The Truth about Marriage/Chapter24

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2048269The Truth about Marriage — Chapter XXIVWalter Brown Murray

CHAPTER XXIV

PERFECTION IN ONE'S MATE

Now here is another question that young people ought to ask themselves, "How much perfection should you look for in your mate?"

Well, marriage is marriage. It is a day and night affair, one that continues week in and week out, year in and year out, and sometimes as long as one lives, and I believe that our married partner ought to be very nearly perfect in every way to stand the test.

Of course, no one is perfect, and yet the nearer your sweetheart or lover appears to you as perfect the better it is for your happiness. Love glosses over defects. The love in your heart ought to be so strong that your wife ought to appear to you to be just about right, day in and day out, and your husband ought to have so many virtues that you can afford to overlook his faults.

Now one may be too critical and always looking out for the defects. That is not the right spirit. One must be just and kindly in one's attitude.

The very best time to demand relative perfection is before you are married, when there is time to change your mind about getting married.

It is indispensable for married happiness that one shall choose wisely, use common sense, good judgment in making one's choice, know what one likes and does not like, and what the married partner must have as a basis for pleasing you.

Then one must not say, as some young folks nowadays say, "Oh, I guess it doesn't much matter if he is not perfect. We can get divorced if we do not find ourselves congenial." It is too big a price to pay, to enter into the intimacies of married life in order to find out if the other party is congenial. Find out beforehand.

You will never find absolute perfection, but you can find qualities that you know will suit and will stand the test.

Don't throw yourself away into the arms of one who is unworthy and who will not appreciate you nor understand you. Get as near perfection as you can, and then, if you really love deeply, you will see perfection where others see imperfection. It takes genuine love to see the good points in another.