can bestow upon a married couple is offspring. A little child is the parents’ badge of honor, testifying to their co- partnership with the Creator in the sub- lime mission of bringing into existence an image of the Most High. What greater honor or dignity could the Almighty be- 8 stow upon husband and wife than that of associating them intimately with Him in bringing into being a king of the universe? In all of visible creation science has dis- covered nothing to equal the mind of man. When parents gaze upon the light that gleams in the eyes of their child, they are gazing upon the reflected light of an immortal soul. When his brow has been cleansed with the waters of baptism, they are looking no longer upon a child of nature, but upon a child of God and an heir of Heaven. When the soul has been enriched with the marvelous grace of Holy Communion, they are seeing no longer a tabernacle of clay but a temple wherein dwells the living God. A creature of time, he is now destined to live forever, to feast his eyes upon a ravishing Beauty that was never seen on land or sea. What a sublime honor for parents to be privileged to share in such a paternity! Before a dignity so exalted the angels in Heaven bow their heads in reverence. When some of the Roman matrons were displaying their pearls and jewels, the mother of the Gracchi twined her arms around the shoulders of her two sons, and said: “These are my jewels.” If a mother, living before the revelation of Christ was delivered to the world, could thus appreci- ate the dignity of motherhood, how great 9 should be the appreciation of the Christian mother who sees in her child not merely an image of herself but also an image of God Himself. “To Be Restored to God” Far outweighing the pains of childbirth is its unique joy. “A woman when she is in labour, hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but when she hath brought forth the child,” declared our Lord, “she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is bom into the world.” 1 After emphasizing the glory and the joy of parenthood, the Encyclical on Christian Marriage continues: “Both husband and wife, however, receiving these children with joy and gratitude from the hand of God, will regard them as a talent committed to their charge by God, not only to be employed for their own advantage or for that of an earthly commonwealth, but to be restored to God with interest on the day of reckoning.” St. Augustine sounds a similar note, stressing the blessing of children as one of the chief blessings of marriage. “The blessing of children,” he declares, “regards the duty on the part of the married couple to receive them with love, to look after 10 John 16:21 their temporal wants with solicitude, and to educate them with religious care. . . . Such is the law of marriage, which sets off the glory of fecundity while it puts a brake to the shameful disorder of in- continence.”2 A Significant Connection How beautiful and wonderful is the providence of God that brings children in- to being through the glorious flowering of conjugal love. Truly that divine power, as the Book of Wisdom tells us, “reacheth from end to end mightily and ordereth all things sweetly.” 3 What a halo of holi- ness and an aureole of divine splendor does the Creator thus significantly throw upon the conjugal relation. With what tender beauty does the Almighty thus in- dicate to man the intimate connection between the flowering of conjugal love and the procreation of the divine image in hu- man flesh. Thus does the conjugal act, performed with reverence and holy love, become a prayer of praise, a hymn of joy, a canticle of love, to the Creator of life and the God of love. This means, however, that the con- 2 De Genesi ad litteram. L. IX C.7, n. 12; PI. 34,397 3 Book of Wisdom 8:1 11 nection between the conjugal relation and its divinely appointed end must never be forgotten nor interfered with in any way. Even when no new life is likely to emerge from the flowering of conjugal love, it will help the spouses to preserve their attitude of reverence toward the mystery in this union by keeping in mind the general connection between procreation and the communion of love. What greater irrever- ence could be manifested toward God than by interfering with desecrating hands to thwart that divinely appointed relation- ship. “How terrible/ 5 observes Dietrich von Hildebrand, “to think of man wanting to destroy this unity which God has estab- lished so mysteriously, deeming those united in the highest earthly union of love worthy to take part in His creative power. To go against God’s purposes through a dese- crating interference, perhaps even thus to throw back into the void a being that God had intended to exist—what sacrileg- ious presumption . 55 1 “I Found It . . ” Louis Lafayette sailed the seven seas and wandered as a soldier of fortune 1 Marriage, Longmans, Green & Co., N. Y., p. 23. 