The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book

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When a wife falls down on her part of the job, neglecting either harmony
or her personal development, her husband's first natural reaction is to
separate his business from his home life--to grit his teeth and go on,
hoping to achieve the impossible. This usually sets up a vicious circle
of events. Being handicapped in personal effectiveness, he spends more
and more time at business. His home goes to ruin; he suffers the most
dangerous emotional upsets; his work fails, and conditions get worse and
worse. He breaks, in short, at the wrong time--a time inconvenient to
business, to put it brutally.

It is dangerous to generalize here, because there is a fine distinction
between harmony at home and bringing business into the home. Hasty
thinking is likely to confuse the two. The man who takes petty troubles
of the routine day home to his wife is a weakling, and business cannot
consider him for increased responsibility. The husband who takes none of
his problems home is frequently a mystery to his wife, but he probably
feels that she is not sufficiently informed to be useful in helping him
make decisions on purely business issues. Wives sometimes rebel against
this, because they do not make the essential distinction between respect
for them as individuals and respect for their information about a
specific business question.

The soundness of the belief that wives have a specific and clearly
defined responsibility here is verified by the fact that _husbands want,
and business demands, one and the same thing_. The approach is
different, because the husbands of America are asking primarily for
harmony at home, while business is looking for an efficient producer;
yet they both are seeking the same thing. The husband asks his wife for
harmony at home and a progressive instinct so that she will grow
concurrently with him. Business, when evaluating men for promotion, asks
whether there is harmony at home so that this man will be free from the
greatest single source of emotional unbalance, and whether this man and
his wife have demonstrated the ability to grow in the past--the best
available indication of their ability to grow in the future. These two
questions take in a lot of territory, but the ground must be covered so
long as business, in effect, employs or promotes both husband and wife.

Do not be misled for a moment respecting the importance of these two
points merely because businessmen do not talk a lot about them. Their
sense of good taste makes them hesitate to inquire bluntly into so
personal a problem, and so their investigations are conducted quietly.
Numerous confidential sources of information are used, and superiors
take their own means to meet husband and wife together, generally under
some casual pretext. If we could look behind the scenes, we would find
that emotional stability--that elusive product of a satisfactory home
environment--is regarded just as highly as knowledge, experience, or any
of the other orthodox considerations. We would find executives saying,
"We can count on Jones for Chicago now that we have seen his wife and
determined to our satisfaction that she will measure up to the
promotion" or "It's too bad we can't give this job to Smith, but you
know how hard it is to succeed without support from home." Another would
be saying, "Brown flew off the handle again yesterday; it must have
started at the breakfast table."

Wives, if you can be the Mrs. Jones of these examples, and avoid being
the Mrs. Smith or the Mrs. Brown, you will be removing for businessmen
the greatest hurdle to promotion which we encounter. You will be doing
your part as the wife of a man in business.

You may determine the extent to which you are doing these things now by
testing yourself in the light of these ten questions:

_1. Did my husband start for work this morning in a better frame of mind
for having married me, or would he have been happier as a single man or
married to someone else?_

Remember, as you ask this question and apply your own answer, that we
are talking about business; hard, practical business where intentions do
not count. You may love your husband dearly, but if the results of your
love are not constructive, you must write the word FAILURE across the
record.

_2. Do I always treat my job just as seriously as if I were working in
an office for a monthly salary?_

Some wives feel that it makes no difference if they linger so long over
bridge or cocktails or shopping or whatever in the afternoon that they
are unable to prepare a suitable meal for their husbands in the evening.

_3. Have I grown in poise and interests like the wives of my husband's
associates and superiors?_

Wives who keep up with the procession are an asset; those who fail to
grow are a liability.

_4. Can I talk in the same terms as his associates and their wives?_

This indicates how carefully you have maintained your interest in the
source of your income, and how accustomed you are to expressing
yourself.

_5. Do I dress and act like the wives of the business associates and
superiors of my husband?_

You place a heavy handicap upon your effectiveness if your husband
cannot be proud of you in the inevitable comparisons with other wives in
his organization.

_6. Do I entertain with reasonable frequency the people who are in a
position to help my husband in business, or is our social life planned
wholly for my own amusement?_

Perhaps this question should read, "How long since I have entertained
So-and-So?" You may be surprised to find that months have slipped away
without your having done a single stroke of good for your husband
socially.

_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 amusement 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 managership 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 entitled 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 companionship 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 attitude has an incomplete view of the facts. If business were to
tolerate a repetition 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 attitudes 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 attitude 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 attitudes 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 illustration 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
attitude, 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 surpass 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 analyze 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 passions, 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 pass 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 attitude. 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 nobody 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
vanishing. 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.

In today's mail comes a letter from a businessman who admits that he had
got out of the habit of showing his wife how he felt about her in the
rush and worry of trying to keep his head above water financially. Now
that she in her loneliness has lost her heart to another man, the
husband almost breaks into poetry in telling of his feelings. Not
vindictive, he is just hopeless. If the wife could have had imagination
enough to realize the strength of his need of her, she would never have
wrapped herself in loneliness away from him.

The drop from the temporary bliss of the beginning of love to the
lasting burden-sharing of the rest of life offers many a chance for hurt
feelings. Those who lose confidence in their own or their partner's
ability to keep on trying to live together on a reality basis are
generally the ones who want to keep one foot in the dreamland of
immaturity. If he drinks and she sulks, both would rather think
themselves martyrs and talk over their troubles with sympathetic friends
than get down to business and do something about their problems.

Quarrels are intense in proportion to the depth of tender emotion in the
background. Not understanding what is happening to them, the husband and
wife think it is the end of love, and he may be tempted to accept
comfort from another woman, she from another man. Then they need
desperately to know, "What is the case for monogamy?"

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