e they are well prepared to deal with the sex side
of marriage. Doctors have developed a counseling service designed to
give young men and young women before they marry the assurance that they
need. This is the premarital examination so popular among college people
about to be married and becoming more and more a part of their routine
of matrimonial preparation.

The young man and young woman, and especially the latter, either
together or separately go to a physician who is interested in presenting
the sex problems of marriage and is familiar with the technique of the
premarital examination and can give young people a clear understanding
of the meaning of marital adjustment. This examination includes finding
out whether there are any structural or nervous obstacles to marital
happiness, the giving of specific information regarding any worry,
doubt, or ignorance felt by the person being examined, the giving of
counsel that will help make successful adjustment easier to achieve,
and, if this is requested, the giving of sound birth-control
instruction.

The premarriage examination does so much to lessen the tension before
marriage and to prevent temporary discouragements or ungrounded fears
after marriage that it is no wonder that it has been accepted rapidly by
young people who have come to know its value. Soon it will become a
commonplace preparedness sought by all thoughtful, sincere young people
who are about to marry. It is best obtained at least two weeks before
the wedding. Since there are sometimes mild physical conditions that
need treatment and that can be cleared up if there is sufficient time,
many doctors prefer that the examination be made at least a month before
the marriage. It is true that not every physician is prepared to give
this assistance, but the number of those who can is rapidly growing as
doctors become conscious of their responsibility for this new type of
preparation for marriage.

* * * * *

Generally a most useful part of this service is the opportunity it gives
the doctor and the patient to talk together frankly and clearly about
sex adjustment so as to take away the emotional handicaps that are the
chief cause of maladjustment. These difficulties, when they are deeply
rooted, and especially when they are unrecognized, play havoc in marital
adjustment. Most often they are the result of some sort of suggestion or
happening far back in the earliest days of ch