Adoption of uniform marriage laws by all States to replace laws “utterly outgrown and inadequate,” was urged today at the second session of the forty-eighth annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
A three-point program embodying marriage law reforms was unanimously adopted by the convention following its submission by Dr. Sidney E. Goldstein of New York, chairman of the Conference’s committee on marriage and the family.
Describing the present marriage laws as “utterly outgrown and inadequate,” the committee presented the following suggestions:
1.–That no one shall be permitted to marry under eighteen years of age without consent of a court of jurisdiction;
2.–That both parties to the contract be examined by a competent physician and no one be permitted to marry who suffers with active venereal disease;
3.–That an interval of at least five days elapse between the time of application for the marriage license and the time the license to marry is issued.
The committee’s report urged marriage preparation courses in high schools, colleges, settlement houses, community centers, churches and synagogues.
It also asked establishment of marriage consultation centers in the synagogue, with staffs to include a physician, psychologist, lawyer, social worker and minister.
The report said 7,000,000 men and women in America are of marriageable age and are still unmarried, many of them because of economic insecurity. It advised creation by city, state and federal governments of programs of vocational training, assuring those of marriageable age steady employment and adequate income.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
