TRUE MARRIAGE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume 1, Issue 7, 13 February 1914, Page 4

TRUE MARRIAGE.

USEIUL KNOWLEDGE. In the course of an address on ' 4 True Marriage," delivered recently, it was said that incompatibility of temper was often urged as an insurmountable obstacle to a happy married life. But it was absurd to test love or the happiness of married life by cross words or disagreements. The less of them the better, but they did not destroy love or joy, other things being equal. Naturally, no two people could be perfectly adjusted to each other, except by years of association. There were some'famous examples of incompatibility of temper which had not destroyed love. For instance, the story of the domestic life of Carlyle and his wife made it quite clear that their home was frequently the scene of discords. Yet no one who has read Mrs Carlyle's letters, and her husband's tribute to his wife, could doubt for a moment the love that burned in both their hearts with singular intensity. Would Jane Welch have been happier had she married her other suitor — the great preacher, Edward Irving? It was doubtful whether that brilliant, highly-strung, quick-tempered woman would have been happier with the eloquent minister who heard "tongues" and saw visions. Certainly she would not have been, unless her soul had been drawn towards Irving, and she knew it was not when she married Carlyle. And Carlyle himself. Was not Jane Welch a true wife to him? His spirit answered to hers, and he found in her the solace and strength that only the one woman to whom a man's heart goes out can give him. Nowadays the number of divorces was so appalling that it would seem marriage was entered into without thought or qualification for bonds. But what did the average girl marry for? To be made happy every day and always, to have an adoring husband, a home, and children. And men married for the same reasons, except that comfort was their srst desire. Happiness was nearly always gained at the price of another's sacrifice. The

man/s point of view was different to the woman's, and it was in the first years of life's voyage together that so many came to shipwreck, whicli meant the divorce eourt. But was divorce right?' There was only one way of testing, that: By seeing how far it agreed with the teachings of our Divine Reformer, Christ. The .position women occupied to-day in society and the benign civilisation under which they lived was the outcome of His teachings, and it was impo£sible to reverence some of His precepts and flout He, seeing only the ultimate good, raised marriage to a life-long contract. The marriage bond was not created for our pleasure, nor for its more natural object, but to form the soul, says George Eliot.- Neither sin nor suffering, nor inequalities of temper on either side, can or ought to destroy the marriage bond when once, created. Patience must be striven for in the first years for the very closeness of the marriage relationship brought out. differences and opposition that cpulcl not be imagined beforehand. Therefore patience, a loving: regard for both the mental and physical well-being of each other, a determined blindness to faults and deficiencies, and a clear mental vision of the real and hoped-for virtues in our partner, was. what constituted a true marria^ V , _ ' -v,:.'., MILDER PUNISHMENT. . "Dou you ever, my good woman, castigate your children?" "-Never, marm. I only wallops e ? m. —'' Baltimore American."