The basic incentive for marriage.—A completed home embraces a father, mother and one or more children, bound together by natural love for each other. The initial step in home building is taken when a man and woman decide to assume the duties, responsibilities and functions of marriage. Courtship and marriage may be prompted by a number of motives. There is but one natural and worthy motive—LOVE. This motive may be a little out of date in some circles, but it remains essential to a normal home, a happy productive home. This expression of love is awakened to conscious activity through acquaintance and friendship, becomes a joyful reality in courtship, is consummated in marriage and is perpetuated through life, because{16} of a chaste, pure, unselfish sex preference of one man for one woman and that one woman for that one man. If for any reason, this sex preference is ever broken, the bonds of love between husband and wife will be weakened, if not severed for all time. This bond of union may be broken in a number of ways. There may be other causes of domestic inharmony, all of which can be adjusted so long as sex preference, or love, binds the two as one. Under the guidance of unselfish sex selection, few mistakes would ever be made, in the choice of a companion.
The tests of true love.—A man and woman bound by pure love for each other, may live in a shack or a humble rented cottage, they may have to toil late and hard to support a family of growing children, but they and the children will be happy and usually healthy and strong, bound together by mutual love. They will remain true to each other through adversity, sickness and death.
Mismated.—If husband and wife are not bound to each other by a natural sex preference, or love, though they may hold in their possession broad acres of land, railroad bonds and heavy deposits in the bank, live in a mansion and move in the élite circles of society, they will not love each other, their children, or be able to build a REAL home.
Other incentives for marriage.—It is quite customary,{17}
A Good Argument for Pure Livingin some grades of society, to choose a life companion for social or financial advantage. Such unions are not natural. They are cold business transactions. A man prompted by these motives sees in a woman the qualities of a good housekeeper, a social queen, or a financial gain. A woman prompted by unnatural motives sees in a man opportunities for social prestige, a life of luxury and ease. They drift apart instead of their personalities blending, through love, as one. Soon he spends his days in his daily vocation and his evenings in the lodges. She finds her only pleasure in following the latest fashions and devoting her time to various social functions. Each have their secrets and manage to avoid public disgrace.
Should a child be born into such an unnatural home, it would receive an unfortunate heredity and a still more unfortunate environment. The initial of its life was accidental, its prenatal rights were not regarded, its advent was not welcomed, it is now turned over to a hired nurse. Such a child is more unfortunate than an orphan. In no true sense has it a father or mother. This child, when visitors are about, or when the family is making a public display, may be petted, pampered and spoiled by its parents and on all occasions lavishly supplied with dress and toys; thus egotism will be stimulated and propensities gratified and this child will be placed at a decided disadvantage in life. Compared{19} with this child, the little ragged street urchin is to be congratulated.
When the natural, God-designed and God-honored, sex instinct is perverted and base desire supplants love, in the choice of a companion, the home instinct is degraded, love dethroned and inharmony prevails.
The Romance, of Courtship and the Honeymoon, is Transitory. There is a certain amount of the glamour, mystery, novelty, romance and poetry connected with courtship and the honeymoon, while perhaps natural at the time, but in the very nature of the case cannot be permanent. The plain, practical, everyday experiences of life must become prominent in every successful home. The fairyland, of flowery visions, rippling streams of sentiment, poetic fancies of bliss and the lunar and stellar raptures of love, must yield, after a period of such experiences, to mundane realities where these beautiful dreams terminate and air castles are destroyed and life once more becomes real.
When the termination of this romantic period comes to the young wife, whose vision of marriage was received from sensational novels, fashion journals, the theater and gay social gatherings, and to the young husband, kid-gloved, well-starched and much-cravatted, it will be unexpected and very disastrous to their imaginary love. Cruel and prudish are they, who are responsible for creating artificial social{20} visions in the minds of the youth. But when the termination of romance comes to the young husband and wife, whose courtship and marriage have been true to nature, this will be supplanted by the dawning consciousness of life’s real mission in marriage and they will discover that the truest, sweetest and most enduring pleasures and joys of life have only begun.
The first born.—Fortunate and happy is that young couple, who, before the romance of marriage is over, becomes aware that preparations must be made for the first little stranger into their home. If the faint prophecies, of the approaching advent of their first-born, thrill their lives with hopeful and joyful anticipations, marriage will now have a deeper significance, the bonds of love and dependence become stronger and the pleasures of life more real. The supremest moment of marriage comes when the young husband, who for the first time, in the birth chamber, stands by his wife’s side, holding her hands in his; stoops and kisses her lips, cheeks and brow, as she bravely and beautifully endures the throes of parturition. Such an experience is enough to transform a brute into a man. When the first-born is placed to the young mother’s breast, a deep, profound, but quiet happiness knows no bounds in two hearts that beat as one. This is the primary purpose of marriage. A cooing baby is nature’s own sequel to the honeymoon.{21}
God’s Richest Blessing to a Home.
Health, happiness and life worth living is made possible through parenthood.
If a child was intelligently planned for and warmly welcomed into every home, the first year of married life, then one by one at reasonable intervals until the family consists of four to eight healthy, happy, well-cared-for children, most of the problems of marriage would be solved.
The childless homes.—All efforts to evade the fiat of nature and God, “multiply and replenish the earth,” not justified by the authors of this law, will lead to health blighted, happiness destroyed, a home wrecked and two souls will be arrested in their endless progress. In homes, voluntarily childless, and in homes where one or two little intruders were accidentally and unwillingly admitted, can be found the most serious and perplexing social problems.
Childless homes made happy.—The involuntarily childless homes, and the homes voluntarily childless, because of justifiable reasons, need not be unhappy. Their paternal and maternal natures may be developed by adopting homeless children. In this land there are many such happy homes. If the mother love, in childless homes, annually wasted on poodle dogs, was expended on homeless children, there would soon be no childless homes, orphan homes and homeless children, and more happiness in the world.{22}
How shall family troubles be solved?—While natural sex preference and the birth of children solve almost all the domestic problems and make possible the solution of all family troubles, they do not render the husband and wife immune to all differences, disagreements, incompatibilities and perplexities. It is not possible for the husband to see everything from his wife’s view point, or the wife to see everything from the husband’s point of view. If they differ in taste, retain their personalities, have lofty ambitions, possess sensitive natures and have their individual ideals, they will often differ in their opinions, and, occasionally very good people will find themselves in disastrous disputes. Commendable ideals and virtues, as well as faults, may become the sources of domestic trouble. What should they do—separate? No. Secure a divorce? Certainly not. Let these steps be the last possible resort. Where a family of children are to be scattered and injured by the disgrace, perhaps a divorce should not be sought, on any grounds. The bleeding hearts and blasted hopes caused by one divorce is greater than that caused by a score of deaths. Divorce degrades morals, withers ideals and causes untold human suffering. What is the remedy? Agree to let past differences, disagreements and quarrels remain in the past. Don’t bring the dead yesterdays over into the living to-days. Each{23} morning, give each other a clean slate. Resolve each morning to please, rather than to displease your partner. By doing this, irreconcilable differences will gradually disappear. This does not mean that they should lose their individualities, or compromise with their convictions. This is not a radical or expensive remedy, but one that works in nearly every case.
Extract from EBook of Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction, by T. W. Shannon
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