The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-07-12
CONCERNING MARRIAGE.

The question us marriage a failure Pr
having returned from going to and fro in
the land and from walking up and down
1T without finding q satisfactory answer,
another and rather more of ''pigs in
clover" question has been started on the
rounds. 1t is, "How to marry nationally
and how not to tire of each other when
married" A spinster by the name of
Laura Cameron tells the Westminster Re-
UietC that marriage will turn out all right
if the contracting parties have their love
"begin at the head and end at the heart, -
but as she does not designate the route it
should travel from head to heart, whether
via the spinal column, down through the
bronchial tubes or via the more circuitous
route of the solar plexus, she. deepens
rather than clears the mystery. But being
spinster Miss Cameron's conclusions
would necessarily be theoretical and spec
ulative and therefore she cannot be con-
sidered an authority, although her basic
principle, that IS, from the head to the
heart is imbedded in great coniugal
truth, only that she does not put it exactly
right.
If one lays aside the legal and COM
meroial aspects OF marriage and tackles
the problem as branch OF the philosophy
of life he will discover that the frat error
and which leads TO all other errors, lies in
the silly, arbitrary and contradictory COM
mand that each must take the other for
better or for worse. In fact, no man can
take woman for better or for worse, nor
can woman take man for better or for
worse. Religion of some sort, sincerity
and Intimacy are the first essentials, but
in all things the man must take himself
Tor better or worse, as must the woman
herself for better or worse; and, it may be
added, each will grow better or grow worse
as his or her thoughts, aspirations and
conduct OF life are good or evil. Yet each
one is IN very great degree responsible
for the ethical evolution as well as the in
volution OF the other. In measure each
one is the custodian of the other ones in
clination ana opportunity to strive for
higher standards of existence. The ideal
of each should be complete oneness, which
is cooperation and sympathetic help in
all the ways OF individual and mutual adj
vancement.
Married life is q bridge, so to speak,
which spans the river OF ones natural
life; but however imposing the structure
may be or however ornamental in archi-
tectural design its greatest strength is at
its weakest point. the weakest point also
represents the degree Of oneness that has
been secured, and which is not secured in
its fullness except when the law of natural
selection is understood and obeyed. When
failure in the avenues of commerce casts
shadow over the bridge, or when success
blossoms into forgetfulness of the ties
which bind humanity into one family,
domestic events will sooner or later strip
the bridge of Its ornamentation and i'm
posing stateliness and show that 1t never
was more than false work.
John Ruskin once said that severv
noble life leaves the fiber of it inter
woven forever in the work of the
world" 1t is largely true, no doubt.
that the noblest lives are found where
oneness in wedlock is the most COM
plete, and to the careful student of the
book of nature and the book of life-he
who reads them meditatively and thought