Marriage 101: An integrated academic and experiential undergraduate marriage education course

We describe "Marriage 101: Building Loving and Lasting Partnerships," an innovative, far-credit undergraduate course at a large, religiously unaffiliated research university. Marriage 101 engages students in the scientific literature and discourse in the psychology and sociology of marriage and marital success. The course has the additional explicitly practical goals of preparing students to choose compatible partners, to face inevitable challenges, and to experience greater marital and relationship satisfaction. To achieve these goals, Marriage 101 integrates traditional academic methods with experiential and self-discovery assignments. Four years of experience with 150 students has found students eager to learn and able to do so, gaining considerable insight about themselves and the challenges of intimate relationships.