THE CHALLENGE OF LOVE

This Catholic ""marriage manual"" is, like many of its competitor volumes, divided into ""Advice to Those Preparing for Marriage"" and ""Advice to the Married,"" and each section discusses the practical as well as the theoretical aspects of love from the running of one's home to the meaning of ""true love."" The present work differs, however, from most other Catholic works on the subject in two respects: first, its discussion of intercourse is frank and uninhibited; second, its opinions on the use of contraception, and to a less extent on premarital sexual activity, are ""liberal"" (although well within the bounds of respectable theological consensus). To that extent, the book is more useful than most of its kind, and that usefulness is enhanced by the pleasant and even engaging style of the authors. On an absolute scale, however-compared to non-religious manuals--this seems almost Victorian in its naively ""rational"" approach, for example, to the perils of pre-marital intercourse (detection, infection, conception) and to the attitudes which it ascribes, perhaps too gratuitously, to modern youth. A worthwhile book, if one insists on a ""Catholic"" marriage manual; but not otherwise.