Happiness and Marriage Part 7

But apparently not on these grounds--dear, no! Her father is "too old,"

or "too weakly," or the intended wife is "not nice." The daughter conjures up a dozen excuses, but never the _real_ one; of which she is not fully conscious herself,--and _doesn't want to be_.

The parent's "duty" to children is great; far greater than the child's duty to parent; but parental self-sacrifice should certainly _not_ be continued for life. A grown daughter is an Individual, who should stand on her own feet and make her own happiness _without_ curtailing the happiness of parents.

Let her leave her father to a renewal of youth and happiness; or let her gracefully and kindly accept her rightful second place and use her loving energies in helping to make bright the home.

A sensible, well trained, loving daughter will do one of these two things.

A sensible, well trained, loving parent will consider his daughter's feelings and will do all he can to gain her _willingness_ before he marries; but he will not make a lasting sacrifice of his own and the other woman's happiness simply to please a selfish girl.

If daughter and parent are not sensible, well trained and loving, it will be a case of frying pan or fire either way.

The recognition of individual rights to the pursuit of happiness according to individual desire, is the only basis of happiness in family relations.

The daughter who _helps_ her father do as he desires will find _him_ ready to help _her_ do as _she_ desires. And _vice versa_.

The daughter who "opposes" her father's marriage is quite apt to be the daughter who has _been opposed by her father_; he reaps as he has sown.

Or else she is the daughter who has been brought up with the idea that parents are a mere convenience for her use.

The way out of the Family Jar is often labyrinthine; but the Loving Individual can always thread it.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE TRUTH ABOUT DIVORCE.

In January _Psychic and Occult Views and Reviews_ the editor, M.T.C.

Wing, presents a view of "Wives and Work" which is anything but an _occult_ view of the subject. He evidently still clings to the old notion that man was made for the family, and not the family for man. He inveighs against George D. Herron and Elbert Hubbard _et al_ because they permitted themselves to be separated from their wives. Apparently he thinks the chief end of man is to tote some woman around on a chip, and the fact that in his callow youth man picked out (or was picked out by) the wrong woman, cuts no figure in the matter. Man must keep on toting her even if he has to give up his life work by which he has been enabled to supply the chip, not to mention the other things the woman demands.

All of which is the very superficial view of the world at large, and has no place among new thought, "occult" teachings. It is entirely too obvious--to the old-fas.h.i.+oned sentimentalist, who is blind to the real facts in cases of separation.

The sentimentalist gets just two views of the family, and draws his hasty conclusions therefrom. He sees first a happy family, a charming, clinging little simpleton of a wife, with half a dozen or so infants clinging to her skirts and bosom, and her round eyes lifted in adorable helplessness to the face of that great, strong lord and master, her husband. In his second view of the family he beholds this strong man turn his back upon this adoring family and walk deliberately forth to self-gratification, leaving them to perish from hunger and grief. Fired with these pretty and entirely fanciful pictures the superficial observer burns with indignation and calls down anathema upon the head of the deserter.

The fact is that _no_ man ever deserts a family under such conditions.

There is always a long period of disintegration before any family goes to pieces--a period of which _both_ man and wife are well aware. When a separation comes it is _really_ a relief to _both_ parties. The only real pain in such cases comes from the spirit of _revenge_, or a desire on the part of one or the other to pose as injured innocence, that she or he may rake in the sympathy and fire the indignation of just such uninformed friends as M.T.C. Wing.

I have known a lot of people who separated--known them intimately and observed them well. In not one of these cases did the deserted party claim to _love_ the deserter. In all there was a real _relief_ when it was all over. In every case the one thing which had held them together so long was _fear of disgrace_. "Oh, _what_ will people think of me?"--is the first cry of everybody--especially women. It was _that_ which made the deserted one unhappy and resentful. It is that which makes many women pose as injured innocents and rate the deserter as a villain. And all the time _in secret_ they are glad, _glad_ that they are relieved of the burden of living with an uncongenial husband or wife.

Of course there are other reasons why women hate to be left by their husbands. One is that their support is apt to go with the deserter.

Public opinion keeps many a family in the same house years after it really _knows_ it is separated widely as the poles.

The dread of having to take care of herself keeps many a woman hanging like grim death to a man she knows she does not love, and who despises her.

The fear of public opinion and the love, not of money, but of _ease_, holds together under one roof tens of thousands of families who have been _occultly_ and really separated for years.

A man is held by the same sentimental notion that M.T.C. Wing has--that he must "protect" the woman. So he stays in h.e.l.l to do it. He _has_ to stay in h.e.l.l _until she gets out_.

In almost every one of these separation cases it is the woman and _not_ the man, who gives the signal. In George D. Herron's case the wife offered to take a certain sum of money and release him from supporting her. He met her conditions--and bore all the odium like a man. To her credit be it said she did not pose as an injured woman. I know nothing about Elbert Hubbard's case, but I venture to say that if he and his wife are separated that _she_ was the one who did the leaving act.

