Happiness and Marriage - Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
Just as the husband of the woman in "Confessions of a Wife," in
_Century_ did. I read that serial each month and feel like shaking that
little simpleton!--she is just the kind of a sentimental hair-splitting
little idiot that I used to be! Instead of getting at her husband's
point of view and enjoying _with_ him, at least sometimes, she insists
on acting the martyr because he will not dawdle around and gush at
her feet.
Whatever is the cause of your trouble the only cure for it is
Common-Sense. Live your own life, cheerily, happily, and enter into your
husband's life so far as you can. Take all the good things that come
your way and rejoice in them, but don't moon around and fuss because you
can't have the sort of love-life described in some sentimental novel.
Your business in life is to LOVE, not to _be_ loved. The latter is a
secondary matter and the first is the thing that brings happiness to
you. Go in to win now, and you can develop within yourself the full Life
that you really desire. All you desire is yours and you will realize it
in due time. But every moment you set your thought on straightening out
Some Other body's life you are delaying your own realization and
happiness.
CHAPTER XII.
THE FAMILY JAR.
"If a man and woman love each other and are every way suited to marry
should they yield to the opposition of his grown daughter?" M.A.
This question in varying forms comes to me often. It always stirs within
me something I used to call "righteous indignation." And incidentally it
makes me smile. Translate the question into Plain English and anybody
can answer it without hesitancy. Put it this way: When two Individuals
know what they want and the whole world approves, should they go away
back and sit down because a third Individual tries to interfere with
their inherent right to the pursuit of happiness?
Of course _not_. A man or woman old enough to have a grown daughter is
old enough to know whether he wants to marry again. Not even the most
precocious daughter is a better judge than her father as to what is best
for his own happiness.
Ah, there's the rub! It is not _his_ happiness she is concerned about.
It is her own. A new marriage would interfere with the daughter's plans.
She would have to give the chief place to the new wife. She would have
to give up a share of the prospective inheritance she has more or less
consciously been counting upon. So she opposes her father's re-marrying.
But apparently not on these grounds--dear, no! Her father is "too old,"
or "too weakly," or the intended wife is "not nice." The daughter
conjures up a dozen excuses, but never the _real_ one; of which she is
not fully conscious herself,--and _doesn't want to be_.
The parent's "duty" to children is great; far greater than the child's
duty to parent; but parental self-sacrifice should certainly _not_ be
continued for life. A grown daughter is an Individual, who should stand
on her own feet and make her own happiness _without_ curtailing the
happiness of parents.
Let her leave her father to a renewal of youth and happiness; or let her
gracefully and kindly accept her rightful second place and use her
loving energies in helping to make bright the home.
A sensible, well trained, loving daughter will do one of these two
things.
A sensible, well trained, loving parent will consider his daughter's
feelings and will do all he can to gain her _willingness_ before he
marries; but he will not make a lasting sacrifice of his own and the
other woman's happiness simply to please a selfish girl.
If daughter and parent are not sensible, well trained and loving, it
will be a case of frying pan or fire either way.
The recognition of individual rights to the pursuit of happiness
according to individual desire, is the only basis of happiness in family
relations.
The daughter who _helps_ her father do as he desires will find _him_
ready to help _her_ do as _she_ desires. And _vice versa_.
The daughter who "opposes" her father's marriage is quite apt to be the
daughter who has _been opposed by her father_; he reaps as he has sown.
Or else she is the daughter who has been brought up with the idea that
parents are a mere convenience for her use.
The way out of the Family Jar is often labyrinthine; but the Loving
Individual can always thread it.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE TRUTH ABOUT DIVORCE.
In January _Psychic and Occult Views and Reviews_ the editor, M.T.C.
Wing, presents a view of "Wives and Work" which is anything but an
_occult_ view of the subject. He evidently still clings to the old
notion that man was made for the family, and not the family for man. He
inveighs against George D. Herron and Elbert Hubbard _et al_ because
they permitted themselves to be separated from their wives. Apparently
he thinks the chief end of man is to tote some woman around on a chip,
and the fact that in his callow youth man picked out (or was picked out
by) the wrong woman, cuts no figure in the matter. Man must keep on
toting her even if he has to give up his life work by which he has been
enabled to supply the chip, not to mention the other things the
woman demands.
All of which is the very superficial view of the world at large, and
has no place among new thought, "occult" teachings. It is entirely too
obvious--to the old-fashioned sentimentalist, who is blind to the real
facts in cases of separation.
