The name of this article could also be “Don’t kill your mother-in-law: mock her up!” The severest criticism that could have been leveled at Dianetics was entirely overlooked by the critics. This is not unusual, for a person, to be a critic, must first have assumed that he could not create anything. It required a certain creative ability to understand what went on early in Dianetics, for the marriage and divorce rate was considerably shifted by processing. Fortunately, there were more marriages and more saved marriages than there were divorces, but this did not mean that there weren’t divorces.

Husbands and wives who had for years been coming to an explosion point, faced with the technique of Book 1, exploded; in many cases, beyond marital repair.

Mismated in the first place, grown sour in harness, buckled down by an economic system which could not have been bettered by the Devil himself, it took very little to tip over what would have happened anyway.

One of the most serious parts of this was the husband-wife auditing team situation. Husbands and wives tried to audit each other with too high a percentage of failures.

To understand what takes place in a marriage it is necessary to understand why a husband-wife auditing team is so often unsuccessful, and will, now and then, blow up a marriage. And the answer to this is also the answer to why marriages blow up.

The introduction of the factor of co-auditing team into the marriage is the only catalyst necessary to something which will already give trouble.

From now on in these articles, you’re going to hear a lot about communication, for the solution of the problems of communication, and the gaining of an understanding of its anatomy have resolved the problem of auditing as well as marriage.

Communication, then, is the root of marital success from which a strong union can grow, and non-communication is the rock on which the ship will bash out her keel.

In the first place, men and women aren’t too careful “on whom they up and marry.” In the absence of any basic training about neurosis, psychosis, or how to judge a good cook or a good wage-earner, that tricky, treacherous and not always easy to identify thing called “love” is the sole guiding factor in the selection of mates. It is too much to expect of a society above the level of ants to be entirely practical about an institution as basically impractical as marriage. Thus, it is not amazing that the misselection of partners goes on with such abandon.

There are ways, however, not only to select a marriage partner, but also to guarantee the continuation of that marriage; and these ways are simple: they depend uniformly upon communication.

There should be some parity of intellect and sanity between a husband and wife for them to have a successful marriage. In Western culture, it is expected that the women shall have some command of the humanities and sciences. It is easy to establish the educational background of a potential marriage partner; it is not so easy to gauge their capability on the second dynamic or their sanity.

In the past efforts were made to establish sanity with inkblots, square blocks and tests with marbles to find out if anybody had lost any. The resulting figures had to be personally interpreted with a crystal ball and then re-interpreted for application.

In Scientology there is a test for sanity and comparative sanity which is so simple that anyone can apply it. What is the communication lag of the individual? When asked a question, how long does it take him to answer? When a remark is addressed to him, how long does it take for him to register and return? The fast answer tells of the fast mind and the sane mind, providing the answer is a sequitur; the slow answer tells of down-scale. Marital partners which have the same communication lag will get along; where one partner is fast and one is slow, the situation will become unbearable to the fast partner and miserable to the slow one. Further, Scientology when applied will be more swiftly active in the case of the fast partner and so the imparity under processing will grow beyond either’s ability to cope with the matter.

How to audit a marriage and keep it a marriage is a problem a large number of auditors would like to have answered. It is not too difficult a problem. One simply takes the slow communication lag member of the team and processes that one first, for this will be the harder, longer case. By speeding up the slow one, parity is neared with the fast communication lag partner, and no objection will be offered. If the fast one is chosen for processing, or if both of them enter processing at the same time, the ratio will not be neared but widened and a marital breach will ensue.

The repair of a marriage which is going on the rocks does not always require the auditing of the marriage partners. It may be that another family factor is in the scene. This may be in the person of a relative such as the mother-in-law. How does one solve this factor without using a shotgun? This, again, is simple. The mother-in-law, if there is trouble in the family, is responsible for cutting communication lines or diverting communication. One or the other of the partners, then, is cut off the communication channel on which he belongs. He senses this and objects strenuously to it. Under processing particular attention should be given to rehabilitating his sense of being on communication lines.

Jealousy is the largest factor in breaking up marriages. Jealousy comes about because of the insecurity of the jealous person and the jealousy may or may not have foundation. This person is afraid of hidden communication lines and will do anything to try to uncover them. This acts upon the other partner to make him feel that his communication lines are being cut, for he thinks himself entitled to have open communication lines, whereas his marital partner insists that he shut many of them. The resultant rows are violent as represented by the fact that where jealousy exists in a profession such as acting, insurance companies will not issue policies — the suicide rate is too high.

A person who is jealous has something wrong on the subject of communications and, in selecting the partner to be processed first, the auditor should select the jealous person.

Rapidity of communication is aberrated in some types of psychosis, but here it is also non sequitur and is rapidly and hysterically told about the cat. This is very easy to notice: even psychiatrists can tell it.

The subject of Marital Scientology could not be covered in many chapters, but here are given the basic clues to a successful marriage — Communicate!