Dr. Stanley Watson

for the

Family Support Network

---

June is the Month for Marriage

This is the time of year when the poet reminds us "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Someone revised it a bit to say, "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts the girls have been thinking all winter." Traditionally June is the month for marriages; a good time to review what marriage really means. As I sat down to write this column even I, at an age for writing history instead of poetry, found myself putting down a few thoughts on love and marriage in rhyme.

IN MARRIAGE

The greater part of communication

Is learning the art of negotiation;

And when you're old and very wise,

You might have learned to compromise.

S.J.W.

 

OPPOSITES

An optimistic husband

Is a burden to his wife

For she has to reinterpret

His profusions all her life.

 

A pessimistic woman

Is a burden to her mate

He keeps holding up the sky

To preclude a tragic fate.

 

So marriage is a burden

But when you do it right

The yoke is somewhat easy,

And the burden rather light.

S.J.W

I suppose there are no really competent authorities in the field of family life-each family is a unique study by itself. The other day I wondered how I happened to become a specialist in this area; perhaps by teaching developmental psychology and teaching courses in marriage and family for 34 years? Somehow I did manage to earn two doctorates and was listed in Who's Who in the field but these things are incidental in preparing a person to guide couples in the art of setting up a family and rearing children. Then it came to me-I simply watched my wife raise our four children and now I write about how she did it. Don't think I'm being modest and not taking any credit. After all, I chose her!

Now here's a philosopher with a negative view of the holy state of marriage; "When two people are under the most violent, most insane, most delusive and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal exhausting state until death do them part." George Bernard Shaw. (Note: The old boy is describing a state of infatuation known as romantic love; not true love. He is right in his assessment and that is why half of the marriages end in divorce.)

On the other hand, here's a view of marriage that will work.

"Marriage is that relation between man and woman in which;

The independence is equal,

The dependence mutual,

And the obligation reciprocal."

(Dec. 1934 Address in Boston by Louis Kaufman Anspacher)

 

Or, to go a step further;

"Marriages are made in heaven." -Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

And what does the Bible have to say?

The apostle Paul advised married couples to "Submit yourselves to one another because of your reverence for Christ...Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as to the Lord...Men ought to love their wives just as they love their own bodies." Selected from chapter five of the book of Ephesians in the GOOD NEWS BIBLE. p.262.

Jesus emphasized the fact that marriage is intended to be a lifelong relationship between a man and a woman. He explained, "...in the beginning the Creator made people male and female. And God said, "for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife, and the two will become one. So they are no longer two, but one. Man must not separate, then, what God has joined together." Matthew 19:5-6. THE GOOD NEWS BIBLE p.27.

 

Other columns by Dr. Watson...

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace..." Isaiah 52:7.