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If you say to a business executive, "Business is a thing apart," he will point out at once that your theory is true only in the least important jobs. The management does not worry much about the home environment of the beginner upon whom no real responsibility rests, but it frequently goes to unbelievable ends to get its more important employees back onto the track if they have lost their heads over a home problem. Again, business does this for no humanitarian reasons; it takes this attitude because its employees produce better where there is harmony at home.
The capable, intelligent, and progressive worker is almost invariably married to a capable, intelligent, and progressive woman. Each acts and reacts upon the other. Men are not so versatile that they can fill $5000 jobs during the day and then go home to become husbands of $1500 women in the evening. Neither are women so versatile that they will remain in contented harmony with husbands who are not their mental equals. Some look negatively at the problem, feeling that "I could have done better if I had had the advantages of so-and-so." The facts are that these envied couples were growing up together, keeping pace mentally, long before the promotion came which is given the credit for their present condition.
When a wife falls down on her part of the job, neglecting either harmony or her personal development, her husband's first natural reaction is to separate his business from his home life—to grit his teeth and go on, hoping to achieve the impossible. This usually sets up a vicious circle of events. Being handicapped in personal effectiveness, he spends more and more time at business. His home goes to ruin; he suffers the most dangerous emotional upsets; his work fails, and conditions get worse and worse. He breaks, in short, at the wrong time—a time inconvenient to business, to put it brutally.
It is dangerous to generalize here, because there is a fine distinction between harmony at home and bringing business into the home. Hasty thinking is likely to confuse the two. The man who takes petty troubles of the routine day home to his wife is a weakling, and business cannot consider him for increased responsibility. The husband who takes none of his problems home is frequently a mystery to his wife, but he probably feels that she is not sufficiently informed to be useful in helping him make decisions on purely business issues. Wives sometimes rebel against this, because they do not make the essential distinction between respect for them as individuals and respect for their information about a specific business question.
The soundness of the belief that wives have a specific and clearly defined responsibility here is verified by the fact that husbands want, and business demands, one and the same thing. The approach is different, because the husbands of America are asking primarily for harmony at home, while business is looking for an efficient producer; yet they both are seeking the same thing. The husband asks his wife for harmony at home and a progressive instinct so that she will grow concurrently with him. Business, when evaluating men for promotion, asks whether there is harmony at home so that this man will be free from the greatest single source of emotional unbalance, and whether this man and his wife have demonstrated the ability to grow in the past—the best available indication of their ability to grow in the future. These two questions take in a lot of territory, but the ground must be covered so long as business, in effect, employs or promotes both husband and wife.
Do not be misled for a moment respecting the importance of these two points merely because businessmen do not talk a lot about them. Their sense of good taste makes them hesitate to inquire bluntly into so personal a problem, and so their investigations are conducted quietly. Numerous confidential sources of information are used, and superiors take their own means to meet husband and wife together, generally under some casual pretext. If we could look behind the scenes, we would find that emotional stability—that elusive product of a satisfactory home environment—is regarded just as highly as knowledge, experience, or any of the other orthodox considerations. We would find executives saying, "We can count on Jones for Chicago now that we have seen his wife and determined to our satisfaction that she will measure up to the promotion" or "It's too bad we can't give this job to Smith, but you know how hard it is to succeed without support from home." Another would be saying, "Brown flew off the handle again yesterday; it must have started at the breakfast table."
Wives, if you can be the Mrs. Jones of these examples, and avoid being the Mrs. Smith or the Mrs. Brown, you will be removing for businessmen the greatest hurdle to promotion which we encounter. You will be doing your part as the wife of a man in business.
You may determine the extent to which you are doing these things now by testing yourself in the light of these ten questions:
1. Did my husband start for work this morning in a better frame of mind for having married me, or would he have been happier as a single man or married to someone else?
Remember, as you ask this question and apply your own answer, that we are talking about business; hard, practical business where intentions do not count. You may love your husband dearly, but if the results of your love are not constructive, you must write the word FAILURE across the record.
2. Do I always treat my job just as seriously as if I were working in an office for a monthly salary?
Some wives feel that it makes no difference if they linger so long over bridge or cocktails or shopping or whatever in the afternoon that they are unable to prepare a suitable meal for their husbands in the evening.
3. Have I grown in poise and interests like the wives of my husband's associates and superiors?
Wives who keep up with the procession are an asset; those who fail to grow are a liability.
4. Can I talk in the same terms as his associates and their wives?
This indicates how carefully you have maintained your interest in the source of your income, and how accustomed you are to expressing yourself.
5. Do I dress and act like the wives of the business associates and superiors of my husband?
You place a heavy handicap upon your effectiveness if your husband cannot be proud of you in the inevitable comparisons with other wives in his organization.
6. Do I entertain with reasonable frequency the people who are in a position to help my husband in business, or is our social life planned wholly for my own amusement?
Perhaps this question should read, "How long since I have entertained So-and-So?" You may be surprised to find that months have slipped away without your having done a single stroke of good for your husband socially.
7. Do I limit our social engagements during the week to those which will not take essential energy from the job, or do I feel that my husband "owes" me constant amusement when he is not actually at the office?
As employers pile responsibility upon your husband, more and more care must be used in the allocation of time to social affairs. You may be able to rest the next day, but business does not permit husbands to rest on the job.
8. Do I act as a balance wheel, cheering him intelligently when he is tired or discouraged, or do I rub him the wrong way on such occasions?
If your husband does not share with you his disappointments, it is almost invariably because you have not qualified yourself to share them.
9. Do I try to smooth things out after unpleasant discussions—as I would if a new dress or theatre party were at stake?
Many married persons have an uncanny capacity for making miserable the objects of their affection. It is said that the course of true love never did run smooth, but the wise husband or wife will not unnecessarily roughen it.
10. Do I carry my share of responsibility, or do I save up all the petty annoyances for our dinner-table conversation?
Wives who complain that their husbands are silent during dinner have usually good reason to overhaul the quality of their own conversation. Don't bore him with your fight with the grocer or the catty things Mrs. X said at bridge or afternoon tea.
