Different types of Immaturity

Immaturity may be general, involving all aspects of the personality, or it may be limited to one or more aspects. For purposes of discussion it is useful to think of it from each point of view separately.

Physical immaturity, or lack of physical development, is generally fairly obvious, and will have been in most cases the subject of medical treatment. It is not often a factor in marital discord, and if it seems to be present it is appropriately referred to a doctor for help.

Intellectual immaturity may show itself as ignorance, rigidity of thought and ideas, or as plain stupidity. In these days it is possible to make some assessment in any doubtful cases by having various intelligence tests carried out. Here again this kind of immaturity may not have very profound effects on marriage unless there is gross inequality in intelligence. Many quite unintelligent people manage to get on well in marriage and even parenthood if they are generally good-natured, because they tend to demand much less than more intelligent people from marriage.

Vocational immaturity may show itself by a lack of capability for a reasonable job, either the running of a home on the part of a woman or the carrying out of a “breadwinning” job on the part of the man. Either of these may well bring strains on the marriage, and sometimes this situation can be relieved to some extent if the person or persons concerned are willing to accept reasonable training in the particular field.

Emotional immaturity is a very common intra-personal factor in one or both partners concerned in a marital disorder, and some aspects of it have already been mentioned, such as failure in emotional emancipation from parents, and impulsive or unwise choice of mate. Emotional immaturity may show itself in many different ways. A fairly common manifestation is in the sexual attitudes and relationships. In the extreme case homosexuality is likely to cause physical and emotional unfitness for marriage. In the majority of cases homosexuality is regarded as being an acquired rather than a constitutional disorder, and most of the openly homosexual men and women have no desire to marry. But a number of less marked cases of homosexuality are first induced to seek help after marriage when the sexual relationship has been found to be inadequate or quite hopeless.

In addition to these, emotional immaturity may show up in less definite form in what is termed “latent homosexuality.” Every man and woman has some of the chemical and emotional attributes of the opposite sex. In the vigorously “masculine” man and the graciously “feminine” woman, these opposite qualities are not sufficiently marked to cause any disturbance. But sometimes an apparently normal heterosexual man or woman may have sufficient of the opposite qualities to bring about disorders in the sexual and the personal relationships of marriage. Many cases of impotence or partial impotence in men may be explained in this way, and some cases of frigidity in women. Others may be more fittingly regarded as due to some form of neurotic illness, but this is a matter for psychiatric appraisal.

Homosexuality, actual and latent, is regarded by Edmund Bergler, M.D. as primarily fear of the opposite sex rather than primarily attraction to persons of the same sex. If this be true, the attraction to people of the same sex may be caused or intensified by a deep need for companionship and intimacy, which after all is something which all normal people tend to have. It is possible that many cases in which husbands and wives find it difficult to be socially at ease with persons of the opposite sex, and even more when they feel the urge to congregate almost exclusively with members of their own sex, may have their roots in this form of emotional immaturity. The common social practice of men and women remaining in separate groups throughout the evening at a party may be a very mild example of this tendency. Some cases in which husbands for quite plausible reasons devote themselves to “all male” pursuits to the real neglect of their wives and families, or in which wives overdo it with “all female” projects to the neglect of their domestic obligations, may also be indications of this kind of emotional immaturity.

Many of these milder varieties of immaturity will not require -and the people will generally not be willing to undergo- any special medical or psychiatric treatment. If they are willing to face their difficulties and set out to develop their sociability to a more mature level, the marriage relationships will tend to improve to a more satisfactory state. But when the difficulties are more serious and destructive to the marital harmony it may be necessary for the marriage counselor to refer one or both partners for some form of psychotherapy.

Tags: Counseling