We hear a lot about the "Biblical reason" for divorce; but I say unto you that infidelity is no reason at all for divorce. The one just cause for separation is _incompatibility of temper_.

A man is an Individual; a woman is another Individual; and neither can make himself or herself over to please the other.

When two people from lack of similar ideals and aims cannot _pull together_ the quicker they pull apart the better it will be for them--and the children, too.

I know well a couple who lived together long enough to have grown children. For nearly a score of years they pulled like a pair of balky horses--what time they were not doing the monkey and parrot act. The husband stayed out nights and tippled. The wife sat at home and felt virtuous. Finally the woman worked up s.p.u.n.k enough to do what she had been dying to do for years. She packed up and left. Now she is happily married to a man she can pull _with_, And he is married to another woman who pulls with him. She has quit feeling virtuous and he has quit tippling. They are both prospering financially. The children have _two_ pleasant homes, and more educational and other advantages than they ever dared hope for. Everyone of the family is _glad_ of that separation.

The family is an inst.i.tution of man's own making. It is a good and glorious thing so long as it serves to increase the happiness and health of its members. But whenever the family inst.i.tution has to be maintained at the expense of the life, liberty or happiness of its members it is time to lay that particular inst.i.tution on the shelf.

What G.o.d does not hold together by LOVE let not man try to paste together by law.

One great cause of the increase of divorces is the financial emanc.i.p.ation of woman. Women can now get out and take care of themselves, where a few years ago they had to grin and bear it; or bear it without grinning.

If the new thought means anything, Brother Wing, it means that every individual man or woman, has the RIGHT to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness wherever and with whom he chooses to seek it, so long as he or she does not attempt to abridge the same rights for others. It means that a woman is as much an Individual as a man, and must stand or fall, hold her husband or lose him, _on her own merits_. The new thought deals with Individuals regardless of s.e.x.

Marriage is a partners.h.i.+p, subject in the eyes of Justice to the same rules which govern other partners.h.i.+ps. Let us be just to the deserter, be he man or woman, before we are sentimentally generous to the deserted.

And don't let us be _too_ sure that we know all the facts in these separation cases. It is human nature to fix up outward appearances for the benefit of the pa.s.ser-by.

Seek rather to _understand_. Condemn not.

Has any one told you it is lucky to be married?

I hasten to inform you it is just as lucky to be divorced, and I know it.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE OLD, OLD STORY.

This is the springtime, when fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love and everybody wants to go a-soul-mating. Consequently my mail is leavened with letters from those who are unhappily married but who are sure they have got their eye on the One who from the foundation of the ion was intended for them. They all want to leave the old mis-mate and go to the new found soul mate, and they all want my advice and encouragement--to do it! Some of these writers have already left their husbands (?) and want to know whether or not they should go back, or go on. To one such I wrote the following letter, which I publish in the hope that it will help others to find and follow _themselves_. Here is the letter:

One thing at a time! Get off with the old love before you go fretting about a new one! Don't you think you are a silly girl to ask _anybody's_ advice as to whether or not you are to go back to your so-called husband? If _I_ know what _you_ ought to do I don't see what _you_ are worth to yourself or the universe. The truth is that YOU are the only person in creation who can make that decision. If you don't yet _know_ that you have a right to make your own life as you see fit; if you don't yet _know_ whether or not you could go back to him; then _be still_ until you _do_ know.

You know things today that you did not know yesterday, and tomorrow you will know things you "can't decide about" today. So attend strictly to business and keep still, and stiller yet, until you KNOW what is best to do.

Then DO it.

So much for the old love. As to the new one, not even _you_ can know for certain whether that other man would pan out the soul mate you now imagine him. But the Law of Love, or Attraction, will _prove_ whether or not he is what you think. _Your Own_ will come to you, and all creation can't hinder it--IF you keep that man was NOT what I longed for, a real comrade; sweet and cool, and free in your own mind, and make the best of THIS day as it comes along.

Ages ago I had a similar experience to yours. I found the only and original one intended for me. But I was tied to another man--NOT by a ceremony, for that ties n.o.body, but by my own conscience, which compelled me to "stand by" the man I thought "needed" me. So I stood, though I thought my heart was broken. In a few years I found that my soul mate was no mate at all!--I wouldn't have had him as a gracious gift! I felt like Ben Franklin who, as a barefooted boy, resolved that when he grew up and had pennies he would buy a stick of red striped peppermint candy; but when he grew up and had the pennies he didn't want the candy.

I have learned to smile at that experience as the bitterest and sweetest of my past life, and the source of volumes of wisdom. The _Law of Attraction knew_ and the Law kept him from me. I afterward found the real comrade, and _more_ than the joy I thought I had forever missed!

"We are pretty silly children, dearie, without the child's best quality, TRUST."