Let us return once more to the problem of deciding howfar the mental and social characteristics of ourselves and of the persons we are interested in are due to inheritance and how far to pre-natal and postnatal environment. In the present state of knowledge no exact decision is possible. Nevertheless, in some families an undesirable trait is exhibited by a parent, brothers or sisters, and perhaps by more distant relatives. In such cases, it is probably inherited, or at least due to an inherited deficiency or tendency of some sort, and there is a chance that it may be handed down to the next generation. On the other hand, many persons who suffer from some form of emotional instability come from families in which the parents and near relatives appear normal in this respect. In such cases it is probable that the trait is not hereditary, but due to some influence in pre-natal life or childhood. Until the sciences of human genetics and eugenics have made more progress, the safest way to judge in such matters is by the qualities of a family as a whole.
Whether you have any doubt about this or not, a thorough examination by a good physician who is also a psychiatrist and a man of fine character will be a great help. The physician must frame his judgments for the good not only of the individual who consults him, but of the prospective partner, and of the children who may be born to such a couple. Even the best physician is often unable to decide whether a given defect is hereditary. He can merely frame an opinion based on thewhole family. Young people find it hard to believe that they marry into families, but they do. As the old Jewish saying puts it, "It is not good to marry a maid who is the only good maid in her family." The responsibility that thus rests on physicians is tremendous. That of the young people who wish to be married is also great, but very different. Theirs is to submit themselves fully and frankly to the physician's examination and advice. He may decide that it issafe to marry a person of stable temperament, but not one who is nervously unstable.
It must always be remembered that even if the physician has given you a clean bill of health, you are still unfit for marriage unless you are willing to go more than halfway in adjusting your life to "his" or "hers." Lovers generally feel sure that they can do this, but have you proved it in your treatment of parents, brothers, sisters, and friends? If you are free from transmissible disease and innate defects, and if you are capable of having children, it is still unwise for you to marry unless you display good evidence of the qualities which make a happy home and insure the right training of children. Darwin once said that the trouble with mankind is not lack of ability, but failure to use the abilities that we possess. Even if it is not wise for you to marry now, perhaps you can take yourself by the scruff of the neck and make yourself fit.
If you are fit, the next question is, "Is it wise for me to marry?" For the vast majority of people the answer is emphatically "Yes" both for your own sake and that of society as a whole. For most people the married state is happier and more useful than the unmarried state. Biologically the two sexes are meant to live together. Long experience has proved that the only permanently happy way of living together is as husband and wife. If the marriage is of the right kind, both the man and the woman become happier, healthier, more adaptable, more interested in the community, and, in many cases, better workers. Marriage is unquestionably one of the best schools and one of the best health resorts. It often has a wonderful effect in steadying people's nerves, provided the partner is wise as well as loving.
The probability that any given marriage is wise is greatly increased where the two young people have reasonably similar ideals and habits and are sufficiently intelligent so that each can enjoy the interests of the other. It is increased still more when both the man and the woman realize that marriage is a comparatively hollow affair unless entered into with the purpose of having a family. Few experiences have greater value than the sacrifices which parents must make if they are to create a real home. The making of such a home brings out the best that is in people. Hence from the purely personal standpoint marriage is a priceless advantage.
There is a social as well as a personal side to marriage. The unstable conditions of the present century have made some people believe that the family is a thing of the past, but this is a mistake. The family life of the future will be different from that of the past, but the finest traits in it will still be the same. Loyalty of each to all and all to each is one of the greatest assets in this tumultuous, changing world. In times of distress, whether it is financial or mental, the most pitiable person is the one without family ties. A family of children may be a handicap at such times, but often it is the very thing that keeps people from failure. Moreover, in adversity and old age a family group of loyal brothers and sisters, even if each has several children, gets along much better than does the man or woman who fends only for himself. It pays to be married and to be married into a large family.
Let us turn back again to the question of whether family life is going to die out. In the old days of unrestricted families children just came because it couldn't be helped. Today, regardless of race or religion, intelligent people limit their families. Abundant statistics make it clear that the size of families has dropped greatly among all except two groups. One is a large group of less intelligent, isolated, shiftless, or incompetent people, among whom families of eight to fifteen children may still befound. The other is a small group of intelligent, high-minded, well-established, well-to-do families with many relatives and with a very assured position. Their children usually number from four to eight. Most of us belong to a huge intervening group in which the average number of children, including those who die young, is less than three, instead of seven, as was the case a century or two ago. This great middle group is the one that will determine what kind of people live in this country in the future.
Well, then, from what part of this middle group will most of the children of the future be derived? A little arithmetic will help us. Suppose we have two sets of parents, numbering a thousand each and having children old enough to be married. In one set each pair of parents has two children; in the other five. The children of each set behave like their parents in this respect. In both sets 15 percent of the children die before reaching the age of marriage, and 10 percent of those who grow up fail to marry. These are normal percentages. Among those who marry, however, 20 percent of the two-child group, and only 10 percent of the other set, fail to have children. How many parents will there be in each group at the end of three generations? If we make no allowance for the fact that more boys than girls are born, there would be 136 parents in the two-child group a century hence, and they would have 136 children. On the other hand, there would be 8744 parents and 21,860 children in the five-child group. Over a hundred and sixty times as many!
Now that we have done the arithmetic, what does it mean? Of course in actual life the two-child and the five-child groups will intermarry. And even if each marries its own kind, the number of children will fluctuate. Nevertheless, there is plenty of evidence of three great tendencies. First, certain kinds of families tend to besmall or large as the case may be. Second, each kind tends to marry into its own kind more often than into the other. And finally, people who grew up in large families generally like large families and want to have them. Hence the result of the present limitation of families must be to make large families and family life in general more popular in the future than at present.
This is the way it works in the great middle group to which most of us belong. Families of four to six children are found mainly among people who love children and are willing to make sacrifices in order to provide homes for them. So as long as our present limitation of families continues, the children of each successive generation will tend in larger and larger numbers to be the descendants of people who believe in family life and are willing to make sacrifices for it. A few of them are disappointed because their children do not turn out well, but the great majority feel well rewarded. Ask parents of three or more children how they feel about it. Nine out of ten will say that nothing in their lives has been worth more than their children. So long as people of that kind have children, and those of the other kind fail to have children, family life will not die out. It will become more and more the great center of society. It will change, but the change will be growth, not decay.
