Are You Ready for Marriage? (1950)

Title

Are You Ready for Marriage? (1950)

Subject

Social guidance films
Marriage
Relationships
Teenagers
Education
Gender
Behavior
High School

Description

Larry and Sue are your average American teenagers. After a mere three months of going steady, they are smitten with each other and intend on marrying after high school. In this era of post-war economic prosperity and stability, the youth seemed to rush towards this idea of freedom from their parents and education. This led to high divorce rates, as most young husbands and wives had not taken the time to truly know each other. This social guidance film follows the eager couple through a meeting with a marriage counselor at their local church. In an attempt to combat such high divorce rates among young married couples, these videos infiltrated classrooms and touted the importance of "similar backgrounds, true friendship, and an understanding of marriage" as the foundation by which a strong marriage could be built upon.

Creator

Hill, Reuben (Educational Collaborator)
Altschul, Gil (Director)

Source

Prelinger Archives

Publisher

Coronet Instructional Films

Date

1950

Contributor

Mitchel, Yasmin

Rights

Public Domain

Format

Various

Language

English

Type

Moving Image

Identifier

Are You Ready for Marriage? Produced by David Smart. Glenview, IL: Coronet Instructional Films, 1950. SD, B&W. Accessed January 18, 2016, Web. https://archive.org/details/AreYouRe1950

Coverage

1945-1955
United States
Illinois

Original Format

Moving Image

Duration

16:03 minutes

Producer

Smart, David A,

Director

Altschul, Gil

Transcription

[teen couple embracing and kissing on stoop outside house]

LARRY: Good night, sweet

SUE: Good night, darling.

[Sue opens front door a crack, and turns back]

SUE: Larry? Aren't you excited about us getting married?

[Sue goes inside, Larry goes home]

[Larry and friend walk into a soda shop and sit down]

LARRY: It's like walking on a pink could. So I asked her last night at her graduation prom and she said yes. We're going to be married. In August.

LARRY'S FRIEND: Wow. Married? But she's just finishing high school. You still have two years at the university. That’s a tough road, Larry. What are you gonna use for money?

LARRY: Well, Sue's folks were gonna pay something to put her in Junior College, here in town for two years. So we'll have that. But instead of going to college, she'll get a full-time job in campus town. Say she doesn’t care about education anymore, and with my part-time job, we'll get by.

LARRY'S FRIEND: Uh oh! Here's Sue now! You two probably want to be alone. [leaves scene]

LARRY: Why, Sue, honey.

SUE: Oh…Larry.

LARRY: Well, what's the matter?

SUE: It's the folks, they--we had a terrible scene. I couldn't sleep a wink. They don’t approve. They say I'm too young. They want me to finish two more years of schooling before I even get engaged. Oh, Larry…

LARRY: Oh, buck up, sweet heart. They can't stop me. Relax. And act normal until your graduation next week. Then I can borrow Phil's car. Drive to Greenville. There's a justice of the peace down there. We'll elope, honey!

SUE: But, Larry, I wanted a church wedding. And all the parties and showers for me too and…my folks…that would break mom's heart.
Larry: Well, we're the ones getting married, not your folks.

SUE: I don’t know, Larry. I read somewhere that a marriage without parents' approval has two strikes on it from the start…But if eloping's the only way…

LARRY: Well…maybe it isn't…maybe you could convince your folks that you should get married.

SUE: But how, Larry? How?

LARRY: Say…I'll bet we could get some advice from the marriage counselor over at the church. His name is Haul. Phil told me about him. He teaches a course in marriage and family living at the college.

SUE: Do you think he could help me with my folks?

LARRY: Well, it's worth a try, isn't it?

[scene shifts to church]

SUE: My folks don't understand the way I feel. So that's the story, Mr. Haul. Do you think you can help us get married?

MR. HALL: Why, I'm in favor of marriage. In fact, I spend a great deal of time helping people get ready for marriage. Now, let's see, you’ve known each other for…?

SUE: Three months, one week, two days, and seventeen hours.

MR. HALL: And you're eighteen, Sue? [Sue nods] And nineteen, Larry? [Larry nods] Have either of you ever been in love before?

