You know, I never knew there was even one popular marriage suitability inventory out there, let alone three of them. As Slate reports, one of the inventories, FOCCUS, has become so popular within the Catholic Church that it is used in two-thirds of dioceses these days:
It might seem strange that the church, which historically encouraged couples to marry to prevent premarital sex, now urges them to take a critical look at their prospective union. Based on answers from the quiz, some priests and lay counselors actively discourage some couples from marrying. Yet FOCCUS is not a religious tool; its questions are stripped of any judgment, and its facilitators are instructed not to use it as a forum to preach or punish...
Despite its sometimes provocative content, the quiz itself looks like any standardized test. Using a No. 2 pencil, each respondent scribbles in a bubble marked "Agree," "Disagree," or "Uncertain" for 156 questions that fall under 19 categories. These include financial issues, sexuality issues, and lifestyle expectations. The results, scored by computer, show the couple's percentage of coinciding attitudes. Taken six months or more before the wedding date, FOCCUS prompts anywhere from 10 percent to 25 percent of its respondents to postpone or even scrap their weddings.
You can see 10 sample items here. These items alone would be grist for a heavy discussion mill between almost any two betrothed people, I bet. Some of these topics - kids, religion, in-laws - are definitely "dealbreakers." And despite the concerns of some priests that FOCCUS is prejudiced by the current popular culture, there is some evidence to suggest that the inventory has predictive validity (the most important kind for this sort of judgment-making):
The quiz's predictions appear to be accurate: According to a 1995 study (by an independent research group at Purdue University), FOCCUS was 80 percent correct at predicting couples' satisfaction by their five-year anniversary. In fact, it has proven so successful at launching happy marriages—and thwarting train wrecks—that it has been adopted by more than two-thirds of the nation's dioceses. What's more, it's now taken by more non-Catholics than Catholics. Of the three major pre-marriage questionnaires, FOCCUS is the most widely used, offered by more than 500 Protestant churches as well as non-Christian and secular counselors...
Yet even fans of FOCCUS agree it doesn't guarantee marital bliss. For one thing, couples inventories only spot potential conflicts; they don't solve them. According to some experts, "learnable relationship skills," such as the ability to communicate or argue effectively, are what determine if a marriage will survive.
For the most part, however, Catholic and secular counselors call FOCCUS a breakthrough. At Rutgers University's National Marriage Project, a secular policy think tank, director David Popenoe praises couples inventories in general for preventing bad marriages and for getting couples accustomed to soliciting outside help...
Posted by kswygert at November 17, 2003 05:24 PM