Now for the third question, "Is it my duty to marry?" Future generations may say that the better your physique, the greater your beauty and strength, the finer your mind, the more lovable your temperament, and the more highly you are endowed by nature and training, the more certainly it is your duty to marry and have a family. At present, however, the answer to "Is it my duty to marry?" is very much like the answer to a question which you might ask if you were a guest at a delightful summer resort. "Is it my duty to go swimming, play tennis, goyachting, and have a good time?" Assuming that you are physically fit, it certainly is your duty if your presence will cause your hosts and the rest to enjoy themselves. But why ask such a silly question? You will do all those things just because you want to. You would be an awful fool to pass up the chance of having all sorts of fun when everything is just right for it. And you would be an awful fool to give up marriage if the conditions for that were equally favorable.
Of course there is a very important personal element in all this. Some minor crudity in him or her, some ideal diverse from yours, some unfortunate habit or tendency, may be more than you can adjust yourself to. You alone can decide that. All that we can do here is point out what the marriages and families of thoughtful, conscientious people mean to the world.
The essence of the whole matter, as has been said a thousand times, is the extremely rapid fall of the birthrate, especially among intelligent, farsighted, industrious, progressive people whose ideals of family life are high. The majority of the young people who read this article probably belong to this class. Therefore you represent a type of family whose loss or diminution is a very serious matter. Unless your type of family averages more than three children, the country suffers two great losses. It suffers these losses because under the present conditions it takes more than three children per family on an average to provide two who become parents and thus replace their father and mother. So unless your grandparents have at least ten grandchildren, your family stock is dying out, and the country is suffering two great losses. One loss is your good biological inheritance. This does not mean that you are anything wonderful. It simply means that you belong to a group which on the whole inherits more than the average capacity. Therefore, unless you have morethan three children, the biological inheritance of America will be lowered.
The second great loss is cultural. It is all very well to talk about sending every competent boy and girl to college, and giving every one the fullest chance to develop, but this does not solve the problem. No other institution comes anywhere near the home as a place in which to establish the ideals and habits that determine whether our lives shall be a mere flash in the pan or a fire that warms and cheers. The finer things of life wither and die if there are not enough children in the families of people who know how to make realhomes. If you came from such a home, and especially if your relatives also have such homes, you can make one yourself. Few things are more needed in America today than just such homes.
Ought I to marry? I wish that every reader could answer in the affirmative.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Is it possible for a woman to marry and still have a career? This question has been asked of me so many times that I am glad at last to sit down and write some of the things which always come to my mind.
To begin with, the question is foolishly worded, for there are very few women who have careers. Those with real careers are a little group by themselves needing separate consideration. Most women marry and work, and the work will not be a "career." The question put this way also seems to imply that marriage in itself is not a career. Anyone who believes that has no real understanding of marriage.
There is no general answer which any one individual can give to this question, no matter how it is worded, for it is one of those questions that depends for its answer largely upon the individuals involved, both men and women.
The question should really be phrased in this way: Areyou able to carry on two full-time jobs? Have you the physical strength and the mental vigor to do this day in and day out—particularly when you are young, first married, adjusting yourself to a stranger's personality, and perhaps bearing children, which is an added physical strain?
I can hear you ask, "Why do you say, 'adjusting yourself to a stranger's personality'?" The answer is quite simple: no two people really know each other until they have been married for some time, and one of the most exacting duties of family life is the adjustment of the various personalities that make up the family circle. The mother adjusts herself not only to her husband, but to each of her children and to the other near relatives, and she tries to explain and to adjust them to one another. It is not always an easy task.
More and more households are being managed by the housewife alone, particularly among the young people. That means pretty nearly constant attention to household tasks, if a good job is to be done, in the same way that it would be done in an office or wherever the woman might be0 employed for pay. This housekeeping job can be as scientific and as engrossing as any office job, or it may be a slipshod, haphazard affair with everything at sixes and sevens. It all depends upon the woman whether she makes this side of marriage a career or not.
There is another important aspect to this career. Any woman who means to make marriage a successful career will study her husband, his capabilities, his interests, even his peculiarities. She should know about his business and about his pleasures. It is possible for her to be a great factor in his success, not by thrusting herself forward as an advisor, but by understanding so well his character and his career that she can supplement his shortcomings, bring out the best that is in him, and expand his interests by adding her own. Thus she can have a vicarious career by virtue of what she has put into her husband's.
Perhaps the woman who does this is the happiest and most successful woman, but she has to have the kind of temperament that can do it and do it well, and in addition the circumstances of married life have to make it possible. We might as well face the fact that today circumstances are making it more and more difficult for a woman to lead what two generations ago was considered the normal and natural life for any woman. In those days even a woman who did not marry tried to find a niche that she could fill in somebody's home. A maiden aunt or cousin often took the place of a nurse or governess or even a hired servant and was looked upon with pity, and expected to work early and late for her room and board, and to be as devoted to the children of the family as though they were her own.
Women today would not accept this situation so calmly, and the fact that they can be and are largely self-supporting changes their economic condition. It also changes their relationship to men and marriage.
The economic situation is such today that few young people can marry at the age when their grandparents did. Many young people, rather than put off their marriage indefinitely, get married with the realization that both of them will have to continue working and that children are out of the question until they have laid enough money aside or the man has had enough increase in salary to take care of all the family expenses.
This is not a case of whether you prefer marriage or a career. It is a case of marriage and work together, or no marriage and work alone. Work must go on in either case. For most women there is something so satisfying in creating a home that they do it frequently by themselves. It seems to fulfill a deep inner need to do thelittle homely things of everyday living, and I think that is one reason why so many young people get married and set up homes of their own long before their financial resources warrant it.
If they want to have children as soon as they are financially established, they usually do so, but a craving for a home of her own is the first stirring of maturity in a woman. To many women, however, a home is not wholly satisfying unless she is making it for someone else, and nature has made most women yearn for a man to mother.
I know one young couple who were married when the boy was getting twenty-five dollars a week and the girl was getting the same as a stenographer. Both of them went on working. Everything seemed to be going very well, and she managed her two jobs quite successfully. The most successful part of it was the fact that she induced her husband to feel an equal responsibility for the house. I remember that when I dined with them, he put on an apron after dinner and helped wash the dishes as naturally as if that were the normal occupation for a man. When a marriage works out this way, it is very successful, especially if the man has a knack for doing things about the house, because it keeps him busy when his wife is busy.