Here are some actual examples of the way wives affect their husband's business:
We selected Blake for a branch managership at Chicago, and we thought that his wife could measure up. We took him out of a job where he had reached his limit and placed him in one where his developed ability might enable him to earn twice his salary. He failed. We who appointed this man took the blame for his failure, because business recognizes no alibis. As usual, it wasn't that he didn't want to be a branch manager, or that he didn't know enough, or that he wasn't willing to work hard enough. We found that the trouble was within his emotional mechanism. He was losing his head and his temper at the wrong times.
At last he wrote to his firm: "This town takes the heart out of my wife. She is terribly lonesome, refuses to make new friends, and reminds me continually of the good times we used to have back home. Her mother misses her and threatens to come to live with us here. I appreciate this opportunity, and I know that we have more of everything here than we had back home, but I want my old job back. I can't stand it here."
Business doesn't work that way, and so we persuaded another employer to "hire him away" without his knowledge, thus saving his face and helping to maintain his courage. He would have been branded for life if we had permitted him to crawl back to his old job. Blake will never go as far as he is entitled to go, because Mrs. Blake places her own feelings above any other consideration, and her husband is not strong enough to control his emotions where his wife is concerned. Few men are.
We do not in any way blame Mrs. Blake for the part she played in her husband's failure. She merely attaches more value to staying in her old groove, in the constant companionship of her mother, and in the regular contact with old friends than she attaches to promotion for her husband. We have no quarrel with her choice, if only she realizes that she has chosen something for herself, and is now living under conditions dictated by her own choice.
Take Smith. In the language of business he is a "whipped puppy." Again, there is no question of his ability, his desires, or his willingness to work. We have, in a certain corporation, a job for Smith which would mean a 50 percent increase in salary, a place of notice in the community, and a wider acquaintance among substantial people. We have considered him for this job a dozen times, but each time we have decided to postpone action, because we are afraid of the influence of his wife. On his present job, it does no great damage for her to be so possessive, demanding all his time outside of office hours, ordering him around like a child. On the new job, such a performance would ruin him before he was fairly started. Dare we depend on her ability and willingness to grow quickly into the person she would have been training to become? We dare not, for we are held responsible for results!
"Just as I thought," some will say, "business is inhuman." One who takes this attitude has an incomplete view of the facts. If business were to tolerate a repetition of mistakes, its general level of productivity—which, in turn, means income to its employees—would be lowered immediately. This would operate against the very thing we are trying to sponsor—increased responsibility and more full living for all as soon as they earn it.
This point of view frequently gives women no end of mental trouble, because they are more inclined than men to think subjectively rather than objectively. Business employs a man for what he can produce, other things being equal. So long as he is morally sound and honest, business cares little about his attitudes on other subjects. Wives measure their husbands by their helping with the housework or their thoughtfulness in little things around the home; all of these have their value, but not in the scale of production on the job. Sentiment counts heavily with the feminine mind, as it should, whereas business is more realistic. Business buys results rather than intentions.
Business did not have an inherent desire to consider marriage relations. Its interest in them began with the many examples of maladjustment to which it was compelled to give attention, in line with its age-old policy of believing that "everything is all right until it is proved otherwise." When the negative consequences were brought to light, and business really became interested, a constructive attitude was developed which gained its momentum from the countless examples where wives have been major reasons for the success of their husbands. Fortunately for every failure there are a dozen successes.
The Mortons, for example, are a couple who have found that it pays to live both harmoniously and progressively at home. Mary Morton is a convert to the constructive attitudes brought out by the ten questions outlined earlier. They have made it a custom to entertain at least one evening a week, always having in mind that certain people can be both good company and helpful in business. They try to reach up rather than down in the people with whom they mingle. When they were to be transferred to another city, the news was broken to them together in their home by a superior. Mary's first and genuine reaction was, "It will be fine to make new friends and to have the children see a new part of the country."
When they arrived at the new city, the old process, so successful in their home town, was begun again—new friends, new interests, new growth. If they were ever homesick, the firm never found it out; but I am inclined to believe that they were too busy on constructive matters to get homesick. Morton's salary is three times what it was ten years ago, and most of the credit goes to his wife. Likewise she is the chief beneficiary.
Another illustration of the extent to which business recognizes the principle of harmonious development of both husband and wife is shown by the experience of Parsons. He was a junior executive, capable in every direction but one. When a vacancy occurred higher up, he was the logical candidate; but the president of the company refused to promote him until he had had a chance to demonstrate his ability to meet the social requirements of his position. He conceded Parsons' brilliance, his energy, and everything but his capacity to become genuinely interested in the people who were both above and beneath him in the organization. Inquiry revealed that he was making the best of a situation in which neither he nor his wife had realized the importance of social activity. Bear in mind that we do not mean a playboy temperament or a mercenary attitude, but rather a genuineness in human contacts.
When the problem was laid before them, a program was laid out for them to follow. Parsons and his wife called on everyone they felt should not be neglected, later inviting to their own home those who seemed in a position to help them. During these second visits, the conversation was turned to what might be done by "people like ourselves" to prevent getting into a rut. Dozens of helpful activities were recommended, and they made it a business to explore the most valuable, so that they could tell others about forthcoming meetings of discussion groups, plays, lectures, and the like. Within six months, they had entirely overcome the president's objection, and a year later Parsons was promoted to the other position at a $2000 increase in salary.
Two facts will occur immediately to anyone who is an intelligent observer of such things: first, Parsons and his wife had a better time after the change than before; and second, business expects people to discover these things for themselves. This couple were more than usually fortunate to be led by the hand up to this new experience.
Business gave Parsons his chance when it permitted him to demonstrate his ability. Quick jumps in business are not made available to people upon the basis of their belief that they can qualify. Business would be guilty of rash speculation with its funds if positions were given to any except those who had demonstrated their qualifications in advance. Business has no time for or patience with those who do not recognize the importance of these things. We have no license to give responsibility to those who say: "I didn't know that this was important. Give me a trial, and I will do my best to learn quickly." The answer to that is: "We have another man who has been qualifying for many years. He saw the place of these things in business progress. We'll risk our money on him."