The sentimentalist gets just two views of the family, and draws his
hasty conclusions therefrom. He sees first a happy family, a charming,
clinging little simpleton of a wife, with half a dozen or so infants
clinging to her skirts and bosom, and her round eyes lifted in adorable
helplessness to the face of that great, strong lord and master, her
husband. In his second view of the family he beholds this strong man
turn his back upon this adoring family and walk deliberately forth to
self-gratification, leaving them to perish from hunger and grief. Fired
with these pretty and entirely fanciful pictures the superficial
observer burns with indignation and calls down anathema upon the head of
the deserter.
The fact is that _no_ man ever deserts a family under such conditions.
There is always a long period of disintegration before any family goes
to pieces--a period of which _both_ man and wife are well aware. When a
separation comes it is _really_ a relief to _both_ parties. The only
real pain in such cases comes from the spirit of _revenge_, or a desire
on the part of one or the other to pose as injured innocence, that she
or he may rake in the sympathy and fire the indignation of just such
uninformed friends as M.T.C. Wing.
I have known a lot of people who separated--known them intimately and
observed them well. In not one of these cases did the deserted party
claim to _love_ the deserter. In all there was a real _relief_ when it
was all over. In every case the one thing which had held them together
so long was _fear of disgrace_. "Oh, _what_ will people think of
me?"--is the first cry of everybody--especially women. It was _that_
which made the deserted one unhappy and resentful. It is that which
makes many women pose as injured innocents and rate the deserter as a
villain. And all the time _in secret_ they are glad, _glad_ that they
are relieved of the burden of living with an uncongenial husband
or wife.
Of course there are other reasons why women hate to be left by their
husbands. One is that their support is apt to go with the deserter.
Public opinion keeps many a family in the same house years after it
really _knows_ it is separated widely as the poles.
The dread of having to take care of herself keeps many a woman hanging
like grim death to a man she knows she does not love, and who
despises her.
The fear of public opinion and the love, not of money, but of _ease_,
holds together under one roof tens of thousands of families who have
been _occultly_ and really separated for years.
A man is held by the same sentimental notion that M.T.C. Wing has--that
he must "protect" the woman. So he stays in hell to do it. He _has_ to
stay in hell _until she gets out_.
In almost every one of these separation cases it is the woman and _not_
the man, who gives the signal. In George D. Herron's case the wife
offered to take a certain sum of money and release him from supporting
her. He met her conditions--and bore all the odium like a man. To her
credit be it said she did not pose as an injured woman. I know nothing
about Elbert Hubbard's case, but I venture to say that if he and his
wife are separated that _she_ was the one who did the leaving act.
We hear a lot about the "Biblical reason" for divorce; but I say unto
you that infidelity is no reason at all for divorce. The one just cause
for separation is _incompatibility of temper_.
A man is an Individual; a woman is another Individual; and neither can
make himself or herself over to please the other.
When two people from lack of similar ideals and aims cannot _pull
together_ the quicker they pull apart the better it will be for
them--and the children, too.
I know well a couple who lived together long enough to have grown
children. For nearly a score of years they pulled like a pair of balky
horses--what time they were not doing the monkey and parrot act. The
husband stayed out nights and tippled. The wife sat at home and felt
virtuous. Finally the woman worked up spunk enough to do what she had
been dying to do for years. She packed up and left. Now she is happily
married to a man she can pull _with_, And he is married to another woman
who pulls with him. She has quit feeling virtuous and he has quit
tippling. They are both prospering financially. The children have _two_
pleasant homes, and more educational and other advantages than they ever
dared hope for. Everyone of the family is _glad_ of that separation.
The family is an institution of man's own making. It is a good and
glorious thing so long as it serves to increase the happiness and health
of its members. But whenever the family institution has to be maintained
at the expense of the life, liberty or happiness of its members it is
time to lay that particular institution on the shelf.
What God does not hold together by LOVE let not man try to paste
together by law.
One great cause of the increase of divorces is the financial
emancipation of woman. Women can now get out and take care of
themselves, where a few years ago they had to grin and bear it; or bear
it without grinning.
If the new thought means anything, Brother Wing, it means that every
individual man or woman, has the RIGHT to life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness wherever and with whom he chooses to seek it, so long as he
or she does not attempt to abridge the same rights for others. It means
that a woman is as much an Individual as a man, and must stand or fall,
hold her husband or lose him, _on her own merits_. The new thought deals
with Individuals regardless of sex.
Marriage is a partnership, subject in the eyes of Justice to the same
rules which govern other partnerships. Let us be just to the deserter,
be he man or woman, before we are sentimentally generous to
the deserted.
And don't let us be _too_ sure that we know all the facts in these
separation cases. It is human nature to fix up outward appearances for
the benefit of the passer-by.
Seek rather to _understand_. Condemn not.
Has any one told you it is lucky to be married?
