--- 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: 16 number: 10 published: 1913-08 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," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 10 (August 1913): 1028–1031.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera16010unse 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: improvementera16010unse start_page: 1028 end_page: 1031 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1913-08) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera16010unse publication_year: 1913 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 1913, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Little Problems of Married Life Little Problems of Married Life* BY WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN Tyranny in a nation can transform the freest people that ever breathed into hopeless slaves, humbly submissive and spiritless, or scheming rebels with a smile on their lips but hate in their hearts as they dream their golden dreams of secret revolt and a bold break for liberty. There is a brand of bossism in married life, of petty tyranny in the home that duplicates in miniature this dilemma of results. It saps the ambition, courage and vitality of husbands and wives and transforms them into dull, crushed, colorless beings, or if they do not submit thus meekly it trains them persistently in smiling hypocrisy, trickery, deceit, lying and plotting to cheat the tyranny they do not dare openly to resent. Have you ever met the husband, of the timid, suppressed type, who always answers his wife's call with "yes, my dear," "no, my dear," or "just in a moment, my dear." It is never the sweet "dear" that drops gently into a sentence like a caress. His "my dear" with its monotonous iteration of a phonograph record seems a continuous phrase of placating. It is not affection, it is just fear ; it seems a pleading deprecatory gesture of the voice as if trying to dodge a rebuke or a lecture as one involuntarily wards off an attack with the upraised arm. You somehow feel that you should take him into a cozy-corner and soothe him, and tell him not to be afraid, that you will protect him. When you are alone with him he may talk easily, cleverly and well ; the stream of his conversation runs smooth and free like a mountain brook but it suddenly trickles into irrelevant commonplaces when his wife enters the room, the whole atmosphere seems changed, and you vaguely wonder who shut off the water supply. You do not like the surreptitious way he covers his lighted cigar with his hat ; it seems too much like a child caught with its hand in the sugar bowl. He can never tell you definitely whether he can go out tomorrow night ; he will let you know later and you feel that he has already begun to plan how he can secure his wife's countersign to pass. Even when he is doing what is absolutely right and harmless he becomes wondrously fertile in lying excuses, those conversational capsules to sweeten the breath of suspicion. His ill-concealed joy when his wife has gone out of town for a day or two is not a mere confession ; it is a condensed biography. ^Copyright, 1910, by Fleming H. Revell Company. LITTLE PROBLEMS OF MARRIED LIFE. 1029 Sometimes it is the husband, the domineering assertion of authority, who plays the poor, petty role of domestic tyrant. He dictates, he demands, he threatens, he forbids, he issues his orders as ultimatums in a manner that would be unwarranted even were he a pirate captain haranguing his crew. He forgets that marriage means partnership not proprietorship, freedom of both in the best interests of both, not slavery of either. His assaults on her rights when he crosses the dead-line of intolerance and despotically demands obedience may not be received as submissively, as uncomplainingly and as finally, as he in his blind conceit believes. He may secure an outward semblance of submission but actually contemptuous rebellion. Brought to bay, her bitter protest of opposition may make her dangerously ingenious in outwitting him. When in a moment of pique at some act of her family he dares to order her never to see them or write to them or hear from them, she feels the cruel injustice of this cutting of the ties of love and tenderness, she may resort to subterfuge, intrigue, evasion and systematic deception and defy him behind his back while she seems sweetly, serenely resigned in his presence. She may drift unknowingly into a course of action normally repugnant as she surrenders to a tide of conditions of constant despotic injustice. Tyranny needs a hundred watch-dogs — trustful love, none. When she finds a quarantine ordered against some of her dearest and best friends coming to the house, her self-respect blushes at the plausible lies she writes or speaks to prevent their knowing the real reason. When she fears to tell him of some misdeed of one of the children because of the cruel punishment his anger may prescribe, he is slamming the door on her confidence and giving a bonus of new license to the little rebel in the nurserv. When she gives false statistics as to the price of some simple article she has bought, just to avoid a "scene," he is giving her unwise post-graduate courses in duplicity which may later prove costlv. He is worse than wrong — he is foolish. He is paying a big price for his tvranny when the song dies away on her lips as she hears his key click in the lock in the evening and she draws a long breath of relief when he leaves home in the morning. Then she may remember with a sigh and a little dimming of the eves the sweet early days of their married life when, not satisfied with the mere good-morning kiss, she used to stand on the porch and follow him with her eves and semaphore love with her fluttering little wiso of a