Little Problems of Married Life. III

Little Problems of Married Life. * BY WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN. III.— Plea for More Courtship after Marriage. There are some men who seem to consider that their marriage certificate is a sort of fully paid-up policy on marital happiness. They act as if courtship days were those of paying premiums of compliment, cheerfulness, courtesy, consideration, and chivalry and that marriage makes unnecessary all further assessments of lover- like attention. They may sometime awaken t^ the realization that the only way to get an absolutely guaranteed insurance on matrimony is to keep on paying the premiums. Countless first- class marriage policies have lapsed just because of these impru- dently suspended payments. These very men, at their clubs, often go perilously close to the dead-line of boredom in telling you of the marvelous qualities of their wives. They run the chromatic scale of enthusiasm, while you wonder in a dreamy way whether the angels in heaven were not modeled after these women. At home these husbands may keep their adoration and appreciation wrapped around with seven folds of silence, safeguarding their feeling as zealously as if it were a Masonic secret. Were but a small instalment of this told at home it might prove a joy, a sweet source of new confidence, courage and inspiration to the wife who is heart hungry for just such words There is a tendency to assume that this love is known and recognized, so why speak of it? "She knows how much I think of her" — this is a dangerous taking for granted of what should be made real, pulsing and vital in thought, word and deed. There Copyright, 1910, by Fleming H. Hevell Company.

LITTLE PROBLEMS OF MARRIED LIFE. 1025 is little danger of overtelling this story ; it is often the w'ne of life and inspiration to one hungering and thirsting for the little tend- ernesses of affection. Ofttimes some little touch of loving sweet- ness throws a golden streak of happiness through a wife's whole day, and an involuntary half-smile and a love-light in the eye born of the remembrance, hours later, tell of the vitalizing power of a seeming trifle, forgotten or perhaps unnoted by him who thus gladdened a life anew. There are more people on this great, big, rolling earth hun- gering for sweetness, tenderness and words of gentle appreciation, genial confidence and generous affection than are starving for bread. Such words that were the current coin of conversation before marriage often seem withdrawn from circulation after- wards. With husband and wife these delicate messengers of affec- tion cost so little — sometimes only a thought, but it is the thought that is all. They are only trifles — too great for mere money to buy, but trifles that focus the joy of life in a moment. There are men who would no more think voluntarily of carry- ing home to their wives a bunch of roses just as a bit of sentiment than they would think of taking home a bridge or a cathedral or two or three miles of seacoast. It is not fair to have all the roses before marriage, and only their memory and thorns after- wards. A splendid present to smooth over a misunderstanding or to wipe out an unpleasant memory is altogether of another class. That is not love, it is bribery; it is not tenderness, it is policy; it is like the sacrifices the heathens offer their gods to appease their wrath. One of the most common causes of the decline of courtship after marriage where it does occur, and there are countless instances to prove that it does not always decline, is the disillu- sion that often comes after marriage. When the rosy tints of the courtship days grow dimmer there is a tendency for the real poetry to turn into commonplace verse or even into the baldest prose. This cause, if one may be pardoned interpreting Cupid in terms of commercialism, may be called "buying from sample." In the days before marriage, they saw each other at their best; they were on dress parade and unselfishly thinking too much of each other to think much of self. Under the inspiring glow

1026 IMPROVEMENT ERA. of mutual regard every latent virtue blosssomed into full flower, every failing assumed a roseate hue under some loving interpreta- tion, little sacrifices for each other were a joy and a privilege. Then a smile would exile a doubt, a caress smother an argument, a tender word throw a world of worry into eclipse, and a mood of disagreement be but the preface to sweet reconciliation that made them nearer and dearer. Before marriage little inharmonies became lost in the general effect as moonlight sqftens and obscures discords that the broad glare of sunlight reveals. Marriage brings sunlight to bear on all things and often the goods do not seem up to sample. Then must come a time of concession, adjustment and acceptance of conditions with a smiling determination to make the best of each other. Then each must realize that if they would be real married sweethearts they must keep the courtship atmosphere vital and pervading — by the courtship methods. The love that is worth working for and waiting for is worth preserving. Sentiment that is kept in cold storage does not amount to much; it lives and grows as it is exercised. A bunch of roses to gladden the eye on the table is worth more than barrels of dead leaves pickled in rose jars. Love cannot live long on its past; it is its present that counts as a real force, and like all other habits it intensifies by exercise. Courtship after marriage is a kind of matrimonial thermostat; it automatically keeps the home atmosphere at the proper tem- perature. When the heat of a fervid discussion threatens to scorch the respect of the two for each other, and the hot words of blame and protest make even asbestos in the room conscious of warmth, a smile, a sweet silence or a term of tender endearment may suddenly banish the heat like the radiated influence of a fountain or a cool, fragrant breeze from a garden at twilight. When the cold, cutting air of a sneer or a biting sarcasm makes it seem that some one must have left an iceberg on the doorstep, and the silence at the dinner table grows as tense and palling as the colaborated hush of a vast audience watching the climax moment of a thrilling mid-air acrobatic feat, the courtship wisdom comes to the rescue with that fine instinctive tact of the heart. It is not always easy but it is wise.

