The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book

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History shows that monogamy has always been accompanied by increasing
vigor in the society or group practicing it, and that its
opposite--freedom from social restraint in the relationships of men and
women--has always been associated with social or group decay. But modern
young people are interested in the meaning of monogamy for them
personally.

Monogamy is a going on in the healthy spirit of meeting what life
brings, not running away from it. Escape into a substitute relationship
is a going back to the dreamlike stage of late adolescence, putting new
promises ahead of present performance, and attempting to make life stand
still, so that one may continue on the threshold of maturity without
ever stepping over into the place where one must make good one's
promises.

No human craving, from infancy to death, is stronger than that for
security of affection. What misleads people into thinking of going
outside their marriage association, or wanting to break it for a new
one, is their failure to understand the slow growth of permanent
affection. Looking back at the intensity of its beginning in romantic
love, they suppose it is dwindling, when it is really taking root.

As a child that has been spoiled at home has a hard time getting used to
the lesser attention he receives away from home, the married person who
believes that courtship love is the essence of marriage finds it hard to
come down to the quieter affection that can endure. This is the person
who, unable to stand being valued only for his or her real worth,
complains to an outsider, "Nobody understands me." The outsider,
flattered, murmurs, "I do," and romanticizes about "this fine,
unappreciated person," only to discover when it is too late that the
person was only too well understood by the unfortunate first partner.

One may not be able to make oneself grow up suddenly and all at once,
but one can hold on to the principles one knows to be worth fighting
for, by the simple process of refusing to let go. All kinds of wonderful
qualities needed in marriage may seem to be conspicuous in oneself
chiefly by their absence, but one can always play for time. Even if
infatuated with another person, one can hang on to what one knows is
right until Time, the mighty leveler of passion, comes to one's help.

An exceptionally happy married woman, after going through this ordeal,
said that at the time when she was almost carried away by an unexpected
infatuation for a business associate of her husband's, it seemed as if
nothing was real but the lover. Neither the memory of past happiness
with the husband nor the thought of his future misery if she should
leave him was able to mean more to her than so many words. Only, in her
half-stupefied condition, she had the wit to remember, as one might
recall the multiplication table without caring anything about it, that
she had always previously despised people who acted on impulse without
trying to find out the probable consequences. Therefore she stuck to her
self-imposed rule that she would have no contact with the man, even by
letter, until she could get over the strange numbness of her emotions
toward her husband. Then, gradually but thoroughly, she came out of her
trancelike infatuation, until she found it hard to remember that it had
ever happened.

The time to put on the brakes in checking runaway emotions is before
they gain momentum. While the feelings aroused still seem harmless, the
person can redirect his or her energy toward a more desirable object
such as finding new grounds of communion with the spouse or sublimating
its expression by turning it into constructive artistic or social
channels. To wait until disaster threatens before taking oneself in hand
is to pile up, at best, a guilty feeling that one has not done one's
best to meet the needs of the mate.

Those who "step out" in the frantic forties and foolish fifties
complicate the picture for their younger observers. What they are trying
to find is not so much a new thrill as the reliving of an old glow--the
hopefulness of their lost youth. Not content to live over in memory the
high hopes that were theirs when life was new--because of the gap
between expectation and realization--they close their eyes to the new
disillusionment they are heading for, and think only to shut out their
sense of inadequacy in their present association by steering full steam
ahead for another encounter, in which the odds are even more against
them.

One may think one doesn't care much about the partner, one may get tired
of listening to the same old jokes, the same set of worries, the same
reminiscences; but let there be a misunderstanding, and one finds that
one must care tremendously or one could not be so devastated. No
association is so humdrum that it cannot be quickened into life, no
matter how long it has been meagerly taking its course.

Certain types of people, whom we might lump together as a restless,
discontented lot, enjoy "shopping around" for doctors, for jobs, for
friends, for lovers, never staying long enough with any one doctor, job,
friend, or lover to have to take any back talk. As soon as the first
signs of a candid relationship appear, they are off, bag and baggage, to
newer hunting grounds. We may suspect that what they really want is to
outrun their own personality.