12 through foreign lands seeking, like Tyltyl and Myltyl in Maeterlinck’s play, the blue bird of happiness. In telling where at last he found it, he echoes the experience of the race from the dawn of Eden through all the centuries of time: I have followed blindly where adventure’s star was gleaming , Heark’ning to a haunting longing deep within my breast. Many lands have known my spirit’s rest- less , endless dreaming As 1 hunted for the Something that would satisfy my quest. Half across the world and back, adventure’s star but led me Through strife and peril and hardship in some far off foreign land. But, returning empty-handed, when the last faint hope had fled me 1 found it in the hollow of my first born baby’s hand. It is well for husband and wife to welcome God’s greatest gift, a little angel in human flesh, as soon after their wed- ding as possible. The arrival of an heir will relieve a tension that is almost in- evitable from their seeing one another so intimately and so often. It will safeguard them from too frequent tendency toward engrossing self-centeredness and, by giving 13 them an object of common interest and affection, will strengthen and deepen their own love. That arrival can’t come too soon for the welfare and stability of their union: the couple who foolishly postpone that event are not only frustrating their love of its natural fruition but they are also skating on the thin ice of disaster. “The first year after marriage,” writes a young wife, “I remained at home. The second year I went back to business, not on my own accord, but due to the foolish fear my husband had that we must have a big salary before thinking of children, a misguided fear he has since realized. Those two years were a nightmare to me, as I felt humiliated and ashamed of my empty arms. And we were not happy either. It seemed we would never reach a common ground of understanding, and we both admit that if we had not had a good Catholic training ... we would have been separated for incompatibility or maybe, theologically speaking, it may be called God’s withheld grace. At any rate, our baby arrived in the third year . . . Then what a changed household! No more petty squabbles, selfish motives, unkind remarks. The baby burst the bubble of incompati- bility. A more united family, a more devoted husband and wife it would be hard to find. After my baby was bom I realized 14 all you said regarding the rewards of nature and contentment.” 1 Will Durant expresses the conclusion of all careful students of the family when he writes: “It is remarkable how marriage withers when children stay away, and how it blossoms when they come. The woman finds in the midst of turmoil, trouble, worry, and pain, a strange contentment that is like a quiet ecstasy. Never in her idleness and luxury was she as happy as in these tasks and obligations that develop and complete her even when seeming to sacrifice her to the race. And the man, looking at her, falls in love with her anew. This is another woman than before, with new resources and new abilities, with a patience and tenderness never felt in the violence of love; and though her face may be pale now, and her form for the time disfigured for corrupt and abnormal eyes, to him it seems as if she had come back out of the jaws of death, with a gift absurdly precious; a gift for which he can never sufficiently repay her. Work which was bitter toil before becomes now as natural and cheerful as honey-seeking to the bee; and the house that was but walls and a bed becomes a home filled with 1 The Divine Romance of Marriage. I. W. Cox, S.J., The Paulist Press, N. Y., p. 16. 15 Father O’Brien instructing couples on how to get the most out of marriage. Father’s work for twenty-two years in the Newman Club at the University of Illinois, his service as diocesan Su- perintendent of Schools in Peoria, Illinois, and his contacts with students at the University of Notre Dame have given him a deep insight into the mind and heart of youth. laughter of rejuvenated life. For the first time in his career the man feels himself complete.” 1 A Practical Suggestion Let children then be welcomed by spouses with eager and holy hands. Their arrival represents the fulfillment of the primary purpose of marriage. The couple should remember that through matrimony they become the custodians of the precious legacy of human life and they should pass it on in generous measure to others. If a child does not come as soon after marriage as expected, the spouses are urged to see a competent physician. Authorities now declare that recent findings in medical science enable physicians to bring effective relief to childless couples in more than fifty per cent of such cases. Even in the case where God does not send them offspring, they can achieve the great joy of child-rearing by adopting a babe every few years until they have a reasonable number. The love and devotion which such children will bring to their foster parents will equal the love received by actual parents and will fill their lives with richness and beauty. i Ibid. p. 17. 