CHAPTER VII[ToC]
HUSBANDS AND WIVES
"First, the love of wedded souls; next, neighbor loves and civic,
All reddened, sweetened from the central heart."
—E.B. Browning.
"Two shall be born the whole wide world apart
And speak in different tongues, and have no thought
Each of the other's being and no heed;
And those o'er unknown seas to unknown lands
Shall come, escaping wreck, defying death,
And all unconsciously shape every act
And bend each wandering step to this one end—That
one day, out of darkness, they shall stand
And read life's meaning in each other's eyes."
—Susan Marr Spaulding.
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light."
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
"A home is not an accidental or natural coming together of human souls under the same roof in certain definite relationships; it is a work of art, to be builded upon fixed principles of life and action."—Henry Ware, in Home Life.
"True love is but a humble, low-born thing,
And hath its food served up in earthenware;
It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand,
Through the every-dayness of this work-day world,
Baring its tender feet to every roughness,
Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray
From Beauty's law of plainness and content;
A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile
Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home."
—Lowell.
Not Fancied but Genuine Happiness in Marriage Now Demanded.—The fairy tales ended with the wedding and "they lived happily forever after." The dramas and novels of to-day are often devoted to telling how they did not live happily ever after and what or who caused the unhappiness. Although no one need be alarmed that some people get divorced when marital unhappiness becomes acute, every right-minded person wishes that every marriage should turn out happily. We now, however, demand that it shall be genuine, not make-believe happiness, and that places a heavier strain upon all concerned. We have grown wise enough to see that holding people together who should never have been brought into close relationship does not really conduce to high family morality or social well-being. That, however, only makes it seem the more important that we should somehow learn how to prevent the marriage of those who cannot make their union a success. The part that social control can play in preventing the attempt to marry by the wholly unfit in body, mind, or work-capacity has been already suggested, and that pressure of the community upon the individual choice will, without doubt, largely increase as the bad results of too great individualism in the family relation are more clearly perceived.
Social Restrictions on Marriage Choices.—There will, in time, be a narrowing of the circle within which personal choices can be made, so that the markedly defective in mind, the victims of disease inimical to family well-being, and the pauper strains of inheritance will be ruled out before young people have a chance to marry according to their own inclination.