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The ABC's of Choosing a Good Husband
Give a daughter in marriage; you will have finished a great task. But give her to a man of understanding. - Sirach 7:25
Too many modern fathers are taking their cues from Spencer Tracy and Steve Martin instead of scripture. Following Spencer and Steve, most dads have three things in mind when they think of their daughter's wedding (No, I am not referring to bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy!). They think their job consists of: paying for the wedding, renting a tuxedo, and walking their daughter down the aisle. Other than paying for everything, this doesn't sound like too big a deal.
Yet the scriptures describe the father's role in his daughter's wedding as a "great task" (Sirach 7:25). A great task naturally brings to mind an exertion of labor over an extended period of time. What could possibly be involved in this "great task"?
A familiar verse from Proverbs says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it" (22:6). The scriptures highlight the need for parents to accomplish essential training in morals and faith during childhood, "before the mold is set for life." Yet how many dads have given thought to the training of their daughters during childhood for the selection of a good husband? The biggest decision your daughter will make is influenced in large measure by what you teach her in childhood-not by what you try to frantically convey to her that weekend she comes home with a man and announces their engagement.
The most frequently-repeated mistake I have seen in thirty years of working with parents is the failure to anticipate the needs of children and to plan ahead. Moms and dads should have a pro-active parenting plan, not a reactive one.
Why does everything in our Family Life Center catalog that mentions "teens" sell like hotcakes? The reason is that parents of teenagers have an urgent need to find solutions for the struggles of adolescents. But if these same parents had taken preparatory steps during their children's early years, their parenting would be twice as successful during the teen years. Most parents wait for the least effective time to start implementing vital changes.
The average father of a seven year-old daughter who hears about the need for preparing his children for marriage will remark, "I don't need anything like that yet, my daughter is only seven." Little do these men realize the opportunity they are missing.
Children have a complete openness to learning about almost anything, including the characteristics that make for a good spouse. It gets much harder to teach new values, virtues, morals, or behaviors during the teen years. The maximum parenting influence results from comprehensive training during childhood, with external controls lovingly applied. During the early and middle teen years, parents should have a "maintenance" type of strategy where they seek to nurture the morals and behaviors that were instilled during childhood. During the teen years there is a gradual shifting from external conformity under parental supervision to an internalization of morals. The final step in maturation should occur during the late teens and early twenties, when there is a completion of the internalization of the virtues "planted" in childhood and "watered" during the early teens.
Training in courtship, to have its maximum effect, should begin in childhood and continue throughout adolescence. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is unmistakably clear that training in courtship needs to take place before the age of courting.
It is imperative to give suitable and timely instruction to young people, above all in the heart of their own families, about the dignity of married love, its role and its exercise, so that, having learned the value of chastity, they will be able at a suitable age to engage in honorable courtship and enter upon a marriage of their own. CCC 1632
You don't need to sit down and have formal courtship classes with your seven year-old daughter. But you should spontaneously share hundreds of bits of courtship wisdom in one-minute segments throughout her childhood.
It is a little late to instruct your daughter about choosing a good husband if you wait until she brings home a loser and announces her engagement.
Taking serious action at this point is likely to rupture your relationship with your daughter. A child's openness to training in choosing a good spouse is greatest while the need is at its lowest point. During most of the teen years, as openness and need begin to balance out, parents nurture the foundations laid in childhood. During the later teens and twenties, the parental strategy is to pray for the interiorization of what they have taught their children throughout their upbringing.
You might respond by saying, "Okay, I'm supposed to get an early start in training my daughter for marriage. But I don't feel qualified to do this. What am I supposed to teach her?" Your daughter needs to learn about men and marriage in order to choose a good husband. Every dad already has experience with both of these topics. Being the father of six daughters, including four already in their teens, I have given quite a bit of thought to this topic. I spent the bulk of the Jubilee year of 2000 writing a new book, The ABCs of Choosing a Good Husband. I put into the book everything I've learned in three decades of family life counseling for my own daughters as well as for yours. Yet the book isn't just for daughters-it is also for dads who want a handbook on the things they should teach their daughters throughout childhood, the teen years, and the courting process. By about the time you get this newsletter, we will have taped the book for busy dads who want to digest its contents during drive time.
During our 2002 St. Joseph's Covenant Keepers conferences, I will offer a special segment on this topic. For example, I will highlight a simple strategy for teaching the Fourth Commandment to your children. Years later this can lead to a quadrupling of their probability of experiencing high satisfaction in marriage.
Becoming the father of a bride is not a joking matter, nor is it just a weekend experience. Training in honorable courtship is serious work. Giving a daughter in marriage is completing a great task. Dad, it's time to learn the skills, roll up your sleeves, and get to work.
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The ABC's of Choosing a Good Husband
