Why Teach About Marriage?

Published September 23, 1982. Frequently I am asked what I do for a living and reply I am a college professor who teaches about marriage. And often the second question is “Why do we need educational courses about marriage?” The fact is marriage and the social context in which it exists have changed markedly during the past years.

Suppose you work in a factory and are the production manager of some large piece of machinery, say a farm tractor. For years you have produced tractors with a guarantee they will last for the entire lifetime of the owners. Your tractors are superior products, highly sought and proven to be very capable in the field. Seldom do you have a tractor returned because it fails to meet the expectations and demands of those who use it.

Then, for reasons not entirely known, the owners begin to return their tractors for repairs more frequently. Large numbers of tractors begin to break down. As production manager, you become concerned and start an investigation. For years you have produced tractors with the same design, same engine, and same capability. Nothing had to be changed on the assembly line.

Now, even the most satisfied of your former customers start returning their tractors. New customers even bring back their tractors after just a few months. Tractors of the old design are now breaking down in record numbers before the lifetime warranty is expired. Ultimately 40 percent of the tractors you make are returned. And reports arrive that many of the tractors remaining in the field are barely surviving.

As production manager, what would you do? Would you continue to produce tractors of the old vintage and design with a failure rate of 40 percent? Or would you redesign the tractor? Would you go into the field and watch the tractors at work? Would you carefully examine the ones that are returned to see why they, and possibly others, have failed?

After locating certain problems, would you issue an alert to tractor owners to possibly avoid similar difficulties? Would you examine the work demands of the tractor and calculate stress points and limitations? Would you possibly consider revising and updating your farm machinery? Have the demands on your machines increased over the years? Have the owners properly cared for and provided even routine maintenance?

Or would you ignore the 40 percent failure rate and go right on producing the same old tractor?

Some say we are needlessly making contemporary marriage unduly complicated. We note our parents and grandparents didn’t have any marriage education classes and they seemed to get along all right in response to this line of reasoning. Dr. David Mace, noted marriage counselor and educator, has observed, “That idea is an illusion. Our ancestors had simple expectations about their marriages and were ready to put up with many inconveniences that we would find intolerable.”

Dr. Mace continues, “By contrast, our expectations of marriage are high today; our individual lives are complicated; our tolerance for frustration and disappointment is low; and it is legally easy, and socially much more acceptable, to walk away from the marriage if the relationship is not completely to your liking. So the kind of marriages we are asking for today call for knowledge and skills that people did not have, and did not need, in the ‘good old days’.”

At our university we are trying to provide some of the needed knowledge and skills to help keep healthy marriages functioning. We are now willing to go to married couples in community and church groups and present six-hour academic Marriage Education Seminars. If you would like more information about these seminars, contact Dr. Ralph Larson.

Incidentally, when was the last time you changed the oil in your tractor?