Children can be postponed if two young people have a home and a mate. If a woman has to work to have a home and husband, she will do it happily, but I do not think that always means that she longs to work. It is unfortunate that so often she is forced to for material security.
Where circumstances verge on poverty, marriage is even more of a career, for then more depends on the woman's ability to manage. Of course, when it comes to the mothers of families who work in mills, factories, and stores, we know quite well that there is no question ofchoice—poverty drives them, and they work because they have to, and only a few would hesitate if they were offered an opportunity to stay at home and look after their home and their children.
I remember visiting a mill town once, and as the women came off the night shift—for there were no laws at that time in that particular state against women's working on night shifts—they met their husbands going to work on the day shift. We followed one woman home. Tired from the hours in the mill, she nevertheless had to set to work immediately to get the children fed and off to school. Then she had her house to set to rights, washing and ironing to do, and dinner to get for the children and supper to be left for the man when he came back from work as she went on. In the afternoon she snatched a few hours of sleep, and the children who were not in school played unwatched and uncared for. She knew that her home life was not satisfactory, and she did not work long hours in the mill because she wanted to, but simply because there was not enough food to go around unless her earnings supplemented those of her husband.
There are women, however, who work for the love of working. They may love their homes and their children and still crave the satisfaction of doing a job themselves. Sometimes it is just because they love the kind of work they do; sometimes it is because they must have the independence which being able to earn money gives them.
I know one young woman who has managed to develop for herself work which she can do in her own home. She feels that her children need her at home, and yet she was very unhappy without some outside interests. She had a musical talent which she shared with her husband, and together they developed a unique project which involved research and execution, giving them a joint interest and allowing her to earn a little extra money.
Very occasionally it is possible for a man and a woman to work together and to have an even closer tie than they would have if the woman remained the man's helpmate only in the home.
The happiness of husband and wife is often wrecked by too little dependence on each other, for to be happy two people must need each other in everything they do. I could tell you many stories of young people who have drifted apart partly because the man was too absorbed by his business and the woman did not have enough to do. One story I remember, however, is a little different, because it was a case in which both the man and his wife had interests which were so divergent that neither of them took any pleasure in being with the other or in hearing about what the other was doing. The man wanted to lead a rather quiet life, and the woman was young and pretty, active-minded, physically energetic. She wanted to do something which would bring in money and make it possible for her to have some of the luxuries and pleasures that she coveted and to which her husband was completely indifferent. They stuck to their own interests, and while they lived in the same house and while they had children and while they were never separated in a formal way, they could not have been further apart if they had lived at the two poles. I question if the children ever knew what it was to feel a community of interests in that home.
It would be well if men realized the need that some women have for a little financial independence. Occasionally marriage is wrecked because the woman feels that her work at home is as much a financial contribution as is the man's work out in the world. She finds no recognition of this in their relationship or in their environment and becomes more and more restless and dissatisfied.
I remember one woman saying rather bitterly to me once that she made more money by saving and good management than her husband did, but that he seemed to think the generosity of giving was all on his side, forgetting that she gave her strength and her time. The work which she did she might have paid someone else to do; and her careful buying actually put in the bank money which her husband could use in his business.
As a rule, the woman spends the major part of the family income, but if it is given her for the house and she has to resort to subterfuge to get any personal pocket money out of it, it is not a happy arrangement. Of course, when two people are planning together every penny of expenditure, the case is different; but when a man has any money which he calls his own, a woman should have some also in recognition of the services she performs for the home. She is more apt to make her housekeeping a good job and to be happy in her family relations.
In many cases a woman who holds a job feels that she is a better companion for her husband because she has more individuality and comes to him more full of different interests when they meet. She may not have the kind of temperament which makes it possible for her to bring up her children herself. She may find that even with less time to give them, she can really do more for them. All these things are subjects for the individuals to consider and decide together.
"Why do you work?" I once asked a friend of mine who seemed very weary.
She smiled and said: "I work because I found that when Stephen came home at night, I had nothing to talk to him about. He is out in the world and meets people and does things. I was in a little backwater and lost the habit ofthinking about the same things that are on his mind. I had to go back to work to regain the same atmosphere and to be a companion."
"But," I said, "you have to pay some one to take care of the children. "Wouldn't it be cheaper to do it yourself?"
"Far cheaper," she said, "but even the children are better off. Now, when I come home, I am full of interests I can share with them, and I am nowhere nearly so impatient as I used to be when I answered their questions all day long and directed every minute of their lives. I do not mind now saying, 'Johnny, wash your hands,' or, 'Sara, don't bite when you fight.' I have to do it only between 6 and 8p.m.But if I do it from 6a.m.until 8p.m., many a harsh word is spoken, and many a hasty gesture passes between us, much to my regret afterward."
One thing is certain: Any woman who decides to work after she is married must have good health and be a fairly well-disciplined person, and her life must be systematized so that one part does not interfere with the other, and the man must understand and sympathize with her interests and desires.
The man's temperament is as important as the woman's, for there are men who deeply resent their wives' doing any work and who want to feel that their home is entirely dependent on their own efforts. There are other men who go even beyond that and want to feel that the woman whom they have married is dependent upon them for all she has in a material way, forgetting often that their mental and spiritual contacts count also in any relationship. Then again there are men who, if their wives are self-sufficient and capable, will do exactly what so many women are accused of doing—become parasites and willingly allow themselves to be taken care of in every way, even in a material way.
I knew one man whose wife mothered him until he completely lost his initiative. He was sweet to her, but he really felt that life was made by her and he had to make no effort. Suddenly he met a woman who was weaker and more clinging than he was, and she awakened in him all his dormant chivalrous instincts. He asked his wife for a divorce. He married the weaker woman and became a strong man. The first wife remade her life, which was not astonishing; but he remade his, which seemed unbelievable.
All the things I have mentioned and one more enter into this question of whether a woman who has the ability to do a job outside the home should do it or not. In the last few years I have been getting many letters from women whose husbands have fallen ill or died and left them alone or with dependents. Those who have had no training are the most pathetic, but those who once worked and then gave up altogether are in almost as difficult a position.
