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قراءة كتاب The Eugenic Marriage, Volume 3 (of 4) A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies
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The Eugenic Marriage, Volume 3 (of 4) A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies
to find out how you may quickly accommodate yourself to be his helpmate, his friend, his confidant and companion, throughout all the years of your life. Let us assure you without fear of contradiction, that you will endear yourself to him by your willingness to be advised and guided by him. Such an attitude will engender a tangible confidence that may be drawn upon to weather temperamental contests that might otherwise prove to be serious obstacles in building up a mutual respect and trust and which is essential to peace and happiness. He will look for your word of cheer, and he will willingly tell you more and more of his inmost thoughts and ambitions, and unconsciously he will rely upon your judgment, your womanly intuition, your help, in every move he makes. The time when you will have to "give in" will have passed away. You will have made yourself part of his life, his mentality, you will have reached the goal of domestic happiness, and that is as near paradise as most of us reach in this world. It all depends upon "how you go about it" in the first few months of married life.
Consider the other picture. If a wife cultivates, or has the inherited inclination to argue trifles, to bicker over mere matters of opinion, even if she wins occasionally, what does she gain? Nothing! The husband resents the tendency to argument. His pride is wounded at the thought that his wife needs to be convinced of every opinion he advances. Such an attitude completely breaks down the tangible confidence that is essential to peace and happiness. Soon he begins to keep his opinion to himself; the serpent enters the home; the wife finds he is interested in things of which he does not inform her. Jealousy, lack of confidence, doubt,—the skeletons of all domestic peace and happiness soon accomplish their terrible and tragic work, and the end is not difficult to imagine.
Most of the things regarding which husbands and wives quarrel are of no special moment. They are not momentous subjects,—it is usually a trifle that mars the domestic peace. It takes but a few years for most women to appreciate that many of the things that cause heartaches are not of any consequence at all. They originate, as a rule, in one or the other failing to appreciate that the other has certain individual rights which demand some degree of respectful consideration. The ego element in human nature is responsible for a very considerable portion of the domestic infelicity that mars the home life of a large proportion of the people.
Trivial Differences.—Many homes have been broken or rendered permanently wretched by trivial differences. The husband may like to play games, the wife may want to read. One may like to go out to parties and theaters, the other may want to stay at home. Before marriage these differences appear to merest trifles and are the subjects of good-humored bantering; after marriage they cause constant dissension, constant friction. A trifle is the usual beginning, a divorce may be the end. A little lack of tact, an unwillingness to sacrifice self in a small measure "at the right moment" and friction would have ended.
It is a reflection upon our intelligence, and it is rather significant that it should be the little, trifling things that cause most of the troubles and heartaches in the world. We rarely quarrel over the important episodes Of life; the real things, the things that constitute the measure of our manhood and womanhood. Ask any of your friends, be they Jew or Gentile, Catholic or Protestant, Baptist or Episcopalian, Democrat or Republican, whether, in their best judgment, it is better to be honest or dishonest, clean or dirty, false or true, intelligent or ignorant, an idler or a worker; whether it is better to be gentle and kind or brutal and cruel, a gossip and scandal monger or to mind our own business and to speak kindly of our fellow-man, whether, in short, it is better to be good or bad? And yet these are the real, the fundamental qualities that brand a man, or a woman, or a race of people, as worthy and true and Christ-like.
To the eugenist, a thought obtrudes itself at this point. It is the logical, the link between the cause and the effect. Why do we waste so much time arguing and fighting over non-essentials? Why is the world such a big quarreling-pot over nothing? And the eugenist suggests, if it is not possible, that the explanation may be found, in the fact, that the human family, as a race, is below par; that so many of us are incomplete; that it is the product of the combined mental effort of the unworthy element that makes all the trouble? It is scarcely logical to assume, that an individual who has been brought into the world by healthy, worthy parents, and whose ancestry for generations have been clean, honest people; and whose upbringing and education has been adequate to fit him to become a respectable, decent citizen, could, or would be a trouble maker. On the other hand, can we expect, or are we justified in hoping that an individual whose ancestral record is bad, whose environmental conditions are faulty, whose education has been neglected, who is in all probability physically and mentally deficient, will be capable of conforming to the standards of the other individual? From an imperfect whole, may we not naturally expect bad parts? From a diseased body and mind, may we not look for a low standard of thought and action? And may not these conditions account for the greater part of the little, as as the big, troubles that mar the peace and progress of the race? Will not the elimination of the eugenically unworthy rid the world of its heartaches and sorrows? It is not only a suggestive thought, it is an inspiration for the exercise of the supreme intelligence of the statesman, the sociologist, the teacher and the preacher alike.
Differences of Principle.—There are more serious differences than those of taste, however. There are differences of principle.
They do not reveal themselves before the promise "for better or for worse." The sentimental days of courtship did not bring them out. But now that they have settled down to the routine of ordinary living, nature brings them to the surface and the issue must be met. It is discovered that the wife is a devout Christian and a faithful church attendant while the husband insists on his wife spending Sunday in the country, or at the seashore. The woman tries to get her husband to go to church but she fails. He tried to get her to accompany him but he does not succeed. There is a rift in the lute, little sorrowful heart pangs on the part of the woman, and the man feels sore and grouchy and wanders away alone, then finally open quarrels and indifference. Two lives are pulling apart. Someone must give in; but which one? The observance of her religious duties to the wife is a matter of principle. The husband's method of spending Sunday is simply habit. He has no right to interfere with her liberty in this respect. The one to give in is the one whose conscience is not trampled upon. If the husband refuses to go to church with his wife, he can do so amicably, and in such a tactful way that his wife cannot reasonably feel permanently offended, but he must not object to his wife going to church, nor has he the right to insist on being accompanied in his outing by his wife. On the other hand, the wife must not nag or quarrel with him continuously on the subject of religion. Those little incidents will come up in the experience of every married couple. They are not serious or insurmountable in themselves, but they can be made serious by mismanagement.
The true wife is the home-maker, not simply the housekeeper. She is responsible for its attractiveness and its comfort, its morals and its existence. The marriage vow "does not make a wife, but comradeship in the bearing of the burdens