18 II. LOVE AND HAPPINESS: The Secondary End Most young couples marry because they love each other. Their wedding was pre- ceded by a courtship in which their friend- ship ripened into love which now seeks its fulfillment in the joys of the nuptial relation. They have tasted romance; their hearts have responded to the call of love; love’s young dream has whispered in their ears the age-old story of happiness found in the arms of the beloved. Romance, happiness, and the joy of consummated love are then the motives which prompt young people to marry. They embody the legitimate satisfaction of the sexual hunger and of the psychic elements which twine like tendrils of a vine around the nuptial relations. These are the subjective ends of mar- riage. While secondary in the eyes of nature and of the race to the procreation of off- spring, they are the primary considerations in the minds of the young people. They are natural, legitimate, praise-worthy, and important ends of marriage; indeed if they are not achieved in a large measure the permanence of the union is not infrequently endangered. Let us then consider them 19 carefully to see how they can be most effectively realized. There is a large physical element in the marital relationship. The mating instinct, the hunger of sex, is of divine origin. When exercised in accordance with God’s plan in the holy institution of marriage, it ac- quires a high nobility. In bringing with rever- ence the expression of his affection to his spouse, man finds that his self-surrender floods his own being with the splendor and glory of a love multiplied manifold. It is of the unique glory of love that, in giving, the donor loses nothing, but is himself enriched. In speaking the language of love, bride and groom find their voices delicately attuned to the ears of God; for love is God’s vernacular. “When we think of the physical ex- pression as part of the whole pattern,” observes Wingfield Hope, “let us remember that God has appointed that natural human act and that it is a part of His whole scheme for our married happiness. It gives honor and glory to Himself; it gives hus- band and wife a share in His work of creation; it increases the mutual love of husband and wife in its completing of their unity, and it should help to raise their hearts to God in thanksgiving for His goodness to them. If this expression is thus made to His honor and glory and 20 as an essential part of His whole plan, can we persuade ourselves that it is right to hold back from the enjoyment of it, which is a right experience in the natural life, and which is only spoiled by loss of contact with the designer' of the natural life? And since that natural life is united with God’s supernatural purpose, is it right to imagine that it should be made drearily and without enjoyment of the pleasure which He has attached to it? “That pleasure is perfectly safe if it is kept near to Him, accepted from Him and thanked for in our prayers to Him . . . It is very sad when the wife is, on the contrary, imbued with false ideas of mod- esty and imagines that the pleasure resulting from the marriage act is one which will appeal to the husband but which a modest woman must always find repugnant.” 1 Because it ministers to the sacrificial labors of child-bearing and child-rearing, the conjugal relation brings into play the physical and spiritual elements, which con- stitute the deepest and most satisfying qual- ities in human love. Since the act is in conformity with moral law and thus pleas- ing to the conscience of the individual, it pulls the soul into the communion of 1 Life Together, Wingfield Hope, Sheed & Ward, N. Y., p. 11 If. 21 love and thus gives it a new height and depth and meaning. It is the bane of all sex activity outside of marriage that the moral nature is offended and thus, in the very act of attempted physical gratification, the soul thunders its stern condemnation. The Distinctive Element Since the distinctive element in man’s nature is not the physical, which animals also have, but the spiritual wherein his true dignity lies, it follows that a physical gratification bought at the expense of con- science is the bargain of a fool. It yields only nausea and remorse. The conjugal relation yields satisfaction and pleasure be- cause it involves the hearty approval of conscience and therefore the intimate par- ticipation of the soul. That is why the Encyclical on Christian Marriage speaks of marriage as a knitting together of souls even more deeply and more intimately than of the bodies. The conjugal act does not have, there- fore, as its sole end the procreation of offspring. Such a view would degrade man to the level of animals because it would regard him as essentially a physical organism. The connubial relation involves psychical and spiritual elements whose value and importance can scarcely be over- 22 estimated. It effects a tremendous deepening of human love, intensifies its unity and strengthens its permanence as can no other action. Nature itself bears witness to this truth. In the animal kingdom the mating instinct is stimulated to action only when the female is in season and the act is called for as a means of procreation; but in human beings the case is far different. Nature itself sepa- rates the unitive from the reproductive