It’s good to know that the Catholic Church still helps to organise marriage preparation courses, under the heading of Marriage Care. Some of the items on the agenda include: the importance of talking and listening; how to negotiate and solve problems; what couples expect from their relationship; and the way family and childhood influence spouses, and how they interact with each other.
I suggest that there is another item that should be added to the programme: the question of domestic violence and domestic abuse.
Theresa May’s administration is keen on tackling domestic abuse, and new regulations are promised which will punish domestic abuse offenders “more harshly than criminals who commit common street assaults”.
The Sentencing Council has promised “an increase in sentence severity” from May 24 for crimes that occur within the home – considered to be all the more odious “because they represent a violation of the trust and security that normally exists between people in an intimate or family relationship”.
Every commentator I have read affirms that domestic abuse is appalling and unacceptable. But not a single voice, so far as I know, has suggested that prevention is better than cure. Surely this issue should be addressed before couples settle into “an intimate or family relationship”?
It’s understandable why women (or men) find it difficult to disentangle themselves from an abusive relationship. There might be children involved, or housing difficulties, or other commitments which bind them into a bad situation. But why embark on a living-together relationship in the first place if it risks being abusive? Wouldn’t foresight and assessment be one of the most useful things a marriage preparation course could accomplish?
Mrs May has vowed to bring forward a Domestic Violence and Abuse Bill, which will stipulate draconian penalties. Perhaps she should also advance a “prevention of domestic violence” programme by emphasising relationship preparation.
I visited a friend’s house recently and noticed that her living room was adorned with greetings cards. These many and various cards expressed sympathy for a death. Some were elaborate, others were simpler, but all seemed tasteful and thoughtful in design.
It transpired that her ex-husband had died (or, as people are now inclined to say, “passed away”) after prolonged treatment for cancer. She was on cordial terms with her former spouse, though he had re-married. And she much appreciated the sympathy cards that friends, acquaintances and clients associated with her business had sent her.
Traditionally, the etiquette was that you wrote a letter of condolence after a death (Catholics, especially in Ireland, also send Mass cards). But letter-writing isn’t a common practice these days and other forms of communication have replaced it, including the phone text and email.
The advantage of the condolence letter was that you could re-read it, even years later, and it would recall an appreciation of the departed. The advantage of the sympathy card is that it can be attractively displayed, read and re-read too, and put aside in a memory box.
Sticklers for etiquette might regard the sympathy card as a lazy substitute for a letter, but I’m beginning to see that it has a place in its own right.
By the way, the fashion for using “passed away” or even just “passed” is another interesting facet of the modern way of death. It’s partly euphemism, but it’s also a throwback to the late 19th century when theosophists and psychics introduced the notion of “passing” and “passing over” rather than dying.
Personally, I like the phrase to “depart this world”, which has its cheerful side, and allows oldies to crack jokes about being in life’s departure lounge, but hoping to have another little whirl of joie-de-vivre before take-off.
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Cold weather can be bright and bracing, and snow is so pretty when it falls, but it can also be perilously slippery. I have prepared myself for this week’s arctic spell with shoe accessories called Winter Trax. These gadgets are grips that you append to the soles of your shoes or boots which help reduce falls or injuries on snow or ice.
It still amuses me to observe television reporters conducting outside broadcasts in snow and hail – bare-headed. Coiffure takes precedence over millinery.
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