This appears in their willingness to slough off even their children, in
an adolescent impatience with any barrier to an immediate desire. So
contrary is this to nature that regret follows closely their decision.
The children, however, are laden with a burden put on them by their
parents. Instead of joyful confidence, they experience a divided
affection. Driven to a choice of loyalties or caught between competing
rivals who attempt to win their love, they are thereby denied security,
the one gift every home owes a child.

Depending as he must upon his parents for this, it is a shattering
experience for him to find that the twofold support of his existence is
no longer holding together. He wants and needs not his mother or his
father, nor just his mother and his father, but his two parents
love-linked together as the one source of steadiness in a universe which
otherwise is in flux and turmoil.

The child who finds his parents have given up trying to maintain their
affectionate interdependence is hurt beyond any other hurt that can come
to him. Precociously matured by being denied that security of
encircling affection which is his right, he is forever cheated of his
childhood and therefore can never become fully mature emotionally, but
must have great gaps in what should have been the slow development of
his emotions, before they hardened into adult form.

The monogamic fellowship normally encourages the coming of the child.
Neither husband nor wife can awaken in the other the strong normal urges
that come to expression in love fellowship, without bringing forth the
desire that seems rooted in human nature for a child of their own. In
any case, when the child does enter the home, experience soon makes
plain his need of security. Where there is no monogamic commitment, he
is forced into family life that is confused, incomplete, and uncertain.
In such a situation, open as he is to first impressions, he suffers
most, and not infrequently so deeply as to carry emotional scars for
life. The friend of children recoils from the thought of any sort of
transient motherhood or fatherhood. Monogamy provides a stable home in
which each member--husband, wife and child--although they are copartners
in love, has an indispensable, unique, and satisfying role.

Monogamy is not a fettering of human impulse, but a registration of the
deepest yearnings of men and women. The laws that define and support it
are merely man's efforts to express the common opinion that has taken
form out of the experiences through the centuries of a great multitude
of persons who, like ourselves, have sought success in marriage. Those
who think of monogamy as something imposed on human nature through
external authority, a sort of strait jacket of emotional restraint, are
obtuse to the overwhelming testimony of human nature. Monogamy is not
established by a thundering edict from Mount Sinai, but by the quiet,
persistent inward-speaking of human need. The one-man-one-woman craving
is so deeply laid in the structure of all of us that any other way of
mating and establishing a home is alien to desire, the thought never
arises, except when the one-time expectations have been lost through
personality failure.

Monogamy is not something that suddenly and finally takes shape, a
petrifying of emotion that for a season in courtship flourishes. It gets
its vitality through a growth process, continues with life, a spreading
of an affection always forward-looking; anything else is an indication
of a faltering marriage. In the beginning love announces the awakening
of mutual need. Then the feelings flow swift and strong and carry each
toward the other. The impulse to possess, to annex, to have possession
of the beloved, is a consuming hunger. It is a covetous grasping, a
recognition that the other is indispensable. Out of this comes a union,
and from then on, the two grow not only together, but also their common
fellowship grows, becoming their way of life.

The passion to possess the other one, who seems external, fades away,
and in its place comes the joy of mutual sharing, the security of an
exploring fellowship. It is thus that monogamy offers love its
fulfillment. There must be this welding of self with self if the
emotionally awakened man or woman is to escape loneliness.
Self-expansion in power, distinction, or pleasure does not suffice. Any
by-oneself fulfillment only brings home the profounder need of a
different achievement, not in separation, but through union, the fusion
of two persons in a constant intimacy.

This growing together comes from no deliberate, effort-making program.
It grows out of the affectionate living together. It is a day-by-day
consolidation, not only of interest or experience, but of satisfactions.
It is this that led Plato long ago to say that the man or woman apart
from the other is incomplete, a partial person, hungering for the needed
lover. Monogamy is, however, not a mere getting together; it is a
growing together. It furnishes the opportunity for continued unrivaled
intimacy, and its on-going not only strengthens the life together, but
makes it pregnant with the forces that lead to character growth.

