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This book is written by Dr. Ernest R. Groves, who is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, his wife, Gladys Hoagland Groves who is Director of Marriage and Family Inc. at Chapel Hill, N. C., and his daughter, Catherine Groves, a journalist and social worker, who is Executive Secretary of the Family Service
Association of Durham, N. C. The introduction is written by Dr. Robert A. Ross, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Duke University. All of the authors are articulate people who have written earlier books on related subjects. It is therefore apparent that the book draws on wide experience and talent. It comes as an expression of the point of view of a group of individuals working in the field of marriage counseling, which seems to be an expanding subdivision of the broader field of mental hygiene. Regardless of whether one believes that the separation of such a specifically limited field will permanently justify itself or that it will serve only as a temporary stage in the development of preventive psychiatry in general, one is naturally interested in the exposition of authors with so rich a background as that of the Groves family.
The style is fluent, simple and usually clear. The authors' pervading optimism is a definite contribution to the efficacy of the presentation. The book is 'written for the married and those about to be married with the purpose of helping them achieve in their married life the satisfactions of a harmonious, progressive and character-making fellowship'. (Preface) The focal point of the discussion is stated in the book's title.
The effort of the authors to keep the material organized around this focal point and yet do justice to the wide range of related topics results in a partial defeat of their own purpose which is to show that sex fulfilment is only achievable as a part of a general integration of the character. While this is stated in one form or another throughout the book, the concrete