IS MARRIAGE TOO EASY?

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3160, 27 April 1931, Page 7

IS MARRIAGE TOO EASY?

Lovers Who Fail to Realise the Responsibilities and Difficulties of Married Life, By Dorothy. Marriage is too easy. A little love, a little troth, a little home, a little time .... thatris all! Young people standing on the threshold of their first tremendously important "being in love," cannot see that there is danger underlying that easiness. The fairest seas ripple over the r.'ost sinister rocks. The Eden of the desert is too often the tomb of the traveller. Marriage is simple—on the surface.

Being in love is misleading. Passing through that most exquisite stage of all, one is so tempted to live up to the eternal lover attitude.

Lovers see each other in the best possible light. They always wear their' best clothes. She is careful that when they meet her nose is powdered, and her hat is on at the correct angle. Her temper is unruffled, and life looks to be ideal. .

Marriage looks as if that also would be ideal. It is the gateway to a life together when she will be always looking her best and always behaving sweetly, and he has smartened himself up and said good-bye to care, and is doing his level best to be amusing. Marriage throws dust in their eyes. Marriage is different from the being in love stage, because one is just- for the golden hour and the other is for always. * However much you may desire it to be otherwise, life is going to supply you with some "off" days. There are going to be times when things don't go right. There are going to be old clothes to be worn out, and days when powder doesn't stick so well, and when you feel seedy. There are going to be hours when office cares protrude themselves in an ugly fashion upon the threshold of the little home, and when in the little home itself the sink gets stopped up, and the pipes freeze or the kitchen flues choke. I do not mean to be mundane. It is the mundane things in the world that loom so mountainous, not the big matters. Big matters take care of themselves. It is the little straws that break the proverbial camel's back. Those little straws are the ton weights in marriage. It is no good older people warning lovers about it, because they pass unbelieved. The lovers retort that if others have made a mess of life "why should we?" Marriage looks so simple. It would be far wiser if marriage were made more difficult. If only it were possible to saddle young couples with a long examination sheet of questions to satisfy some wise and learned representative that the lovers knew what they were about! You cannot get out of marriage so easily. I know that there is such a thing as divorce. But there is too much heartbreak attached to it. Although marriage may not seem to you to be the for-ever-and-eyer affair that it once was, it is Very nearly for ever and ever. There is nothing in this world so unhappy as an unhappy marriage. There is nothing that hurts quite so badly. Unhappy marriage is on the increase because we do not think enough about it beforehand. Lovers, will not realise the unhappiness as the possibility on their horizon. I would not for the world depress them, because love is an exquisite emotion and should not be repressed. But at the same time, one's sense of balance should be retained.

I would set difficulties in the paths of true lovers because I know that only in surmounting those difficulties can they really ensure happy and successful partnerships.