THE MIRAGES OF MARRIAGE

by Dr. Don D. & William J. Lederer Jackson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1968

An uncommonly intelligent and intelligible discussion of modern marriage based on the premise of equality and on a concept of love which exists only when someone else's needs and desires take precedence over your own. Along with the disheartening divorce statistic, the late Dr. Jackson's findings include the fact that 80% of all married couples at one point or another seriously consider it. During the diagnosis a good many sacred cows account for the shattering of sacred vows; people do not marry because they're in love (it's either the illusion of romance or the urgency of the sex drive); most married people do not love each other, and there can be satisfactory marriages without sexual ardor; men and women are not behaviorally different; children will not improve the rapport. This then is quite an examination of the discrepant, discordant, and sometimes outright destructive conditions which exist between husbands and wives: of communicating; of various patterns of marriage (stable--satisfactory only witnessed among much older people; stable--unsatisfactory much more calamitous than say unstable-unsatisfactory); belaboring your spouse is healthy; and bargaining is essential. Dr. Jackson dismisses the popular mediation of most books and articles in this area as worthless: substitutes his own highly programmed ways of determining whether you have a working, or workable, relationship and the dear Johns and not, so dear Marys in animating exchanges provide a great deal of illustrative material. . . . Uncomfortably stimulating.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1968

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1968

Categories: NONFICTION