I doubt that it is ever wise for a woman who has once had a skill to allow herself to lose it entirely, for, granting that she makes of marriage a career, there may come a time when she will need work, and there will certainly come a time when her children are grown. If the demands on her time are fewer and she is well, she may feel the necessity of taking up some kind of regular work again, particularly if in her youth she was trained to keep busy. This may not be a financial necessity, but merely something to take the place of the duties which were hers when marriage was her only job.
In my own experience I have found there is one other thing that may happen to a woman. For some reason she may have to interest herself in things that have seemed to be more directly her husband's interests and in which she never expected to take any personal part. She may findshe becomes interested for a variety of reasons. This necessity of developing interests of her own which take her out of her home will find her better equipped if she has once done a job for pay and kept on doing it now and then throughout her life so that she is able to maintain a professional attitude toward all work, both in her home and out of it.
There are just a few women who have special gifts, who have established careers before they meet the men they wish to marry. If they give up these careers, they may find much of the savor of life is removed when they are not doing something which requires independent thought and initiative. These are the women who go to work because they are conscious of a capacity within themselves which cannot be denied, and they should marry only men who understand this and are willing to make some compromises. It can be done very happily, but it depends on both the man and the woman in each case. These "career" women do a job for the love of it. They may be so gifted that they can cope successfully with household affairs from the administrative point of view. They may not be interested in doing any of the homely things of life. They may be quite helpless at home and need someone else to cope with household measures. For them it is probably impossible to settle down to a homemaker's career and watch over somebody else's career and development and achievement. They are fortunate if they marry the right men!
The women who I feel should undoubtedly have outside occupation, however, are the women whose homes are taken care of by competent hands and feet other than their own, who with ordinary capacity for management can give the necessary orders in fifteen minutes every morning and have the rest of the day in which to do nothing. These women might as well do something evenif they have no special gifts, for as idlers they encumber the earth. They are not doing things at home that keep women busy and happy.
I think any young couple is fortunate when the woman has to do everything about the house and does it happily, but in view of all the different angles that this problem presents, I would give no advice, only urge young people to think over what they want out of life very carefully when they are making the decision of how they will start their life together.
Gladys Hoagland Groves
The wedding shuts one gate and opens another. The longings and dreamings of courtship are at an end. The supreme intimacy of life begins.
As John and Mary move away from the altar, pronounced man and wife, they know they are starting a great adventure. His beaming face masks a stiff determination to keep his bride happy in spite of any worldly obstacles. Her radiance hides a solemn inward vow to do everything humanly possible to make smooth the way of their life together. They are right. Unless they are very different from most people, this new joint enterprise is going to mean more to each of them than anything else ever can.
Before them is a clear road. Not to happiness, as they may believe, but to the opportunity for gaining happiness. The goal is not easily won, but they can attain it without the aid of luck or rare gifts or miracles—simply by practicing the common everyday virtues that bring success in all human ventures.
A young couple's engagement period is like any other time of excited anticipation, when one has received the promise of something greatly desired, but must wait awhile before its delivery. The happiness of the waiting period is characterized by the absence of a critical spirit, and therefore is apt to be thought of as an experience of pure delight. But the first days of marriage bring out a different set of feelings—those that come when one has definitely obtained possession of anything that before was only promised. At first the emotions seem to stand still—this is the long-coveted moment! Then one begins to appraise. Is the object of one's wishes as desirable as one had expected?
Because reality rarely measures up to imagination, the first answer is almost bound to be, "No, this is not what I expected." And the first emotion tends to be disappointment. If one accepts the fact that discrepancy between imagination and reality is inevitable, he is better able to go on to a more thorough examination of the situation, from the fresh viewpoint of finding out just what he has received, regardless of hazy but optimistic expectations; and the object possessed will more than likely turn out to be better than, although different from, what the imagination pictured.
Knowing that a fleeting sense of disappointment is not peculiar to one's own marriage, but likely to occur in all, as in every other human undertaking, takes away its power to hurt. Unworried by any fear of calamity, each marriage partner can turn to account his or her powers of discernment by learning to recognize the assets as well as the liabilities of the partnership.
Roughly, both the helps and the hindrances to married happiness can be lumped under one word—personalities. Temperament, mannerisms, tastes—all that is implied in the distinct individuality of each person—make up thechief source of the advantages and disadvantages with which the couple enter marriage. These traits cannot be changed overnight. Nor is it necessary, or at all wise, that they should be. John attracts Mary, and she appeals to him, because the personality of each one is what it is. Love has grown up between the two as a result of this personality attraction. And love is the motive that will make both try to keep open the pathway to marriage success.
But love is not a finished product that, once it comes, can forever after be trusted to keep its strength. Like everything else that is alive, it must be kept growing through exercise, or it wastes away.
Love gives the push that keeps a marriage moving, but it does not give the direction. That comes from understanding and cooperation. Although John and Mary love each other as feverishly as any other couple at first, if their loved is self-centered and ingrown, it will eventually turn to hate, or wear thin and give way to indifference. This is what they must guard against. While love is still the moving force of their lives, they must study the problems that are due to come. To wait until they are beset by them is to beg for trouble.
In order to cope with their problems they must realize, first, that they cannot stumble upon married happiness; that they must possess and cultivate a positive will to succeed. Then they must understand that the will is in itself not enough; it must be coupled with a willingness to work, and work hard, for the happiness that can be the greatest blessing of their lives. And finally, they must know what constitutes a happy marriage—what to aim for in their day-to-day association.
What makes a successful marriage? Here are nine guideposts to help John and Mary along their road:
1. The first requirement is the building of a union that is just to both.
The smaller issues on which this rests are the lively clashes of opposite desires, inevitable in the coming together of any two persons, intensified when those two persons are as different as a man and a woman, and unavoidable for two committed to a lifetime together in the close quarters of marriage.
2. Compromise will lift these essentially petty decisions of precedence above the level of selfishness.
Decisions must be made on the basis of what is good for both, not the selfish or narrow wish of either. The choice that brings the larger advantage to the two persons in their common role of marriage partners is the one to be made. Human judgment being as faulty as it is, time may show that any one decision has been an error, but there can be no ill will about it if each feels that an honest effort was made to be fair.
