IDEAL MARRIAGE: FUNDAMENTAL EQUALITY

By fundamental equality is meant not deadening uniformity, but agreement in those traits of character which ordinarily form the basis of friendship. In other words, in order for a marriage to be happy, a pair must not be merely lovers but also friends, in the deepest sense. There is a popular saying that opposites attract one another. In the first place, this is generally not true. In the second place, if it should happen to be true in a particular case, the person who feels such an attraction is foolish to heed it. While one cannot deny that a certain amount of diversity is stimulating and pleasant, yet the fact remains that most friendships, especially durable ones, are based on a community of interests, tastes and ideals. The same is true of successful marriages.
One cannot despise the taste, deplore the ideals or be bored by the interests of a wife or a husband without finding that this lack of communion is carried over into the romantic relationship also. Before marriage the overwhelming urge toward unity, which is the sublimation of the inhibited sex impulse, makes all differences sink into insignificance. But after marriage, when sexual inhibitions and the consequent illusion of unity are removed, the differences assert themselves and eventually may destroy all the love which temporarily submerged them. As Dr. Joseph Collins says, a young woman who likes poetry and music should beware of a young man to whom these have never appealed, but who, under the spell of love, says that he knows he would enjoy them with her. After they are married, he will read the sport page, as before, not poetry, and when she wants to go to a concert, he will prefer to stay home and play poker. And this divergence in taste may in time alienate them from one another—literally make them strangers to one another, though living under the same roof.
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