function to the remarkable extent that during more than three-fourths of the time periodically available for the connubial relation, reproduction in all its stages is physically impossible. Here is an arrange- ment of nature’s own contrivance, an arrangement whose significance has not been sufficiently understood or stressed. It is nature’s way of saying: In affording a married couple abundant opportunity for the performance of the conjugal relation when conception is physically impossible, we make unmistakably clear that the re- lation has other important ends. Those ends are the achievement of deeper unity through the fusion of two hearts and souls, the blending of two personalities into a single corporate entity, the deepening of under- standing and sympathy, and the strength- ening of the bond of a permanent and deathless love. These are the ends which 23 mirror most accurately the distinctive nature of man as an intelligent and spiritual being. “To regard wedded love,” points out Dietrich von Hildebrand, “as exclusively an objective means to the union of wed- lock, and the latter in turn as a means to procreation, would be to subordinate entirely man as a human being to man as an animal—a thoroughly materialistic view . . . To overlook the union between physical sex and love or its significance and to recognize only the purely utilitarian bond between sex and the propagation of the race is to degrade man.” 1 Perfecting Interior Life The wholesome influence of the con- jugal relationship in fostering mutual love and in the perfecting of their spiritual life is brought out by no one more clearly or more beautifully than by Pius XI in his Encyclical on Christian Marriage . “The primary purpose of this outward expression of love,” says His Holiness, “is that man and wife help each other day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life, so that through their partner- ship in life they may advance ever more and more in virtue, and above all that 1 An Analysis of the Catholic Ideals of Pur- ity and Virginity, Longmans, Green & Go., p. 2 If. 24 they may grow in true love toward God and their neighbors.” It may occasion surprise to note that the Encyclical terms the end just mentioned “the primary purpose” of the marriage relation. The Encyclical -makes clear, how- ever, in what sense this is to be under- stood. It states that the mutual good which the spouses can achieve by bringing out the best in each other’s nature “may truly be called even the primary cause and reason of marriage, provided that marriage is understood, not in the narrower sense as an institution for the due begetting and rearing of children, but in the wider sense as an intimate communion, association and companionship in all life.” No one, therefore, exalts the beauty, the nobility, and the holiness of conjugal love more highly than the Church. Indeed, she views it as a mighty stimulant to the growth of that universal love which em- braces God and all mankind. The high esteem in which the Church holds conju- gal love is in sharp contrast to the Puritan conception which views procreation as its sole end. Thus Whitefield reflected this view when he proudly asserted that love had nothing to do with courtship. “God be praised,” he said, “if I know my own heart at all, I am free of this stupid passion the world calls love.” 25 The Catholic view is mirrored in an old Catholic nuptial prayer which speaks so beautifully of marriage as “the mystery of love.” The prayer runs: “O God, at the creation of mankind, making woman from man, Thou hast already ordained that there should be a union of the flesh and of sweet love . . . Lord our God, Thou hast created man pure and immaculate and still. Thou wishes that in procreation of the generations one be made from the other by the mystery of love.” How beautifully expressed is this ethical insight into the sweet mystery of holy love. The I-Thou Relation In an analysis of conjugal love, as penetrating as it is thought provoking, Hildebrand points out how it differs from all other loves or friendships, and approxi- mates most closely the love of the soul for its heavenly bridegroom, Jesus Christ. All other friendships involve a we relationship in which partners remain side by side, in which they walk side by side, or even hand in hand. “But two human beings,” he says, “can also turn and face one another, and in touching one another in an interpenet- rating glance give birth to a mysterious fusion of their souls. They become con- scious of one another, and each making the 26 other the object of his contemplation and responses can spiritually immerse himself into the other. This is the I-thou relation- ship, in which the partners are not side by side, but face to face. “Of all terrestrial communions, conju- gal love is the most pronounced form of an I-thou relation. The beloved person is the object of our thoughts, sentiments, will, hope and longing; the beloved person becomes the center of our life, as far as created goods are concerned. He whose heart is filled with such conjugal love, lives not only with the beloved but for the beloved. Certainly such an I-thou relation in its purest form exists only between the human soul and its heavenly bridegroom, Jesus. In the last analysis we must live only for Him, and in marriage, too, the two partners live together for Him. But in the realm of created goods, conjugal love means living for one another; compared with all other human relationships the two part- ners live in a definite I-thou communion.” 