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Vol. VII., No. 6 EDITORIAL JUNE, 1917
WHO MAKES MARRIAGE A SUCCESS?
A Big Editorial for the June Bride, and Others, to Ponder
THE June Bride comes! Sweet and calm and serene, looking out with unclouded eyes through the filmy folds of her veil—eyes in whose depths the light of happiness lies. And she is happy, this little June Bride, happy with boundless trust in the love that encircles her round, happy with unlimited faith in the roseate future stretching away before her daintily shod feet. She believes—as all lovers do, and should—that the love on which she builds her happiness is greater, deeper, better, holier, than the love of any other pair of lovers through all the zons that have gone before.
And she is beautiful, this little June Bride; her face is illumined with the glory of love—the very homeliest woman that ever was is beautiful when she loves, forgetting self.
She looks at the man beside her, and she sees him, not as he is; not as others see him and know him to be, but as she has clothed him in the robes of idealized love; and he, knowing something of the heights on which she has placed him, is humbled to the dust at her feet, and—if he be a real man—resolves with all the manhood in him to prove worthy of her trust and love—to be worthy of the little June Bride.
This is the beginning; the fairy tales used to count it the end—"and they lived happily ever after." "Lived happily ever after!"—that summed up all the long years that came after, all the trouble and the sorrow, all the gladness and the joy, all the growing nearer together or the widening of the gulf between, all the spring and the summer, all the autumn and the winter of life—"they lived happily ever after!"
The little June Bride does not marry expecting to be other than happy; yet sometimes she is. And then, with wide, startled eyes, she looks around and sees many one-time lovers who have forgotten the heights on which they once dwelt and who are now in the valley of despair, the street of indifference, or the mart of social dues. And wildly she clasps her hands and wildly she asks of a heaven of brass, "Why, oh, why must this be so?"
And from somewhere beyond that heaven of brass comes the answer, "Look to your foundation. How did build?"
"I built on love," wails the little June Bride, turning her eyes to earth. And the brass of the heavens was riven as the lightning flashed and the rain descended.
“You built on love!" The lightning flashed asunder body and spirit, and the little June Bride cowered down to break the blow she knew must fall. "You built on love! What love?" Lower yet the little June Bride cowers. "I built on love, love of the earth, earthy, and my foundations were laid in sand—fleeting unstable; and now—Ah, me! They are washed away."
'Build again!" comes the thunder; "and look to your foundation! All is not lost. Build again!"
And a gleam of the sunshine of Hope falls athwart the little June Bride.
The Three-Thirds of Love
Most marriages are determined by the law of attraction, but, unfortunately, the law of attraction is three-fold—physical, mental, spiritual. Usually the physical attraction comes first, and then we may "fall in love at first sight." Most persons—again unfortunately—think this is love. It is not. It is only one-third of love. But many, many marriages are founded on this one-third of love, and the result is disastrous. It seldom lasts; and since the hold is purely physical, it is not long before the man or woman—or both—longs to be free.
Mental attraction may come first, but usually it follows the physical; it occurs only when the have had convenient time and intercourse to acquainted with and interested in each other's tastes, inclinations, pursuits, likes, and dislikes. A happy marriage may be built on these two-thirds of love, since companionship is possible because congeniality is assured.
Spiritual attraction is the highest form of attraction and is necessary to the ideal marriage. It develops the highest nature and gives each an understanding of the other that is not possible with only the first two-thirds of love.
Given the three-thirds of love, the two are properly mated; they respect each other's individuality and give each other absolute freedom, free from jealousy, suspicion, deceit, untruth. They give each other happiness, knowing that to receive happiness we must first give it to others. They give of their own richness of character, of mind, withholding nothing of self; and they enjoy to the full that companionship of mind and soul, that rounding out of deficiencies which is very near to perfection, to the completeness that every soul craves.
Building for Life
The man or woman who plans to build a house looks well to the foundation, knowing that only with a good foundation can stability and permanence be secured. To the builder the foundation is of more importance than the superstructure—given a good foundation, he can build anything; given a poor foundation, he can build nothing. Character is the foundation of all happiness in marriage. If the man be honourable, he is building his happiness on sand if he marry a girl who considers only the end she wishes to achieve, caring nothing for the means by which she accomplishes that end. The girl who scorns a lie is building on sand if she weds a man who handles the truth carelessly.
But to live daily with any one exactly like one's self will be insipid and stupid in the extreme; therefore there should be difference of disposition. If the man have a sullen temper and sulks, this evil spirit must be met and conquered by the woman's bright, sunny disposition; if she be quick tempered and unreasonable, he must be slow to anger and of good judgment.