For example, Mary wants to buy a car, just as John is reckoning that the time has come to build a house. Or perhaps he wants to invest money in professional or business advancement at the precise moment when she realizes she wants a child. In either situation, the particular couple involved have to weigh delicately the effect on their joint enterprise of the conflicting courses of action. Much as Mary may crave a child or a car, she might not be able to enjoy either if she got it, unless John were ready to share in her delight. Nor could he, overruling her against her will, find in his choice of home-owning or personal-career investment the satisfaction he had expected. They two, and nobody else, can make the decision to fit their marriage.
Readiness to try to imagine the partner's point of view has to be supplemented by calmness in considering the probable effect of either course on both persons. If each one is hurt at the other's inability to join instantly in his, or her, plans, they will need to take pains not to get sidetracked into making a personal contest of the affair. Trying to win over your partner with a single eye to getting what you want, regardless of its effect on the mate, is short-sighted in the extreme. Even if you could care only for personal pleasure, that cannot long outlast your spouse's displeasure.
Staging a contest or a succession of small contests, for the sake of finding out who is boss builds up a habit of fighting that may lead to a bitter end. It is useless to discover who can win in any particular skirmish. What is important is to learn whether one of you is set on being "head of the house." If your spouse craves that distinction, by all means hand it over without delay. It is an empty honor, for the one who bends but does not break will readily develop the fine art of influencing the headstrong one.
Because it is part of the traditional feminine character to enjoy giving in to the man, this tendency must be scrutinized when it appears. No man can afford to be crippled for life by letting his wife swaddle him with solicitude as some mothers spoil their children for their own glorification. A woman's feeling that she will be emotionally gratified by making a sacrifice does not prove that, aside from her momentary pleasure, there is any value in it. The ease or difficulty with which husband or wife makes an adjustment in no way measures the worth of that adjustment for their partnership.
Because of women's recent growth in socially recognized independence, any individual woman may waver between a craving for self-sacrifice and a repugnance to the very thought of it. This changeableness can make her feel resentful after she has given in to her husband. All this must be taken into account in making decisions. Compromise, not submission, should be the rule. If John forgesahead on one count, Mary must find an acceptable outlet for herself on some other front.
3. Respect for the other member of the marriage association is a must-have. No demand should be laid upon the mate that requires a drastic change of personality.
Nobody can suddenly change his personality at will, and the effort to do so to please the partner is liable to result in a topheavy hypocrisy—a superstructure calculated to impress the observer, but built on a shaky foundation of chaos.
The changes a husband or wife makes in the partner's total personality are in the nature of altered emphasis in the expression of traits already present. These minor changes occur as by-products of active response to the personality of the mate in many small daily contacts, and not as a result of exhortation. Nor are they necessarily permanent. A chameleon changes color easily to match its environment or temper of the moment, but a human being's more lasting change is not so readily made.
Each marriage partner must be proud of the other and let the other continue to be proud of him or her. Therefore you have to respect yourself and act as if you did, even at home. Too many couples exploit the sense of let-down that marriage brings with it. After so long a time, husband and wife cease to feel that they must exert themselves for each other in little matters. Knowing themselves accepted, they lounge—mentally, mannerly, and physically—when at home or elsewhere alone together. Some of this relaxation is a good thing, but it is a mistake to let home and spouse degenerate into nothing more than an invitation to be lazy.
Using the mate for relief, as in nagging, whining, crying, or grumbling, is taboo. If you are tired or irritable, you can rest or exercise for restoration, as in the daysbefore marriage. To pour out troubles or act out annoyance without restraint before the mate is to wear out his or her spontaneity and dry up the source of refreshment you are trying to tap. Fatigue and nervousness, expressed, breed fatigue and nervousness in a sympathetic audience.
4. Too great concentration is to be avoided. Even the greatest love stagnates if it is kept out of the main current of life. To care only for each other is selfishness for two, only one step removed from self-centered engrossment.
This is why the unique value of children is their service as an entering wedge in the close-grown love of husband and wife, a wedge that widens and holds forever wider the unity of love it has penetrated. Other responsibilities, other interests, may serve a similar purpose, though more easily dislodged and seldom striking so deep.
Friends, old and new, have a function in relieving the overclose concern of one marriage partner with the other. If they are to play their full part in preventing overconcentration, the friends must not be limited to those who appeal equally to both the husband and the wife. Common friends are fine, but for this purpose there is special need of friends for either spouse who can call forth those sides of his or her nature that are not aroused by the mate. A brilliant man may be bored by his wife's slower-thinking women friends, but these may be just what she needs as a relief from the high-pressure intellectual life she is leading with him. A stylish woman may be appalled at the slouchy appearance of some of her husband's cronies, who are a necessary balance wheel for him in the strenuous gyrations he goes through to keep the sartorial pace she sets.
The factor that underlies all the perplexities, and most of the contentment, of marriage is its unique degree of concentrated intimacy. Here the supreme testing always comes. Each means so much to the other, each needs somuch from the other, that there can be no halfway satisfaction in being together. But there will come a first time when John is too tired to go out with Mary, or vice versa. Do not think of it as a blow; do not believe he or she is implying "I do not want to go out with you because I am getting tired of you." You must realize that it is important to have some privacy of time, if not of space. The wife may be alone part of the day and profit by it. When John comes home at night, he has not had that privilege. His need for privacy must be appreciated, whether he wants to get it by staying at home alone in the evening, or by going out without his wife, or by having his friends in when she is not around.
5. The general level of emotion is what counts, not the spectacular scaling of peaks. Staking all on high moments is melodrama with no comic relief.
Some husbands, some wives, are artists at achieving and momentarily living up to romantic settings, but quickly flop down to the lower levels of decent fairness between the high spots of their sentimental flare-ups. Others cannot utter a poetic phrase, make a romantic gesture, or let their eyes show the quick intensity of their tender emotions if they must die for it. This difference is one of make-up and training, not of marriage capacity.
The couple who are sure of each other's steady affection, regardless of its expression in romantic interludes, are the ones who can afford to smile at the anxiety of those newly married husbands and wives who are terror-stricken at any lessening of the outward expressions of love.
