Prepare Yourself for Marriage If You Want Success!

Marital happiness is not won without trial, and the woman may well be the first to attempt the road to success. Here you will find confirmation of things you have yourself observed, and you will gain some help besides; and if you are about to be married, you may adopt these ideas for the future.

They are a few precepts drawn up by a specialist in sociology:

1 — Prepare for marriage: parents who take upon themselves the responsibility of educating their children must not forget to prepare them for marriage. That is done by the girl's receiving training in the management of the home, and by her brother's understanding his duty toward the house, while the parents offer a good example in their own conduct; for the child who grows up in an atmosphere fragrant with love, tenderness, and understanding will strive to create another like it, and whatever he gains from books and school will never take the place of his lessons at home.

2 — Choose your companion wisely: if you marry for love alone, everything soon melts away from your path except that love. Differences of taste, of needs, of intellectual and religious beliefs must be brought into harmony, lest the bonds of accord and unity be broken. If you overlook this before marriage, you are laying hold of the domain of evil.

3 — Keep your marriage growing: a new marriage is like a young plant — it wilts and fades easily if neglected. To give it strength day after day, create freshness in it and give it your thought; for you are learning,

you and your husband, a new lesson among the lessons of life, and you both want to succeed. But domestic happiness rests upon you; and though it is the man who causes a marriage to fail, it is the woman who drives it to success.

4 — Be patient: your progress together will not come by leaps and by running. Fix your gaze upon your aims, your home, and your family, and then upon your security in the days of old age, and you will see that what vexes you is a trifle of no value whatever.

5 — Follow the golden rule: "Accept for others what you would accept for yourself." Nowhere will this serve you better than in the home. If quarrels break out among the members of the family, be it the husband or the son, try to put yourself in his place. Does your husband seem selfish when he does not take you to the cinema? Think how you would feel had you spent your day in his place at the office; you will find that you understand him better, and so you ward off trouble before it comes.

6 — Prepare yourself to embrace motherhood: bearing children is not merely the aim of marriage; it is society's charge laid upon you both. If you deny this side of it, you fall short of performing the most sacred of your duties, and you deprive yourselves of the deepest satisfaction marriage can offer you.

7 — Fix the size of the family: most couples prefer to put off having children until they have secured their life materially. If you spend your money on raising your standard of living, the day will never come when you are able to support a family. From the very beginning, decide together when the stage of bearing children shall begin, how many children you want, and what the expenses will amount to.

8 — Should troubles break out, seek advice from someone removed from you. Try your utmost first to solve the problem yourselves; if that proves beyond you, go to your spiritual head or to the office of the psychological doctor — not to relatives and friends, for these are swayed by feeling, not by logic.

To know these conditions profits you; but if you try to live them, your marriage will never fail!