The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book | Page 2

reading in their own tongue); but I find no
reference whatever to the bringing up of children. They could not have
been so absurd as to omit all training for this gravest of responsibilities.
Evidently, then, this was the school course of one of their monastic
orders."
HERBERT SPENCER
This quotation from the pen of Herbert Spencer arrested our attention
this winter when we were reading a number of books dealing with
various epoch-making periods in the development of educational
method and theory.
We closed the book and pondered over the inferences made by this

leader and we began to speculate on what an antiquarian of the present
period might say of our textbooks, our curricula, and our examination
papers. We hope in his search that it might be his good fortune to
unearth the syllabi of some of our courses on Education for Marriage
and Family Life, some of the worthwhile literature which is being
written on the subject, even perhaps the Good Housekeeping Marriage
Book. If these happened to be the only remaining record of the period,
we might fancy him concluding, "Ah, what an enlightened people there
must have been in the twentieth century. I perceive here preparation for
real life problems. This must have been a school course for all the
Youth of that generation."
This volume represents a definite step in the advancement of this ideal.
We wish to express to Dr. William F. Bigelow, former Editor of Good
Housekeeping, our sincere appreciation for the kindly way in which he
received the idea of publishing these valuable articles in permanent
form and his readiness to help in every way possible in carrying this
idea through to completion.
To each author we wish to express our gratitude for the important
contribution he has made, not only in giving new interpretation and
new meaning to the institution of marriage, but also for rendering
valuable assistance in the solution of many of the problems which
confront the Youth of today as they approach this most challenging,
most demanding, most satisfying and most rewarding of Life's
experiences.
H. J. B.

Table of Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
Introduction--Dr. William F. Bigelow v

Foreword--Helen Judy Bond vii
I. When He Comes A-Courting--Dr. Ernest R. Groves 1
II. Now That You Are Engaged--Dr. James L. McConaughy 13
III. Ought I to Marry?--Dr. Ellsworth Huntington 27
IV. Should Wives Work?--Eleanor Roosevelt 43
V. Learning to Live Together--Gladys Hoagland Groves 54
VI. Marriage Makes the Money Go--Elizabeth Bussing 66
VII. Children? Of Course!--Jessie Marshall, M. D 80
VIII. Detour Around Reno--Dr. Hornell Hart 97
IX. Sex Instruction in the Home--Frances Bruce Strain 111
X. Religion in the Home--William Lyon Phelps 126
XI. It Pays to be Happily Married--Stanley G. Dickinson 140
XII. The Case for Monogamy--Dr. Ernest R. Groves and Gladys H.
Groves 154

Dr. Ernest R. Groves
CHAPTER ONE
When He Comes A-Courting
Never were American young people more conscious of the challenge of
marriage. They are not willing to accept the idea they have often heard
expressed by their elders that marriage is a lottery. Neither do they
believe that when they marry, they are given a blank check which

permits them to draw from the bank of happiness as they please.
Instead, even though they do not know how to go about it, they feel
more and more that there is something they need to do to give
themselves a fair chance of achieving success. A mere acquiescent
waiting for Fate to come and lead them into paradise is contrary to their
spirit. They seek as best they know how some way of finding their
proper mate and some means of becoming equal to the testing that even
the most reckless of them in their better moments realize that marriage
is sure to bring.
This fact-facing of the marriage problem shows, more fully than
anything else could, how much our youth today are expecting from
marriage. Even those marriages that peter out and sink to a barren
drabness started out with high hopes, and, although the victims may not
know what brought about their mishap, they generally feel there was
blundering somewhere and that this need not have happened.
Some young people grow cynical because they are so familiar with
matrimonial failures; but most of them, even when they have noticed
that many of their friends are unhappily married, become more
determined to find, if they can, the secret of success. This leads them to
ask for help, for insight, and to become fact-seeking with a frankness
that seems to be their most marked characteristic. They have not been
led into this attitude by any influence from their elders; they have
acquired it from their own realistic approach to the marriage problem,
which they clearly see has more emotional meaning than anything else