When a young man brings to business a reasonable amount of ability and energy, reinforced by the emotional balance which comes from the right kind of home life, he is likely to surpass both his own expectations and those of his employers. Business wants him to succeed. Business wonders, as a matter of fact, why more people do not succeed, with the incentives for success so generally open to public view. It realizes, just as you will realize when you analyze the situation, that the incentives have been understood, but the ways and means have been missing. This is a common mistake in human progress. We have all erred in making someone else want something, thinking that the process of arousing desire would insure intelligent action. Most humans realize that they lack the ways and means, a realization which accounts for the interest shown everywhere in better marriage relations and in the methods for achieving them. The desire to succeed is not enough. Desire has its place, however, once the ways and means are understood, because strong desire sustains interest in the ways and means.
Does this seem an idle theory? Not to business, the instrument through which most men and women work out their economic security. Business says: you must show us harmony at home and mental growth before we will believe that you are a safe candidate for promotion. Give us these along with the ability you have always brought us, and we will make it worth your while. We will increase your salaries. We will put you into jobs where you may live in better neighborhoods, mingle with more capable people in business and at home, give your children advantages you may never have had, and provide you with all the creature comforts for successful living, a base upon which you must build your own philosophy of happiness, but without which no genuine happiness is probable.
Being composed of realists, business does not paint these rewards in glowing colors. It merely says, without question or qualification, the happily married man will occupy a bigger position with us than the man who is unhappy at home.
Ernest R. and Gladys H. Groves
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Case for Monogamy
If we put off examining the case for monogamy until we had personal questions about it, most of us would never get around to studying it. For most people no more doubt that monogamy is the best possible program than that good health is better than bad. To argue such a matter seems strange.
But there is much loose talk about on the other side of the case, crying up the non-monogamous program practiced by a few and publicized by more. The adherents of this group are so vocal that their ideas are constantly being aired. Knowing themselves a small minority, with the burden of proof against them, they excitedly attack the existing order.
Their arguments are likely to interest the average person, however, only when he or she is momentarily thrown off balance by an emotional upheaval of one sort or another. And right there is the danger. It is hard for anyone—particularly a young person—to make a rational decision when his thinking is colored by his emotions; his tendency is to use his intellectual processes merely to justify what he wants to do at the moment, and not to search out the truth. If he is unprepared for the anti-monogamy arguments ready and waiting for him, he is likely to accept them without question. Before we have occasion to doubt it, therefore, those of us who take monogamy as a matter of course should understand why we do, and what its significance is to us. Then, if ever the occasion does arise, we shall be better able to let our minds, not our passions, decide the issue for our greater happiness.
The question is shall I, having given myself to one man or one woman, abide by the till-death-do-us-part vow, or shall I be free to change partners at will?
The natural mood of most men and women entering marriage is deeply monogamous. The one thing husband and wife crave is to depend only on each other forever. Yet later on some of them will suddenly desert the standards of monogamy without giving themselves time to think, and others will pass through a period of turmoil before making up their minds to go or to stay. What has happened in the marriage experience to change these individuals who were strong for monogamy into men and women either dead set against it or very doubtful about it?
The answer lies both in the particular temperament of the persons concerned and in certain characteristic features of the early, middle, and later stages in married life. Sometimes a young man or woman bolts from the tenets of monogamy in a late-adolescent panic when marriage responsibilities begin to be irksome. Sometimes it is the older man or woman who married in good faith only to lose sight of the values of monogamy. Not having the backbone to accept what comes and do something about it, this type of person wants to give up as soon as the going gets rough, and daydreams about making a better start elsewhere.
What are the parts of the marriage experience that bring out this disposition of wanting to run away in order to try again? The romantic love that marks the early part of marriage is a characteristically youthful attitude. Each spouse idealizes the other and pictures their life together as something almost unique in its perfection. Stimulated by the mate's expectations, each one rises about his or her previous habits of behavior, and for a while the two seem indeed to be finer and better than the general run of humankind.
In time the first flush of enthusiasm wears off, and the husband and wife gradually get to see each other more nearly as other people see them. For those who flinch from reality, this is as bitter an experience as any of the other hard parts of growing up. For nobody is it easy. But for all who face it squarely, it is a big step toward emotional maturity.
Without hastening the process, and thereby losing most of its benefits, one can learn to accept it little by little, as it comes. The wife who seemed the most beautiful or most gracious woman imaginable, the husband who was looked upon as the strongest or cleverest man in the world, slowly loses this impossible glamour and shrinks to the life size proportions of a real man or woman.
When one catches a glimpse of oneself in the estimation of the newly married spouse, and realizes how far the idealized picture is from the somber reality one has grown up with, it is easy to think, "I am made different by this love that expects so much of me, and if I am not yet quite so wonderful as my beloved thinks me, I shall soon become so, for this expectation spurs me to hitherto unimaginable efforts."
Something of this improvement does take place—but then, to the chagrin of the one trying to improve, it becomes increasingly clear that the original expectations of the mate are being lowered in the direction of one's actual present level of attainment. Surprisingly enough, by the time one is sure of this, it is not disturbing in the way one would have expected, for one's own impression of the mate is also coming down to earth.
At first this descent from the clouds of fanciful exaggeration of the loved one to the lesser status of everyday life seems more or less tragic, as both fear that the supreme quality of their marriage is vanishing. The more a couple have been lifted up by their romantic attachment for each other, the more they can be hurt when the wearing out of its unreal element drops them to earth again. The ones who are stouthearted enough to count their own hurt a small matter, if they can still help the partner to have something to look forward to beyond the present difficulties, are matured by this part of their marriage experience, and later come to look back on what went before as a dreamlike time when they lived on nothing more substantial than hopes.
