The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book Part 13

_7. Do I limit our social engagements during the week to those which will not take essential energy from the job, or do I feel that my husband "owes" me constant amus.e.m.e.nt when he is not actually at the office?_

As employers pile responsibility upon your husband, more and more care must be used in the allocation of time to social affairs. You may be able to rest the next day, but business does not permit husbands to rest on the job.

_8. Do I act as a balance wheel, cheering him intelligently when he is tired or discouraged, or do I rub him the wrong way on such occasions?_

If your husband does not share with you his disappointments, it is almost invariably because you have not qualified yourself to share them.

_9. Do I try to smooth things out after unpleasant discussions--as I would if a new dress or theatre party were at stake?_

Many married persons have an uncanny capacity for making miserable the objects of their affection. It is said that the course of true love never did run smooth, but the wise husband or wife will not unnecessarily roughen it.

_10. Do I carry my share of responsibility, or do I save up all the petty annoyances for our dinner-table conversation?_

Wives who complain that their husbands are silent during dinner have usually good reason to overhaul the quality of their own conversation.

Don't bore him with your fight with the grocer or the catty things Mrs.

X said at bridge or afternoon tea.

Here are some actual examples of the way wives affect their husband's business:

We selected Blake for a branch managers.h.i.+p at Chicago, and we thought that his wife could measure up. We took him out of a job where he had reached his limit and placed him in one where his developed ability might enable him to earn twice his salary. He failed. We who appointed this man took the blame for his failure, because _business recognizes no alibis_. As usual, it wasn't that he didn't want to be a branch manager, or that he didn't know enough, or that he wasn't willing to work hard enough. We found that the trouble was within his emotional mechanism. He was losing his head and his temper at the wrong times.

At last he wrote to his firm: "This town takes the heart out of my wife.

She is terribly lonesome, refuses to make new friends, and reminds me continually of the good times we used to have back home. Her mother misses her and threatens to come to live with us here. I appreciate this opportunity, and I know that we have more of everything here than we had back home, but I want my old job back. I can't stand it here."

Business doesn't work that way, and so we persuaded another employer to "hire him away" without his knowledge, thus saving his face and helping to maintain his courage. He would have been branded for life if we had permitted him to crawl back to his old job. Blake will never go as far as he is ent.i.tled to go, because Mrs. Blake places her own feelings above any other consideration, and her husband is not strong enough to control his emotions where his wife is concerned. Few men are.

We do not in any way blame Mrs. Blake for the part she played in her husband's failure. She merely attaches more value to staying in her old groove, in the constant companions.h.i.+p of her mother, and in the regular contact with old friends than she attaches to promotion for her husband.

We have no quarrel with her choice, if only she realizes that she has chosen something for herself, and is now living under conditions dictated by her own choice.

Take Smith. In the language of business he is a "whipped puppy." Again, there is no question of his ability, his desires, or his willingness to work. We have, in a certain corporation, a job for Smith which would mean a 50 percent increase in salary, a place of notice in the community, and a wider acquaintance among substantial people. We have considered him for this job a dozen times, but each time we have decided to postpone action, because we are afraid of the influence of his wife.

On his present job, it does no great damage for her to be so possessive, demanding all his time outside of office hours, ordering him around like a child. On the new job, such a performance would ruin him before he was fairly started. Dare we depend on her ability and willingness to grow quickly into the person she would have been training to become? We dare not, for we are held responsible for results!

"Just as I thought," some will say, "business is inhuman." One who takes this att.i.tude has an incomplete view of the facts. If business were to tolerate a repet.i.tion of mistakes, its general level of productivity--which, in turn, means income to its employees--would be lowered immediately. This would operate against the very thing we are trying to sponsor--increased responsibility and more full living for all as soon as they earn it.

This point of view frequently gives women no end of mental trouble, because they are more inclined than men to think subjectively rather than objectively. Business employs a man for what he can produce, other things being equal. So long as he is morally sound and honest, business cares little about his att.i.tudes on other subjects. Wives measure their husbands by their helping with the housework or their thoughtfulness in little things around the home; all of these have their value, but not in the scale of production on the job. Sentiment counts heavily with the feminine mind, as it should, whereas business is more realistic.

Business buys results rather than intentions.

Business did not have an inherent desire to consider marriage relations.

Its interest in them began with the many examples of maladjustment to which it was compelled to give attention, in line with its age-old policy of believing that "everything is all right until it is proved otherwise." When the negative consequences were brought to light, and business really became interested, a constructive att.i.tude was developed which gained its momentum from the countless examples where wives have been major reasons for the success of their husbands. Fortunately for every failure there are a dozen successes.