LARRY: Well, but not like this. This is the real thing.

SUE: Yeah.

MR. HALL: I had a chum in college who had the "real thing" with eight successive girls. Oh, it's alright if you have it. Fine. It's a very important factor in building a happy marriage. But tell me, how do you know it's real love? The kind you can get married on.

SUE: Why, ever since I first met Larry, I haven't wanted to date anyone else. The whole three months now. And besides, I haven't even had one quarrel with him.

MR. HALL: No quarrels? Why not? No differences of opinion, or no opinions? What do you talk about on your dates?

SUE: Oh, movies and popular songs…

LARRY: Orchestras, dancing…

MR. HALL: Larry's chosen profession, engineering?

SUE: Oh, no…I don’t understand any of it. I don’t like to hear about it.

LARRY: Why, Sue, honey, I didn’t know you felt that way.

[silence]

MR. HALL: Well, it seems you two may have some things to talk over and settle. Might want to ask yourselves some questions before you get too serious about marriage.

LARRY: Well, uh, what do ya mean?

SUE: What sorta questions?

MR. HALL: Well, questions for cupid. You might say you should ask those questions and before he fires those arrows. We call this cupid's checklist. First, do you have similar backgrounds? The similar basis for your ideals and standards. Second, are you real friends? Comrads, pals, through thick and thin. And third, do you both understand marriage? Oh, not the kinds in most movies or popular songs--but the real everyday, kind of marriage, between real people. Do you understand it?

LARRY: Well, golly, Mr. Haul. I don’t know the answers to all those questions. I just know I'm in love with Sue. Is that bad?

SUE: No, that’s good.

MR. HALL: Sure. And it's good when you recognize you don’t know the answers. It’s a good sign.

SUE: I don’t know--I think we're friends…and maybe we can understand marriage, but backgrounds…how do they affect getting married?

MR. HALL: Well, come over here a minute. Perhaps I can show you what I mean.

LARRY: What's that?

MR. HALL: I call it a marriage development board. It represents the psychological distance between a husband and a wife from the time they are born until they die.

LARRY: But--what does it all mean?

MR. HALL: Well, let's set it up for you and Sue. When you are born, you inherent a great many differences from your parents. That’s part of your background.

LARRY: That makes sense, all right.

MR. HALL: Now, as each of you grows up, you develop separate and unique personalities. [Moves pieces on the board] Your mental growth…your emotional outlook…your standards and ideals. Larry, your distinctly masculine outlook on life, and Sue your feminine way of looking at things, your capacities to love and be loved, these and many other things are the ways in which you acquire a background. But when you first met, you were probably farther apart--probably more distinct individuals from when you were born.

SUE: But I don’t want to marry a girl like me. I want to marry a man, like him.

LARRY: So even though we're close together here, we don’t know how far apart we are there?

MR. HALL: That’s right. When you two met, there was probably an early physical reaction. A romantic attraction that pulled you together, a love appeal sort of hit you--boing![stretches rubber band for visual]

LARRY: How would you know?

MR. HALL: Well, it happened to me. It happens at some degree to most couples who become happily married. But it takes more than this boing! For you see, if you're too far apart psychologically, if your backgrounds are not similar enough, it can cause a great deal of argument and unhappiness until… [over stretches rubber band, it flies out of sight].

LARRY: It's gone!

SUE: Where'd it go?

MR. HALL: That’s what you'll be saying about your romantic love if these other things cause a break up.

SUE: No, sir. This is forever with Larry and me.

MR. HALL: Fine…I hope so. But, don’t you think it's wise to take time to find out how much strain these differences might put on your romantic love?

SUE: But there isn't any time. Larry is going away in a couple of months.

MR. HALL: Yes…did you two ever see these figures on length of engagement, and it relates to chances of happiness in marriage?

LARRY & SUE: No…

MR. HALL: Two separate studies showed chance for happiness improves with a longer engagement period. It's fair for six months, better for a year, or two years.

LARRY: Is that because there's a better change to find out some of these differences, and become real friends?

MR. HALL: Yes, a chance to find out if your relationship will wear well.

SUE: Yes, but can't we settle these differences after we're married?

