The Truth about Marriage/Chapter30
CHAPTER XXX
CAN WE KNOW ANOTHER WITHOUT MARRIAGE
Here is an interesting question: "Can you really know a person without living with him day in and day out?" "Is this a reason for companionate marriage?" The first part of the question reads: "Can we really know a person without living with him day in and day out." It is certain that daily contact with a person does give us a more intimate knowledge of him, but do we really know the great essentials of his character any better through daily contact.
It is said that no man is a hero to his valet, and yet many men are heroes, and others at least are capable of heroic actions. Is it just to try to picture Lincoln in a night shirt? There are garments and situations in which no one can appear heroic; but I contend that such knowledge of a person does not necessarily enable us to know him at all. To understand another's soul is to know him truly.
If a young woman were to see the man of her dreams going to bed at night, just as we see people in moving pictures getting ready for bed, if she were to see him collapsed in heavy slumber, if she could hear him snoring—and even heroes snore—if she could see him getting up in the morning his face heavy with sleep and watch him coming to life again, if she could witness his manners as he dressed, if she could see him putting on his company manners, he might not be attractive.
Indeed, he might reveal traits that would be to her positively offensive. He might show himself to be the grouch he is, the brute of which he is capable of becoming when unobserved by his public; she might never know just what he is without such an intimate knowledge.
And yet it would seem fair to judge people when fully awake and dressed to meet the world. I think one can judge even then as to their actual character by little things that are said and done, possibly better than by seeing them in neglige attire, and better than by the big things done to impress the public.
Let us get down to a practical answer to our question. I think we can know people as to their real character without seeing them in the intimacy of marriage, if we know how to judge people.
And I believe one of the subjects to be taught young people is ability to read character. I do not need to witness a person's actions throughout the day and night to know if he is selfish and self-centered, thinking only of himself and his own comfort, to know if he is vain and conceited, to know if he is lazy and self-indulgent, to know if he has good manners, to know whether his manners are a garment worn only in public, to know if he is cleanly, to know if he is clean-minded, to know if he is honest and truthful and sincere; in fact, to know him in essential things.
What he is essentially will show itself continually in everything he says and does. He cannot help but express his inner life in some way, however much he may attempt to conceal what he is.
So I see no reason for marrying a person in order to know what kind of a person he is. It is a pretty big price to pay to enter into all the intimacies of marriage to find out another's character. Simply keep your eyes open, and do not be rushed into marriage under any pretext whatsoever.
Watch closely the person who wants to marry you and measure him up first by one standard of character and then another until you feel that you know him.
And do not be carried away by your enthusiasm over getting married. Better a life-time of single-blessedness than a day's marriage with a brute.