The Mortons, for example, are a couple who have found that it pays to live both harmoniously and progressively at home. Mary Morton is a convert to the constructive att.i.tudes brought out by the ten questions outlined earlier. They have made it a custom to entertain at least one evening a week, always having in mind that certain people can be _both_ good company and helpful in business. They try to reach up rather than down in the people with whom they mingle. When they were to be transferred to another city, the news was broken to them together in their home by a superior. Mary's first and genuine reaction was, "It will be fine to make new friends and to have the children see a new part of the country."

When they arrived at the new city, the old process, so successful in their home town, was begun again--new friends, new interests, new growth. If they were ever homesick, the firm never found it out; but I am inclined to believe that they were too busy on constructive matters to get homesick. Morton's salary is three times what it was ten years ago, and most of the credit goes to his wife. Likewise she is the chief beneficiary.

Another ill.u.s.tration of the extent to which business recognizes the principle of harmonious development of both husband and wife is shown by the experience of Parsons. He was a junior executive, capable in every direction but one. When a vacancy occurred higher up, he was the logical candidate; but the president of the company refused to promote him until he had had a chance to demonstrate his ability to meet the social requirements of his position. He conceded Parsons' brilliance, his energy, and everything but his capacity to become genuinely interested in the people who were both above and beneath him in the organization.

Inquiry revealed that he was making the best of a situation in which neither he nor his wife had realized the importance of social activity.

Bear in mind that we do not mean a playboy temperament or a mercenary att.i.tude, but rather a genuineness in human contacts.

When the problem was laid before them, a program was laid out for them to follow. Parsons and his wife called on everyone they felt should not be neglected, later inviting to their own home those who seemed in a position to help them. During these second visits, the conversation was turned to what might be done by "people like ourselves" to prevent getting into a rut. Dozens of helpful activities were recommended, and they made it a business to explore the most valuable, so that they could tell others about forthcoming meetings of discussion groups, plays, lectures, and the like. Within six months, they had entirely overcome the president's objection, and a year later Parsons was promoted to the other position at a $2000 increase in salary.

Two facts will occur immediately to anyone who is an intelligent observer of such things: first, Parsons and his wife had a better time after the change than before; and second, business expects people to discover these things for themselves. This couple were more than usually fortunate to be led by the hand up to this new experience.

Business gave Parsons his chance when it permitted him to demonstrate his ability. Quick jumps in business are not made available to people upon the basis of their belief that they can qualify. Business would be guilty of rash speculation with its funds if positions were given to any except those who had demonstrated their qualifications in advance.

Business has no time for or patience with those who do not recognize the importance of these things. We have no license to give responsibility to those who say: "I didn't know that this was important. Give me a trial, and I will do my best to learn quickly." The answer to that is: "We have another man who has been qualifying for many years. He saw the place of these things in business progress. We'll risk our money on him."

When a young man brings to business a reasonable amount of ability and energy, reinforced by the emotional balance which comes from the right kind of home life, he is likely to surpa.s.s both his own expectations and those of his employers. Business _wants_ him to succeed. Business wonders, as a matter of fact, why more people do not succeed, with the incentives for success so generally open to public view. It realizes, just as you will realize when you a.n.a.lyze the situation, that the incentives have been understood, but the ways and means have been missing. This is a common mistake in human progress. We have all erred in making someone else want something, thinking that the process of arousing desire would insure intelligent action. Most humans realize that they lack the ways and means, a realization which accounts for the interest shown everywhere in better marriage relations and in the methods for achieving them. The desire to succeed is not enough. Desire has its place, however, once the ways and means are understood, because strong desire sustains interest in the ways and means.

Does this seem an idle theory? Not to business, the instrument through which most men and women work out their economic security. Business says: you must show us harmony at home and mental growth before we will believe that you are a safe candidate for promotion. Give us these along with the ability you have always brought us, and we will make it worth your while. We will increase your salaries. We will put you into jobs where you may live in better neighborhoods, mingle with more capable people in business and at home, give your children advantages you may never have had, and provide you with all the creature comforts for successful living, a base upon which you must build your own philosophy of happiness, but without which no genuine happiness is probable.

Being composed of realists, business does not paint these rewards in glowing colors. It merely says, without question or qualification, _the happily married man will occupy a bigger position with us than the man who is unhappy at home_.