I hasten to inform you it is just as lucky to be divorced, and I know
it.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE OLD, OLD STORY.
This is the springtime, when fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love and
everybody wants to go a-soul-mating. Consequently my mail is leavened
with letters from those who are unhappily married but who are sure they
have got their eye on the One who from the foundation of the ion was
intended for them. They all want to leave the old mis-mate and go to the
new found soul mate, and they all want my advice and encouragement--to
do it! Some of these writers have already left their husbands (?) and
want to know whether or not they should go back, or go on. To one such I
wrote the following letter, which I publish in the hope that it will
help others to find and follow _themselves_. Here is the letter:
One thing at a time! Get off with the old love before you go fretting
about a new one! Don't you think you are a silly girl to ask _anybody's_
advice as to whether or not you are to go back to your so-called
husband? If _I_ know what _you_ ought to do I don't see what _you_ are
worth to yourself or the universe. The truth is that YOU are the only
person in creation who can make that decision. If you don't yet _know_
that you have a right to make your own life as you see fit; if you don't
yet _know_ whether or not you could go back to him; then _be still_
until you _do_ know.
You know things today that you did not know yesterday, and tomorrow you
will know things you "can't decide about" today. So attend strictly to
business and keep still, and stiller yet, until you KNOW what is best
to do.
Then DO it.
So much for the old love. As to the new one, not even _you_ can know
for certain whether that other man would pan out the soul mate you now
imagine him. But the Law of Love, or Attraction, will _prove_ whether or
not he is what you think. _Your Own_ will come to you, and all creation
can't hinder it--IF you keep that man was NOT what I longed for, a real
comrade; sweet and cool, and free in your own mind, and make the best of
THIS day as it comes along.
Ages ago I had a similar experience to yours. I found the only and
original one intended for me. But I was tied to another man--NOT by a
ceremony, for that ties nobody, but by my own conscience, which
compelled me to "stand by" the man I thought "needed" me. So I stood,
though I thought my heart was broken. In a few years I found that my
soul mate was no mate at all!--I wouldn't have had him as a gracious
gift! I felt like Ben Franklin who, as a barefooted boy, resolved that
when he grew up and had pennies he would buy a stick of red striped
peppermint candy; but when he grew up and had the pennies he didn't want
the candy.
I have learned to smile at that experience as the bitterest and sweetest
of my past life, and the source of volumes of wisdom. The _Law of
Attraction knew_ and the Law kept him from me. I afterward found the
real comrade, and _more_ than the joy I thought I had forever missed!
"We are pretty silly children, dearie, without the child's best quality,
TRUST."
Just you _let go_ of everything and everybody and apply yourself to
doing THIS hour, with _love_, what your _hands_ find to do; and trust
the Law to bring you in due time ALL the good things you ever desired.
ACCEPT what comes as _from_ the Law; meet it kindly and do your best.
The time came when I left my husband and secured a divorce. This may be
your time to leave, or it may not. But NO one can know but yourself, and
you will know as soon as you really _want_ to know what is RIGHT, and
get quiet enough to find the decision _about which you have no doubt_.
"BLESSED is he that _doubteth_ not in that thing which he alloweth." "He
that doubteth is _damned already_." When you are _sure_, then go ahead;
and the whole universe, seen and unseen, will work together for you
and with you.
What is it that ties you to one man and not to another? Not the words of
a priest or a justice of the peace. It is _your thought_ about the
matter, and _his_ thought about the matter, which ties you. You may not
have thought you were tied until the preacher told you; but not his
words but _your acceptance_ does the real tying.
If you are ever freed from a husband you must _think_ yourself
free--just as you must think yourself free from any other bondage. I
thought myself free several years before I applied for a legal
separation; so that when I did apply it was to me merely a technicality.
Divorce or no divorce you are _tied_ to a man until you think yourself
untied.
Be still and find your mental freedom. Then you will know what to do.
* * * * *
A year after I wrote the above letter to a young woman who wanted to
leave her husband and go to her "soul mate," I received from her another
letter in which she thanked me from her heart for my letter, which, she
said, had saved her from a terrible mistake. She had let time try the
new love; who was found sadly wanting. More than that she had come to
love and respect her husband as never before. Many others, both men and
women, have written me to the same effect.
Can you learn from the experiences of others--learn _caution_ at least?
I hope so. Be _sure_ you are right before you resort to separation.
In the meantime make it the aspiration and business of your life to know
_that_ ALL _things are_ NOW _working for good to you and your mate, and
all you hold in common_.
Keep sweet, dearie, and _let_ them work--at least until you know exactly
_what_ to do, and _how_ to do it; and can feel _sure_ in your heart of
hearts that, _whatever the consequences_, you will never regret
your action.