LITTLE PROBLEMS OF MARRIED LIFE. 1027 The two who have united in marriage want happiness; they crave it, and when it slips away and if they lose their bearings and drift, it is usually because they are not conscious of it in the beginning and neither one may be quite able to find the way back — alone. It is so easy to let familiarity kill the courtship spirit, there is danger of taking things as a matter of course and of fall- ing into the "married manner" of assuming that little courtesies and considerations are no longer necessary and a difference in the way of speaking to each other creeps into the conversation. When a man trips over his wife's skirts and explodes a con- demnation as to her folly in wearing them long, blaming her, in unsterilized language, for his carelessness, he forgets the Chester- fieldian grace with which he would have atoned for the misdeeds of his feet with the courtesy of his speech in the old days. It may not be that he loves her less; he may even love her more in a deeper, truer and stronger way, but he does not show it in the right way, he may have great wealth of affection, but he does not keep it in circulation. His sense of proprietorship, by some zigzag process of thinking, makes him think he need not bother to be polite. There is danger in the common habit of making light of love in the home, of treating it with a flippant, cheap cynicism. It is hardly worth the smiles it may elicit. It is an insidious habit that grows from innocent, breezy banter to cutting sentences that leave scars in memory. It often begins in the springtime of mar- ried life in foolish protest against being thought sentimental, as a sort of self-protection, and in fear of manifesting affection in pub- lic the two may swing to the other extreme. The husband may tell to his friends assembled a; his table, in a whimsical way, that now he is ' 'done for, that he can never dare to go out at night, that no one knows what he suffers," etc. The wife may laughingly counsel her friend, in his presence, "never to get married, you do not realize what it means to devote your whole life to humoring a man and giving up your freedom forever." Neither means the words; each knows it is but bubbling non- sense, but sometimes one phrase sticks in memory when the time and atmosphere of the telling are forgotten, and it stings and does

1028 IMPROVEMENT ERA. not down with argument, and it starts a wondering, insistent, rankling doubt as to whether he really meant it after all, and there may be a sigh in her heart and a sob in her throat as the fear comes that there may have been something in it after all ; it may have been a truth he sought to hide under the mask of a jest. One of the two may not have the keen sense of humor to under- stand it aright and the smile may be only a slight one from the lips, not the glad, assured smile of a heart at ease and so buoy- antly happy that the very eyes seem illumined. There are so many subjects that are impersonal, far removed from their life together, that this one theme might be hallowed in a way as being too dear and near and sacred to be the plaything of the public humor of either. When the husband has the feeling, percolating through his consciousness, perhaps never quite formulated into words, that our "courtship and honeymoon were beautiful, of course, while they lasted, but now we must realize that life is serious," he may think that he is growing sensible. He is really a bit mistaken; he is merely relapsing into his selfishness. What he deems a reason is only an excuse for dodging the effort to master his moods and be agreeable when he does not feel like it. His attitude some- how suggests throwing away flowers of sentiment from a vase because they have wilted a little, and with their novelty now grown familiar have lost some of their initial charm. It would be wiser to make the vase ever-blooming and redolent of sweetness by filling it with fresh flowers of finer appreciation each new day. It takes time and thought and patience, it is true, but it pays in the dividends of sweetness and smiling love they exhale. It is only holding the invading monotony of matrimony at bay — with the old courtship methods. Marriage is serious; so are all the other great things in life that are worth while, but it is never so dangerously serious as when the courtship spirit is packed away in camphor with the wedding clothes as being too fine for daily use. It is because mar- riage is serious that it needs sustaining, stimulating, sincere love that is active as a living force, not a mere golden memory. Mar- riage is not a summer picnic; it does not banish trial, sorrow, pain, and suffering from life, even were it an ideal union under ideal

