ABSTRACT
Among the professional marriage watchers of the past forty years have been those offering therapeutic services to couples. In common with the couples they see, therapists (from the Greek θεραπεια meaning ‘attending’) have tried to understand and alleviate marital problems on the premiss that they are symptoms of disorder or conflict in the personal relationship of marriage. On the whole they have paid little overt attention to the social institution of marriage but addressed themselves, rather as doctors or priests, to the ‘cure’ of conditions or to providing ‘care’ for couples in conflict.