Monogamy is therefore a preference, usually so much a matter of course
as to seem the natural way of living. This explains its supremacy among
the schemes of human mating. It is a product of love ties, but only as
these flourish in a maturing intimacy. It asks no more than that each
member of the fellowship grow with the other.

Monogamy is indeed a test of character, but not in some extraordinary,
aristocratic way that would put it out of the reach of most of us.
Although its benefits cannot be had for the mere asking, it is denied to
no one who in sincerity lives in love with the person of his choice. It
is an achievement, but not in the sense that one eventually awakens to
discover that he has at last arrived at a monogamic relationship. It is
rather a hand-in-hand walking through life of a man and woman, each
having chosen the other and offered his every possession. It as surely
adds to character as it demands character.

The vitalizing union provides incentives that enrich both character and
ambition. The two sharing a common life add more, do more, and feel more
than each found possible in their one-time isolation. This in turn
strengthens the union and makes each more indispensable to the other.
They do not attempt to duplicate each other, but knowing that their love
is secure, each gains through the life contact of the other. It was thus
that Robert and Elizabeth Browning each affected the quality of the
other's work, both being able to write deeper and more human poetry as a
result of their marriage.

It is most important for an understanding of monogamy that it not be
thought of as a monotony, a petering out of the energy of love until the
high hopes of the confident lovers disappear in a drab, toilsome
existence. This fading out does come to married people just as it does
to those who have never married. Rightly used, however, monogamic
fellowship protects by making adventure in life more zestful because it
is shared. However hard and dreary experience becomes, it is more so if
one walks alone and less so if its testing is met by two who travel
onward in love. Monotony is always a reflection of inner losses. So long
as we are alive to what is, so long as we have the feelings that uncover
the zestfulness of things, we keep out of the desert. Monogamy cannot
guarantee enthusiastic living, but undoubtedly, by encouraging mutual
love, it protects the roots from which most of all each of us draws
vitality.

When the relationship becomes monotonous, there is the same confession
of failure as when day-by-day happenings grow stale and repellent. The
difference is that when love goes, the fortress has been taken and all
life flattens out.

The exclusiveness of monogamic fellowship, the out-coming of the deep
hunger for a unique experience in affection, can be greatly
misinterpreted by failing to see that it is human nature's effort to
keep to the golden mean as one is driven by tremendous impulses toward
the supreme man-woman comradeship. In all such relationships there is on
one side the extreme which shows itself when one member of the intimacy
crushes and destroys the personality of the other. This eventually
spoils the union by making it a conquest of one by the other. The
opposite disaster appears when there is no fusion at all but merely an
alliance of two independent, self-centered persons who come together in
the spirit of temporary self-interest and refuse to develop a common
life. Even when they maintain the letter of the monogamic code, they
lose its spirit.

In contrast with these unfortunates, victims of will-to-power and
self-centered passion, those in monogamic fellowship enlarge the life
they share. One often notices, as did Hudson, the naturalist, in his
description of the English shepherd's home, that husband and wife reach
such understanding that they share feeling without recourse to words;
and gather so much in common that as they travel through the years they
do, indeed, seem to grow even to look like each other. They winter and
summer together, and when time sends the children to their own
adventures, we hear these life-tested lovers, hand in hand, saying:

"Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made."

