Religion in the Home : Part 1

The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book: Twelve Steps to a Happy Marriage
by Various

(Page 11 of 16)

William Lyon Phelps

During my forty years of teaching college under-graduates, if the lesson for the day was pertinent or an occasion afforded the opportunity, I talked to the men in the classroom about their careers - not concerning vocational training; what I emphasized was the right mental attitude toward life itself, the perhaps inarticulate philosophy underlying all choices and all ambitions.

I have always been able to speak more intimately to a group of young people than to an individual. The individual must take the initiative. I believe we have no more right to probe into the secret places of the heart than we have to pick a man's pocket. Whenever a student came to me alone and on his own, then I was willing and glad to discuss anything with him. But I believe every man's personality is sacred: an unauthorized or unasked-for attempt to enter it is the worst sort of trespassing.

In the classroom anything may be discussed without embarrassment. No teacher ever had a more intimate classroom than mine. For my main interest in literature, which I taught professionally, is its relation to men and women. Browning said his poetry dealt exclusively with the human soul; and it so happens that four poems of Tennyson's which, intentionally or not, are placed together, deal with four terrific passions. The poems are "The First Quarrel," "Rizpah," "The Northern Cobbler," and "The Revenge." They deal respectively with sex, mother love, drink, and patriotism. All four have produced happiness, and all four have produced murder. Life is dangerous.

Students naturally wish to be successful in their chosen careers. I told them the greatest and most important career was marriage; that, unlike other careers, marriage was a career open to every one of them. For among the many and striking differences between male and female we may observe this: not every woman can be married, but every man can. There is always some woman who will marry him.

The highest happiness known on earth is in marriage. Every man who is happily married is a successful man even if he has failed in everything else. And every man whose marriage is a failure is not a successful man even if he has succeeded in everything else. The great Russian novelist Turgenev said he would give all his fame and all his genius if there were only one woman who cared whether he came home late to dinner. It would have been well if he had known this when he was young.

I told my students: "Young gentlemen, although very few of you are now engaged to be married and not one of you is married, your wives are alive; they are living now. You do not know their names or where they are; but isn't it exciting to think that you are every moment drawing nearer to each other? She is half an hour closer to you now than when you entered this classroom. Some in California are sound asleep, for it is before dawn; some are eating breakfast in New York City; some are eating lunch in Europe. But all your wives are as real as if they were already living with you. What do you intend to do about it?"

Those preparing for the law or medicine take special studies; those preparing for athletic contests take special training. If they did not, they would be idiotic. Those who are preparing for marriage should not leave success to chance. For, while happiness is sometimes dependent on luck, in the majority of instances it is not; happiness usually follows the proper conditions.

Thus boys and girls, young men and women, will do well if they train their bodies and their minds to be successful husbands and wives long before marriage. It is worth it; for they are in training for the highest prize obtainable on earth, and yet one open to and won by millions.

Not being a physician and being ignorant of physiology, I know little about the value of sex instruction. Yet however important sex instruction may be to those about to be married, there is one thing more important - character. Two people unselfish and considerate, tactful and warmhearted, and salted with humor, who are in love, have the most essential of all qualifications for a successful marriage - they have character. People about to be married need training in character much more than they need instruction in sex.

From childhood boys and girls find out how children come, but the secret of a good character, temperament, and disposition is not so readily found.

The reason why character is the most important requisite for success in marriage is not merely that it happens to be the chief cause of happiness, but that those who have character can turn an unsuccessful marriage into a successful one, instead of taking the easy way out, and acknowledging failure. No man or no woman is to blame for making a foolish marriage; it might happen to anyone. The test of character is not whether one has or has not made a foolish marriage; the test comes after the foolish marriage has been made. What a triumph then to turn that failure into a success, as the statesman turns a minority into a majority!

This article is addressed to young people, for those who marry late in life either do not need any suggestions or are already incurable. I am in favor of early marriages. I am delighted when either the boy's parents or those of the girl have money enough so that the young pair can be married at twenty-two, before they begin professional study or work. And when there is little money but either or both have a job, then by all means they should be married. When young people marry, they take difficulties of housekeeping and privations as a lark, even as young people do camping out. When I was a boy, camping out was absolute bliss; now it would be absolute horror. Furthermore, in youth neither of them has "set"; they can accommodate themselves to each other.

Garden City Publishing Co. reprint edition, 1949, by special arrangement with Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Copyright, 1938, by PRENTICE-HALL, INC.