This is the testing period of the marriage. Each partner must continually get used to the new outline of the other's personality as it is showing itself, without losing sight of the value of the essential quality that persists. Of one thing both can be sure: each still has need of the other.
In today's mail comes a letter from a businessman who admits that he had got out of the habit of showing his wife how he felt about her in the rush and worry of trying to keep his head above water financially. Now that she in her loneliness has lost her heart to another man, the husband almost breaks into poetry in telling of his feelings. Not vindictive, he is just hopeless. If the wife could have had imagination enough to realize the strength of his need of her, she would never have wrapped herself in loneliness away from him.
The drop from the temporary bliss of the beginning of love to the lasting burden-sharing of the rest of life offers many a chance for hurt feelings. Those who lose confidence in their own or their partner's ability to keep on trying to live together on a reality basis are generally the ones who want to keep one foot in the dreamland of immaturity. If he drinks and she sulks, both would rather think themselves martyrs and talk over their troubles with sympathetic friends than get down to business and do something about their problems.
Quarrels are intense in proportion to the depth of tender emotion in the background. Not understanding what is happening to them, the husband and wife think it is the end of love, and he may be tempted to accept comfort from another woman, she from another man. Then they need desperately to know, "What is the case for monogamy?"
History shows that monogamy has always been accompanied by increasing vigor in the society or group practicing it, and that its opposite—freedom from social restraint in the relationships of men and women—has always been associated with social or group decay. But modern young people are interested in the meaning of monogamy for them personally.
Monogamy is a going on in the healthy spirit of meeting what life brings, not running away from it. Escape into a substitute relationship is a going back to the dreamlike stage of late adolescence, putting new promises ahead of present performance, and attempting to make life stand still, so that one may continue on the threshold of maturity without ever stepping over into the place where one must make good one's promises.
No human craving, from infancy to death, is stronger than that for security of affection. What misleads people into thinking of going outside their marriage association, or wanting to break it for a new one, is their failure to understand the slow growth of permanent affection. Looking back at the intensity of its beginning in romantic love, they suppose it is dwindling, when it is really taking root.
As a child that has been spoiled at home has a hard time getting used to the lesser attention he receives away from home, the married person who believes that courtship love is the essence of marriage finds it hard to come down to the quieter affection that can endure. This is the person who, unable to stand being valued only for his or her real worth, complains to an outsider, "Nobody understands me." The outsider, flattered, murmurs, "I do," and romanticizes about "this fine, unappreciated person," only to discover when it is too late that the person was only too well understood by the unfortunate first partner.
One may not be able to make oneself grow up suddenly and all at once, but one can hold on to the principles one knows to be worth fighting for, by the simple process of refusing to let go. All kinds of wonderful qualities needed in marriage may seem to be conspicuous in oneself chiefly by their absence, but one can always play for time. Even if infatuated with another person, one can hang on to what one knows is right until Time, the mighty leveler of passion, comes to one's help.
An exceptionally happy married woman, after going through this ordeal, said that at the time when she was almost carried away by an unexpected infatuation for a business associate of her husband's, it seemed as if nothing was real but the lover. Neither the memory of past happiness with the husband nor the thought of his future misery if she should leave him was able to mean more to her than so many words. Only, in her half-stupefied condition, she had the wit to remember, as one might recall the multiplication table without caring anything about it, that she had always previously despised people who acted on impulse without trying to find out the probable consequences. Therefore she stuck to her self-imposed rule that she would have no contact with the man, even by letter, until she could get over the strange numbness of her emotions toward her husband. Then, gradually but thoroughly, she came out of her trancelike infatuation, until she found it hard to remember that it had ever happened.
The time to put on the brakes in checking runaway emotions is before they gain momentum. While the feelings aroused still seem harmless, the person can redirect his or her energy toward a more desirable object such as finding new grounds of communion with the spouse or sublimating its expression by turning it into constructive artistic or social channels. To wait until disaster threatens before taking oneself in hand is to pile up, at best, a guilty feeling that one has not done one's best to meet the needs of the mate.
Those who "step out" in the frantic forties and foolish fifties complicate the picture for their younger observers. What they are trying to find is not so much a new thrill as the reliving of an old glow—the hopefulness of their lost youth. Not content to live over in memory the high hopes that were theirs when life was new—because of the gap between expectation and realization—they close their eyes to the new disillusionment they are heading for, and think only to shut out their sense of inadequacy in their present association by steering full steam ahead for another encounter, in which the odds are even more against them.
One may think one doesn't care much about the partner, one may get tired of listening to the same old jokes, the same set of worries, the same reminiscences; but let there be a misunderstanding, and one finds that one must care tremendously or one could not be so devastated. No association is so humdrum that it cannot be quickened into life, no matter how long it has been meagerly taking its course.
Certain types of people, whom we might lump together as a restless, discontented lot, enjoy "shopping around" for doctors, for jobs, for friends, for lovers, never staying long enough with any one doctor, job, friend, or lover to have to take any back talk. As soon as the first signs of a candid relationship appear, they are off, bag and baggage, to newer hunting grounds. We may suspect that what they really want is to outrun their own personality.
This appears in their willingness to slough off even their children, in an adolescent impatience with any barrier to an immediate desire. So contrary is this to nature that regret follows closely their decision. The children, however, are laden with a burden put on them by their parents. Instead of joyful confidence, they experience a divided affection. Driven to a choice of loyalties or caught between competing rivals who attempt to win their love, they are thereby denied security, the one gift every home owes a child.
Depending as he must upon his parents for this, it is a shattering experience for him to find that the twofold support of his existence is no longer holding together. He wants and needs not his mother or his father, nor just his mother and his father, but his two parents love-linked together as the one source of steadiness in a universe which otherwise is in flux and turmoil.
The child who finds his parents have given up trying to maintain their affectionate interdependence is hurt beyond any other hurt that can come to him. Precociously matured by being denied that security of encircling affection which is his right, he is forever cheated of his childhood and therefore can never become fully mature emotionally, but must have great gaps in what should have been the slow development of his emotions, before they hardened into adult form.
