Teaching love to university students

Later this year, population experts and pronatalists will meet in Texas to explore practical solutions to declining worldwide fertility. It’s one of several signs that attitudes to fertility rates are shifting.

Fertility rates have been in decline for decades, and not just in developed countries like North America, Europe and Australia. China and India have been below replacement for some time, while South Korea and Japan are at catastrophic levels with doubts that it can be reversed.

It’s a topic we’ve followed with interest, including the related topic of unplanned childlessness – the phenomenon of falling fertility even among those wanting to have children.

Then last week we came across an article titled: China urges universities to provide ‘love education’ to boost population rate. Apparently, officials in Beijing want colleges and universities to help create a “healthy and positive marriage and childbearing atmosphere”.

The article claims that 57% of Chinese college students do not want to even fall in love. The most common reason? Not knowing how to balance time demands between study and a romantic interest.

We suspect that university students in other countries would poll similarly, although our instinct is that the real reason is a fear of hurt. A happy, healthy romance energises us, and balancing commitments is tackled with motivation (and a willing sacrifice of sleep).

On the other hand, a dysfunctional relationship, or the recovery from a messy breakup, has very real negative consequences – it saps our energy, provokes anxiety and regret, involuntarily disrupts sleep and undermines motivation.

Avoiding love … and babies

Whatever the cause for avoiding love, census data show that the median age of marriage and first child have been increasing for decades. That’s not good for the fertility rate, because humans reach their fertile peak in their early twenties and by thirty it’s already in decline, especially for women.

With delayed marriage, many couples are finding that having a baby is not simple. And, for an increasing number, the longed-for baby will not eventuate, even with the plethora of reproductive technologies on offer.

In fact, research has found that many people aspire to have children, or more children, than they eventually do. They either can’t afford them, are infertile, ran out of time, or couldn’t find a suitable mate with whom to form a family.

Which is the focus of the contemporary pronatalist movement – not guilting women into motherhood against their desires but removing the barriers so that those who aspire to parenthood, have a better chance of achieving it.

The question is, would a university course on ‘love education’ help?

The Art and Science of Relationship

University courses on relationship are not a new idea. Several colleges in the United States offer ‘Relationship 101’ courses, and an internet search showed that several in Australia do as well.

The science of relationship is a real thing. Psychologists and sociologists have been studying the dynamics of romantic relationships for decades and like most sciences, relationship theory and practice can be taught and offers significant personal benefits.

Various models of communication skills, conflict resolution, couple decision making, intentional habits, etc., can be taught, along with practical skills and applications.

The insights are hugely helpful to couples at all stages of relationship and to singles in the dating market.

Yet, all the skills and theories in the world are of little help if we lack the virtues that underpin our capacity for healthy, loving relationships. This is the art of relationship and it speaks to one’s interior life and virtue development.

Virtues like honesty, self-discipline, humility, and kindness – to name a few – are the foundation of successful relationships. They are cultivated by practice, starting as children in our families.

Which is why the Church has called the family the ‘school of love’. It is in the family that we first learn what it is to be loved and to love another.

No family is perfect, so our formation for marriage will always have some deficits. Even so, it’s possible to make up for many shortfalls via quality marriage formation throughout our life.

The SmartLoving courses aim to do this by integrating the insights from relationship science with the theological and spiritual wisdom of Catholic teaching. It’s a highly effective model.

So, can love and relationship education at university reverse the decline in fertility? That remains to be proven, but logic suggests that if young people improve their relational competency, they’ll be more likely to marry earlier, giving them a head-start on their own family.