Marriage is a serious business and usually we concede that point in the beginning.  However, this is not aimed as a blow at life’s greatest romance ... it is merely the recognition of an elemental fact....  Marriage must have its practical side.  To become successful in the highest degree man and wife must establish a comradeship.  It is not the part of wisdom that either should rule the other, but rather that each should have the interest of the other at heart and should strive to be helpful one unto the other.  Two men can go through life the best of friends, each holding the respect and confidence of the other.  So can two women. Then, why not a man and wife? Needless to say they can, and do.  Such partnerships are sure of success.  It is only through lack of comradeship that love flies out of the window—­and lights on a sea-going aeroplane.

The marriage state is a long contract—­it should not be stumbled into by man or woman.  Nor should we become cowardly to the point of backing out of it altogether.  Love is blind only to the blind.  Either party to the tie that binds has a chance to know in advance whether the venture is safe and sane.  All a man has to consider after he knows his own heart is that the woman of his choice is sensible, considerate and healthy.  Other things being equal he can take the leap without hesitancy.  We shouldn’t borrow trouble.

[Illustration:  Demonstrating the Monk and the Hand-Organ to a Body of Psychologists]

Of course there are those who should never marry.  They do, however, and when they do they loan themselves to the mockery of the marriage state.  There is no time to dwell on this thought for it is just something that goes on happening anyway and has no bearing upon the advisability of “wedlock in time” between people of horse sense.

Given a good wife, after his own heart, no manly man has a righteous kick coming against the fates.  Under such circumstances if things go wrong he will find the fault within himself.  Of course we should, to the fullest possible extent, be prepared for marriage before assuming its responsibilities.  We should at least have a ticket before embarking—­and it is the real man’s duty to provide the ticket.  Since it is to be a long voyage a “round trip” isn’t necessary.  In other words, a man needn’t be rich when he marries—­but he should not be broke, either.  Lack of funds a few days after the honeymoon is too hard a test for matrimony to bear nobly.  It is too much like inviting a catastrophe through lack of good, hard sense to begin with.  It shows poor generalship at the very start—­and there is the liability of causing great distress and hardship to a tender-hearted little woman.  It would be a sad blow to her to find that the man of her choice was, after all, just an ordinary fellow—­a man without foresight.