Thus the problem of fidelity is not solved merely by imposing the claim of constancy upon one’s self; for in the first place, in love there are two who must desire the same thing, and in the second, each of these two is manifold.
No human being is sole master of his fate when he has united it with another’s. The possibility of becoming a complete personality in and through love depends in half upon the pure and whole desire of the other to share in developing the common life.
It is this which is overlooked by the eloquent preachers of “constancy as the expression of the personality,” and this makes their words about the duty of lifelong love as meaningless as a harangue about the duty of lifelong health.
It is a beautiful sight when two married people enjoy the happiness of their love for the whole day of human life. It is also a beautiful sight when life sets like a clear sun upon the horizon, and does not lose itself like a weary river in the sand. But these are beautiful ideals not commands of duty.
Love, like health, can certainly be neglected or cared for, and by good care the average length of life both of human beings and of their loves may be raised.
But the final causes both of love’s birth and of its death are as mysterious as those of the origin and cessation of life. A person can therefore no more promise to love or not to love than he can promise to live long. What he can promise is to take good care of his life and of his love.
This may be done, as already pointed out, through the conscious will to be faithful, the firm resolve to make love a great experience.
But perhaps the majority as yet do little to preserve their happiness. In this case, life works for them, as God “gives to his servants, while they sleep.”
If ever the doctrine of the importance of the infinitely small has its application, it is in respect to the power the little things of everyday life have of uniting or dividing in marriage.
That hardships and memories, joys and sorrows shared bind people together even without the continuance of love; that in the deepest sense of the word they cannot be separated, since a great part of the one’s nature remains in the other’s—this in reality forms the binding tie, but not ideas of duty, whether clear or obscure, strict or free. If in one case a married life has so dried up the feelings of both that a gust of wind drives them apart like two withered leaves, in another it may have given the feelings such deep roots that, even if all the leaves that the springtime gave are torn away, even if life seems as empty and cold as naked boughs in winter—it is still lived in common.