Index

Acquiescence, 102, 109

Adjustments, marital, 9-11, 16, 104-110

Adolescence, 119, 158

Adopted children, 94-96

Advancement, wife's contribution to business, 142-153

Affection, security of, 159

Allowance, wife's, 16, 49

Ambition, 6, 164

American Eugenic Society, 90-91

Antagonism, emotional, 104-105

Apartment houses, 20-21

Appearance, preserving attractive, 78-79

Appliance replacements, 70-71

Art museums, visits to, 25, 119

Assessments, property, 72

Automobile:
depreciation of, 70
expenses, 69-70

Baby:
bonds, 84
budget, 88
time for first, 82-84

Bacon, Lord, 90

Banks, savings, 67

Banning, Margaret Culkin, 25

Baseball, 17

Biologies, 118

Biologists, heredity studies of, 32

Birth:
control methods, 23
questions of, 114-116, 118
rate, 41
season of, 33
weather and, 33-34

Birthdays, eminent people's, 33-34

Blood tests, 22

Blunders, marriage, 1-2, 5, 8, 20-21, 48, 97-110

Boredom, 161, 165

Borrowing, budget and, 19, 71, 84

Brides-to-be, advice to, 17

Bridge, advice on, 17

_British Dictionary of National Biography_, 34

Browning, Robert, 127, 138-139

Budget:
baby, 88
borrowing and, 71
family, 67-79

Business:
failures, 141-142
wife's aid in, 141-153

Bussing, Elizabeth, 66-79

Buying (_see_ Purchasing)

Careers, wives', 43-53

Carlyle, 133

Cells, sperm, 35, 117

Challenge, marriage, 1

Character:
courtship candidate's, 6
development, 128-129, 164

Chastity, benefits of, 25

Checking account, wife's, 16

Cheerfulness, wife's, 147

Child marriages, 118

Children:
adopted, 94-96
clothes of, 78
cost of, 46, 69, 82-84, 89-90
cultural value of, 42
economic readiness for, 40-42, 82-84, 90
emotional stability of, 113
environment of, 95
feeding, 82
health of, 28, 78, 82-83
heritage rights of, 28
illegitimate, 94
insurance for, 71-72
lack of, 29-30, 93-94
marital conflict and, 161-162
medical care of, 28, 78, 82-83
monogamy and, 162
number of, 40-42, 82-83, 90
nursing, 83
parents' responsibility to, 161-162
planning for, 16, 28-29, 31, 40-42, 46, 69, 80-96, 107
pleasures of, 82
postponing, 46
preparing for, 16
saving for, 40-42, 82-84, 90
sex activities of, 121-125
sex instruction of, 111-125
sliding-wage scale for, 91
spoiled, 159
toys of, 78

Christian faith, 137

Church attendance, 134-135

City apartment houses, 20-21

Clothing:
allowances, 69-70, 73, 78, 97, 146-147
child's, 78
depreciation of, 70
party, 4
wife's, 146-147

College students:
marriage courses, 12, 25
premarital examination of, 10-12

Compromises, 57-59

Concentrated intimacy, 60-61

Concerts, 17

Conflict, avoiding marital, 97-110

Constitutional vigor, 33-34

Contempt, 104

Conversation:
benefits of good, 18
wife's, 146-147

Cooperation, 103-104

Courage, 7, 103

Courts, avoiding divorce, 97-110

Courtship, 1-12

Courtship candidate:
character of, 5-6
courage of, 7
mental growth of, 6
wearing qualities of, 5-6

Cowardice, 102-103

Criticism, 16

Culture, aids to, 142

Date, wedding, 16

Day-to-day expenses, 70

Death statistics, 32

Debt, dangers of, 19, 71, 84

Defective teeth, 30

de Maupassant, Guy, 131

Dental bills, 77

Dependence, mutual, 48

Dependents:
marriage and, 19
provision for, 70

Depreciation allowances, 70-71

Diabetes, 30

Dickinson, Stanley G., 140-153

Diet, 34

Dinner-table conversation, 147

Dionne quintuplets, 118

Disappointments, marriage, 1-2, 5, 8, 20-21, 48, 97-110

Disease statistics, 32

Divorce:
averting, 97-110
grounds for, 29
rates, 14, 20-21

Doctor:
bills, 77-78
certificate of fitness by, 22
counseling service of, 10, 25-26, 30, 36-37, 92-93