MR. HALL: And, if you aren't successful?

[silence]

MR. HALL: Before you become too deeply involved, find out if the distance might turn out to be too great. Here's another angle that should interest you both: how age when married, affects the chance for happiness. You can see that the chances are better after the a man reaches 21 or so, and the same study showed that the woman must be nineteen or twenty before the chances for happiness begin to be good.

LARRY: But why? What's the difference between nineteen or twenty-one or so?

MR. HALL: The difference is in you, in the next few years. You, Larry. And, you, Sue. Young people seem to change and mature in these years, from eighteen to twenty-one or even later. So the person you might marry at eighteen or so, might seem like quite a different person a few years later.

LARRY: Gee, hon. It doesn’t take an engineer to see we are on the bad curve of these graphs…all of them.

SUE: Yeah. I see out chances aren't so good now. What are we going to do? I thought you were going to help us get married.

MR. HALL: I think I can. I believe you two have what it takes to build a successful marriage. And yet, you wouldn't plan and try to build a house in three months would you? Shouldn't a marriage have better planning? If you two are going to build a successful family team that will last for forty or fifty years, then how long do you think it should take to get ready for it?

LARRY: All right. How do we know when we've done it?

MR. HALL: When the two of you are ready for marriage, you'll sense a new feeling between you. The two of united as a pair, thinking as one unit, acting as one unit in the building of a marriage and a new family. Your sense of pairs, shows up in the way in which you consider what is best for the pair of you over what you want individually for yourself. Think of how often you speak of things from "my" point of view instead of ours. How often you say "I want" instead of "we want."

SUE: I guess it wasn’t my folks that needed convincing, it's me--I mean it's us. Isn't it Larry?

LARRY: Yeah. We'll say.

[transition: in reflection of lessons learned]

MR. HALL: So, in turns of the checklist for cupid, Larry and Sue began to examine their readiness for marriage.

[voiceover]

SUE: Do we have similar backgrounds? Do we agree on our religious beliefs? And have the same feelings about religion in general? Do we have the same ideals and standards and taste? Do we enjoy the same friends? Do we share the same interests?

[voiceover]

LARRY: And what about Sue and me? Are we real friends? Do we have a real happiness in being together--talking or just doing nothing together? Does each of us really want to make the other one happy? Do we have a real interest in each other? And a sense of pride in each other? Do we know each other's peculiarities? Do we both have a spirit of give and take? Can we quarrel and come out with something better than before?

SUE: Do we really understand marriage? Do we understand the social aspects of marriage? Have we an understanding about money matters, and how important it is too have enough money to do more than to just get by? Do we understand the physical aspects and the family side of marriage? Do we know how much work there is to a marriage?

LARRY And overall, do we have a feeling of paired unity? Those questions were helping us to find out just how strong our relationship was and helping us to strengthen it. So the next time we called on Mr. Haul, we realized how much he had been helping us. He had been talking for some time with our parents and there seemed to be general agreement that Sue and I had a better understanding of just how much psychological distance separated us.

SUE'S DAD: If you want to Sue, your mother and I, we can make arrangements for you to begin school at State U this fall with Larry, instead of at the junior college.

SUE: If we want to?

SUE'S DAD: Then, if you too get along, in school that is, if you continue to reduce the psychological distance, then perhaps at Christmas vacation--or at Easter vacation--we'd be glad to announce the engagement.

SUE: Oh, Larry! And then we can be married when Larry graduates in two years--I mean, one year, and ten months, and three days.

SUE'S DAD: Yes. If the engagement period gives you two the opportunity to work things out together, if you both still want it.

LARRY: I guess you might say, we're engaged to be engaged, And Mr. Haul, I--we both wanna thank ya. And say, now do you think we have anything more than boing!

MR. HALL: Why, yes. I think that you have a good start towards getting ready for marriage.

THE END

Files

Are You Ready For Marriage.jpg

Citation

Hill, Reuben (Educational Collaborator) and Altschul, Gil (Director), “Are You Ready for Marriage? (1950),” Post War Teen Tuning, accessed March 28, 2024, https://postwarteentuning.omeka.net/items/show/3.

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