The social and cultural environment – Factor that affects Marital disorder

Under this general heading we can profitably consider a large number of different external environmental factors which may contribute in a direct or in a very subtle way to marital discord and even disaster.

In general it may be said that the rapid change over the last half century in society, in culture, and not least in technology, has possibly had as great an influence on marriage as on any other social institution. Most of the factors about to be described are linked closely with this rapid change. As already mentioned, marriage and family life cannot be unrelated to social realities, and rapid change will always bring periods of strain and conflict between old and new, and challenges to adaptation to the new situation. In such a close personal relationship as marriage, with its deep emotional involvements, there are bound to be distressing tensions in the process.

One of the most radical and far-reaching of these changes has been the emancipation of women. Fifty years ago few women were trained to any kind of occupation that would make them financially independent, and it was rare for a woman to enjoy the social independence of a “bachelor’s flat” in the middle of a big city. As a result wives were generally so dependent on their husbands that even if they suffered greatly in marriage they were compelled to make the best of it. Today almost all women are trained in some occupation through which they can be financially independent, and large numbers of single women, together with widows and divorced or “separated” women, live alone and carry on a full life with complete social acceptance. As a result of this great change there is no essential reason, except for the needs of children, why any woman should put up with continued cruelty or persecution in marriage. This emancipation is the social fulfillment of an ideal to which people have paid lip service for many centuries; the essential dignity of human personality, male and female, and it provides one of the greatest challenges to marriage.

The immediate result of the emancipation of women is that marriage has been raised to a higher status, an equal partnership carried on by mutual consent by two free autonomous people. At the same time it is inevitably more difficult, and demands more from the partners, than ever before. The great increase in the breakdown rate over the last half century is more probably due to the increased standard of marriage than to any great decrease in the competence and character of people.
This social change is something that no marriage counselor can or would wish to alter, but it has a vital effect on the whole work of helping to promote better marriage. Most importantly of all, it has brought a vital new need into the forefront of human affairs: the need for first-class, comprehensive and universal preparation for marriage, from earliest childhood onwards. And marriage counselors are in the forefront of this great future social project, designed to help all people to become as fit as possible for the conduct of modern marriage, and so prevent so many of its disorders from happening. The other great effect on the work of marriage counselors is that it includes the consideration with each of the conflicting partners of the main essential conditions of such an equal partnership between free autonomous people. Many of them have inherited from their own upbringing an out-of-date concept of marriage as a male-dominated “autocracy” or dictatorship, and this uncritical assumption may be very difficult for some husbands to grow out of.

Another social factor in marital disorder is found in the prevailing social ideas, values, customs and practices in the community. Such matters as the current practices regarding “dating” and courtship, and the earlier age at which people tend to marry, may have much to do with later difficulties- especially when combined with the current tendency to individualism, which makes partnership more difficult and vulnerable when the partners feel frustrated in their desire to get more than they give. It is often difficult for people conditioned by the highly competitive acquisitive atmosphere of the business and even the professional world to reorient themselves to the mutual consideration and self-offering so necessary in marriage, unless they have been very strongly conditioned in this unselfish, habitual attitude. This may be one reason why many people who have proved their competence and even brilliance in the business or professional world have proved to be utterly incompetent as marital partners and parents.

At the same time our present way of life has led to much specialization and “compartmentalization,” possibly necessary for efficiency in the many complex technicalities of modern life. But this has so far not been balanced by sufficient training in the arts and the humanities for full personal development. The result is a lessening of human communication in social contacts, and therefore a lessening in human understanding. This is often made worse by social conventions which separate the sexes, through which men and women form separate groups at social gatherings, and feel ill at ease in ordinary social discussion, which therefore tends to be superficial and trivial.

In some countries also young people are forced to a separation between the sexes during the important school years, from the ages of five or six to as old as eighteen or twenty, which deprives them of some practice in the art of social relationships to the possible detriment of their later spontaneity and self-control in friendship, courtship, mate-selection and marriage. Here again these factors are mainly relevant to the fuller preparation for marriage which is so necessary in our present situation. At the same time as the lessening of emotional and intellectual communication between men and women there is a much greater “throwing together” of men and women in their daily work. As a result of this many a man or woman may have as many or more interests in common with colleagues and associates at work than with the partner at home. This of course need not happen if the partners set out to cultivate and practice common interests, but if they fail to forge bonds of this kind the shared interests with someone of the opposite sex outside the home may tend to compete with the marital relationship and eventually destroy it.

Another important change in the social and cultural environment is the development to universal availability of scientific contraception. This has completed the emancipation of women, and saved them from many unwanted pregnancies. Families have tended to become smaller, more “selective,” and when young people have larger families it is generally because they want them. This makes for more contentment in the marriage partnership and has in many ways strengthened it. (It has also made it possible for people to indulge in sexual intercourse outside marriage with much less fear of pregnancy, and this is always a potential or actual threat to the stability of marriage. At the same time the progress of medical science has greatly diminished the fear of venereal disease, and this has also increased the temptation to illicit sexual relationships.)

Tags: Counseling