Things About Love

1 — How can love be recognized?

The psychologist Henry Bowman says that when a person is captivated by a love, he feels that his happiness depends upon the other companion, and in the light of this idea he wishes to make that companion happy and to raise him up. Love, then, creates a feeling of union between the two elements, and this is love's point of departure — whereas mere infatuation means a shrinking in upon oneself.

2 — Does a man love a quick-witted woman?

Research affirms that a man loves the merry woman, whose jokes are tossed off playfully and are not aimed as piercing thrusts at the very core of his pride; for though he may join her in the laughter and the jesting, it is not long before he comes to hate her.

3 — Does a man prize the wife he won from the hands of rivals above the one whose heart no man contested with him?

There is no decisive answer, for only a small minority of men have tried both sides. For the psychologist to give his answer, he would have to inquire of at least a hundred men who have had experience of this matter. All I can say on this score is that, in the nature of things, we prize the things that cost us struggle and toil more than those that come to us easily, without our striving and suffering for them.

4 — Can the beautiful girl be a successful wife?

No — in the opinion of one psychologist, who affirms that the beautiful girl does only what her mother directs her to do. She is singular in her conduct; she blushes at the mention of the word "sex"; she is cold of feeling; she domineers over her children so that they may turn out successful, as she puts it — choosing their companions for them, deciding their marriages, and demolishing their personalities.

5 — Does a girl long for a settled life more than a young man does?

Yes! — if she has not won wide fame, with friends of both sexes, or grown accustomed since childhood to discussing the subject of sex frankly; then the first rendezvous is a tremor of delight and yearning, and she wishes to attach herself to her young man out of her fear of loneliness.

6 — Do divorce rulings record its true causes?

No! The sociologist "Mowrer" shows us in his book "The Family" that the laws of divorce record only the circumstance that brought the couple to court. The most important of these are infidelity, then cruelty, weakness of character, and failure to carry out one's duties. But the real causes lie deeper than this: they may lie in differences of temperament, of social milieu, of culture, of household habits, and of philosophy of life. No law is able to cure these ills and root them out; only sound knowledge and a comprehensive culture have an effective part in raising this state of affairs!