The Sixty-Minute Marriage
By Rob Parsons
Hodder & Stoughton.. 107 pages. £5.99.
ISBN 0 340 67145 9
The secular social experiments of the last 50 years have left family life in a bad way in our country. The latest statistics show that 41% of all marriages end in divorce. Rob Parsons, the author, works with CARE for the Family. Aimed at the busy middle-class male and female of today, this book is his slim but powerful attempt to save shaky marriages from breakdown.
It is written in the same style as his previous best-seller, The Sixty-Minute Father. And indeed the motivation for this new book comes from his concern for the children of broken marriages. One page proclaims boldly: 'It may not always be right to stay together 'for the sake of the children'. But it's still a good reason.'
The author proposes ten goals, with practical suggestions on how to rehabilitate a marriage where the partners feel that love has died. These goals include the standards of developing effective communication and making time for each other, along with less obvious ones like accepting what we can't change, and believing in love-making. In particular, the book highlights being ready to handle the pressures which come with being a parent and the great threat posed to marriages by falling into debt. This is a well-crafted volume with plenty of wit and common sense. It makes an easy 60-minute read (ideal for the commuter from Guildford to Waterloo?) and will prove extremely helpful.
But while applauding the book, I must air a feeling of disquiet. Although this is probably the perfect book to give to a friend who asks for help, but says: 'Don't force your religion down my throat', nevertheless I found the studious avoidance of anything but the merest passing reference to God, to be a disappointment.
After all, if we believe, as CARE rightly often tells us, that secularism lays at the root of the family's troubles today, how will leaving God totally out of the picture ultimately provide anything but a sticking plaster to a mortally-wounded society?
