Marriage and Parenthood

A short, plain guide to Catholic married life, from courting to the raising of children, by a priest who was willing to say what others left unsaid.

Asked how a person should prepare for the sacrament of matrimony, a little Irish girl told her priest, “A little courting, your reverence.” Fr. Thomas J. Gerrard thought she had it right, and his book begins there. He tells a young woman what to look for in a man and what to do if the man she has drinks (break it off at once). He tells a young man who is afraid he cannot afford a wife that it is better to marry early and poor than to stay single and tempted. He takes the single life in the world seriously as a calling of its own.

Then he follows the couple into married life. A husband’s love must be affectionate, practical and exclusive, and he spells out what practical means. A wife’s obedience is real but limited, and the running of the house and the babies is hers, with the husband to have nothing to say. On the marriage bed he writes with a plainness he defends on the ground of necessity, setting out what the Church permits, what she counsels, and why. He goes on to childbirth, including what to do when a baby is miscarried, to the blessings of a large family, and to the day a small child asks where babies come from.

The last chapters are for parents: love before correction, no favorites, a Catholic school chosen with care and then a teacher left alone, one good religious picture on the wall, a shelf of Catholic books, and the school bills paid on time. It is a short book, finished in an evening, and there is hardly a question a Catholic couple could ask that it does not answer in plain words.

About this edition

Set from the revised edition of 1911 published by Joseph F. Wagner, with Archbishop Farley’s imprimatur of January 1911. The wording of the historical text is preserved in this newly typeset edition. EPUB edition.