1 In other words, the most complete self-surrender and the most perfect fusion of personalities are achieved only in mar- riage. It is the source of man’s deepest happiness ... a happiness for which there can be no substitute on this earth. 1 Ibid, pp. 6.7. 27 Love With Understanding In order that the conjugal action yield the physical, psychical, and spiritual sat- isfaction and happiness which God and nature intended, it is well for the bridal couple to receive guidance before their wedding from the Catholic family physician concerning this subject. Parents could and should assist in this important matter; but frequently they are reticent or find their vocabularies too limited. Experience shows that ignorance of the physiology and psy- chology of sex is a frequent cause of marital maladjustment and unhappiness. That condition is further aggravated when either or both the spouses have the erroneous conception that the relationship is a condescension to their animal nature and is devoid of spiritual values. Taking cognizance of these misconceptions, Father Gerald Vann, O. P. , warns against “the danger that through false moral standards, the young wife or husband will come to regard the marital act of physical union as permitted indeed, but to be got over shamefacedly and always in the fear that anything other than the strict necessities of this so simple act will be sinful. 55 He speaks frankly of the “brutality, conscious or unconscious, of omitting the preliminaries and the epilogue.” Such omissions lead to 28 a frustration of the physical and psychical hungers which God intended should be satisfied in the conjugal relationship. “It is a tragedy/’ declares Wingfield Hope, “when the marriage relationship is made difficult and the coming of children delayed by perfectly pointless ignorance of what every married person should know, and it is scarcely ever safe for the engaged couple to assume that they need no prac- tical instruction just because they have a general idea of the marriage act. . . . Many a tragedy in married life might have been averted by a simple acceptance of the physical pleasure inherent in God’s plan for married happiness and married fruit- fulness, and by an understanding that the physical pleasure is excellent as a part of the whole plan, but that it is profaned if it is regarded as a ‘necessary evil’ or as something inherently disreputable which is legalized by matrimony.”1 The simple fact is that there are e- normous differences in the physiology and psychology of the two sexes. These dif- ferences come to the focal point in the conjugal relation. They must, therefore, be properly understood if their needs are to be intelligently met. The failure to do 1 Op. cit. p. 114 and p. 121 29 so is likely to lead to frigidity, psychical antipathy, and even estrangement. Here, as elsewhere, knowledge is power. When good will and affection are illu- minated by an understanding of the distinc- tive needs of each partner, the expression of love will not be blind and riotous but will be conducive to the deepest happiness of both husband and wife. Unless the ex- pression of conjugal love be lit by intelli- gence, it will fail to achieve “the fostering of mutual love” which the Holy Father stresses as of primary importance. While this field abounds with the writ- ings of those who treat marriage from a wholly materialistic viewpoint and over- emphasize the physical side, we must not scorn the deeper insights and better under- standing made possible by the work of physicians, psychologists and other scien- tific scholars in this field. A conference with the family physician, supplemented by parental counsel, will preclude the pos- sibility of maladjustments and will ensure the maximum of physical, psychical, and spiritual values from the considerate and reverent fulfillment of the communion of conjugal love. By receiving their information and guidance from Christian sources the young couple will be safeguarded from the unwholesome views of pagan writers. 30 To conclude: In the fulfillment of the two fundamental purposes of marriage, namely, the procreation of the race and the fostering of mutual love, husband and wife are getting the most not only out of marriage but out of life as well. 31 Another valuable addition to Father O'Brien's series on marriage— this one dealing with strife. Why Marriages Fail By John A. O'Brien Nine main causes for marriage failures among Catholics. The ten commandments for a happy marriage. An excellent directive for engaged couples; a solid warning to married persons. 24 pages 10c AT YOUR PARISH PAMPHLET RACK OR CATHOLIC BOOKSTORE AVE MARIA PRESS, Notre Dame, Indiana