BROKEN MARRIAGES By DAVID R. MACE T HE Archbishop of Canterbury,
in his address last week to his Diocesan Conference, tendered the nation a timely service. No one will question our dire need of houses. Dr. Fisher has reminded us, however, that houses do not necessarily mean the same things as homes. It iR easier to repair bricks and mortar than to restore broken relationships. To do the former without the latter will not assure to us that sound family life which, as we are constantly saying in these days, is the only adequate foundation for the post-was Britain we seek. In our policies for education, for social security, for health services and the like, we have simply taken the family for granted. Dr. Fisher has reminded us that this is an assumption too ingenuous to meet the case. Marriage 'and the family as institutions are themselves in need of succour. Never in human history has family life suffered disintegra- tion upon a scale commensurate with that which the past six years have witnessed. Yet the war cannot and must not be adduced as the sole or even the chief cause of the present deterioration. A number of factors, some of them at first sight scarcely related to marriage and the family, have yet by indirect influence assisted in making these institutions increasingly insecure. The process has been going on for a long time—for half a century at least.
Four of such factors may be cited. First, the far-reaching social and economic changes which have been taking place since the Industrial Revolution. By imperceptible gradations we have arrived at a point where the family as an institution cannot be maintained without State subsidies. That is a stark statement of fact, whether we -like it or not. In the years immediately preceding this war a normal family had become, for the average man, a too expensive luxury, and the State was in consequence obliged to step in and arrogate to itself some at least of the functions of the father. Arising in part out of these changes has come, in the second place, the new status of the modern woman. In a world of open doors, she is cast upon the horns of a cruel dilemma: marriage or career? And not yet have we contrived to offer the best of both worlds to any but the privileged few. Meanwhile, an apparent solution of the woman's problem has been provided by the third factor, namely, the popularisation and widespread availability of scientific con- traception. This epoch-making new element in our common life, regarded by some as the most potentially significant event for humanity since the invention of printing, has revolutionised the sex relations of men and women both outside marriage and within it. The moral confusion which has resulted has been facilitated by the decline in religious faith, the fourth factor in this complex pattern. Cutting itself adrift from the sanctions of religion, the modern world has lost its ethical bearings. Standards of sexual behaviour have passed into a fluid state, with the result that marriage, which in the past owed its security to our traditional code of chastity and fidelity, is in these days becoming more and more unstable. The war has done little more than accelerate these processes of change. War places an inevitable emphasis upon present rather than future fulfilments ; and this has encouraged a philosophy of hedonism which has exalted the immediate allurements of romantic love over the solid but Inore distant satisfactions of settled family life. The war has provided, also, a milieu of social upheaval in which existing trends have been rapidly accelerated. The time has now come for us soberly to take the measure of this situation. In a statistical analysis recently published,* I gave some figures which reveal the present position in England and Wales. At least one in eight of all babies now born is conceived outside marriage—of all first babies one in four. The number of marriages which breaks down seriously enough to go to the courts was in 5943 more than one in ten of all new marriages, and is now certainly higher. These figures merely confirm statistically what we all know from personal observa, tion—that chastity and fidelity are no longer accepted standards for a large and increasing section of the community. The potential consequences of all this for marriage, for home life and for child life are plain enough.
The need for whatever remedies can be found is manifest. If the diagnosis outlined here is anything like accurate, it is clear that nothing can be done which will immediately arrest or even sub- stantially mitigate the ills to which the Archbishop has drawn our attention. The disintegrative forces are too deeply entrenched to be dislodged without strenuous and sustained effort. We need a carefully thought-out policy which sees in its true magnitude the task which we essay. Those of us who have been at work in this field in the last few years have been seeking to formulate such a policy. In our view it must include three major elements—environ- mental, remedial and preventive. It must resolutely remove all social and economic obstacles which hinder and hamper the opportunity for a full family life. It must provide a new personal service which can offer effective aid to marriages in trouble. And at the same time, it must gradually forestall further disintegration by the inculca tion, through every educational agency at our disposal, of sound values and high ideals concerning family life.
It was with the second of these tasks that Dr. Fisher was intime-. diately concerned in his recent appeal. It was not a matter which. had been brought suddenly to his attention. Three years ago he and Lord Horder showed their foresight by launching the recon-, stituted Marriage Guidance Council under their joint Presidency: Although he relinquished this office on his accession to the see of. Canterbury, Dr. Fisher still clearly has the cause at heart. In these. three years we have established in London the first iv!arriage Guidance Centre in this country. Our express purpose was to work out a pattern which might be applied on a widespread scale when the task of post-war reconstruction commenced in real earnest. In recent months beginnings have been made, in other parts of the country, in the setting up of similar agencies. The task is already under way. Its expansion has been limited only by the financial stringency which is the lot of most voluntary organisations in the early stages of their existence.
The practical value of the Marriage Guidance Centre or Panel has in fact already been established. It needs to be said very plainly, however, that the task of dealing with marriage troubles is not one which can be carried out by hasty improvisation. Many inexperienced people will doubtless have to do their best to meet the clamant calls for help which now come from every quarter. In the end, however, it cannot be too strongly emphasised that this is difficult and delicate work, and requires both knowledge and ex- perience if it is to be done effectively. More urgent than the need to establish Marriage Guidance Centres is the need to train carefully selected men and women who can staff them competently. With this' very important proviso, we cannot go ahead too quickly in getting' up the kind of service for which the Archbishop has asked. The present position, as I expressed it in a recent broadcast, is that we have no hospitals for sick marriages—only mortuaries for dead ones.. The fundamental illogicality of such a state of affairs is beginning' at last to dawn upon us.
* The Outlook for Marriage, 4d., and 21d. postage, from The Marriage guidance Council, 78 Duke Street, London, W. 1.
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