Dress (_see_ Clothing)

Drummond, Henry, 137

Duncan, Matthews, 93

Durable goods budget, 70-71

Duty, marriage, 27-42

Earning power:
husband's, 66-69, 141
wife's, 73-74

Economy, domestic, 66-79, 97

Education:
health, 35
religious, 126-139
sex, 9-10, 12, 111-125, 128

Elementary school children, sex instruction of, 114

Emotional:
antagonism, 104-105
instability, 31-32, 36, 142, 144, 159-160
reactions, 4-5
restraint, 8
stability, 13, 34, 61-62

Emotions:
checking runaway, 159-160
child's, 113

Employment, wife's outside, 21, 73-74

Engagement:
intimacy of, 16
length of, 18
period, 13-26

Engineering school, marriage and, 19

England, birthdays in, 33

Entertainment expense, 76-77, 147

Environment:
child's, 95
defects, 32-36
home, 140-141
postnatal, 35-36
pre-natal, 35-36

Eugenics, progress of, 36

Everyday life, party manners _versus_, 4

Examinations, medical, 10-12, 22, 28-29, 36, 94

Exercise, benefits of, 17-18, 76-77

Expense, marriage, 66-79, 88

Extravagance, 75, 78

Eyesight, poor, 30

Failures, marriage, 1-2, 5, 8, 20-21, 97-110

Faith:
Christian, 137
religious, 126-139

Family:
budget, 16, 18, 67-79, 140-141
doctor, 10, 25-26, 30, 36-37, 92-93
income, 16, 49
insurance, 71-72
jokes, 107
joys, 106-107
planning, 28-29, 31, 80-96
size of, 40-42, 82-83, 90
support of, 66-79, 108
welfare, 109-110

Father fixation, 6-7

Fatigue statistics, 32

Fault-finding, avoidance of, 16

Faust, 133

Feeblemindedness, 31

Fertilization, 114, 117-118

Financial:
independence, 48-49
planning, 16, 18, 45, 66-79

Fingers, misshaped, 30

Fire insurance, 72

Fishing, 17

Fitness:
for marriage, 22, 27-42
physical, 28-31

Food:
budget, 68-70, 73, 82
child's 82

France, birthdays in, 33

Frankness, 108

Friends, value of, 20-21, 60

Fuel, cost of, 69

Furniture replacements, 70-71

Gallagher, E. G., 94

Germany, birthdays in, 33

Gifted women, 52-53

Golf, 17

Good Housekeeping:
Health and Happiness Club, 84
marriage-relations course, 140

Gospels, reading of, 134-135

Grooms-to-be, advice to, 17-18

Groves, Dr. Ernest R., 1-12, 154-166

Groves, Gladys Hoagland, 54-65, 154-166

Grudges, surrender of, 104

Guidance:
marriage, 3, 9-10, 12, 25-26, 30, 36-37, 56-65, 92-93

Hardy, Thomas 137

Harelip, 30

Harmony, home and business, 142-153

Harper, President, 129

Hart, Dr. Hornell, 97-110

Health:
and Happiness Club, 84
child, 28
education, 35
ideal temperatures for, 33
weather influences on, 32-34

Heart ailments, 30

Heat, cost of, 69

Hereditary defects, 30-36

Heredity studies, 32

High school children, sex instruction of, 114-115, 118

Hobbies, 17

Home:
acquiring equipment for, 16
childless, 29-30
children spoiled at, 159
cultural value of, 42
environment, 140-141, 143
happiness in, 28, 107
harmony of business and, 142-153
moral code of, 124-125
location of, 20-21
ownership, 71-73
planning, 21
purchase price of, 73
religion in, 126-139
renting, 67-70, 72-74
sex instruction in, 111-125
stability of, 162

