Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXevils of marriage, as we have known it, alike for husbandand wife and children, however for a large part easily preventable,are frequent and undoubted. Yet, as Exnerpoints out, there is no need to be unduly pessimisticabout marriage, and there would be still less if societydid not so often disturb the vision of the young and misguidetheir first steps. As the same writer well says, a highrate of dissatisfaction is not an unmitigatedevil. It meansa high ideal and a desire to attain it, for marriage is reallyan achievement. That, indeed, is a point often overlooked.In our civilization, possibly in any civilization, marriagein any full sense of the term cannot be reached at a bound.Considering the frequent extraordinary ignorance alike ofself and of the partner with which marriageisapproached,it would be strange if true marriage were not difficult toachieve. There are Karen (as Horney puts it), even onthe strictly personal side, at least three aspects o marriage:(i) the physical relationship, (2) the psychic relationship,and (3) what may be called the associationalof a life encountered in common. It is almostrelationshipinevitable that, with so inadequate a preparation, the difficultiesmet are often but slowly conquered, until finally,though perhaps after many years, a real and true marriageis attained. Even when, as isundoubtedly often the case,the marriage remains imperfect, we find on deeper insight,in most cases, that many compensations have beenachieved. In no field more than in marriage does theEmersonian doctrine of compensation hold good.To obtain a fairly clear vision of the facts a methodicalinvestigation over a wide field is necessary. Even then anonly faintly approximate result is possible. Many peopleare unwilling to admit, even to themselves, still less toothers, that marriage is for them a failure. Others, on thecontrary, in the thick of the inevitable little worries and[*74]