Education Cannot Prepare for Marriage

"First come love, then comes marriage, then comes baby…". A popular childhood jingle that suggests that before becoming married and having children, there should be that period of dating which will determine whether or not love is the feeling that is abound in a relationship. The two individuals having come to the realization that they love each other might then make the crucial decision that they should spend the rest of their lives together in holy matrimony. Having made the decision enter into marital bliss, there is usually a period of counselling where the couple is 'educated' on the pros and cons of being in a long-term commitment such as marriage, but are they really being educated?

Let us look on what education really means. Philosopher and educationist Krishnamurti (1953), is quoted as saying that, "to understand life is to understand ourselves and that is both the beginning and the end of education" . In this definition of education, it is suggested that education goes beyond the scope of knowing something, or to be equipped with the knowledge of something. It is having gained that knowledge and utilizing it because of the understanding that you have gained, is where education is obvious. Having established what education is, we can now decide whether or not education prepares men and women for marriage.

Pope John Paul II distinguished three stages in marriage preparation, namely, the remote, the proximate, and the immediate. John Paul II explains that the remote stage begins at childhood, where children learn from the values and decisions of their parents, which includes interacting and socializing with individuals in and outside of their family. The proximate stage begins at about purity when the child's hormon...

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... role of the man and the woman. When couples are counselled, these educated truths are pointed out, and couples often agree that this is so, but this point of view is not guaranteed to remain within marriage. In this century where women seem to be dominating the work force and leadership roles in a number of areas, they can sometimes become over zealous about what role they should play and sometimes become bored with the man not being able to match their earning power, which with all the education on marriage, could not have prepared her for the actual experience of being married.

It is true that education can help to prepare you for aspects of life, such as a successful career, but I believe that experience is the best teacher in marriage, and that no form of education, whether individually, as a society, or as a couple can prepare a man or woman for marriage.