Mo one person is perfect, nor even well rounded out. The nearer we can come to perfection, which is completeness, the happier we are. We all lack, and we unconsciously seek in the other those things which will round out our angles, fill in our deficiencies, and make for a more perfect and complete whole. The girl with a mercurial disposition needs the man of steady reliability; he may be slow, but he is always there, a sure refuge. The man who is not happy, except he have a half-dozen irons in the fire, and who is always ready to try something new, needs to come home to a calm, serene woman—she may even be stolid—but she gives him the sense of stability that he lacks, Each balances the other.
The Ideal of Love
The complete fullness of love is never attained. The heights on which we would dwell are never gained. Love is not a condition, but a growth; and if that growth be stopped, decay sets in. Love lives by giving and by growing; on second of time that love ceases to give, love ceases to prow there is no standing still in the Kingdom of Love; there must be a growth or a decay. The roses in the little June Bride's bouquet are beautiful as they grow, but once they cease to give out beauty, they cease to grow, and become of no value, unless, maybe, to the June Bride herself—and she lays them away as memories of a dead past.
But the analogy is incomplete. Roses must reach their height of beauty, and then fade; but love never fades if it go on growing—and it may grow forever. Herein is love, great so great that naught else even approaches it. Herein love lives alone. Love is of the immortelles.
The ideal marriage is that of the ideal man and woman. This does not mean that they must be perfect, physically, mentally, spiritually; but it does mean that they must be ideally suited to each other. It is seldom that we meet any one who exactly "fits in" to our needs and wants, who never "jars" us, and who never fails in understanding and sympathy. No two persons begin life with the same heritage; no two persons have the same environment for the formation of character; no two persons have the same education; no two live under the same conditions of life. is true even of those born of the same parents and brought up together; true of those who attend the same school and learn the same lessons; true of those born in the same station of life and within the same environment. The thing that is you—-the soul—gives a different bent to your character and colours your life differently to mine. We call it individuality, and it marks you as you, and sets me apart from all others.
Individuality is made up of character and disposition; and in the ideal marriage the characters should be similar, but the dispositions different.
Character is the fundamental principles—the foundations; disposition is the manner and method of applying those principles. Character is made up of honour, truth, uprightness, honesty, refinement, in a greater or lesser degree; sometimes these are negative instead of positive, and then the character is dishonourable, untruthful, dishonest, coarse.
Ideals and Common-sense
Common-sense must save our ideals. The little June Bride saw her bridegroom, not as he was, but as she had idealized him. That was well. So she should. But it takes common-sense to hold to our ideals when Jack keeps breakfast waiting or the toast is burned. Idealized love does not “hold hands" when he comes in at night too tired to notice that we look just as sweet as ever we did in the days before we were won. And if Jack happen to fall asleep from sheer weariness, in his chair, over the paper, and if his mouth should fall open—what? It wouldn't? Well, wait and see!
When the day of disillusion comes—which is only another way of saying that the first glamour of love has worn off—and we get down to hard facts, then it is that common-sense is needed. Nothing else can save. We did not marry for the wedding-day, or for the honeymoon, but for life. But if we have looked well to our foundation, we need have no fear. The adjustment that always comes—it may be in a week or a year—is not of love, but only of conditions. Love is there the same as ever, but conditions have changed; and we must adjust ourselves to these conditions. Now, instead of the homage of candy and flowers, we have a community of interests, something that concerns us and not just me.
This is where the basis of companionship should be laid—the companionship that makes beautiful the commonest details of life, the small experience of every day. Nothing can be sordid or commonplace when love is there, if we have married with the thirds of love, companionship is easy. Then our aims, our tastes, are identical, although our opinions are not. We may differ as to the decoration of a room, the way we like our steak done, or our favourite colour, and still be happy. But if we differ on matters of manners and conduct, then it is difficult for love to conquer.
Most men grow. Many women do not. They become absorbed in their children and in the house. They forget that a man needs companionship, and that if he does not get it at home he will usually go outside for it. But the woman does not mind. She has the children. Then one day the children are grown up and want to live their own lives. Presently they go out into the world and have homes of their own, and the woman is left disconsolate. She turns then to her husband. But years ago he carried his interests elsewhere, and habits are strong. Besides, he grew and developed; she did not. With the children gone, she is exactly where she was thirty years ago, except that she is a better housekeeper and knows almost all there is to know about children. But he is not interested in housekeeping or children; she gave him no interest in the one and monopolized the other years ago; and she despairs of learning anything of those things which occupy him now. But she will, if she be wise. If she does not, it means a lonely old age for her. Unless
But it's a far cry from the little June Bride to her grandchildren!
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