The monogamic fellowship normally encourages the coming of the child. Neither husband nor wife can awaken in the other the strong normal urges that come to expression in love fellowship, without bringing forth the desire that seems rooted in human nature for a child of their own. In any case, when the child does enter the home, experience soon makes plain his need of security. Where there is no monogamic commitment, he is forced into family life that is confused, incomplete, and uncertain. In such a situation, open as he is to first impressions, he suffers most, and not infrequently so deeply as to carry emotional scars for life. The friend of children recoils from the thought of any sort of transient motherhood or fatherhood. Monogamy provides a stable home in which each member—husband, wife and child—although they are copartners in love, has an indispensable, unique, and satisfying role.
Monogamy is not a fettering of human impulse, but a registration of the deepest yearnings of men and women. The laws that define and support it are merely man's efforts to express the common opinion that has taken form out of the experiences through the centuries of a great multitude of persons who, like ourselves, have sought success in marriage. Those who think of monogamy as something imposed on human nature through external authority, a sort of strait jacket of emotional restraint, are obtuse to the overwhelming testimony of human nature. Monogamy is not established by a thundering edict from Mount Sinai, but by the quiet, persistent inward-speaking of human need. The one-man-one-woman craving is so deeply laid in the structure of all of us that any other way of mating and establishing a home is alien to desire, the thought never arises, except when the one-time expectations have been lost through personality failure.
Monogamy is not something that suddenly and finally takes shape, a petrifying of emotion that for a season in courtship flourishes. It gets its vitality through a growth process, continues with life, a spreading of an affection always forward-looking; anything else is an indication of a faltering marriage. In the beginning love announces the awakening of mutual need. Then the feelings flow swift and strong and carry each toward the other. The impulse to possess, to annex, to have possession of the beloved, is a consuming hunger. It is a covetous grasping, a recognition that the other is indispensable. Out of this comes a union, and from then on, the two grow not only together, but also their common fellowship grows, becoming their way of life.
The passion to possess the other one, who seems external, fades away, and in its place comes the joy of mutual sharing, the security of an exploring fellowship. It is thus that monogamy offers love its fulfillment. There must be this welding of self with self if the emotionally awakened man or woman is to escape loneliness. Self-expansion in power, distinction, or pleasure does not suffice. Any by-oneself fulfillment only brings home the profounder need of a different achievement, not in separation, but through union, the fusion of two persons in a constant intimacy.
This growing together comes from no deliberate, effort-making program. It grows out of the affectionate living together. It is a day-by-day consolidation, not only of interest or experience, but of satisfactions. It is this that led Plato long ago to say that the man or woman apart from the other is incomplete, a partial person, hungering for the needed lover. Monogamy is, however, not a mere getting together; it is a growing together. It furnishes the opportunity for continued unrivaled intimacy, and its on-going not only strengthens the life together, but makes it pregnant with the forces that lead to character growth.
Monogamy is therefore a preference, usually so much a matter of course as to seem the natural way of living. This explains its supremacy among the schemes of human mating. It is a product of love ties, but only as these flourish in a maturing intimacy. It asks no more than that each member of the fellowship grow with the other.
Monogamy is indeed a test of character, but not in some extraordinary, aristocratic way that would put it out of the reach of most of us. Although its benefits cannot be had for the mere asking, it is denied to no one who in sincerity lives in love with the person of his choice. It is an achievement, but not in the sense that one eventually awakens to discover that he has at last arrived at a monogamic relationship. It is rather a hand-in-hand walking through life of a man and woman, each having chosen the other and offered his every possession. It as surely adds to character as it demands character.
The vitalizing union provides incentives that enrich both character and ambition. The two sharing a common life add more, do more, and feel more than each found possible in their one-time isolation. This in turn strengthens the union and makes each more indispensable to the other. They do not attempt to duplicate each other, but knowing that their love is secure, each gains through the life contact of the other. It was thus that Robert and Elizabeth Browning each affected the quality of the other's work, both being able to write deeper and more human poetry as a result of their marriage.
It is most important for an understanding of monogamy that it not be thought of as a monotony, a petering out of the energy of love until the high hopes of the confident lovers disappear in a drab, toilsome existence. This fading out does come to married people just as it does to those who have never married. Rightly used, however, monogamic fellowship protects by making adventure in life more zestful because it is shared. However hard and dreary experience becomes, it is more so if one walks alone and less so if its testing is met by two who travel onward in love. Monotony is always a reflection of inner losses. So long as we are alive to what is, so long as we have the feelings that uncover the zestfulness of things, we keep out of the desert. Monogamy cannot guarantee enthusiastic living, but undoubtedly, by encouraging mutual love, it protects the roots from which most of all each of us draws vitality.
When the relationship becomes monotonous, there is the same confession of failure as when day-by-day happenings grow stale and repellent. The difference is that when love goes, the fortress has been taken and all life flattens out.
The exclusiveness of monogamic fellowship, the out-coming of the deep hunger for a unique experience in affection, can be greatly misinterpreted by failing to see that it is human nature's effort to keep to the golden mean as one is driven by tremendous impulses toward the supreme man-woman comradeship. In all such relationships there is on one side the extreme which shows itself when one member of the intimacy crushes and destroys the personality of the other. This eventually spoils the union by making it a conquest of one by the other. The opposite disaster appears when there is no fusion at all but merely an alliance of two independent, self-centered persons who come together in the spirit of temporary self-interest and refuse to develop a common life. Even when they maintain the letter of the monogamic code, they lose its spirit.
In contrast with these unfortunates, victims of will-to-power and self-centered passion, those in monogamic fellowship enlarge the life they share. One often notices, as did Hudson, the naturalist, in his description of the English shepherd's home, that husband and wife reach such understanding that they share feeling without recourse to words; and gather so much in common that as they travel through the years they do, indeed, seem to grow even to look like each other. They winter and summer together, and when time sends the children to their own adventures, we hear these life-tested lovers, hand in hand, saying:
"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made."
