The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book | Page 3

that is likely to come to them through choice during their lifetime.
This request for help by young people in courtship, in engagement, in
their first years of marriage, and when they plan to assume parenthood,
cannot be met merely by words of caution. They do not welcome just
being told what they should not do. What they seek is positive
assistance. They do not want advice, but they want information and
insight. They have become convinced that there are facts about
marriage that people have learned through experience, especially
through the searching of the scientists, and they ask that they be given
the advantage of this knowledge.

These young men and women do not take kindly to a marriage program
which merely lists the qualities that one ought to find in one's mate.
Even from a very little courtship experience they come to realize that
one does not desire to marry abstract virtues, however desirable, but a
flesh-and-blood person whom one desperately wants. What they seek is
a guidance which will keep them from wanting the kind of person they
should not marry. They expect to fall in love, but hope to escape
immature, untrustworthy emotions. They want to make a grown-up
choice or at least to pick a mate in whose fellowship they can develop
the character they know they need to achieve happiness.
First of all they ask for information that will help them make good use
of their courtship opportunity. They rightly feel that if they blunder in
this period, there is little hope of their making their goal later. They
have grown suspicious of a strong feeling of attachment, because they
have been forced to see in the experiences of many of their friends that
this has not guaranteed later happiness. They expect to have sooner or
later an overwhelming impulse to join their life to that of another
human being, and they ask:
"How can I protect myself from giving my affection to the wrong
person? How can I learn when it is safe to trust my own strong
emotions? I know I shall be just as others are, unable to hold back,
blind to the other's faults, but surely before this happens I can do
something that will keep me from growing fond of a person whom I
ought not to marry! People who study marriage and become familiar
with its emotional demands must have learned some facts that offer
guidance in choosing a life mate."
Indeed, there are such, and here are some that prove useful during
courtship, the destiny-deciding period in most people's matrimonial
career:
1. Don't let yourself fall in love with the first person who comes along;
meet as many young people of the opposite sex as you can.
The young man or young woman should seek to know as many
agreeable, companionable persons of the opposite sex as possible

without the strain of attempting to establish a reputation for popularity.
These acquaintances, as much as possible, should have a background
essentially similar to one's own, and they should be sought as friends
rather than as lovers. It is obvious that one's affection must turn to some
one whom one knows, and before the awakening of strong feeling there
should be as wide an experience--the man with women, and the woman
with men--as possible. He or she who fails to go about with young
people, as opportunity comes, loses the only way there is to gain the
knowledge that is necessary later to make a wise choice of husband or
wife.
2. Don't judge by party manners and dress; everyday life is different.
In this association with members of the opposite sex, the young man or
woman should seek to know, in as many and as everyday situations as
possible, those who prove attractive. The party and the dance need not
be neglected. Anyone who proves interesting at such occasions must,
however, also be known in other more usual and commonplace
circumstances. The mere being with members of the opposite sex will
not in itself bring insight. One must learn to observe the reactions, the
attitudes, the emotional characteristics of anyone whom one likes.
Effort must be made to explore the other's personality, not in a
cold-blooded, analytical way, but naturally and yet with open eyes, so
that there may be genuine understanding of the characteristics of those
who seem to be good candidates for matrimony.
3. Study your own emotional reactions as you go along; your mate
should bring out the best that is in you.
This association should also help the young man or woman to become
better acquainted with himself or herself. Marriage happiness cannot be
achieved merely by asking that the other give. There must also be one's
own offering in the fellowship. Nothing helps clear up