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GETTING THE MOST

OUT OF MARRIAGE



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in 2016

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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