Alternatives to Marriage - Book Report/Review Example

Alternatives to Marriage Marriage has certainly been in the news in the last several years because more people are attempting to get married every year. Currently, gay marriage has been at the forefront because many gays and lesbians believe that they should have the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts. With this being the case, writing about alternatives seemed to be a good idea especially since Carl Rogers has written an entire book on the subject. As many people may know, Rogers was a psychologist who was most noted for his person centered therapy. In this perspective, he worked to help people understand themselves better and then learn to interact with others. He was a very quiet and gentle man, and spent much of his time understanding people and the world around them. In 1972, Rogers wrote the book, Becoming Partners: Marriage and Its Alternatives in which he talked about how he saw marriage and what it could be for those people who decided to tie the not. Told basically through the many clients he interviewed over the years, the book gives a wonderful understanding of marriage and its alternatives; it also makes one stop to think whether this is something the want for themselves or not. In thinking about this topic, it seemed logical to compare what Rogers said in his book to research that has been done since he wrote the book. Was the research in any way similar to what he wrote? Do his writings on this topic still make sense today? In the course of this research, it would seem that there are many ideas that could be taken from Rogers ideas. Rogers Research for the Book Rogers was interested in people and he says in the Introduction that he wrote the book because he was fascinated by young people and the challenges they had when they were attempting to come together for some type of long-term partnership. He was intrigued by young people and wanted to do something to help them that went beyond giving them basic information: Instead he decided to give them knowledge about marriage from inside successful marriages. Traditional Marriage Today, many people still get married but many decide that getting married is not what they want to do. They would rather choose an alternative like living together or staying single. Others still want to be traditional in that they want a wedding and one spouse. Amos (2006) begins the discussion of marriage and its alternatives because her articles talks about the perspective of the Anglican idea of marriage. This is often the most traditional idea because marriage has been a ritual that is and was associated with religion. Christianity has dictated what women and men should be within a marriage for hundreds of years. In the 1950s as an example, women were supposed to be "good wives" if they did everything they could to take care of their husbands. There was even a directive that was written by the magazine, Housekeeping Monthly that told women exactly what they needed to do (Amos, p. 269). Today, some of the things that were said in this magazine would be scoffed at by most women because it showed women in a subservient position to men. In other words, women were to be mindful that to be a good wife meant that they should have dinner on the table for their husbands, look pretty for him by freshening their makeup and "putting a bow in their hair", and making sure that the children were clean and quiet. After all, he had a difficult and tiring day at the office and should be respected when he came home (Amos, p. 269). The Anglican purpose of marriage, according to the Common Book of Prayer, was much like the purpose in most religions: 1. For the procreation of marriage. 2. To provide a remedy against sin and avoid fornication. 3. To make sure that people had a companion that would be there for both "prosperity and adversity" (Amos, p. 271). Today, traditional marriage as described here is difficult for many people to do unless they have some type of religion that says that they must marry for these above reasons. Rogers states that as he was writing his book that "the attitude of prurience is fast dying out" (p. 7) which basically meant that sexual activity was happening more frequently outside marriage. Rogers also saw that the future (the year 2000) would create another idea of marriage in which some couples would choose not to have children. This definitely went against the Anglican reasons for getting married. The Motivation for Getting Married Rogers points out through his description of Joan, that people do not always get married for reasons that are logical. Often, they do this out of peer pressure. Joan was very insecure and frightened about her future but she was not able to listen to her own feelings; instead, she relied on her friends and her family to tell her what to do. Rogers says that Joan "built the illusion that she could find the solution outside of herself --in another" (Rogers, p. 13). Many people today still build illusions when they are involved with an individual who is difficult when they are dating, but they think that the individual will change for the better once they get married. Murray, Holmes and Griffin (1996) suggest that there are benefits to positive illusions when people are engaged in close relationships. They suggest that when couples enter into a romantic relationship, they are already idealizing what they see as a "perfect" relationship. This can be a positive step because they want to make their relationship like the ideal that they picture in their minds (p. 81). Rogers spoke about this experience with his patients he called Dick and Gail. The two of them found that they liked who they thought the other person was instead of who they actually were in real life. According to Rogers, "when a person interjects a value or a social role from others without its being tested in his own experience, it has an incredible impact on his life being aware of it..." (Rogers, p. 38). Rogers seems to be agreeing with Murray, Holmes and Griffin in that there are positive illusions that help a couple rather than hinder them. Commitment Ritual is also a large part of marriage and is especially inherent in traditional weddings. There are some researchers who believe that rituals are an aspect of identifying commitment in marriages. Campbell and Ponzetti (2007) studied the effects of rituals on commitment. The researchers define rituals as "symbolic events that are repeated in a predictable manner over time" (p. 416). The