Index
Acquiescence, 102, 109
Adjustments, marital, 9-11, 16, 104-110
Adolescence, 119, 158
Adopted children, 94-96
Advancement, wife's contribution to business, 142-153
Affection, security of, 159
Allowance, wife's, 16, 49
Ambition, 6, 164
American Eugenic Society, 90-91
Antagonism, emotional, 104-105
Apartment houses, 20-21
Appearance, preserving attractive, 78-79
Appliance replacements, 70-71
Art museums, visits to, 25, 119
Assessments, property, 72
Automobile: depreciation of, 70 expenses, 69-70
Baby: bonds, 84 budget, 88 time for first, 82-84
Bacon, Lord, 90
Banks, savings, 67
Banning, Margaret Culkin, 25
Baseball, 17
Biologies, 118
Biologists, heredity studies of, 32
Birth: control methods, 23 questions of, 114-116, 118 rate, 41 season of, 33 weather and, 33-34
Birthdays, eminent people's, 33-34
Blood tests, 22
Blunders, marriage, 1-2, 5, 8, 20-21, 48, 97-110
Boredom, 161, 165
Borrowing, budget and, 19, 71, 84
Brides-to-be, advice to, 17
Bridge, advice on, 17
British Dictionary of National Biography, 34
Browning, Robert, 127, 138-139
Budget: baby, 88 borrowing and, 71 family, 67-79
Business: failures, 141-142 wife's aid in, 141-153
Bussing, Elizabeth, 66-79
Buying (see Purchasing)
Careers, wives', 43-53
Carlyle, 133
Cells, sperm, 35, 117
Challenge, marriage, 1
Character: courtship candidate's, 6 development, 128-129, 164
Chastity, benefits of, 25
Checking account, wife's, 16
Cheerfulness, wife's, 147
Child marriages, 118
Children: adopted, 94-96 clothes of, 78 cost of, 46, 69, 82-84, 89-90 cultural value of, 42 economic readiness for, 40-42, 82-84, 90 emotional stability of, 113 environment of, 95 feeding, 82 health of, 28, 78, 82-83 heritage rights of, 28 illegitimate, 94 insurance for, 71-72 lack of, 29-30, 93-94 marital conflict and, 161-162 medical care of, 28, 78, 82-83 monogamy and, 162 number of, 40-42, 82-83, 90 nursing, 83 parents' responsibility to, 161-162 planning for, 16, 28-29, 31, 40-42, 46, 69, 80-96, 107 pleasures of, 82 postponing, 46 preparing for, 16 saving for, 40-42, 82-84, 90 sex activities of, 121-125 sex instruction of, 111-125 sliding-wage scale for, 91 spoiled, 159 toys of, 78
Christian faith, 137
Church attendance, 134-135
City apartment houses, 20-21
Clothing: allowances, 69-70, 73, 78, 97, 146-147 child's, 78 depreciation of, 70 party, 4 wife's, 146-147
College students: marriage courses, 12, 25 premarital examination of, 10-12
Compromises, 57-59
Concentrated intimacy, 60-61
Concerts, 17
Conflict, avoiding marital, 97-110
Constitutional vigor, 33-34
Contempt, 104
Conversation: benefits of good, 18 wife's, 146-147
Cooperation, 103-104
Courage, 7, 103
Courts, avoiding divorce, 97-110
Courtship, 1-12
Courtship candidate: character of, 5-6 courage of, 7 mental growth of, 6 wearing qualities of, 5-6
Cowardice, 102-103
Criticism, 16
Culture, aids to, 142
Date, wedding, 16
Day-to-day expenses, 70
Death statistics, 32
Debt, dangers of, 19, 71, 84
Defective teeth, 30
de Maupassant, Guy, 131
Dental bills, 77
Dependence, mutual, 48
Dependents: marriage and, 19 provision for, 70
Depreciation allowances, 70-71
Diabetes, 30
Dickinson, Stanley G., 140-153
Diet, 34
Dinner-table conversation, 147
Dionne quintuplets, 118
Disappointments, marriage, 1-2, 5, 8, 20-21, 48, 97-110
Disease statistics, 32
Divorce: averting, 97-110 grounds for, 29 rates, 14, 20-21
Doctor: bills, 77-78 certificate of fitness by, 22 counseling service of, 10, 25-26, 30, 36-37, 92-93
Dress (see Clothing)
Drummond, Henry, 137
Duncan, Matthews, 93
Durable goods budget, 70-71
Duty, marriage, 27-42
Earning power: husband's, 66-69, 141 wife's, 73-74
Economy, domestic, 66-79, 97
Education: health, 35 religious, 126-139 sex, 9-10, 12, 111-125, 128
Elementary school children, sex instruction of, 114
Emotional: antagonism, 104-105 instability, 31-32, 36, 142, 144, 159-160 reactions, 4-5 restraint, 8 stability, 13, 34, 61-62
Emotions: checking runaway, 159-160 child's, 113
Employment, wife's outside, 21, 73-74
Engagement: intimacy of, 16 length of, 18 period, 13-26
Engineering school, marriage and, 19
England, birthdays in, 33
Entertainment expense, 76-77, 147
Environment: child's, 95 defects, 32-36 home, 140-141 postnatal, 35-36 pre-natal, 35-36
Eugenics, progress of, 36
Everyday life, party manners versus, 4
Examinations, medical, 10-12, 22, 28-29, 36, 94
Exercise, benefits of, 17-18, 76-77
Expense, marriage, 66-79, 88
Extravagance, 75, 78
Eyesight, poor, 30
Failures, marriage, 1-2, 5, 8, 20-21, 97-110
Faith: Christian, 137 religious, 126-139
Family: budget, 16, 18, 67-79, 140-141 doctor, 10, 25-26, 30, 36-37, 92-93 income, 16, 49 insurance, 71-72 jokes, 107 joys, 106-107 planning, 28-29, 31, 80-96 size of, 40-42, 82-83, 90 support of, 66-79, 108 welfare, 109-110
Father fixation, 6-7
Fatigue statistics, 32
Fault-finding, avoidance of, 16
Faust, 133
Feeblemindedness, 31