Another terrible moment that is due to come may seem even more frightening because it is you who are slipping. Soon or late you find that some familiar mannerism of your spouse displeases you. It may be a slight uncouthness at table, a peculiar back-country phrase or pronunciation, some gesture of timidity or swaggering. Once you lovedit as a part of the individuality of the person you fell in love with. Now it vexes you. And your vexation terrifies you. Does this mean that you no longer love your mate as you did? You cannot help your change of feeling. How, then, can you hope to keep your affection from disappearing altogether if it has already begun to wane? You remember other people you once thought you loved, and wonder, panic-stricken, how you can keep this love from dying as those other loves did.
This is probably an almost universal experience, marking, not the beginning of the end of love, but the passage from an adolescent type of blind devotion to a more mature affection that persists in spite of being able to admit the flaws it sees. For the very young a person must register one hundred percent or be rejected. Maturity brings recognition of human imperfections in the most heroic, but also develops the ability to weigh big and little things and to love with more confidence because unafraid of being disturbed by little imperfections.
Now that you can see your mate more clearly, you should also be able to see more accurately his, or her, good points, which before were hidden from you in the mist of your enthusiasm. Your love is now becoming less self-centered and more helpful to your partner.
6. There can be no holding on to the present nor seeking to bring back the past. Each moment is new and good in itself.
The tale is never told. Always it is the unturned page the holds the answer to the question, "How goes it with this marriage?" The present is useful only as a foundation stone for the future, which is being built up out of many fleeting present moments, each quickly lost in the past.
Trying to convince yourself that you still feel a kind of love you have outlived prevents your growing into themore mature kind of love that fits your present stature and prepares for the needs of the future. Attempting to hold the partner to a similar static expression of love hampers the growth in him or her of an expanding reality of love.
7. There can be no narrowing of marriage to mere sex adjustment. What is essential is life adjustment, of which sex is but a part.
To interpret the marriage association as little more than sex is to throw away all chance of success, even in the realm of sex. The two lives have to be adjusted to each other, and the two persons have to work out a common life that means something to them over and above the pleasure they may take in each other's company. As a continuing part of this life adjustment, sex adjustment can develop into a permanent factor of married happiness; but without the larger adjustment, the partial adjustment cannot be made in any fundamental and enduring form.
In the sex life in marriage, as in other parts of the association, each partner wins by considering the other before the self. Since marriage grows by enveloping, rather than by being enveloped by, any one element, every part of the married life must receive the same painstaking attention. At no point can the domination of either partner over the other take the place of adjustment.
8. There must be no cultivation of sensitiveness, no looking for hurt, but instead a complete trust in each other.
One who prides himself or herself on having to be handled with gloves has a great deal of growing up to do in order to be able to be an active partner in the marriage. Cry-babying is no more helpful in marriage than in business or social life; it is only more easily indulged in, more tempting because of the sympathetic response it is likely at first to receive.
In the healthy marriage, this sympathetic response will soon give way to anger, which in turn may have the effect of a dash of cold water in the face of the oversensitive one, helping him or her to buck up and behave like an adult. In the unhealthy marriage, sympathy will grow into pity, which drives out the indispensable attitude of respect.
The person who has the backbone to try to play the part of a mature being will realize that getting hurt in any human association is a two-edged affair. Both get hurt, but the weak person does nothing but squeal about it, while the robust ignores it except for trying to take some constructive step to prevent future occasions for hurt. The marriage partner who is mature will maintain trust in the other's good intentions in the face of what might seem to be occasions for hurt feelings.
A chief advantage of the married estate is its opportunity for frankness. "Why doesn't his wife tell him of that unpleasant mannerism, so he can correct it?" bears witness to the universal appreciation of this function of married life. But if John nurses hurt feelings whenever Mary punctures his vanity by suggesting that he presents to the world a less than perfect front, Mary may soon lose courage and relinquish her wifely job of husband improvement. Or the combination may be reversed.
Frankness must go clothed in tact. Stiff-minded people who are frank only when angry lose their case before they present it. If the expression of anger is to have its proper stimulative effect, it has to be administered but rarely, and then in small doses. More has a paralyzing effect on the recipient, producing a response in kind that takes away the ability to think of anything except retaliation.
9. Willingness to grow is the most necessary factor for success. Marriage is a life program of going ontogether that requires maturity; failure means that there is a holding on to childishness.
We are all immature at some points, but we can welcome opportunities for growth, painful though they may be. The man and woman who find their marriage yielding diminishing returns may be sure they are attempting to hold it to an adolescent level. As this is an impossibility, they are aware of increasing dissatisfaction. That does not mean they are unadapted to each other. They are afraid to leave the known pleasures of their first youth for the unguessed satisfactions of maturity, so they try to stand still, hoping to keep their marriage, unchanged, in its first stage of promise.
If both husband and wife accept maturing responsibilities as they come, their marriage relationship will keep pace with their own development and will therefore become increasingly satisfying to them. A truly mature couple do not look back with longing to the early part of their married life, but appreciate its value as a phase that led up to the deeper content of each succeeding phase.
Having invested years, their youth and hopes, in their marriage, it would be poor business for any couple to fail to follow up their initial investment by putting in such small regular amounts of thought and effort as will make a go of it. The difference between success and failure is the hairline difference between caring and ceasing to care for one's investment.
Married life is serious business, as living always is, but it is easier and at the same time more rewarding than single life. To be human is to be lonely. To be successfully married is to have an inner bulwark against loneliness.
Elizabeth Bussing
"And they lived happily ever after!"
The romance in the old storybook always ended blissfully in marriage. The valiant Prince Charming slew dragons, vanquished giants, and worsted sorcerers; but once he had attained the fair lady of his dreams, he left all his worries behind him.
Today, however, Prince Charming, unless he is an incurable romanticist, realizes that the real struggle begins only after marriage.
"Now that you have won the fair lady how are you going to support her?" is the question he must solve satisfactorily before he can qualify as a suitable husband. The answer is determined by two factors: "How much money is earned?" "How can that sum be spent most efficiently?"
The first query is quickly disposed of. The second, however, requires careful thought and planning. Its solution is up to both the husband and the wife, for each couple must work out their individual problem. We wish we could do it for them, but we can't. At best we can only give the rules which we have evolved as the result of our own experience.
The first step in the art of orderly spending is the preparation of an adequate budget. This is not so formidable as it seems, for the budget is nothing more than an inventory of resources and a calculation of needs that will help you develop a schedule of spending which should be fair to both you and your partner. It will differ in detail for each couple, because no matter how similar circumstances may seem to be, senses of values will vary.
