University of Virginia Library

Student Marriages: Marital Or Martial?

By DARLENE SPRINKLE

"What are you doing that
for?" was the question one
undergraduate student
frequently heard a year ago
when he decided to throw out
the anchor and get married.
For obvious reasons, marriage
is the exception here at the
University rather than the rule,
as it probably is at other
institutions of higher learning.

The statistics indicate that
very few (only 25)
undergraduates are married
by their second year at the
University, with a large increase
beginning with the third year,
Eighty-three third-year and
137 fourth-year students are
married this year. One
hundred fifty-five of these
married undergraduates are
males out of a total of 258.

The majority of the married
students are graduate students;
out of the 2,210 that are
married, 1,649 are males.

How does this minority fare
here at the University? Why
did they get married to begin
with, and what kind of
problems are they having now?
An interview with Dr. Gates
and Dr. Glosser of the
Counseling Center helped to
answer these questions.

They see only the negative
aspects, however, of student
marriages, since no one comes
to them discussing a successful
marriage. When someone
comes to the center for advice,
they either want a
confirmation of their own
ideas, or they feel pressured
into seeking counsel.

Poor Start

Many of the problems, the
doctors say, arise in a student
marriage because of the initial
reasons the couple had for
getting married. Pregnancy,
insecurity, and desperation are
some of these reasons.

Pregnancy initiates many of
the marriages, and these are the
kind that usually don't work
out. Often, the wife represents
a drag to the male who feels
robbed of his adolescent
freedom. As Dr. Glosser said,
"The same beautiful arms that
are so welcome on Friday and
Saturday nights are a bore by
Monday." The couples are
around unmarried people their
age while at school, and this
tends to increase the feelings
that some freedom or mobility
has been taken from them.

The wife, in this situation,
is frequently tied down to the
business of taking care of their
child. She has no social life; the
people around her are usually
much older and have different
interests. In some cases both
the husband and the wife are
set up to have extramarital
affairs in order to liven things
up.

Some fear rejection in
dating, so they marry in order
to have a permanent social life.
Others marry the first one that
ever paid them any attention.
These are the type of immature
people that are the very ones
who should not marry at this
stage in life, according to the
doctors.

The Open Society

Then there is the couple
that enjoy living together; but
fear parental disapproval. They
marry in order to get this
approval.

Dr. Gates and Dr. Glosser
have handled some unusual
marital problems. They have
encountered the homosexual
with children, heterosexual
triangles, and semi-open
marriages where each partner
agrees to permitting sexual
relations with others.
Generally, these semi-open
marriages never work because
they hurt the mate
emotionally, something that
both had intellectually
reasoned would not happen.

Matrimony Before Degree Companionship At An Occasionally Questionable Price

The usual arrangement
finds the wife working full
time, and the husband part
time. This makes it enormously
hard on the student husband,
and the situation worsens
should the wife become
pregnant. In these cases they
blame each other for the
pregnancy and a battle ensues,
which may or may not subside.

Parental support, at first,
seems to be the solution to a
financial crisis. The drawback
lies in the fact that strings are
often attached to every dollar
donated. The parents expect
the son to do well in school,
come home at the prescribed
times, do small favors at their
beckoning, and as Dr. Glosser
aptly indicated, "You literally
owe your soul to the
company store."

When the couple is finally
able to become financially
self-supporting their desire to
be independent is taken as
ingratitude ("After all we've
done for you..."). Many
parents say they don't want to
be paid back, in monetary
terms. Usually, however, they
do expect some kind of
return–with the student's life.

Dr. Gates stressed that for a
good marital relationship to
continue, the two people must
be very independent, and even
then it is tough.

The couples interviewed
here at the University created a
much different outlook on the
prospects of a successful