Honeymoon arrangements, 20

Hospital:
bills, 74, 77-78, 83
plan, 77

Household management, 44

Hudson, on shepherd's home, 166

Human:
genetics, 36
reproduction, 114-120

Huntington, Dr. Ellsworth, 22, 27-42, 89

Husband:
dependence of wife and, 48
selection of, 3-5
understanding, 107

Idiots, 31

Illegitimate children, 94

Imbeciles, 31

Income:
husband's, 66-69, 141
wife's outside, 73-74

Incubator babies, 118

Indebtedness, marriage and, 19, 71, 84

India, birthdays in, 33

Infatuations, 159-160

Inheritance, child's, 28

Inge, Dean, 135

Instruction:
religious, 126-139
sex, 9-10, 12, 111-125, 128

Insurance:
benefits to children, 71-72
choice of, 18-19
fire, 72
life, 67, 71-73
renewable term, 71-72
straight life, 71

Intemperance, 24, 158

Interests, development of, 146

Intimacy, undue concentration of, 60-61

Irritants, elimination of, 105-106

Jealousy, 16, 104

Jokes, family, 107

Joys, family, 106-107

Junior-high-school children, sex instruction of, 118

Kenyon, Dr. Josephine Hemenway, 84

Laboratory experiments, controlled, 32-33

Law school, marriage and, 19

Lease, ownership _versus_, 67-70, 72-74

Leisure, 142

License, marriage, 22

Life:
adjustments, 63
changed ways of, 7-8
everyday, 4
intimacy of married, 54-65
joys of married, 127, 140-153
mode of, 34
refinements of, 142
successful married, 13-15, 22, 54-65, 102-110, 140-153, 163-164

Life insurance:
company budget forms, 67
provision for, 71
savings aspect of, 72-73
straight, 71

Literature, sex, 9-10, 12

Longevity:
vigor and, 33-34
weather and, 33-34

Love:
aids to, 163
earlier, 15
falling in, 13
quarrels, 16, 157

_Luxury_ clothes, 73

Manners, party, 4

Marriage:
adjustments, 9-11, 16, 104-110
benefits of, 140-153
blunders, 1-2, 5, 8, 20-21, 48, 97-110
challenge, 1
child, 118
clinics, 25
college courses on, 25
conferences on, 25
dependents and, 19
during post-graduate training, 19
during professional training, 19, 68-69
duties, 27-42
engineering school and, 19
expenses, 66-79
failures, 1-2, 5, 8, 20-21, 48, 97-110
fitness for, 22, 27-42
guidance, 3, 9-10, 12, 25-26, 30, 36-37, 56-65, 92-93
happiness, 127, 140-153
hasty, 18
in poverty, 46-47
law school and, 19
license, 22
moral conduct after, 16
of under-graduates, 19
outside occupations after, 43-53
overestimating, 8, 157
personality adjustments after, 9-11, 16, 104-110
postponement, 19-20, 23
preparatory courses, 12, 14, 17, 25, 140
program of action, 108-109
progress, 63-65
relations course, 140
right, 27-42
rules for successful, 13-15, 22, 54-65, 102-110, 140-153, 163-164
secret, 20, 23
sex experience before, 23-26
sliding-wage scale for, 91
spiritual side of, 24
statistical studies, 14-15
testing period, 157
training, 12, 14, 17, 25, 140
unfitness for, 30-36
union, 56-57
vacations from, 17
while indebted, 19
wisdom of, 27-42

Marshall, Dr. Jessie, 80-96

Mate (_see_ Wife)

Mating, 114, 117-118

McConaughy, Dr. James L., 13-26

Meaker, Dr. Samuel R., 94

Meals, child's, 82

Mechanical appliances, cost of, 70-71

Medical:
advice, 10, 25-26, 30, 36-37, 92-93
care of child, 78, 82-83
examinations, 10-12, 22, 28-29, 36, 94
expense, 77-78
profession (_see_ Doctors)

Menstruation, 119

Mental:
deficiency, 31-32
inherited ability, 34
growth, 6, 78-79, 142

Meredith, George, 129-130

Mills, Professor C. A., 35

Misshaped fingers, 30

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