ABSTRACT
Marriage partners do stifle as well as sustain each other and can, in turn, stultify as well as nourish their children. However, as the cultures practising monogamous marriage have been, to date, the most successful at surviving, it would seem that marriage as an institution has an evolutionary value and is worth a pause for consideration before it is labelled as an anachronism in post-industrial society. Considered as a unit in the series of institutions to which an individual can commit himself during his life, marriage may be distinguished by the many-sided, even paradoxical, nature of the commitment it demands. The entrance levy of added responsibilities and legally enforceable obligations at once confers a hall-mark of maturity. R. Skynner has outlined some indications and contraindications for conjoint and for individually based forms of family therapy. H. Dicks writes authoritatively on the use of both forms of therapy in hospital work.