handkerchief as he looked back in the sunshine at the bend of the road that soon shut him from her sight. And she had struggled so long and faithfullv to hold back the ebbing tide of her love for him and love had gone p^d ferried respect with it, and she, grown hard, and bitter and rebellious, had lo-t the hecf of l?f and po had he. 1030 IMPROVEMENT ERA Sometimes a wife may unwisely seek to keep the love, loyalty and constancy of her husband by holding him with a tight rein, by restrictions and limitations that fretted and chafed, by petty exactions and tyrannies to keep him close by her side. Have you ever held a butterfly in the prison of your palm, with the slightlyparted, arched fingers as bars, and, fearing it might escape, press inadvertently a little too tightly and then be suddenly conscious that the fluttering whirr had ceased and, opening find that the be?„. tiful wings were stilled forever and that the butterfly was d-.id? There are men and women who thus kill love carelessly ; they r"" "iave a great love secure right in their hands, but there is a pressure of doubt, tyranny, distrust or compulsion and the life of that love may die. Love grows stronger with freedom, confidence and trust. Love that needs constant watching is not worth watching, and no guarding through fear of its honor will ever keep it from straying. Its strength must be in itself and in the inspiration that comes from realization, recognition and response. There are homes that are over-governed. They have as many laws, rules and regulations as an institution. They remind you of those closely printed charts for conduct tacked on the inner side of doors in hotel rooms. In these homes you move about gingerly for fear of stepping inadvertently on a "don't." No individual is big enough, nor wise enough, nor great enough to dare to live the life of another, not with him, but for him. If he were all these his reverence for the individual rights of others would make it possible for him to usurp their sacred privilege of freedom in living their own lives, fully, freely, frankly, at their best. This domestic tyranny rules in thousands of homes. It means the wrong of two — the one who inflicts it and the one who bears it. We hear much of the grace of patience and the beauty of long-suffering. They are virtues when it means self-sacrifice for the right, vices when for the wrong. Tolerating injustice meekly without protest and a mighty effort to overthrow it when no good cause is served, no noble purpose promoted is not moral bravery, it is sheer cowardice. It is the fear of an unpleasant half hour that may save years of suffering. The one who bears meeklv is doing injustice to herself or to himself and — to the other. It means weakening and wronging self and feeding the evil in another's nature by inaction. The wife may say "he would flare up in an awful temper if I said a word." Let him flare, but let him understand that you will not be a partv to it. These home bosses are always bullies and bullies are always cowards. They do not stand out long against a bold defiance that shows no fear. At the first manifestation of this variety of performance, let husband or wife state LITTLE PROBLEMS OF MARRIED LIFE. 1031 positively that no encores will be permitted. At a quiet, dignified session, with no shade of anger but just a calm, cool ultimatum let the innocent one say he is willing to do the square thing in every relation, and to meet bravely whatever the tides of fate may bring and to suffer for the other, but never from the other. Like most evils it is easy to meet in the beginning and it is then it should be met in the right spirit for the good of both. A single bold stand for the right is worth years of cowardly patience for the wrong. The greatest trials and sorrows are those that do not come from outside the home, but are absolutely created within, that are manufactured for one by the temper or wrong of the other. They are absolutely preventable and there should be a kindly, helpful spirit on the part of both to remove any wrong that separates them rather than to intensify the reign of the wrong by weak and meekly bearing. It is not selfishness, not the reckless assertion of individuality, but the consecrated wisdom that seeks to cure what it cannot endure and to endure what it cannot cure. Love and sweet conference smooths out so many of these problems. Let there be but one boss and that one — the two. Let them unite in loving comradeship and fine co-operation, each doing the best without thought of competition or conquest and then even the wish of one become the will of both, in union and unity, with no tyranny but that of love, love of right, love of peace, love of justice and love of each other. [The closing chapter of this series, "Comradeship in Married Life," will appear in the next number of the Era.] Elders George C. Brinkerhoff and J. H. Parker send the Era a copy of the Bridgeport "Sunday Post" containing a hall page illustrated article and interview in which the mission of the elders to Bridgeport, Conn., is fairly set forth and explanation made of their labors and the purpose of their mission, as well as some of the doctrines of the Church. The elders state that the work is new in that place yet, but they have some friends who are investigating and they feel that their efforts are being rewarded. Elder Brinkerhoff adds: "Brother George B. Davis was here the past week with the illustrated lecture, 'The Rise and Growth of 'Mormonism.' " He held two lectures and they were enjoyed by all who saw them. They are a great help in making friends. One lady made this remark: 'You ought to be proud that you are "Mormons" if those pictures are true,' which she did not doubt. We feel that the gospel seeds being planted here will bear fruit some time."