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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Everyday Human Bondage Bell Syndicate. WNU Feature. "Even if it's going home to dear sympathetic Daddy and Mother your path isn't all roses. They may have stood by you gallantly through your trouble with Dick but afterward they grow critical.' By KATHLEEN NORRIS 'K A ARRIAGE is an in-l in-l stitution," some woman said in a play long ago, "and I hate to live in an institution." She might just as well have said that life itself is an institution, insti-tution, and that we all, married mar-ried or single, hate the bondage bond-age and the limitations that life imposes on us. To be sure, to the unhappily married man or woman the unmarried ones seem more free. They can get away from the hateful little apartment with its whining and its untidiness, its bills and its discomforts generally. general-ly. They can at least go to hotels, where a maid is paid to keep the bathroom in order and where cool coffee can be sent back to the kitchen. That's the theory. But it is a miserably mis-erably faulty theory, and a miserably miser-ably unsatisfactory solution of the living problem. In marriage, and in marriage alone, is there true happiness happi-ness for young persons, and it is only because they don't know how to stay married that all the failures arise. It is a tragic truth that almost al-most all the men and women who obtain divorces would cancel those divorces and try over again with the same mate, if they could, and that a second and third and fourth marriage mar-riage only produce variations of the first fiasco, and infinitely and fatally complicate the lives they touch children's lives, old persons' lives. Society's Unwritten Law. When a man, like the comparatively comparative-ly young man who recently made an eighth marriage, tells the attentive atten-tive press that he is sure that he has found the ideal wife at last, there is no law to stop his matrimonial career. But there is surely an unwritten un-written law that covers such a case, and to belittle the sacred relationship relation-ship of marriage with such flippancy ought to put him outside the pale of friendship with decent folk forever. Most engagements are built on sexual attraction, and in the early years of most marriages it plays an important part. This is a truism so flat that it is superfluous to put it into words. Yet very few women, and no men, grasp the truth of that simple statement. The part of it they understand entirely omits the words "in the early years." Every bride feels that the glory of young wifehood is so exquisite, the thrill that true marriage brings to her husband and herself is so overwhelming, the ecstasy of their first months together so perfect, that nothing can ever change. "I haven't changed," wrote a four-years four-years wife to me pathetically. "I love him just as much as I ever did, or more. But he likes an occasional evening away from home now, he likes me to ask pretty girls to the house and flatters them." Nature has so arranged things that by the time that the first wild glamour glam-our of possession has worn off, for the man, the woman shall be absorbed ab-sorbed in even more vital joys, the supreme joys of motherhood. But today's men and women very often put off those joys altogether, or at least delay them fatally, thereby completely defeating their purpose. Intense Love Soon Burns Out. The purpose, I mean, of being able to revel uninterruptedly in the marital mari-tal relationship. There is no quicker way to destroy it. The rule is the same as that of other appetites. Controlled, Con-trolled, made only a part of a happy life together, indulged reasonably, physical love between a man and woman can last a lifetime. But it can also be burnt out in a few months' time, and that is what hap- NO SOLUTION Kathleen Norris again repeats re-peats her statement, made many times before in this column, col-umn, that divorce is neither the right nor the lasting solution solu-tion of marital difficulties. And she points to the tragic example exam-ple of the frequently married and never happy people who are always seeking the perfect mate, the tailor-made marriage. mar-riage. You must work for a happy marriage, just as you must work for a strong financial finan-cial position, or an enviable social position, or good grades in school. And, falling short of perfection or unqualified success, you must remember that divorce is still no solution. pens over and over again with those men and women who are rich enough and optimistic enough, and let it be added, dumb enough, to marry four and five and six times, imagining that the will-o'-the-wisp connubial bliss is somewhere, waiting wait-ing to be found ready-made. When a man and woman are balanced, bal-anced, normal folk, aware that life has a thousand interests and delights other than that of sex; when they rejoice in the companionship that marriage brings, the mutual dignities digni-ties and cares, the pleasures of hospitality hos-pitality and home making, the privileges privi-leges of parenthood, then in the place of that first awed ecstasy of possession, that first ignorant, eager seizure upon life, comes something far rarer and finer; true married love, true appreciation of what is the great miracle of human hearts in this world. Otherwise the first chill wind of reality destroys their marriage and leaves them forlorn indeed. When flattery and passion, novelty and excitement ex-citement have had their day, a certain cer-tain blankness descends upon the lovers, they don't know what's happened hap-pened to them. Patience, Humility Help. Whereas, if they had character, if they had had good training, good homes, good example behind them, they would start fresh. They would replace excitement and passion and novelty and flattery with patience, humility, sympathy, courage. The man would analyze his own nature, asking himself seriously what the qualifications of a good husband should be; the woman should repeat to herself the wife's litany. "That I may never do anything to make him love me less. That his home may always be the place he most wants to come. That he may trust me to spend our money wisely, keeping everything in proportion. That the years may find us growing only closer and closer together, depending de-pending more and more upon each other. Amen!" But how many young men and women take that attitude today? How many say: "I was wrong. I'm sorry sor-ry I was rude to your old friend. I'm sorry I wasted that money. I'm sorry I forgot to telephone your mother." Even if it's going home to dear sympathetic Daddy and Mother your path isn't all roses. They may have stood by you gallantly through your trouble with Dick, but afterward they grow critical. Your mother audibly admires your cousin Ellen, who stuck to Joe Masters through thick and thin. You hear your father saying say-ing pityingly to some old friend at the telephone: "No, Louise is back with us. Yes, too bad! Broke her mother's, heart. Yes, hard on the small boy. Oh, I guess so. Faults on both sides!" You can live with anyone once you master the secret of living with your-ielf. |