Fertilization, 114, 117-118
Financial: independence, 48-49 planning, 16, 18, 45, 66-79
Fingers, misshaped, 30
Fire insurance, 72
Fishing, 17
Fitness: for marriage, 22, 27-42 physical, 28-31
Food: budget, 68-70, 73, 82 child's 82
France, birthdays in, 33
Frankness, 108
Friends, value of, 20-21, 60
Fuel, cost of, 69
Furniture replacements, 70-71
Gallagher, E. G., 94
Germany, birthdays in, 33
Gifted women, 52-53
Golf, 17
Good Housekeeping: Health and Happiness Club, 84 marriage-relations course, 140
Gospels, reading of, 134-135
Grooms-to-be, advice to, 17-18
Groves, Dr. Ernest R., 1-12, 154-166
Groves, Gladys Hoagland, 54-65, 154-166
Grudges, surrender of, 104
Guidance: marriage, 3, 9-10, 12, 25-26, 30, 36-37, 56-65, 92-93
Hardy, Thomas 137
Harelip, 30
Harmony, home and business, 142-153
Harper, President, 129
Hart, Dr. Hornell, 97-110
Health: and Happiness Club, 84 child, 28 education, 35 ideal temperatures for, 33 weather influences on, 32-34
Heart ailments, 30
Heat, cost of, 69
Hereditary defects, 30-36
Heredity studies, 32
High school children, sex instruction of, 114-115, 118
Hobbies, 17
Home: acquiring equipment for, 16 childless, 29-30 children spoiled at, 159 cultural value of, 42 environment, 140-141, 143 happiness in, 28, 107 harmony of business and, 142-153 moral code of, 124-125 location of, 20-21 ownership, 71-73 planning, 21 purchase price of, 73 religion in, 126-139 renting, 67-70, 72-74 sex instruction in, 111-125 stability of, 162
Honeymoon arrangements, 20
Hospital: bills, 74, 77-78, 83 plan, 77
Household management, 44
Hudson, on shepherd's home, 166
Human: genetics, 36 reproduction, 114-120
Huntington, Dr. Ellsworth, 22, 27-42, 89
Husband: dependence of wife and, 48 selection of, 3-5 understanding, 107
Idiots, 31
Illegitimate children, 94
Imbeciles, 31
Income: husband's, 66-69, 141 wife's outside, 73-74
Incubator babies, 118
Indebtedness, marriage and, 19, 71, 84
India, birthdays in, 33
Infatuations, 159-160
Inheritance, child's, 28
Inge, Dean, 135
Instruction: religious, 126-139 sex, 9-10, 12, 111-125, 128
Insurance: benefits to children, 71-72 choice of, 18-19 fire, 72 life, 67, 71-73 renewable term, 71-72 straight life, 71
Intemperance, 24, 158
Interests, development of, 146
Intimacy, undue concentration of, 60-61
Irritants, elimination of, 105-106
Jealousy, 16, 104
Jokes, family, 107
Joys, family, 106-107
Junior-high-school children, sex instruction of, 118
Kenyon, Dr. Josephine Hemenway, 84
Laboratory experiments, controlled, 32-33
Law school, marriage and, 19
Lease, ownership versus, 67-70, 72-74
Leisure, 142
License, marriage, 22
Life: adjustments, 63 changed ways of, 7-8 everyday, 4 intimacy of married, 54-65 joys of married, 127, 140-153 mode of, 34 refinements of, 142 successful married, 13-15, 22, 54-65, 102-110, 140-153, 163-164
Life insurance: company budget forms, 67 provision for, 71 savings aspect of, 72-73 straight, 71
Literature, sex, 9-10, 12
Longevity: vigor and, 33-34 weather and, 33-34
Love: aids to, 163 earlier, 15 falling in, 13 quarrels, 16, 157
Luxury clothes, 73
Manners, party, 4
Marriage: adjustments, 9-11, 16, 104-110 benefits of, 140-153 blunders, 1-2, 5, 8, 20-21, 48, 97-110 challenge, 1 child, 118 clinics, 25 college courses on, 25 conferences on, 25 dependents and, 19 during post-graduate training, 19 during professional training, 19, 68-69 duties, 27-42 engineering school and, 19 expenses, 66-79 failures, 1-2, 5, 8, 20-21, 48, 97-110 fitness for, 22, 27-42 guidance, 3, 9-10, 12, 25-26, 30, 36-37, 56-65, 92-93 happiness, 127, 140-153 hasty, 18 in poverty, 46-47 law school and, 19 license, 22 moral conduct after, 16 of under-graduates, 19 outside occupations after, 43-53 overestimating, 8, 157 personality adjustments after, 9-11, 16, 104-110 postponement, 19-20, 23 preparatory courses, 12, 14, 17, 25, 140 program of action, 108-109 progress, 63-65 relations course, 140 right, 27-42 rules for successful, 13-15, 22, 54-65, 102-110, 140-153, 163-164 secret, 20, 23 sex experience before, 23-26 sliding-wage scale for, 91 spiritual side of, 24 statistical studies, 14-15 testing period, 157 training, 12, 14, 17, 25, 140 unfitness for, 30-36 union, 56-57 vacations from, 17 while indebted, 19 wisdom of, 27-42
Marshall, Dr. Jessie, 80-96
Mate (see Wife)
Mating, 114, 117-118
McConaughy, Dr. James L., 13-26
Meaker, Dr. Samuel R., 94
Meals, child's, 82
Mechanical appliances, cost of, 70-71
Medical: advice, 10, 25-26, 30, 36-37, 92-93 care of child, 78, 82-83 examinations, 10-12, 22, 28-29, 36, 94 expense, 77-78 profession (see Doctors)
Menstruation, 119
Mental: deficiency, 31-32 inherited ability, 34 growth, 6, 78-79, 142
Meredith, George, 129-130
Mills, Professor C. A., 35
Misshaped fingers, 30
Mismating, 15
Mistakes, marriage, 1-2, 5, 8, 20-21, 48, 97-110
Monogamy: benefits of, 154-166 children and, 162
