Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-02-24
IS MARRIAGE A FAILURE:

Is marriage success? The ques- ton is often asked and we retort- What is marriage for anyway? Is it just for happiness for man and wife. or is it for a higher purpose: Is it not a part of the divine law of Almighty God but who. in his great mercy, has blessed the union of the sexes with power for enjoying the relationship oe the home life: The one primarily a law for the propagation of the human family, the other an incident of the condition.
 That men and women are, able to live together in harmony and become so inseparable In thought and scnti ment as 10 feel that life without the other is not to be tolerated is one of the grandest things peculiar to human ity and proves on the face of 1t that the institution of marriage is one or the most blessed institutions of thr earth. That there are individual fait ureS does not prove the contrary. but shows a mistake in the uniOn--that the two were not suited for each other. X condition nearly always due to in.
 
 pr bOth They fail to see the situation in its broadest light. They see it only as it relates to themselves personally. We undervalue the effect of a union | of man and woman as an historical event in the community, but we have only to look back few generations to | realize the importance of certain unions from which have sprung other genera tions. Some of these have given a crown of glory to the nation; some arc l honOrcd locally: in others we trace d stanch and conscientious line of anccs- | try that has put a vigorous instinct of life in other lives which has been felt | by thousands of their contemporaries: on the other hand we know too well of the degenerate generations due direct | ly to unfortunate unions where talnt. ei blood has passed on down from one | line to another. leaving trail of crime and dishonor behind it as of a fire in the dried grass of the open field. We can truly say such a marriage is fail ure.
 1 The VOW for life" is too often for. gotten when something intervencs with so, called rights. and the little seed of ' Giscontent once sprouted grows as the mustard seed of the parable. so large that the fowls of selfisbness come and l lodge in it and shut out the glad sun. shine of love till the individual feels that life with this other can no longer be borne.
 In our pampered age we lose sight | t.. ,I, r. ,,t | We do not realize that the end of life is not happiness here. but that We have duty to the future not only the spir' itual life hut the physical existence ot races yet unborn. Too many of us turr our thoughts inside rather than out side. Personal pleasure is the eI:.' sought rather than personal infuenc. upon tho world beginning at the fam iIy circle and widening indefinitely. We are an independent nation. bui We can never be independent individ assuming the other No one can live for self alone: he may for time. bu not for all time We are inter-,lepen dent rather. We are not bare pole. stuck in the earth each doing it's par regardless of another. hut rather tree. whose branches interlock and supper each other when the storms of If, sweep over the human forests.
 | Whether couple is more or less hap py is not sO much the question a whether the future ages shall bea good fruit of the union ar bad. or tn, line end with the beginning. We pTid, ourselves on being broad-minded bu We are fatally near-sighted in this mat t-r.-k- N. & in Bridgeport Telegram