Rabbi Sidney E. Goldstein Discusses Family Problems

Dr. Sidney E. Goldstein of the Free Synagogue delivered an address yesterday at the conference and discussion for Ministers of all religions, on the sociology of the Family, held yesterday at the Russell Sage Foundation.

The Minister, more than any other man, should feel himself responsible for the reorganization of the family on a safe and secure foundation, Rabbi Goldstein said.

“Within a quarter of a century,” according to Rabbi Goldstein, “divorces, separations and enstrangements have in creased with a startling rapidity, but do not indicate that the family is disintegrating.”

The family, according to him, is passing through a historic crisis and is reorganizing itself upon new foundations.

The new foundations of the family are laid in science, biology, psychology, economic and ethics. Young men and women have no proper preparation for marriage. They do not understand the importance of the elements that enter into marriage and family life and are compelled to gain their experience at the expense of their own development and happiness. Only within recent years have colleges introduced courses on the family and in most cases, the courses deal with history rather than the problems of family organization.

“No couple should be permitted to enter the state of matrimony,” according to Rabbi Goldstein, “without instruction and guidance in at least the elementary matters of marriage and family organization.”

While the Minister should be responsible for the reorganization of the family, the difficulty is “that the ministers themselves are wholly unprepared to instruct and guide young men and women, and also seem to be unaware of their own obligation. There are ethical implications in marriage of which the civil contract is altogether unaware, and it is these ethical implications that the minister must place first in the performance of every ceremony,” Rabbi Goldstein said.