Lemo Rockwood and "The Marriage Course"
Professor Rockwood's course on relationships, marriage and family was one of the most sought after classes at Cornell, a favorite among both male and female students throughout the university. While Rockwood's progressive ideas and the material's explicitly sexual nature made the course extremely popular with the majority of students, it also provoked considerable anxiety among the more conservative members of the Cornell community.
The Marriage Course
Professor Rockwood's marriage course was one of the most sought after courses on Cornell's campus, popular among both men and women throughout all the colleges. Her teaching approach combined traditional historical and anthropological approaches with an emphasis on experimentation and personal experience. She describes her course in the 1938/39 course catalog as:
A course dealing with social and economic changes which today are influencing the relations of men and women before and after marriage; scientific information which has promoted the study of mate choice and marital adjustment; the development of affection in the individual, and the achievement of heterosexuality; substitutes for mate love and the adjustment of the single person; the choice of a mate; courtship and engagement; the nature of the marriage relationship and factors which influence adjustment to this relationship; adjustments to parenthood.
Although wildly popular among the majority of students, the marriage course was not without its critics. The combination of Rockwood's progressive ideas and the explicitly sexual nature of the material provoked considerable anxiety among the more conservative members of the faculty, administration and student body. A letter from Miss Allen, then Dean of Women, to Miss Vincent, Dean of Home Economics, dated February 24, 1949, expresses concern over what Allen terms a "problem of semantics." Citing material in the marriage course as support, several fraternities had established "dark rooms" for the sole purpose of drinking and necking in private. Allen expressed her dismay that Professor Rockwood advocated and encouraged pre-marital relations in her course. In her own subsequent response to Dean Allen, Professor Rockwood defended the validity of her marriage course, asserting that she could not be held responsible for students misunderstanding or misinterpreting what she said in class.
In another incident, Lila MacLeod, President of the Women's Self Government Association (WGSA), wrote to Dean Allen on February 22, 1949, protesting Professor Rockwood's address to the Freshman Women's Camp. She felt that the lecture on social adjustments and dating in college life would have been more appropriate for seniors than freshmen. Rockwood spoke about the need for privacy in the development of courtship relations, suggesting that the women's dormitories failed to provide appropriately private conditions. MacLeod reported that a member of the House of Representatives who was taking Rockwood's marriage course came up to her and "delivered a sharp criticism," demanding that she establish a system allowing girls to get parental permission to sign out to men's rooms for the evening. MacLeod asserted, "I do not feel that a university or WSGA can sponsor any absolute, or even 'more absolute' conditions of privacy."
Such conservative reactions nonetheless paled in comparison to growing student demand for expanded courses in the area of marriage and relationships. In a seven-page memo to Dean Vincent and Mr. Dalton dated 2-4-48, Professor Rockwood reported on the overwhelming student interest in her marriage course and outlined her plan for improving and expanding the course, incorporating student suggestions. In later years, as feminist notions evolved, the marriage course was no longer seen as a symbol of progressive ideals, but rather as a contributor to the stereotype of Home Economics students being principally interested in the "M.R.S." degree.