_Ernest R. and Gladys H. Groves_

CHAPTER TWELVE

_The Case for Monogamy_

If we put off examining the case for monogamy until we had personal questions about it, most of us would never get around to studying it.

For most people no more doubt that monogamy is the best possible program than that good health is better than bad. To argue such a matter seems strange.

But there is much loose talk about on the other side of the case, crying up the non-monogamous program practiced by a few and publicized by more.

The adherents of this group are so vocal that their ideas are constantly being aired. Knowing themselves a small minority, with the burden of proof against them, they excitedly attack the existing order.

Their arguments are likely to interest the average person, however, only when he or she is momentarily thrown off balance by an emotional upheaval of one sort or another. And right there is the danger. It is hard for anyone--particularly a young person--to make a rational decision when his thinking is colored by his emotions; his tendency is to use his intellectual processes merely to justify what he wants to do at the moment, and not to search out the truth. If he is unprepared for the anti-monogamy arguments ready and waiting for him, he is likely to accept them without question. Before we have occasion to doubt it, therefore, those of us who take monogamy as a matter of course should understand why we do, and what its significance is to us. Then, if ever the occasion does arise, we shall be better able to let our minds, not our pa.s.sions, decide the issue for our greater happiness.

The question is shall I, having given myself to one man or one woman, abide by the till-death-do-us-part vow, or shall I be free to change partners at will?

The natural mood of most men and women entering marriage is deeply monogamous. The one thing husband and wife crave is to depend only on each other forever. Yet later on some of them will suddenly desert the standards of monogamy without giving themselves time to think, and others will pa.s.s through a period of turmoil before making up their minds to go or to stay. What has happened in the marriage experience to change these individuals who were strong for monogamy into men and women either dead set against it or very doubtful about it?

The answer lies both in the particular temperament of the persons concerned and in certain characteristic features of the early, middle, and later stages in married life. Sometimes a young man or woman bolts from the tenets of monogamy in a late-adolescent panic when marriage responsibilities begin to be irksome. Sometimes it is the older man or woman who married in good faith only to lose sight of the values of monogamy. Not having the backbone to accept what comes and do something about it, this type of person wants to give up as soon as the going gets rough, and daydreams about making a better start elsewhere.

What are the parts of the marriage experience that bring out this disposition of wanting to run away in order to try again? The romantic love that marks the early part of marriage is a characteristically youthful att.i.tude. Each spouse idealizes the other and pictures their life together as something almost unique in its perfection. Stimulated by the mate's expectations, each one rises about his or her previous habits of behavior, and for a while the two seem indeed to be finer and better than the general run of humankind.

In time the first flush of enthusiasm wears off, and the husband and wife gradually get to see each other more nearly as other people see them. For those who flinch from reality, this is as bitter an experience as any of the other hard parts of growing up. For n.o.body is it easy. But for all who face it squarely, it is a big step toward emotional maturity.

Without hastening the process, and thereby losing most of its benefits, one can learn to accept it little by little, as it comes. The wife who seemed the most beautiful or most gracious woman imaginable, the husband who was looked upon as the strongest or cleverest man in the world, slowly loses this impossible glamour and shrinks to the life size proportions of a real man or woman.

When one catches a glimpse of oneself in the estimation of the newly married spouse, and realizes how far the idealized picture is from the somber reality one has grown up with, it is easy to think, "I am made different by this love that expects so much of me, and if I am not yet quite so wonderful as my beloved thinks me, I shall soon become so, for this expectation spurs me to hitherto unimaginable efforts."

Something of this improvement does take place--but then, to the chagrin of the one trying to improve, it becomes increasingly clear that the original expectations of the mate are being lowered in the direction of one's actual present level of attainment. Surprisingly enough, by the time one is sure of this, it is not disturbing in the way one would have expected, for one's own impression of the mate is also coming down to earth.

At first this descent from the clouds of fanciful exaggeration of the loved one to the lesser status of everyday life seems more or less tragic, as both fear that the supreme quality of their marriage is vanis.h.i.+ng. The more a couple have been lifted up by their romantic attachment for each other, the more they can be hurt when the wearing out of its unreal element drops them to earth again. The ones who are stouthearted enough to count their own hurt a small matter, if they can still help the partner to have something to look forward to beyond the present difficulties, are matured by this part of their marriage experience, and later come to look back on what went before as a dreamlike time when they lived on nothing more substantial than hopes.

This is the testing period of the marriage. Each partner must continually get used to the new outline of the other's personality as it is showing itself, without losing sight of the value of the essential quality that persists. Of one thing both can be sure: each still has need of the other.