Evening Star Newspaper, September 27, 1931, Page 81

ANALYZING Happy Marriages Startling Facts Revealed by Columbia University’s Study of 1,000 Romances. AKE 10 or 12 married couples you know well and try to answer truly the question: “How many of these are happy?” Where, in your opinion, is the largest percentage of matrimonial happiness? How can you—or how can the wise doctors, for that matter—tell if a couple are really happy? When a wife “wears the trousers,” is hers a happy marriage because “the missus has her own way”? Is petting detrimental to manners and morals, or is it the reasonable and biological prepara- tion for courtship and a happy marriage? Wiat are the occupations favorable for find. ing a mate? Where are the most propitious places for meeting him? How is the poor husband made that way? How do famous women “stack up” as to mar- riage and motherhood? W‘BAT history will doubtless vote the most scientific research into modern marriage undertaken, up to today, has just been com- pleted at Teachers’ College, Columbia Uni- versity, New York. This fact-finding body numbered 96 grad- umate students from every section of the United States, assembled for original study of mar- riage. Dr. Paul Popence, director of the Institute of Family Relations of Los Angeles, Calif., and suthor of books on eugenics, was the professor in charge. And of all the original methods of the study, probably the most “illuminating was 'marriage 's 96 students studied intensively a total of 1,018 marriages. To each of these the first and most important question was applied: And when the Unhappy marriages, 14 per cent. is, almost three-fourths of American are happy, judging from the results questionnaire. Dr. Popenoe sums doctors who explain that four that only 46 marriages out of 100 marriages contracted between educated people were happy —these, our studies show to be very wrong. “The trouble is that the earlier group studied only 200 couples, and those from the ranks of sophisticated New Yorkers. We have taken ours from the entire country.” So Dr. Popenoe characterizes the results just tabulated. Then he tells how his students go about getting material to answer the mar- riage questionnaire. “Happiness in married life,” he explains, “is the prime requisite, most of us will agree. But B this a happiest marriage picture? ica’s 50 most eminent women, what is happiness? Happiness, for one couple may mean a new radio and plenty of dresses for the wife. For another couple it may mean a fine home in the city. For a third it may mean a delightful ranch in Kansas. Or, again, it may mean social position, travel, riches, power, or merely the quiet enjoyment of similar tastes. “In other words, the only real judges of mar. ried happiness are the couples themselves. Ac- cordingly, we felt when we began our research in 1927 that the way to decide was to look at a couple. If they seemed happy; if they said they were happy, when they were in frank and revealing mood, it was reasonable enough to consider them happy. “But the next question confronted us—where were we to get our couples? We decided that each student should take 10 or more couples for study from some section of society well known by him—all the families on one street, or perhaps 10 of the families that made up the faculty of his own college. “But when we had got our main figures, we turned our attention to pertinent facts dis- closed as we studied our 1,018 marriages. For instance, we may agree that many women long for their own way in marriage. But our ques- tionnaire quickly showed us that the marriages where the wife is ‘boss’ are not always so happy, and that the families where the husband exerts a kindly rule—as is his biological function— are the families where the greater happiness prevails. “And* studying further, we seemed to find that where the ‘bossy’ wives were not happy it was because they rather despised the weak- willed jellyfish husband who would cede all his male powers to his wife. That is, household mastery did not make most women happy. 11 UT another subject came up for earnest study: What places are most conducive to helping a girl meet a suitable mate? We studied all sorts of places, and we found, in- terestingly enough, that educational institu- tions—high school, dramatic school, college and professional schools—are the most favorable places of all. Here are our figures: “Out of 1,507 people questioned, 501—33 per cent—met their mates in schools or colleges. The remainder were grouped as follows: 237 met their mates in private homes, 182 in busi- ness places, 180 at private recreational places, 131 at church, 122 met through casual propin- quity, 106 in travel and education, 32 in com- mercial recreation, 12 in miscellaneous ways and just 4 through ‘pick-ups.’ “But after we had done this, we asked—what are the occupations a girl should follow to find her true love? “Now, of old, we have been led to believe that school teachers were almost bound to be old maids. Our studies did not show precisely that, but school teaching seemed to be very unfavorable as a profession for the girl who wishes to marry and live happily everafter. “Again, it has been said that the office secre- tary was pretty sure to attract the big, strong, B4 The family of the woman who bore more than half of she children produced by Amer- Dr. Lillian Gilbreth, with her 12 children and one son-in-law. .\ THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, SEPTEMBER 27, 1931 silent business man. But our questionnaire showed that the office secretary has not even *so good a chance at marriage—if she depends upon meeting men in her workingday—as the woman doctor, whose chances for meeting a suitable husband are unusually good. 11 [TURTHERMORE, the trained nurse has been considered sure to get her man. .But our figures showed she was considerably below other professions we would have considered less likely, as those of the law and work in a library. “Illuminating as these figures were, our gques- tionnaire took in other and quite as vital con- siderations. We discovered early in our research that the average man is ‘poor husband mate- rial’ In fact, it was our opinion that the aver- age man makes a poorer husband than the average woman makes a wife. “As for causes of man’s shortcomings in this respect, we tabulated the following: “Lack of proper education in marriage. “Too much coddling mother love. “Too many woman teachers. “Failure to keep up with the times. “Failure to save for mdrriage. “Now all these facts our students brought in, as they pushed work on the marriage question- naire. And then we decided that we would scan that group of 50 eminent women selected by Ida Tarbell as the outstanding American women. And what an alarming state of affairs did these eminent feminine Americans present! “Of the 50, only 13 had married. And of the 13, only 5 had became mothers. Of these 5, one woman, Dr. Lillian Gilbreth, had become mother of 12 of the 22 children borne by the five eminent feminine Americans achieving motherhood. The other four were Mary Mc- Leod Bethune, who had one child; Louise “Is petting detrimental to manners and morals . . . or is it the reason- able ireparation for a courtship and a ha mwrhgg’” o Homer, who had six; Florence Kelley, who had one, and Margaret Sanger, who had two. “Certainly our study revealed that America does not seem to be reproducing herself through her ‘outstanding women,’ since these 50 women can produc: among them only 22 children. And this directly led our students to tackle & very important question: “‘How shall we manage so that the next gen- eration of distinguished Americans—feminine— will reproduce themselves better than this @is- tinguished 50?7’ " FTER study and questionings and as much ‘esearch as can be brought to bear upon such a living topic, our students decided that this might be done in two ways: “Pirst—by teaching in our schools' the sub- Jects of family relations, the duties of the two sexes, their relatively important functions in passing on the torch of life. “Now we found also that, strangely enough, there is no objection to this in most schools. Instead we hear—‘we would like to teach fam- ily relations to our high school boys and girls, but we have no teachers properly trained to teach this subject!’ “Here is a tip to teachers—there is a bigger mnhcmmewmumfwbnwmmd women who will qualify as family experts, to teuhtmflyquestm,mmenh'hnnyo! the old subjects, Latin, mathematics and his- tory. 2 d, our students decided that we must find better places for young people to meet, at marriageable ages, and more of such places. n: addition our students also decided there «S. need for a school course in manners, in how to please the opposite sex. “Schools till very recently have stressed scholastic proficiency out of all proportion to its importance in life. If we can put into school a course which will teach Mabel how to act and how to smile to interest young John, and if we can teach John in the same course that the ultimate satisfaction in life comes not from cursor flirtations, but from a lifelong partner- ship with one woman suited to him—then we will have gone far to raise still higher the per- centage of happy American marriages. “Our questionnaire today seems to show that 70 per cent are happy. Twenty years of im- provement in family relations, according to the suggestions made by our students, and we should raise that percentage to a worthy 90.” “Treasure Trees” of South THE name “naval stores” as applied to jhe products of the sap of the long leaf arid slash pines of the South dates back to the early Colonial days. At that time, gum from the trees was used to calk ships and the term, now covering products more used in other phases of life than shipping, came into use. The investment in the naval stores business is in excess of $50,000,000. For a time, it ap- peared that producers of resin, turpentine and related products were going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, but extensive research and educational work carried by the Forest Service has brought about not only the pro- tection of the trees which are tapped but also gum. Now, however, light cuts are made and cups and tin gutters are used to collect the liquid. By this means the yield is not only up but the thousands of trees which died because of the injury are now into maturity and serve a valuable purpose In fact, 50 profitable are the stores