Marriage Education Legislation

What is Marriage Education?

Marriage education is informed by research suggesting that a healthy, happy marriage involves skills that can be taught; marriage education is skills education, not therapy, and can be offered by a wide variety of practitioners as well as trained community volunteers. Marriage education comes in different forms, but most programs have a substantial focus on offering couples practical instruction on how to manage conflict in constructive ways. Premarital education typically includes "inventories" or questionnaires that help couples identify strengths and problem areas in communication before making a marriage commitment; three popular version include PREPARE, FOCCUS, and PREP.

Almost 200 cities and communities throughout the United States have community agreements or covenants in which clergy commit to encouraging requiring marriage education and waiting period before marrying couples[this sentence must be rewritten tk]. (For more information visit http://www.marriagesavers.org/.)

Marriage educators also offer "divorce interventions" for distressed married couples. Two excellent programs include PAIRs (Practical Applications of Intimate Relationships) and Retrouvaille (offered through the Catholic Church but open to anyone).

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For Distressed Couples:

For information about a PAIRs workshop near you go to http://www.smartmarriages.com/. 

Retrouvaille can be reached at 800-470-2230
Web: Life Innovations, www.retrouvaille.org/weekends/weekends%20schedule_1.html.

Model Marriage Education Legislation, click here