ABSTRACT
WHEN they marry, though the man and wife of Bethnal Green draw closer to each other, they do not break right away from their existing relatives. Since they bring their families of origin into their new lives as well as into the church, they have to make a profound double adjustment: to each other as individuals, and to the relatives who surround them. The wife has to reconcile her new obligations to her husband with her old obligations to her parents, and the husband likewise. The wife has to adjust to the husband's family of origin, and he to hers. A marriage modifies all the other family relationships of each of its partners no less here than anywhere else.