At the start, however, it is well to keep an itemized account of expenditures to aid in adjusting your budget to actual needs and to learn just how much you are spending for each item. You may find that you have been paying more for some things than you thought you were. Once you have settled on the approximate amount to be allotted to each purpose, however, you probably will find that keeping a written record of every purchase is more of a nuisance than a help.
It may help you to plan your budget if you study some of the model estimates published from time to time by savings banks, life-insurance companies, and other financial organizations. You who are just planning to be married, however, will find that these statements are compiled usually for families with two or three children. At best they will only roughly approximate your special problems.
Let us consider the situation faced by a young couple just starting out in married life. Generally speaking, if you live in a big city and your income is about $100 a month, you will pay about $35 to the landlord. Rents, unfortunately, are disproportionately high in the largesturban centers, for persons of limited means. In smaller communities, you undoubtedly will find quarters for somewhat less.
Your food, at the present price level, will cost at least $25 a month for an adequate diet—and this assumes extremely intelligent and careful buying.
Transportation to and from work for one person will cost not less than $2.50 a month. Total transportation costs for both of you—if only one works—will be between $3 and $4. Not more than $10 a month should be spent for clothes, and at least $6 must be set aside for insurance and savings. This leaves roughly $20 a month for all other expenses. It is not easy for two to live on $100 a month—but it is being done.
While it is not true that two can live as cheaply as one, two persons who are in love may live more happily if they marry and both continue to work than if they undergo the strain of a long engagement. This problem, however, must be worked out with reference to the particular case, for, as pointed out in an earlier article in this series, it is more difficult for a man to get a foothold in certain professions if he marries before his apprenticeship is complete. It seems obvious that if you are wed before the man finishes his professional preparation, you will not wish to have children for the time being and that the wife will continue to support herself. I have seen many complications caused by the arrival of children before the husband had completed his professional training.
One young couple I knew were getting along very smoothly while the wife was working and her husband was spending his last year in medical school. The arrival of a baby made it necessary for her to quit her job. This, in turn, made it imperative for the man to earn a livelihood. He took a position in a department store where today—ten years later—he is still a junior employee. Bynow, in the ordinary course of events, he might have been established in the profession for which he was studying.
All young couples, fortunately, do not encounter such tragedies. If your income is around $2000 a year, your financial position is relatively more secure. You may find a suitable apartment in a large city for between $50 and $60 a month—including heat and hot water. The rent in a smaller community will be less, but remember that if you furnish your own heat and hot water, you must add the cost of fuel. If, to save money, you move beyond the public transportation system, you must include the cost and upkeep of a car. But even considering the added expense of an automobile (provided you take care of it partly yourself and thus save some service charges) you may have better living conditions and derive more enjoyment from life than if you lived closer to town.
Your food budget now may be about $40 a month—enough for a liberal diet. Your clothing allowance should be sufficient for average needs—say, $15. Insurance and savings should be greater than those of the couple in the $1200 group. At least 14 percent of your income now should be set aside for these purposes.
If you plan to have children on an income of between $2000 and $3000 a year, you still will be able to live comfortably, but you probably will be happier if you move into a community made up of young people of your own income group. This will enable the mothers to make various sorts of cooperative arrangements for child care, which serve the threefold purpose of giving the children desirable social experience, providing the mother with more freedom, and keeping costs down. It also contributes toward a congenial social life for the adults.
The proportions to be spent for the larger items holdtrue in general for the family whose income is between $2000 and $3000 a year. Without knowing your individual circumstances, however, no one can make a budget for you in minute detail. The amounts you should allot to various items are governed by many considerations.
For example, there are some types of employment that require more expensive clothes than others, while some professions necessitate the purchase of equipment. Again, the major proportions will change with the needs of your dependents, whether these are children or older persons who look to you for help. Moreover, a wife who confines her activities to the home will do many money-saving chores and require fewer clothes than she would if she, too, went to business. Notwithstanding these individual variations, the foregoing rules of thumb will be helpful in keeping you within safe bounds.
But the proportion of your income to be spent for various purposes is only a small part of your problem. Don't be surprised if your budget fails to balance. Probably 95 percent of those who attempt to budget their family expenses have this experience. The primary reason is that few persons really know what it costs to live. This is due, in part, to the fact that we often confusetotalexpenses withday-to-dayexpenses. Most people think of living costs as the immediate outlay for food, clothing, and shelter, disregarding the important item of depreciation.
The average housewife understands depreciation as it applies to food in a refrigerator, but gives very little thought to the same process as it applies to furniture, appliances, motorcar, clothing, and the house she lives in—if she and her husband own it. When replacement or repair of these more durable goods becomes necessary, there often is no fund available for the purpose. If replacement or repair is made, the budget is thrown out ofbalance. If neither is undertaken, depreciation sets in all the faster.
In order to catch up at this point, many couples take what seems at the time to be the easiest way out—they borrow money. This may appear to solve the problem, but actually the repayment of the loan throws the budget farther out of balance. Not only that, but a substantial interest charge must be met. To cover such obligations, you will have to curtail your living expenses, and you will find this much harder to do than to save for these emergencies in the first place.
One of the greatest financial difficulties encountered by young people (and many older ones, too, for that matter) is that of making an intelligent decision in the purchase of such important and costly items as a house, mechanical home appliances, furniture, and life insurance. The reason why it is difficult to select these things is that we buy them too seldom to acquire much experience with reference to them.
Life insurance is a subject on which very few of us have specific information. It is as important as it is trite to point out that the amount and the type of insurance should be governed by the kind of hazards against which you should provide. Yet it is necessary to realize that the need of protection changes as life progresses. A father with young, dependent children should carry considerably more insurance than a man with no dependents other than his wife. Consequently, it is desirable to carry two types of insurance: on the one hand, a straight life contract, entered into preferably early in life when annual premiums are lower, and, on the other hand, successive renewable term-insurance policies which may be purchased when temporary responsibilities, such as the rearing of children, are undertaken.
Protection for a childless wife might be limited to an amount equal to two years of the husband's salary. Roughly, the same amount of term insurance may be taken out for each child. The earlier in life such policies are acquired, of course, the smaller the annual premiums. Renewable term-insurance premiums are lower than straight life insurance because in the former there is no cash surrender value. Term insurance, like fire insurance, buys protection—and nothing else.
