--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Jordan, William George collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 15 number: 2 published: 1911-12 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Jordan, William George, "Little Problems of Married Life. VI," *Improvement Era* 15, no. 2 (December 1911): 113–115.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1502unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1502unse start_page: 113 end_page: 115 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1911-12) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1502unse publication_year: 1911 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1911, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Little Problems of Married Life. VI Little Problems of Married Life. BY WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN VI. — When Pride Comes Between. So many of the little chafing problems of married life could be mastered, so many of the mists of misunderstanding could be dissipated by the sunshine of love, so many of the discords in the music of home could be translated into harmonies if false pride did not so often come between! Pride is a virtue if it be the righl kind of pride, but, like every virtue, it has an understudy, a vice that cleverly imitates it, assumes its form, wears its liven- and often deceives. True pride is the guardian and protector of what is best in us; false pride is the sullen defender and apologist of our weakness. True pride niakes us scorn to do a mean or a petty act, as treason to our truest self; it holds our standard ever high and our living in harmony with it; it fills us with the realization that only royal deeds harmonize with the kingship of our individuality. False pride ever fears what people may say or think, seeks to justifiy us when we know we are wrong and cares more for the semblance than for the reality, more for the shadow than for the substance. True pride thinks more of character than of reputation; false pride more of reputation than of character. It is this false pride that too often, in the home, stands between love and understand- ing, between love and forgiving, between love ami forgetting, and often threatens to dethrone tin1 life-happiness of two. False pride, an excessive consciousness of the dignity of self, thinks too much of the importance of the solo, too little of the harmony of the duet. It is the swaggering, pompous air of ;i drum-major who thinks he is really the whole regiment. Between husband and wife there often arise little differences of opinion on some topic of no real importance, involving no principle of right or wrong, but in a few moments the frank, genial ♦Copyright, 1910, by Fleming II Revell Company. 114 IMPROVEMENT ERA interchange of views has warmed into a discussion, and this into a heated argument, and each may hold out regardless of the grow- ing sultriness of the atmosphere in the desire to make the other surrender. This deadlock of false pride may be broken in an in- stant by the cooler and larger nature of the two saying with a smile: "Well, perhaps there is something to be said on both sides, and really, dear, it is not worth an argument, after all." Then peace and harmony may be restored without a hypocritic surrender of the individuality of either. It is a false pride that leads either husband or wife to fear to acknowledge being in the wrong in any misunderstanding, to seek merely to pass it over without a word. Those infallible people who never make a mistake nor do a wrong, do not really belong to this world and they are probably too good to find congenial compan- ions even in the next. There is danger in this method that unkind words, unexplained and unatoned, may leave a rankling wound that, if it heal at all, leaves a scar and a pang in remembrance. A few moments of loving explanation, of clear, definite understand- ing, with no false pride coming between, is an antiseptic process of treating the hurt, before it paralyzes emotion. It removes the poison from a memory. Through this pride, too, we often prevent wounds of unkind- ness and lack of thought from healing at all. Through our intense consciousness of them, reviving and re-reviving the memories in all their original vividness, we exaggerate and intensify the hurt. We carry a wounded emotion in a sling, as though it were a broken arm and thus make forgiving difficult and forgetting impossible. This pride that comes so often from our supersensitiveness, is the slow petrifying of the better side of our natures. She may justify herself by saying, "If I did not love him so much I would not feel the hurt." If she loved more, if she loved enough, she would realize how small a matter is this pain that absorbs her compared with the greatness of her possession, the good qualities she is overlooking. Then would she forgive and — forget. Her pride is really injured more than her love. This pride kills real sympathy, for sympathy seeks to see a subject from the other's view-point, lovingly to interpret it as it may seem to the other as well as to oneself. Then, through this clear, double knowledge, the wisdom of the wisest course may come; but false pride stolidly and stubbornly sees everything only from its own point of vision. LITTLE PROBLEMS OF MARRIED LIFE 115 All misunderstandings between husband and wife should^be met in the very£beginning and never allowed merely toTywork themselves out. It is a cowardly recklessness, the "don't care" spirit of false pride that urges or permits this easy-going philosophy. Were a fire to_be discovered in the home, if it were onl) the tiniest flame beginning its devastation of curtains and furniture, we would not say "Let it burn itself out." Our instant, instinctive action would be to stifle it, to kill it at any cost; but too often do we let the fire of discord and of misunderstanding feed on our finesl emotions, burn away love, confidence, -weetness, truth, trust, sympathy — all that is dearest to us — while we stand by, blindly nursing our pride, our petty sense of dignity. We stand in the centre of the stage of our self-esteem. We will not be the first to speak, we will not be the first to sue for peace, the first to make up. We dare to permit this pride to wreck our happiness, as though any honest pride could be too much to pay to secure it or to preserve it. It is always the larger nature that is first to sur- render. Pride that beggars the happiness of two is dearly bought by the petty satisfaction of not being the first to bring the joy of reconciliation to the hearts of both, who need each other. Life has so much real pain and sorrow', so many heavy clouds floating over the sky of home, care, and trouble, that seemingly no human foresight can prevent, that it seems almost extravagance to work overtime manufacturing troubles merely to offer them as sacrifices on the altar of vanity, this false pride that stifles life's finest dignity. Pride, too, has a subtle way of putting confidence into a cold storage that often kills it. Mutual interchange of confidences between husband and wife should be fresh, spontaneous and ever living. Some people bind confidence with bandages of egotism and conceit and adulterated vanity till it can no more move nor breathe than a mummy of the time of Rameses could escape from its spiced wrappers. This means death, not life. Sometimes the husband, putting on his full armour of pride, says to himself; "There is a subject that, if she had the proper regard for me, she would speak of it to me," anil she, drawing closer to her the perfumed mantle of her dignity, says: "If he were interested in me at all, he would surely ask." When in this foolish conflict of prides there is danger thai Cupid, if he do his duty, will drag confidence away off into the silence and wait till they come to