Laugh and Live

by Douglas Fairbanks

According to these gentlemen the average mortal is likely to be very fat and much over forty before he can make an offering according to his first generous impulses and the chances are he will never reach the goal in this life. By the time he might be financially ready there is a hard glint in his eye, and he will be looking for the mote in the eye of his lady love. The waiting game is a hard one and it makes us worldly. After the lapse of years what once seemed a rose might appear to be more of a hollyhock.

Naturally we never blame ourselves for the changes. Had we obeyed the grand impulse in the hour of our youth we might have kept the garden full of roses and the hollyhocks would never have sprouted there. Then the home nest would have tinged our sensibilities with its loveliness and our affections would have been nailed down hard and fast forever and a day.

Among the many baffling problems which the young man faces, and for that matter, any man, is marriage. More thought, more energy and more time is taken up over this one decisive step than over any other. The reasons are obvious. It involves for life the happiness of the contracting parties—not only in a direct and personal way, but also in a general sense. The man's business success largely depends upon the helpmate he has in his home. His career is at her mercy. For example, if the wife should turn out to be unsympathetic, and uninterested in his ambitions, this fact might warp his prospects by causing him to lose heart in facing the large problems awaiting him along the road of opportunity. However, if she is of a cheerful, energetic disposition and willing to do all that she can to help him over the rough spots as they travel along together he will be inspired into action and will do his level best. He will be conscious as he goes about his work that there is one person above all upon whom he can depend—his wife.

Marriage is a serious business and usually we concede that point in the beginning. However, this is not aimed as a blow at life's greatest romance ... it is merely the recognition of an elemental fact.... Marriage must have its practical side. To become successful in the highest degree man and wife must establish a comradeship. It is not the part of wisdom that either should rule the other, but rather that each should have the interest of the other at heart and should strive to be helpful one unto the other. Two men can go through life the best of friends, each holding the respect and confidence of the other. So can two women. Then, why not a man and wife? Needless to say they can, and do. Such partnerships are sure of success. It is only through lack of comradeship that love flies out of the window—and lights on a sea-going aeroplane.

The marriage state is a long contract—it should not be stumbled into by man or woman. Nor should we become cowardly to the point of backing out of it altogether. Love is blind only to the blind. Either party to the tie that binds has a chance to know in advance whether the venture is safe and sane. All a man has to consider after he knows his own heart is that the woman of his choice is sensible, considerate and healthy. Other things being equal he can take the leap without hesitancy. We shouldn't borrow trouble.

Of course there are those who should never marry. They do, however, and when they do they loan themselves to the mockery of the marriage state. There is no time to dwell on this thought for it is just something that goes on happening anyway and has no bearing upon the advisability of "wedlock in time" between people of horse sense.

Given a good wife, after his own heart, no manly man has a righteous kick coming against the fates. Under such circumstances if things go wrong he will find the fault within himself. Of course we should, to the fullest possible extent, be prepared for marriage before assuming its responsibilities. We should at least have a ticket before embarking—and it is the real man's duty to provide the ticket. Since it is to be a long voyage a "round trip" isn't necessary. In other words, a man needn't be rich when he marries—but he should not be broke, either. Lack of funds a few days after the honeymoon is too hard a test for matrimony to bear nobly. It is too much like inviting a catastrophe through lack of good, hard sense to begin with. It shows poor generalship at the very start—and there is the liability of causing great distress and hardship to a tender-hearted little woman. It would be a sad blow to her to find that the man of her choice was, after all, just an ordinary fellow—a man without foresight.

There are four seasons in married life—spring, summer, fall and winter, and we are going to need a comrade as we go through each of them. And the one we want is the one we start with—the gentle partner in all our joys and sorrows. It is she who will stand back of us when all others fail. When the children come along to bless our days and inspire us to greater efforts we are glad to look into their happy, smiling faces and find that they resemble their mother—their soft cheeks are like hers, their hands, their dainty ways, their caresses. And when mama looks into those same bright eyes they make her think of their daddy. The fond affection bestowed upon the children by both parents is but another mode of expressing their regard for each other.