Letters to the Editor
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Unfortuately, programs such as these needed more now than previously.
In the past, social situations were more easily deciphered than they are today. Now there's a lot of weirdness, and a lot of weird people, floating around on top of an unstable reality. Anything that provides people with basic information, particularly in the areas of human relationships and of money management, might save listeners a ton of grief and wasted time. For example, in relationships, make sure you're friends first and foremost. In matters of money, pay what you owe on time, and put away $5 every day in a savings account. There should in fact be some required courses in high schools on human relationship and money management tried and true dos and donts.
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Middle Class Addicts, Drunks and Wife Beaters
While I appreciate Richards's concern for the limitations of a "one-size-fits-all" approach to dating, I was distrubed by the uncritical inclusion of the sentence: "critics charge that these programs, which were created using research with middle-class couples, aren't easily translatable to lower-income populations, who may be dealing with substance abuse or domestic violence problems."
Would that be because middle-class populations don't have substance abuse or domestic violence problems? Clearly this isn't the case.
Domestic violence shelters are full of women who left nice, solid middle class husbands who beat the shit out of them after they've put down their briefcases.
Those residential addiction clinics in Minnesota (why are they always in Minnesota?) aren't full because welfare recipients are shelling out thousands of dollars to dry out and sober up.
One size doesn't fit all because we're all individuals, not because we need class-based approaches to human relationships based on false assumptions (or more precisely normative projections) of class difference. To quote the maligned Depeche Mode: 'people are people.'
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Self-Perpetuating Theories
It amazes me how these theories of love self-perpetuate without research, based on "wisdom" that has been handed down because it sounds good.
This is little more than the hoo-doo of a bad flim-flam artist.
I'd have no problems if, anywhere in the literature of love, there were references to studies, to actual work done that proves empirically what the speaker proclaims to be truth. Until then, I'll stick with what I do know about biology - and I'm 15 years into a really good marriage.
I won't even BEGIN to discuss the assertation that only Middle-class folks are stable and have good marriages. Apparently Social Darwinism is still alive and well: the lower classes and working classes OBVIOUSLY have no stable marriages or complex emotions,and the Middle and Upper classes OBVIOUSLY have no abuse or alcoholism.
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they used to be called marriage brokers
This kind of thing is always amusing to read about. If 'mating' were easy, then that topic wouldn't be such great fodder for television sitcoms and great literature, would it? Every mammal has issues with it, I'm sure - they just don't wallow in fear of rejection (I assume,anyway) or freak out in their empty dens at night contemplating a future life alone.
And the rules of the game are ever-evolving which makes it harder.
In the old days, some village crone did all the hard work, I suspect. She put person A in a small room with person B (knowing everything about the families in question) and presto, love and marriage. I bet she acted like a 'closer' in a sales deal, too leaving the kids and their families no time for second thoughts.
This debate over 'what's the right time to sleep with a man so that he gets hooked and will marry you' is kind of disgusting.
It flies in the face of what we modern women have been told about our sexuality, not to treat it like a commodity -or a prize - and to trust our own feelings about it.
Marriage is a crap shoot and always will be. (Jane Austen said it and so did a thousand other wise people). In my mind -and I've been married 20 plus years for what's it worth- the way to make modern marriages work: teach teenagers about managing their finances while in high school so they don't get into debt later on; also lobby for famiy friendly policies in the workplace and community. (How can this trend toward more and more shiftwork help families?)
Encourage families to be less child-centered; this obession with creating 1.7 perfect children sucks the life out of marriages.
Take all those extraneous pressures off so that couple have a fair chance and the energy to focus on their relationship.
Oh, and de-privatize the family, if that's possible :)
From what I've read,in the past, men and women lived separate lives within marriage. They weren't expected to be the be all and end all to each other: best friends and soul mates and tennis partners.
Two people (one from Venus one from Mars) living on top of one another 24-7 in a box in the city or the 'burbs with their only entertainment option a dinner and a movie if they can decide on what to see(Terminator with One Pearl Earring?) well, it's not natural. (Yes, I know this is a middle class point of view.)
Oh, and promote sexuality and birth control in classrooms too. With abortion rights being rolled back, the shotgun wedding may be back in vogue.
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I'm not sure about these courses
simply because I don't know that much about them.
But in principle it seems a good idea to me to present adults, and even high school students, with non-controversial courses about forming solid relationships -- or at least recognizing a good one or a bad one when they're in it.
Even younger students from kindergarten on up would benefit from courses in getting along with others, including smart conflict resolution.
When we consider how much strife there seems to be at every level in the world today, why not start on the personal level.
P.S. I tend to agree that in a dating situation checklists can be counterproductive. (Though learning about each other's most basic needs in a relationship like similar political and religious views, desire to have or live with kids, smoking/non-smoking, and whether the other person has murdered any previous romantic partners is best done sooner than later.)
When starting a dating relationship it's natural to discuss each other's lives. But if one confronts the other with a cross-examination, any chance of romance goes out the window right away.