CHAPTER IX. Love and Marriage. This question announced, every one will want to know what hope there is for the solution of the marriage and divorce question. We wish we could give them a formula for happy mating, and turn the world's greatest battle ground into a veritable fairy-land, where love and happiness reigned, and the wail of the martyr was never heard! We fear however that we cannot do this. Marriage troubles will be like seed time and harvest, they will endure until time shall be no more, for anything we can see. Those who have bad planets in 1st. and 7th. Signs must expect trouble connected with these Signs in some form. We will tell you however what you can do when you find that marriage is not prospering in your hands. Uranus, Saturn and Mars, the planets which we consider detrimental in the marriage relation, are quite otherwise in the pursuance of intellectual attainments. Uranus gives originality, Saturn imparts depth, and Mars argumentative power, all of which become essential when applied to intellectual pursuits. This view of the question explains the fact that so many literary men and women of note, have had difficulties in the marriage relation. Don't be discouraged; there is a place for every one in the world, where he can be successful if he looks for it. Some one will say, you are discouraging marriage, and the race will die out; No danger! Better reduce the numbers until we have a better place for little folks to live in. We recollect a small boy who said to his mother. "The only thing I have against you Mama is because you borned me." If all the children feel that way better leave them where they are. This is no joke; few persons get through the world without wishing many times that they had never been born. Someone will want to know which is the best way to marry; they will want to know whether cupid or eugenics will make the best match. In our opinion, eugenics never made and never will make a match. We think there is always more or less love in every marriage; and some of the most disastrous marriages seem to have a good share of love in them. We recollect a case where a man and woman were divorced; the man had treated his wife very cruelly, striking her on the head, and endangering her life by frequent acts of violence; he also used very abusive language. This would not seem so strange in a man who became intoxicated, but he did not drink. Following the separation, he wrote a long letter to her almost every evening, pleading with her to come back to him, but she replied that she never could place confidence in him again. One day, as we met him on the street, he spoke of his former wife and asked if we thought she would ever come back to him; we replied, that it appeared to be absolutely certain they never could live together, and he should go and forget it. He answered, "I never can forget her," and his eyes filled with tears, as he turned away. We have not secured his horoscope, but probably Venus and Mars were placed in the 1st. Sign. Love one minute, and war the next. These persons would have the same luck in marrying another party, unless the planets in the marriage sign had changed, or the trouble took some other form. Some have been very happily married with Mars in the 1st. Sign but it has ended in sudden death. We should never advise any one with regard to marrying; they will get what their Sign draws, but if they find things going badly we would advise them to give it up. Never mind what the world thinks of it. The world hasn't got the place to fill and you have. So many struggle on, hoping to right the wrong, or to cover up what may appear as a disgrace, until they have more than wasted many years of a valuable life. It may be that teachers and clergymen are in a measure exempt from these troubles. Religion and education coming under the 7th. Sign may draw from marriage troubles. One would think that ministers were exempt considering the harsh judgment they give on the divorce question, and the peculiar views expressed by them. One of our leading ministers gave a series of sermons on divorce recently, and he stated that in his opinion married persons were divorced when they ceased to love each other; and if they continued to live together they were committing sin; he also stated that he would not allow them to remarry. Such a law as that would produce more disbanded homes than anything else; and stray children. There should be no more disgrace attached to a divorce than is attached to any broken up partnership. So far as re-marage goes, divorced person is either married or he is not married; there can be no half way ground; if he is married he should be able to produce his partner; if he is not married then he should be free to marry. Concerning the marriage vow: when it is broken by one party it becomes null and void, the same as any other contract. We do not approve of the wording of the marriage ceremony. Someone objects to the word obey in the ceremony, but a lady truthfully remarks that she might be able to obey a man when she could not love and honor him; love and honor cannot be manufactured to order. You may treat a person with kindness and a certain degree of respect, but love and honor that come from the heart must be won and held by merit in the other party to the contract. The marriage ceremony may be beautiful and sentimental, but it is not sane. Many a man goes to the altar and repeats the words, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow," and then his wife has to beg every nickel she gets for carfare. Some such sentiment as the following would in our estimation be more rational; many appropriate forms might be written: I. Believing that, although we are not wholly responsible for thoughts and feelings, we are responsible for words and actions, we pledge each other that we will refrain from abuse as being barbarous and wholly unnecessary. Realizing that cause and effect act and react upon each other we believe that guarding words and acts will go a long way toward controlling thought and feeling. II. We each pledge ourselves to pass no remarks in the absence of the other that might not be made with perfect courtesy in his or her presence. III. We realize that it is the small leak in the dyke that must be guarded if we are to avert the calamity of a great flood. We therefore pledge ourselves to act in a straightforward, truthful manner toward each other, concealing nothing that might in the future lead to disagreement, and plucking the weeds as fast as they appear in the garden of love. IV. If, for reasons known or unknown, one party to the contract fails, and continues to fail to respond to the affection of the other, after all reasonable measures have been resorted to, then each shall go their own way, realizing that the great talisman without which no true union can exist has fled. A flickering light, or a brilliant flame: We are not presenting the wording of these clauses as a work of art, but we believe that this is about as far as a marriage contract can be made binding. We would have a special contract made for each couple, covering business and other complications that might exist. As the marriage ceremony now stands, there are no specific duties mentioned, and the vows are of such a character that they might as well not exist. If the clause, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow”, was changed to something more rational, a might be made to regard it as a serious vow. man Most couples who have been divorced have lived together much longer than they should have done. As soon as the crime of abuse seems inevitable, the separation should take place. If one party has a fixed determination to secure divorce, it is quite evident that something is seriously wrong; if both parties are so inclined the fact is doubly evident. In our estimation it is quite unnecessary for the court to inquire into all the details of the trouble; the result is the same in the end, and holding a couple together is only placing a premium on sin, and compelling a condition of things that is daily leading to greater wrong doing. If couples were divorced as we suggest, we do not believe there would be a single divorcee added to the list. Once the parties have reached the point of applying for a decree, it comes to that in the end, and often there are more children to be provided for, and lives ruined in a hopeless entanglement. Misunderstandings may occur, but there is ample opportunity |