The Myth in Marriage

								

for the beautiful ideal that is theirs.
They arrange to live permanently in each other's presence.
But this living together has induced a thousand conditions that had
nothing whatever to do with the ecstacy of the soul.
Young people do not realize how much economics has to do with every-day
living until they are face to face with every-day life.
Earning money, the drudgery in housework, the personal habits of the
individuals, intimate tastes and prejudices, are all foreign to the
awakening of ideals in the soul. The beloved, who was once an angel,
becomes a wife, a weaver, a worker, a plain human being, subject to the
shortcomings and ignorance that other human beings have.
And the lover, who is also beloved, becomes a husband, an earner of money,
in competition with other workers, subject to irritation, weariness,
discouragements, human failings.
The human qualities, the frailties and shortcomings, do not inspire the
soul to high ideals. And each looks across the impassable gulf of the
breakfast-table and wonders why they "introduced into their lives a spy."
"Where is the ideal I was to dwell with?"
"Where is the ideal that was to abide with me?"
Their souls are wrenched in anguish.

FACTS



    You must stand up straight and put a name upon your

    actions.--Stevenson.

The business in marriage requires commonsense about ninety-nine per cent.
There is usually less romance in marriage than in any other relationship
of life.
But the general idea concerning marriage is that it is all or nearly all
romance.
There is no other business partnership so intimate and complex as that in
marriage.
And this partnership is entered into, the legal papers are drawn,
witnesses to the transaction are called, and a life agreement is made
without thought, discussion or an agreement concerning the business part
of this partnership.
Emphasis has been placed only upon the love, the part of the contract
which mortals can not control.
The business part of this contract holds the destinies of the contracting
parties as no other partnership can. Husband and wife can ruin each
other's fortunes utterly. No outsider can do this.
We would consider two men ridiculous who entered into a business
partnership, discussing with each other only the pleasure they anticipated
in seeing each other so constantly as they would, working side by side
each day.
Imagine one partner saying to the other, "With all my worldly goods I thee
endow," and slipping upon his finger a little gold ring. Then for the
duration of this partnership, the privileged partner giving to him who
wears the ring what he is inclined, varying as the joy in each other's
presence waxes or wanes. The idea is silly.
And yet a man and a woman may contract to live together, giving little
serious thought to the business part of such living, until they find that
mortals can not live on romance, and that the joy of their lives has flown