Item from the Smart
Marriages Archive, reproduced in the Divorce Statistics
Collection
Thursday, March 23, 2000 Deseret News
Before taking the plunge, invest in a life preserver: preparation
By Carma Wadley Deseret News senior writer
Marriage is one of the biggest steps young couples take, but many go into
it with less preparation than they give to buying a car.
Unfortunately, says Stephen F. Duncan, professor of family and human
development at Montana State University, marriage-preparation programs
suffer from "underwhelming participation, notwithstanding evidence
of
their benefits to couples."
A recent survey conducted by Duncan found that 91.4 percent of the
respondents indicated that marriage preparation is very or extremely
important, and 8.6 percent viewed it as moderate or slightly important.
Yet, another survey estimated that only 30 percent of couples who married
had participated in even 1-2 hours of marriage preparation, he says.
Reasons for this vary, says Duncan, but time, interest and expense appear
to be at the head of the list. We have to make these programs more
accessible and more interesting ã especially to men. "Traditionally,
females have the strongest interest."
Duncan has been looking at content and also at the marketing of such
programs. "If we can reduce the time commitment and the expense, if
we
hold programs in familiar settings, if we form coalitions between
church-based and public-based groups, there's a greater likelihood more
people will attend," he says.
Bryan Ramboz, a doctoral candidate at Utah State University, is
developing such a premarital-education program and is negotiating with
Cache County in hopes of requiring premarital counseling for couples
where at least one of the partners is under age 19.
"Adolescents are a high-risk group. As Edward Peters of the Catholic
Church says, 'Immaturity is the most preventable cause of divorce.' The
divorce rate is twice as high for couples who marry in their teens as for
those who marry later."
In Utah, he says, 21 percent of all marriages ã about 4,733 marriages
each year ã involve a bride under the age of 20. For these couples,
he
would mandate a minimum of six hours of counseling with clergy or
professional counselors.
Counseling should deal with such things as values, family background,
conflict resolution and communication as well as areas such as money,
children, intimacy and drugs/alcohol, he says, "and it has to be
mandatory, or couples won't go."
| Smart
Marriages Archive | New Divorce
Statistics and Studies Blog | Older Divorce
Statistics Collection Archive |