researchers suggest that society has a variety of rituals that they partake in on a daily basis. Rituals are structured, precise in their procedure, use family symbols/actions/words, they occur often and they have special meaning for the people involved (p. 416). Rituals also have a very important function when they are used. Campbell and Ponzetti studied the investment model of commitment with ritual because it is based on interdependence theory (p. 418). This model "uses economic models to explain the process by which individuals experience commitment." (p. 418). The researchers wanted to understand the link between rituals and commitment. In their study, they found that couples that used rituals in "premarital involvements" were most likely to make the commitment to the other person. In fact, the more rituals the couple had together, the stronger their commitment once married (Campbell and Ponzetti, p. 423). Rogers understood that relationships needed some type of commitment but in his eyes the commitment was more due to two people making a decision to do something about their relationship in the "now moment". Specifically he states that his idea from what he has seen with couples over the years would be that couples would say to each other: "We each commit ourselves to working together on the changing process of our present relationship, because that relationship is currently enriching our love and our life and we wish it to grow." (Rogers, p. 201). This statement encourages couples to think about where they are right now and make a commitment to just be in the moment when they are working on their marriage. A statement like this may be difficult for traditionalists to understand because they may feel that this allows an individual to cheat on their spouse. In this researchers opinion, this sentence takes the stress off the individuals who are working together and will allow them more freedom as they work through their issues. All of Rogers clients that he talks about in the book had some preconceived notion about what marriage "was supposed" to be like. Each came to the counseling session because something they had decided about marriage was not the truth when they actually entered into the marriage. Attitudes and Communication Riggio and Weiser (2008) studied the attitudes that people have who were in long lasting relationships. They found that those people who had positive attitudes towards marriage were able to create positive marriages. Those couples who had negative attitudes about marriage were more apt to have difficulty in their marriages (Riggio and Weiser, p. 135). These researchers further looked into the attitudes and how they were embedded in the persons thoughts. They found that those married couples who had "moderately embedded marriage attitudes" were more apt to use them when they were evaluating issues in their marriage. Those who had high embedded attitudes were able to use these attitudes to make stronger evaluations with any issues or scenarios that came up in the marriages (Riggio and Weiser, p. 135). Rogers believes that communication is what brings couples together and forms their relationships. He suggests that although couples are communicating all of the time, they do not take time to communicate their own feelings. Couples realize that communication can be risky and that in telling their own feelings, they risk the other person responding to them in a way that makes them feel even more vulnerable. Rogers believes that people should come together in communication in a way that allows them to see the full person in their partner. If they are always bickering or engaging and blaming in their communication, they will not be able to resolve their own problems. When they are able to understand a more positive way of communicating and they are able to share their own feelings about a situation, they are able to enjoy each other more totally. Seeing the Inner Person One of the most important aspects of Rogers work is that he has created an opportunity for couples to look at themselves separately. He emphasizes that by becoming a total human being and bringing that total human being to the relationship, the relationship with someone else will be better. This seems to be true today as this researcher has talked to other couples to find out what they think makes a strong marriage. In each case, the individuals talk about learning to communicate their own needs, to have their own friends as well as couple friends and to have the ability to work on their own issues so that coming together they do not fight as often. Alternatives to Marriage Today, there are a variety of alternatives to marriage that people are taking and many of them were prevalent in the 70s. Rogers makes a point of saying that many of the couples that he talked to could have been involved in situations that were against local or national laws. He says this in a tongue and cheek manner because many of his clients chose to experiment in their partnerships. Some were involved in living together before they went through a formal marriage ceremony, others were involved in affairs with other people during their marriages, some studied other types of sexual experiences like homosexuality, prostitution and some had even joined communes. These were all alternatives that people tried in order to understand what they really wanted to do in their lives. Each situation gave them the companionship they were looking for and some of these companions came without strings attached. What amazed him was that most of the young people he studied were attempting to go into relationships when they had no idea what this meant. They had lived for so many years without education from their families or from their schools to tell them what to do. He suggests that the school system should have as one of their goals to "assist the young person to live as a person with other persons" (Rogers, p. 215). He also suggests that if the school systems would do this that students may acknowledge the fact that they are always going to be involved with other people and perhaps the addition of this knowledge would help everyone become more involved in learning to be better humans. This is an altruistic statement but this is how Rogers was in his lifetime. His interest was more about helping his clients become better people and he just happened to do this through therapy. As Rogers was attempting to move people closer together, the Internet has actually moved them further apart. Online dating has