All good so far.
VV76, I like your thoroughness, but I'm going to cherrypick your lists. A lot of those questions have the same answer: "With a strong relationship with God and an average or better dose of common sense, you'll figure it out." Which is a good thing, because a lot of those questions are still in the "we just don't have enough data" phase....
I want to come back to that "maybe something is wrong with our culture" thing. A lot of the "manual" talk proceeds from a place of assumed standards and norms. Using my own language, the idea would be that once we have enough data to make statistically supportable observations, we'll have "norms" we can aim for.
The problem is that the "norms" are already pretty much known (putting the "biblical" in biblical families), and the other part that really matters is the customization.
So for instance, take the issue of car repair manuals. All cars have similar basic systems, and we can predict what kinds of chapters such a manual might have. But the details are going to go down to the make and model and year that vehicle was built.
Or take building blueprints. All homes have to have a certain number of specific functions provided for (eating, sleeping, hygiene, gathering, entertaining, whatever), and there are some conventions that we can expect for conventional housing. But the exact implementation is different every time (unless you're building tract homes).
So sticking with the blueprint metaphor: I can tell you the basics of what a solid biblical marriage needs to survive and thrive, but you (particularly, and most folks here) already know that part. The part that matters is the customization, the way each family has to be fitted together out of the component characters and personalities that are involved. Your intimate knowledge of your wife and her needs (and later, your wives and their needs), coupled with your following God's leading and what you already know about marriage, will see you through.
Back to my "find a mentor, not a manual" comment, it's the difference between (a) reading one of those $18.95 books at Lowe's on how to build a deck or how to wire a house and thinking you know what you're doing, and (b) having a friend who knows what they're doing willing to help you get it done. What we're doing here is practical, not knowledge work, so apprenticeship is a better path into it than book work, because you can deal with real issues in real time instead of first trying to store up a bunch of knowledge so you'll have it when you need it, then work it out as you go.
In the old days our fathers, uncles, and grandfathers would have handled this function....
So that's it for me and pushback on the basic idea. I'm going to take all suggestions (keep 'em comin') and see what I can come up with....
