The Truth about Marriage/Chapter8
CHAPTER VIII
THE YOUNG MAN LOOKING FOR A WIFE
Well, young man, what are you like?
I am going to take it for granted that you are a young man of good principles, that you are honest, diligent in business, tell the truth, and are generally reliable. You may not be rich; you probably are not rich now; but you have the things in life that are worth while after all, for you have good character, and you in the course of time may be rich.
Riches are after all largely accidental. If you do not believe that, ask rich men. Few of them know how they grew to be rich. If they are conceited, they may talk about their industry and their talents, but riches come oftentimes to men who do not deserve them and do not come to others who do. And those who are rich scarcely know the secret of getting rich.
I have already suggested what you are like as to character, that is, in a general way. As to your personal appearance, I do not know. You may be handsome or plain. That is not of great importance. You probably keep yourself looking up to the standard of the young men of our day.
What have you to offer a wife? Well, let us say that you have good character. That is splendid. You have the right beginning for happiness. You are probably making a living. It is necessary to have money enough to live on. And it takes more for two than it does for one.
Now what do you want in a wife? If you will step this way I will show you a girl of the period.
This girl before you is good-looking. You will have to admit that. People on the street would turn around to get a good look at her. But I want to tell you that there are plenty of good looking girls.
This girl spends a lot of time on her looks. You can tell that from the careful and expensive way in which she is groomed and dressed. Her beauty parlor bill is large. She expects admiration, even though she seems to be indifferent to the gaze of the public. She is dressed up for the purpose of getting admiration.
Now that is perfectly all right, for every girl or woman should look her best at all times, and she is justified in parading before men so that they will see her good points. Now is her chance to get a husband. Girls must look their best. That is the way they attract attention. That is the way they get a husband, and getting a husband is the big thing in a girl's life.
Here are some questions to ask yourself? Do you want a wife who is merely good-looking and is devoid of intelligence? They call them in our day a dumb-bell. Does this girl before you look like a dumb-bell?
Of course, I do not know, but I would advise you to find out before you start to fall in love with her. A beautiful dumb-bell is apt to be trying on one's nerves. One has to carry on a conversation after marriage with one's wife. There are hundreds of hours when it is necessary to do some talking or to be bored to death by the silence of the beautiful dumb-bell.
Personally I know of marriages where husband and wife can talk together all day long and late into the night on subjects of mutual interest; not merely talk about their friends and neighbors; but about a thousand and one interesting matters. They never seem to get tired of discussing things worth while.
Do you like music? Find out if this girl has any interest in music, and, if so, if it is merely jazz that she likes.
Do you like pictures and statuary and other forms of art, beautiful homes and beauty in general? If you do not, may be it will be all right for you to marry a girl who does not know anything about art or artistic things. But, if you do, it would make life interesting after marriage to be able to share your enthusiasms with your wife.
Do you think this girl can cook or sew or keep house or make a pleasant home? Married people need to eat and to live in homes and it may be trying to have a domestic dumb-bell for a wife.
Does she care for home life?
Does she care for children?
Do you think she is unselfish?
It is hard to tell, for her good looks are apt to make one forget personal qualities. And yet after marriage, if she is cold and hard and selfish and uninterested in you and your problems and in your mutual home and in having children and in the big things that make life thrill with interest, of course you will not be happy.
However, you must judge for yourself, but be careful. Do not act in a hurry. There are many fish in the sea and many lovely girls yet to be had.
Let us think of a young man taking a walk along Broadway in Los Angeles, or State Street in Chicago, or Broadway in New York. Any one of these streets will show any young man a vast multitude of girls and women of all types. Let us say that we are walking along the street, any street of any city where the crowds are great.
As you look out on this vast throng of people, most of whom seem to be feminine, doesn't it strike you that a crowd such as we are looking at now is made up of a great variety of types, each one as different from the other as if they had only the common factor of a common humanity? Did you ever wonder why they are so different?
Take, for example, their stature. They are not at all of the same height. They vary greatly in that respect.
Then consider their figures, men and women. Why are they so different as to slimness and stoutness and shape and height and contour of face and color of eyes and hair and tint of skin? Do they come from such a vast variety of countries and sections of our country where the water and food are different? Do different thoughts and feelings and moods and inheritances make all these differences of a physical kind?
But I know you are interested in seeing the girls, and particularly the one girl of all the world for you. Do you suppose she is in this throng? Who can tell? How is it possible to find her, she who is to be dearer to you than life?
Well, let us look at them. Is she to be tall or short, large or small, stout or thin, or just medium as to stature and figure?
Let us see your size. You are about five feet nine inches, and weigh about one hundred and seventy pounds. That is a good size. Somehow, so far as size is concerned, possibly a girl a little smaller than you are will about suit you. People usually like people about their own size when it comes to marriage. The girl likes to look up just a little bit to her husband, and at the first she certainly ought not to weigh as much as he; in fact, considerably less than one hundred and seventy pounds.
Yet one of the happiest couples I ever knew, one of the happiest marriages, was of a man who was not over five feet three and a woman who was easily five feet ten inches. That is the way I remember them. I saw them walking down the aisle of the church the night they were married. I was only a little boy, but the impression made upon me of the difference in height was strong. I saw them many times afterwards and always I thought of their difference in height, and yet I always thought of their obvious happiness.