LITTLE PROBLEMS OF MARRIED LIFE. 1029 conditions, but it enables two to face life's problems hand in hand, finding courage, strength and refuge in each other, and even peace in sorrow, instead of walking down the valley of the years- alone. There is a romantic love that is long on extravagant phrases and short on lasting qualities, It has more of the senses than of the soul, more sentimentality than sentiment, more gilt than gold. It is built for show, not for wear; it has every element of real love except — the essential. In the courtship days it seems to be in the gold medal class; shortly after marriage it would not get honorable mention. It is good on short spurts, but breaks down on endurance tests. It is just an emotional gold-brick. Real love wears, endures and, like an oak, grows stronger with the years, more firmly rooted by every struggle with oppos- ing conditions, every weathered storm. One of our great com- posers made the hand-organ the test of the popularity of each of his new musical creations. "Will it grind?" was his earnest and wistful question. The lov? worth while is the love that will grind, that has in it such real music that all the monotony and grind of married life cannot kill its sweetness, its inspiration, its melody and harmony. There are husbands who think they deserve a blue ribbon in the matrimonial race because they run quietly in double harness, make no special disturbance round the house, are loyal, and, as the phrase goes, are "good providers." They say: "I give her a good home, she has servants, plenty of money and dress, all the neces- sities and many of the luxuries; what more does she want?" In sad hours of loneliness and heart-hunger, realizing fully all that she has, she knows that the "more" she craves is the man himself, his real companionship, his compliments, his confidence, his tender- ness, his loving. She wants to hear sometimes the very words, "I love you so, dear," and "I need you so," or any of love's synonyms that speak directly not merely inferentially through acts. She wants the phrases that sing themselves in memory while the heart listens and is glad. She wants to be told again that she "has the most beau- tiful hands in all the world," she wants to have him notice the flower in her hair, to praise the fit of her new gown, to have her

1030 IMPROVEMENT ERA. opinion occasionally count as an aiset in his thinking, not as a liability to be wiped out. She wants him to be the one to tell her that she is beautiful, for it means more to her than what all the others say — she wants the old courting atmosphere back again. She wants, in a word, recognition of her as a woman, as the woman, not merely the duty and respect paid as a wife. When we as a nation do not grow or manufacture within our own borders all that the needs of our people demand, we import them. Our hungers require certain things, and if we do not find them in this country we get them from abroad, from whatever country can supply. When love, sympathy, comradeship, trust, courtesy, recognition, and happiness are not supplied in the home market, not grown by husband and wife for each other, there is a dangerous tendency to import them, to welcome them, perhaps innocently, from any source from which they may come. Guard- ing the home market keeps out foreign competition. Continued courtship after marriage preserves the lover in the husband and the sweetheart in the wife. But courtship is not solitaire; like a quarrel it requires two to make it a real success. It is not the wife alone who needs the gracious sweetness of frank comradeship, for husbands who are built on the right lines have equal longing for loving kindness and kindly loving. They may rebel at having little acts of special thoughtfulness taken for granted as a matter of course and accepted with the joyless man- ner of a tax collector gathering in revenue or a cool croupier rak- ing in stakes. There are some women who show more pleasure in receiving a few violets than others would betray if .you gave them the whole German Empire. Perfunctory acceptance puts a premium on perfunctory giving, and it is a bit discouraging to the husband. The husband may remember when fair hands pinned a pink in the lapel of his coat, when there was not a note of sweet deference in listening to any expression of his opinions, when the superior busi- ness intelligence of the man next door was not boomed on a brisk bull market of contrast, when eyes brightened with joy when he told the story of some ambition that was dear to his heart; when a sofa cushion was tucked in, by hands that seemed to smile, just at the psychic angle of maximum comfort in an armchair when he

LITTLE PROBLEMS OF MARRIED LIFE. 1031 felt a bit tired and enjoyed the incense of being humored like an invalid by brevet. Little attentions, the perfume of consecrated thoughtfulness are dear to husband as well as to wife. There is ever a subtle compliment in having one's tastes and preferences remembered, and appealed to, in making the key-note of the selection of some little gift the memory of an expression of the desire of either, perhaps months before. It carries with it a suggestion of a halo of importance dignifying an almost forgotten wish. A trifle, you say, yes; but trifles are the only things in life that really count; everything big is but mass and that is only the aggregate of trifles. There are married people who kept sacred for a few years cer- tain anniversary and memorial days in the calendar of their affec- tions, red-letter days that in the observance and in the freshening glow of memory hr.ve a mellowing sweetness vivifying of senti- ment. Then as the years go back, these anniversaries fade in their identity and blend confusedly together in the perspective like a long row of lamp-posts up a boulevard. When a man has to figure out on a pad the date of his marriage, or his wife has to have the date of his birthday recalled to her, then the spirit of the old courtship days should be taken from the lavender of memory, and aired and dusted. This spirit helps the wife to realize that the dainty house dresses she used to wear still may have the old power to charm, that the piano need not remain closed if sentiment can keep for it the old delight, that the songs that once soothed the mind and heart of one now nearer than ever still might exercise their old spell. The past does not die, we kill it and bury it; we can make it live forever in the present, but which ever we do, the option is ours and the responsibility is ours. The love, confidence, sympa- thy, tenderness and consideration that the heart feels, let the lips and life express. Courtship is a vessel of promise that is often wrecked on the shoals of matrimony. Courtship means two mates without a captain; marriage sometimes becomes two captains without a mate. ("Living in Boarding Houses and Hotels," is the title of the next article in this series.)