To Gavra at work:
I agree with your assertion that parents should have taught their children these life fundamentals while they were at home–100%. IN AN IDEAL SITUATION, that is.
Unfortunately, we are not dealing with an ideal situation here at all. Many homes do not model proper values, and in others, the outside influence is just too strong. The result is that we have many confused singles out there, and even many newly-marrieds with the wrong ideas in their heads. Even if the young person in question witnessed a fabulous marriage at home, that doesn’t mean they would know how to translate that into actually being that type of spouse. What they didn’t see is the struggle and compromise it often took for their parents to aquire the state of harmony they did.
Years ago it was the mother’s job to teach her daughters halacha and hashkafa straight from the home. Today our girls are taught in school. There is no reason why “marriage education” should not be offered to those young men and women in the parsha. What I am suggesting is courses on how to figure out your priorities, how to determine which values are really important, the basics of husband-wife relationship, the concept of vatranus and effective communication, what is “normal” and to be expected, etc. This is what its really all about!
Often-times perfectly wonderful young people get married and suffer because they just keep misunderstanding each other. By the time they may go for counseling, a mountain of resentment may have built up. If a divorce follows, it leaves two hurt people that could possibly have been spared the trauma, with just a bit of education, before or after marriage.
My idea is that course be offered post-seminary for girls, and post-bais medrash for boys (or whenever they enter the parsha), and that there should be (pref.) required meetings on a regular basis with a proffesional after the couple is married to help them smooth over the difficulties that come up in the first year of marriage.
From what I have read, it is clear that couples that find themselves in troubled marriages can usually point to the first year when these problems first cropped up. But new couples would rather not seek help, as that would be admitting failure, to some degree. If marriage education can become the norm, there would be no need for shame, and each couple could receive the guidance they need.
That’s my (radical) idea in any case. But I have no idea how to go about implementing it.