Still the suggestion I have made as to a man being taller and heavier is one that experience confirms us in believing to be wise.
Now shall it be a blonde or brunette? They say that gentlemen prefer blondes, and blondes are strikingly beautiful sometimes, but so also are brunettes and those that are half way between brunette and blonde.
After all, possibly you know best what you like.
It may be that there is a subtle something within each one of us that causes us to be thrilled by a blonde or a brunette or something half way between, dependent upon our own blonde or brunette quality.
The girl you marry ought to give you a thrill as you touch her hand and have her hand caress you. Some people say it is all a matter of vibration. Who knows? It is certain that some touches thrill us and some do not, and we know that this thing of thrill is not merely a matter of imagination.
The thrill of which I speak may sometimes be recognized in shaking hands; and yet it is not always a matter to be decided by a handshake. But there ought to be a certain congeniality in the touch of the hand, a pleasurable feeling, a desire perhaps to keep hold of the hand. I know many married couples who still like to hold hands.
However, here in the street we shall not have the chance to shake hands with the girls we see, for they are strangers.
Some of the faces we see show refinement and education and cultivation of talents. Some of these girls and women are no doubt musical, or artistic in other ways. Some have studied books and some have studied chiefly in the school of human nature.
But many of them seem to have studied little at all, if one may judge from what we see in their faces. It strikes me that some of them, in spite of their obvious good looks, are of the dumb-bell variety. I have nothing to say against them. It takes all kinds of people to make a world. There are just as many dumb-bells of the male variety.
Do you know that after a while one gets tired of staring at people in this way, for one does not really see into the soul of those who pass us on the street. We are seeing very superficially.
Many of these people may have delightful natures. They may be intensely interesting if we were to come into closer contact. And some of them that appear interesting may turn out to be so common in thought and feeling, and by common I mean commonplace and perhaps a little rough and unpolished, that one feels the difficulty of getting a solution of your problems as to the girl you ought to marry from seeing girls in the street.
Yet a crowd is always fascinating if one has a vivid imagination and can follow home in imagination a person who attracts his attention and see what the person is like. But who can do that with any degree of correctness?
Each individual is different and the environment and life of each one differs, and our experience is after all so limited that we cannot imagine correctly anything more than the most external and conventional things.
What you need to do is to meet girls personally. Do not think that each one is necessarily an angel because she is a girl.
Study the girls you meet. Try to analyze their characters. Here are some of the things that you are to ask yourself about them:
Are they good-tempered?
Will they lose control of themselves at any little provocation?
Will they nag?
Will they be critical?
Will they be sarcastic?
Will they be blindly jealous?
Will they demand expensive attention and entertainment regardless of your financial ability?
Will they consider you and your interests and welfare and your future?
Have they any real interest in anyone else than themselves?
Will they insist on beautiful clothes and a beautiful home without regard to your income?
Have they been so accustomed to expensive living that they cannot adapt themselves to anything else?
It takes money to live, and much money to live in luxury. Nothing brings unhappiness into the home more quickly than shortage of money when the wife is thinking of herself only, or chiefly.
When the wolf comes in at the door it is too often true that love flies out of the window. One of the greatest causes for unhappiness in marriage would often seem to be the lack of money to provide the things one needs to live in the way that one likes to live.
Then you are to think of some other basic things. For example, are you of the same race?
Of the same nationality?
Of the same stock?
Have you a common background? By background I refer to the mode of living in early life and the kind of education and culture and association you have had. It is necessary to consider one's mutual background, and nationality, and race.
And then as to religion, do you differ? Has she a strong tendency, from inheritance and training, to follow along certain religious lines which are contrary to your inheritance and training? Nothing separates more deeply in an interior way than religion, and sometimes religious prejudices.
Is she willing to adjust herself to you and to your life and to your income? Does she know what your income is, and what your prospects are, and if she says it makes no difference what you earn, and she doesn't know what a difference the lack of income makes in one's life, can you make her understand? Many girls in their enthusiasm are willing to undertake marriage with a man of small income but when the hard times come and the lack of nice things cut into the quick they are filled with rage at the situation, and a man's troubles really begin.
What does she think of the coming of children? Does she love them, love them enough to go through childbirth and the hardships of child training? It takes a big feminine soul to meet life on this side. But what beauty is revealed in unselfish motherhood!
Try to look through your girl's eyes into her soul and find out if she is fundamentally selfish.
See if she is cruel.
See if she is domineering and insists on her way in everything. Be sure if she does you will be crushed,—at least will suffer bitterly by her insistence.
Ask yourself if she is fickle. A fickle woman can shame a man, can try his soul, and sometimes she will disgrace herself and him.
Are you interested merely in a pretty face, or a charming feminine figure, or pretty ways? They have a tremendous power to keep us from seeing through them into the character behind them.
I am trying to save you from unhappiness, trying to take the gamble out of marriage for you. It cannot be done wholly, but one can avoid a lot of trouble by trying to see his girl as others see her, and especially in her adaption to him.
Love makes us blind. We see the other one as we want them to be. We marry our ideal. We invest them with virtues that exist only in our mind.
Be sure you are right. Know what you want. But realize this that no man under heaven has the ability to avoid a mistake altogether. I believe there is a Divine power that rules over human life and can keep us from an unhappy marriage if we will only ask for guidance and will not be pig-headed in our purpose to have our way.