Monotony, averting, 161, 165
Moral conduct, 16
More, Paul Elmer, 136
Morons, 31
Mother fixation, 6-7, 99-101
Museums, visits to, 25
Music appreciation, 17
Natural history, 118-119
Nagging, avoidance of, 16
Novak, Dr. Emil, 92
Nursing expense, 78, 83
Occupation: choice of, 27 wives' outside, 43-53
Organic diseases, 92
Outdoor sports, 76-77
Overton, death of, 134
Parenthood: age for, 82-84 responsibilities of, 2, 161-162
Parents: domination by, 14, 20-21, 99-101 living with, 21
Party: dress, 4 expenses, 76-77, 97 manners, 4
Personal: budget, 67-79 growth, 142
Personality adjustments, 16, 55-56
Pets, value of, 118
Phelps, William Lyon, 126-139
Physical examination (see Medical examination)
Physical exercise, 76-77
Physical fitness: doctor's certificate of, 22 preserving, 28-34, 78-79
Physical vigor, 33-34
Physician (see Doctor)
Picnicking, 76
Plato, 164
Play, benefits of, 76-77
Pluck, courtship candidate's, 7
Pocket money, wife's, 16, 49
Poise, development of, 146
Post-graduate training, marriage during, 19
Postnatal environment, 35-36
Postponement, marriage, 19-20, 23
Poverty, marriage in, 46-47
Prayer, 134
Pregnancy, 92, 114-115, 118
Premarital: courses of study, 12 relations, 23-24
Premiums, insurance, 71-72
Pre-natal environment, 35-36
Pre-school children, sex instruction of, 114
Pretense, avoidance of, 74
Profession, choice of, 27
Professional training, marriage during, 19, 68-69
Program of action, joint, 108-109
Property: assessments, 72 taxes, 73 upkeep, 73, 76
Psychiatrists, advice of, 6
Psychic trauma, 124
Purchasing economies, 75-76
Quintuplets, occurrence of, 88
Radio appreciation, 17
Rates, insurance, 71-72
Recreation expense, 73, 76-77
Refrigeration costs, 70
Religion in home, 126-139
Reno, avoiding, 1-2, 5, 8, 20-21, 97-110
Rents, 67-70, 72-74
Reproduction: human, 114-120 seasonal cycle of, 33-34
Resentment, 104
Residence, location of, 20-21
Respect, mutual, 59-60
Responsibilities, wife's, 142-153
Right, marriage, 27-42
Romance: aids to, 8, 16-17 careless seeking of, 101
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 43-53
Russia, birthdays in, 33
Savings accounts, 72-73, 97
Savings banks, budget forms of, 67
Scientific method, 14-15
Scolding, avoidance of, 16
Season of birth, 33
Secret marriages, 20, 23
Selection, wise mate, 3-5
Self-acquaintance, 4-5
Self-centered engrossment, 60-61
Self-consciousness, 31
Self-control, 31
Self-discipline, 8
Self-expansion, 163
Selfishness, 32, 57-59, 103
Seminal emissions, 119
Sex: adjustments, 9-11, 63 education, 9-10, 12, 111-125, 128 experience before marriage, 23-26 frustration, 98-99, 101 literature, 9-10, 12 mannerisms, 55-56 meeting opposite, 3-4 misdemeanors, 121-125 technique, 9-11 temperaments, 55-56
Shakespeare, 135
Shelter, cost of, 67-70
Short-sightedness, 30
Social affairs: expense of, 76-77 planning, 147
Social group: keeping up with, 74 vigor of, 158
Social training, 132
Sousa, John Philip, 136
Spain, birthdays in, 33
Spending, orderly, 66-79
Sperm cells, 35, 117
Spiritual development, 126-139
Spoiled child, 159
Sports: encouragement of, 17-18 outdoor, 76-77
Statistical studies, marriage, 14-15
Sterility, 29-30, 93-94
Straight life insurance, 71
Strain, Frances Bruce, 111-125
Sunday: observance of, 134 recreation, 134 School, 133
Success, marriage, 13-15, 22, 54-65, 102-110, 140-153, 163-164
Support, family, 66-79
Sweden, birthdays in, 33
Syphilis, 28
Tact, 16
Tastes, 55-56
Taxes, property, 73
Teeth: care of, 77 defective, 30
Temper, loss of, 31
Temperament, 55-56
Temperatures, health, 33
Tennyson, 127, 138
Term insurance, renewable, 71-72
Theatre expenses, 76, 147
Toys, child's, 78
Training (see Education)
Traveling expense, 68-69, 76
Trust, mutual, 63-64
Turgenev, 127
Twins, recurrence of, 88
Undergraduates, marriage of, 19
Union, building marriage, 56-57
United States, birthdays in, 33
Upkeep, property, 73, 76
Uterus, 115
Vacation allowances, 76
Venereal disease, 25, 28
Vigor: longevity and, 33-34 society's, 158
Wages: husband's, 66-69, 141 sliding scale of, 91 wife's, 73-74
Wearing character, courtship candidate's, 5-6
Weather: child conception and, 33-34 longevity and, 33-34
Wedding date, fixing, 16, 20
Welfare, family, 109
Wife: aid to business progress, 141-153 allowances, 16, 49 attitude of, 4 characteristics of, 4, 6 checking account of, 16 cheerfulness of, 147 childless, 72 conversational ability of, 146-147 dependence of husband and, 48 emotional reactions of, 4-5 entertaining ability of, 147 gifted, 52-53 home allowances of, 16, 49 house, 44 income control by, 16 insurance for, 72 mental growth of, 6, 78-79, 142 outside employment of, 21, 43-53, 73-74 selection of, 3-5 support of, 66-79 understanding, 107-108
Women (see Wife)
Work: ideal conditions of, 32 wife's outside, 21, 43-53, 73-74
Zoological gardens, 119
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