It is a mistake to look at life insurance as a primary form of saving because, generally speaking, the more the life-insurance policy conforms to a savings account, the less effectively and economically it affords protection against the hazard of death. Buy the life insurance as life insurance and put your savings into a savings account. It is well to remember at this point, too, that if you can accumulate enough to pay your insurance premiums yearly—rather than weekly or monthly—you will pay a lower rate.
The purchase of a home is another difficult undertaking for the newly married couple because the average person cannot tell the difference between a well-built house and one which is poorly constructed. Unless there is some understanding of this matter, it probably will be wiser to defer the purchase of a house and live in rented quarters until one acquires such knowledge. It must be remembered, also, that the upkeep of a dwelling is likely to come to a substantial figure and that the budget may be severely strained if one does not know in advance the actual costs of owning real estate.
Not the least of these items to be investigated is the amount of assessments which are or may be levied against the property. The likelihood of such levies is seldom pointed out by the real-estate salesman. Furthermore, if one's position is insecure or there is a possibility of beingtransferred to another section of the country in the course of one's employment, it would be wiser to live in rented quarters.
It is a good general rule to pay no more than twice one year's salary for a house; of this amount, not less than 10 percent will be required generally as a "down payment." Then you will have to pay interest and amortization on your mortgage, which, with taxes and upkeep, probably will come to as much as the rent for a similar house. At the end of a period of years, however, you own the house, which is a definite advantage.
Perhaps you have decided, as many young couples do today, that you will both work for wages. The arrival of a baby or possibly some other unplanned event may force the wife to give up her job. If you would avoid real difficulties, therefore, try from the outset to meet the big items—rent, food, essential clothing, and the minimum of insurance and savings—out of the husband's earnings. Let the wife's earnings cover only those items which, though desirable, are less important to your welfare, such as "luxury" clothes, recreation, and items of a similar character.
Any couple who depend on the wife's earnings for such essentials as food, clothing, and shelter should be prepared to adopt a lower scale of expenditure for any of or all these purposes, for as a general rule her contribution to the family income is likely to be less certain than that of her husband. The time to take on additional expenses is after an increase in the husband's wages—not before. Guard against the assumption of obligations which you could not meet if your combined income were reduced.
Simple as this rule would seem to be, I have seen it ignored time and time again, usually with the same unhappy result. I have in mind the case of a couple whom we shall call the Browns. Doris Brown supplemented herhusband's salary by giving piano lessons at home. They planned to have a baby and could well have managed to do so with but a short interruption to Doris' teaching activity. But—and this is what so many couples contemplating children overlook—complications set in which made it necessary for her to spend the last six months of pregnancy in a hospital.
Not only did the family income decline by the amount she had earned, but expenses increased greatly. Some of the deficit was made up by borrowing, but there is a limit to the amount that can be obtained in this manner. That limit was reached before the last $150 was paid on the grand piano which Doris required for her work. As a result, the piano was taken back by the dealer.
The Browns, fortunately, are persons who do not give in readily in the face of adversity. They will work out their own problem and regain lost ground. Indeed, they have already moved into cheaper living quarters, not only to adapt themselves to a smaller income but also to work out of debt and re-acquire a piano. Much of the heartache in this situation might have been avoided if the couple had depended less on the wife's income to meet essential expenses.
One of the greatest pitfalls in the path of any young couple is the feeling that they must "keep up with the Joneses." We all think of ourselves as belonging to a certain social group—whether we express it in snobbish terms or not. But we need not on that account maintain a standard comparable to that of a neighbor whom we admire if, in doing so, we overextend ourselves. Intelligent persons are not impressed favorably by pretense.
What impresses is training and ability. Since the best time to acquire these is when we are young, it may be necessary for a while to practice the very opposite of ostentation—self-sacrifice. If your husband is a professional man and you have married early, he may still be working for an advanced degree. This entails fees and—what is even more exacting—time. It means sacrifice—giving up social engagements and many comforts which you would be able to have on your husband's present salary. There is no more basic part of the budget today than provision for more vocational training.
Most of us waste money on nonessentials. We have glass curtains before we can afford them, whereas no curtains often make our houses lighter and more restful. We have fancy trays, knickknacks, and extra little tables that we do not need. The most attractive houses are in many cases those which show no evidence of overcrowding.
How many women, if they look into their bureau drawers, will not find them cluttered with accessories which either are not used or, if worn, spoil the elegance and tidy distinction of their costumes? Buying wisely is an art, but it requires no special talent—only a willingness to learn—and there are any number of books and magazine articles available that will help you to be better buyers. There are a few general recommendations, however, which may be made.
For example, don't buy without asking yourself in each instance: "Do I need this?" and "Will it fit in with other things I now have, or will it require further buying?" Thus a brown coat, no matter how cheap, is no bargain if all your accessories are black.
Another important principle of good buying is: Be sure you know what you want; then buy the best you can afford. The best is usually the cheapest in the long run. It means fewer replacements, longer use, and better appearance from the start. Analogous to wasting money on second-grade goods is the purchase of imitations of articles you can't afford.
Don't buy things that require expensive upkeep. Washing is cheaper than dry-cleaning, and if you have washable clothes and furnishings that can be handled at home, you will not be stranded in a period when you have to cut costs by doing the work yourself.
Buy from well-established merchants. Their reputation is valuable, to you and to them alike. Avoid the fly-by-night shop and its vaunted "bargains."
I have known brides who spent their meager food allowances on useless trimmings. Such ignorance is inexcusable; no woman these days need go without competent advice on food purchases. She has only to consult her favorite magazine.
Most budgets allow something for the theatre, social affairs, weekends, vacation, and travel for pleasure. The proportion of your income to be spent on recreation is a matter about which we must not be dogmatic. You must figure out what you want most. In the first place, recreation requires the allotment of time and money to do things which you most enjoy, and these will differ for every couple. We may easily overemphasize the kind of recreation for which we pay money. It is true that theatre tickets, phonograph records, and the like are expensive and offer a passive form of entertainment, more appropriate for older people. When you are young and trying to be happy on little money, it is foolish to believe that you have to buy your fun. Whether or not you have a good time depends not on how much money you spend but on whether you and your husband are fundamentally good companions.