Happiness and Marriage | Page 2

certainly doomed to disappointment.
I have a suspicion that Tudor is a natural born teacher. His mental
pictures may represent himself as a dispenser of moral and mental
blessings. He may see Ada sitting adoringly at his feet, ever eager to
learn. If so there will certainly be disappointment. East Indian girls may
be more docile than American girls; East Indian men may be better and
wiser lords and masters; but "Ada" is a Human Being before she is an
East Indian; and a Human Being instinctively revolts from a life passed
in leading strings. If Tudor continues to remind her that he is her
schoolmaster she will certainly revolt; inwardly if not outwardly.
Whether the revolt comes inwardly or outwardly harmony is doomed.
The first principle of happy marriage is equality. The second principle
is mutual confidence, which can NEVER exist without the first.
I do not mean by "equality" what is usually meant. One member of the
married twain may be rich, the other poor in worldly goods; one an
aristocrat, the other plebeian; one educated, the other unschooled; and
yet they may be to each other what they are in truth, equals.
Equality is a mental state, not a matter of birth or breeding, wisdom or
ignorance. The TRUTH is that all men and women are equal; all are
sparks of the One Life; all children of the one highly aristocratic
"Father"; all heirs to the wisdom and wealth of the ages which go to
make up eternity.
But all men and women are more or less unconscious, in spots at least,
of this truth. They spend their lives "looking down" upon each other.
Men "look down" upon their wives as "weak" or "inferior," and women
look down upon their husbands as "animals" or "great brutes." Men are

contemptuous of their wives visionariness, and women despise their
husbands for "cold and calculating" tendencies.
Every man and woman values certain qualities highly, and in
proportion as another fails to manifest these particular qualities he is
classed as "low," and his society is not valued.
This is the great source of trouble between husbands and wives. Each
values his or her own qualities and despises the other's. So in their own
minds they are not equal, and the first principle of harmony is missing.
The real truth is that in marriage a man is schoolmaster to his wife and
she is equally schoolmistress to him. This is true in a less degree, of all
the relationships of life.
The Law of Attraction draws people together that they may learn.
There is but one Life, which is growth in wisdom and knowledge.
There is but one Death, which is refusal to learn.
If husbands and wives were equals in their own minds they would not
despise each other and refuse to learn of each other.
The Law of Attraction, or Love, almost invariably attracts opposites,
and for their own good. A visionary, idealistic woman is drawn to a
practical man, where, kick and fuss and despise each other as they will,
she is bound to become more practical and he more idealistic. They
exchange qualities in spite of themselves; each is an unconscious agent
in rounding out the character and making more abundant the life of the
other.
Much of this blending of natures is accomplished through passion, the
least understood of forces. And the children of a union of opposites,
even where there is great contempt and unhappiness between the
parents, are almost invariably better balanced than either of the
parents.

I cannot believe that unhappy marriages are "mistakes" or that they
serve no good purpose. The Law of Attraction draws together those
who need each other at that particular stage of their growth. The
unhappiness is due to their own foolish refusal to learn; and this refusal
is due to their contempt for each other. They are like naughty children
at school, who cry or sulk and refuse to work out their problems. Like
those same naughty children they make themselves unhappy, and fail to
"pass" as soon as they might.
Remember, that contempt for each other is at the very bottom of all
marital unhappiness. The practical man despises his wife's impulsive
idealism and tries to make her over. The wife despises his "cold and
calculating" tendencies and tries to make him over. That means war, for
it is impossible to make over anybody but yourself.
Because the man despises his wife's tendencies and she despises his, it
never occurs to either to try making over themselves, thus helping along
the very thing they were drawn together for.
If Tudor's picture holds two people who are always equal though
utterly different; whose future actions are an unknown quantity to be
taken as they come and each action to be