To a psychologist, the position from which sociology regards phenomena as, e.g., the choice to marry or not to marry, sometimes seems extremely detached. The present seminar is going to discuss this problem as researchers and theorists, in loyalty to the rule that our subjective feelings and involvements shall not shake us from this distant position. While we know that we have to do with an important phase in the life of individuals, a phase of stress and strain, of joy and despair, we who are to discuss the topic will concentrate on what seems to be cold and clear, observable factors. On the background of this awareness of difference between the process as experienced by its participants and the objective factors operating in it as inferred by the researcher, we will introduce you to some main aspects of the problem. The first aspect is the type of motivation young people may have when they decide to marry. Involved here is, according to some types of analysis, more or less explicit ideas of possible gains and loss connected with entering marriage. This is related to the second aspect, the mental image of marriage, in particular the image of the happy marriage, in the young person. The third aspect, then, concerns the sources and determinants of this image, as we here pay special attention to the possible role of the social scientist as image-shaper on the basis of his value commitments. Relevant for all these three aspects are the possible effects of a correspondence assumed by many social scientists between three ideal goals: marital harmony, individual self-realization, and social adjustment in a career society. When talking to non-professionals about our topic, they often say: But marriage isn't anything that you decide! The term decision seems to have around it an atmosphere of calculation, of cold deliberation and of a freedom to choose. How adequate is the concept in this connection? In the study by Kirsten Auken 50 % of the marrying girls were pregnant.,) Considering the sanctions in our society against the unwed mother, it appears that we might in many cases more adequately describe the transition to marriage as a situation of despair on facing the possibility of remaining unmarried, rather than as a situation in which one is free to choose. And if the situation for the