become popular and many couples brag about the fact that they met online or that they found true love through Internet dating. Not only are young people doing this, but many older people are also engaging in online dating. Wu and Chiou (2009) studied online dating to understand whether having more choices to date would help people make better or worse relationship choices. At any given time an individual can go online and find hundreds of sites and millions of people who have their profiles and pictures at an Internet dating site. Some of these people are honest and some are not. Wu and Chiou state that "online social interactions are the predominant reason for Internet use" (p. 315). The participants in this study were told that it was an experiment on "Finding your Best Partner for a Romantic Relationship!" (p. 316). This was important because they wanted to see how people searched the Internet and what they looked for in a mate. They found that the more choices that people had to find the "perfect mate" through shifting through many profiles, the less likely they were to make good choices for themselves. They seemed to want to see as many people as possible and to have as many dates as possible so the quality of what they had originally said they were looking for went down (Wu and Chiou, p. 318). In looking at this study, this researcher wondered how Rogers would have seen cyber dating. After reading his book, it would seem that he would not have liked this type of dating because it did not encourage people to really get to know each other as people. He may have felt that this was a superficial way of finding people to date but that in the long run it may not be a positive situation for people who were attempting to become more aware of who they were as people. Rogers also suggested that if the world would pass a law that said that anytime two people came together as adults in any relationship, where both were consenting adults, that whatever this relationship was it would be legal. He believed that if this were possible, that people would explore more options and they would be able to be more honest with each other about their explorations (Rogers, p. 214). This is an intriguing idea and it would be interesting to see how people would react to what he has stated. Although the time period was 1972, it seems that he was not too far away from what people are like today. Many people are desperately seeking relationships and sometimes they are not as discriminating as to who they choose. As this researcher has talked to friends about their relationships, some friends feel like they are getting older and that they are getting to a point that if they do not find someone soon, they may not be able to start a family or find the "love of their life." Rogers insists that this is not a positive way of thinking. He believed that people should first seek to become their own person and then seek to become a couple with someone who thinks as they do. He felt that experimentation was important and that change was inevitable. When people were in the position of wanting change, they had to understand that they were the only ones that they could change. Their spouse, lover, significant other must also be willing to change if it was going to happen. Conclusion Carl Rogers was a very important psychologist during his time and he seemed to be a deep thinker. The book is filled with many anecdotes from his life and his practice and it gave a very good understanding of him. The challenge with the book is that it seemed that he was attempting to give advice to young people in a semi-therapeutic way but at the same time he did not want it to be therapeutic. The book is written in a style of a grandfather who is attempting to give wisdom about the ins and outs of marriage. Having books about marriage from the inside out would seem to be a better idea so that people could understand what it takes to be in a marriage. To this point, anyone getting married has relied on family and friends to tell them what they are supposed to do. They have also looked at the marriages of their parents and others; this is not necessarily where they would best get their information. Rogers book is typical of many books in the 70s that were designed to be feel good books without a lot of content. His book is one that many young people may glance at but it would not be appealing to many in the age group that he hoped to reach -- at least not today. However, Rogers book is important because it does make an individual slow down and think about what they are getting into when they are thinking about getting married. References Amos, C. (2006). Marriage—and its alternatives: An Anglican perspective, yesterday and today. Islam & Christian-Muslim Relations. 17 (3). p269-279. Retrieved November 28, 2009 from Academic Search Premier AN: 22018255 Campbell, K. and Ponzetti, J.J. (2007). The moderating effects of rituals on commitment in premarital involvements. Sexual & Relationship Therapy. 22 (4). p415-428. Retrieved December 1, 2009 from Academic Search Elite database. AN: 27175957. Heppner, P.P., Rogers, M., and Lee, L. (1984). Carl Rogers: Reflections on his Life. Journal of Counseling & Development. 63 (1). p14-20. Retrieved November 28, 2009 from Academic Search Premier database. AN: 4971314. Murray, C.E., and Murray, T.L. Reconsidering the Term Marriage in Marriage and Family Therapy. (2009). Contemporary Family Therapy. 31(3). p. 209-221. Retrieved November 30, 2009 from Springer Link. DOI: 10.1007/s10591-009- 9091-9. Murray, S.L., Holmes, J.G., and Griffin, D.W. (1996). The benefits of positive illusions: Idealization and the construction of satisfaction in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(1). p. 79-98. Retrieved November 27, 2009f from psycARTICLES AN: psp-70-1-79. Riggio, H..R., and Weiser, D.A. (2008). Attitudes toward marriage: Embeddedness and outcomes in personal relationships. Personal Relationships. 15 (1). p123-140. Retrieved November 28, 2009 from Academic Search Premier database. AN: 30010611. Rogers, C.A. (1972). Becoming partners: Marriage and its alternatives. NY: Delacorte Press. Wu, P.L.and Chiou, W.B. (2009). More options lead to more searching and worse choices in finding partners for romantic relationships online: an experimental study. Cyberpsychology & Behavior: The Impact Of The Internet, Multimedia And Virtual Reality On Behavior And Society [Cyberpsychol Behav] 12 (3), p. 315-8. Retrieved November 28, 2009 from MEDLINE database. PMID: 19250015. Read More