Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Marriage Council Committee records

The Committee on Marriage Relations was founded in 1932 by 15 members of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting with the purpose of studying divorce and presenting the results the following year. The committee was created in response to a statement from the Representative Meeting of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting on the subject of divorce and a general belief in the institution of marriage according to religious and social tenets of American society. In 1933, the committee proposed the formation of an advisory board of professional and lay persons to act as counselors for those members of the Yearly Meeting as would want to consult them. The board would be known as the Marriage Council, and its functions would include education, personal advice, and collection of factual data. The committee focused on promoting successful marriages rather than addressing problems in marriage. By 1965, known then as the Family Relations Committee, the focus of the committee was on problems of the young, though it continued to provide counseling service to its members on all family-related issues. Lovett Dewees, who had chaired the committee for over 20 years, died in 1965.