That, indeed, is a happy marriage where M gives and wants just what N wants and gives:  where M and N just want each other.  For

Give and take is the rule of a community of two, as it is of a community of ten thousand;

The ideal (and probably impossible) industrial community is that in which demand and supply are in exact equipoise.  The same holds good in matrimony.

In wedlock, a virtuous, has probably less force than a vicious, example.  That is to say,

A frivolous spouse is more apt to drag the couple down than is a serious spouse apt to lead the couple up.  And

Many a mate there is (both masculine and feminine) feels like a pack-mule treading a precipitous pass.

* * *

Of every Audrey her Touchstone should be able proudly to say, “A poor. . . .  Thing, Sir, but mine own”.  In other words,

The homely violet deserves as tender cherishing as the rare exotic.

* * *

What portion of himself or herself any one complicated physical and psychological human being really and truly ‘conveys’ to another by means of the simple contract known as the “plighted troth” or that of a larger deed called the called the “solemnization of matrimony”, is a riddle difficult of solution; and as to how much one may claim on the strength of one or other of these indentures, that is a more difficult problem still.

In no amatorial contract, probably, is it possible to include or to enumerate all the hereditaments, messuages, or appurtenances, involved.  Certainly

How great so ever the community of interest, M and N remain for ever M and N.

Is there not always something in the “eternal feminine” which cannot quite coalesce with the ephemeral masculine?  Probably,

Trust your wife with your purse, and seven times out of ten it will grow heavy.

* * *

Many a woman, by man, is accepted at her face value.

Many a man, by woman, is taken on trust.  It is difficult to tell whether

More bad debts are contracted by giving credit than by taking at face value.  For

The promissory note of marriage is undated and unendorsed.  But

Children act as collateral security.

* * *

How often a girl, even an affianced girl, accustomed to a multiplicity of admirers, forgets the man of her ultimate choice she must then and there set above all other claimants!

If the man the woman chooses for husband does not stand in her estimation absolutely first and all other claimants nowhere there is bound sooner or later to be trouble.  For

No man will play second fiddle to any body or any thing; and

The realm amatory is a monarchial, not a republican, one.  In all realms, there must be a ruler, whether elected or hereditary.

Always a divided sway results in schism, whether in the family or in the state.  And although