Yet this sacred and exacting relationship must not be hastily entered, for nothing more surely than marriage makes or mars character and happiness.  Too early marriage is apt to be impulsive and thoughtless.  It is true that many confirmed bachelors and maiden ladies lose through an excess of timidity the great experiences and joys which a little boldness, a little willingness to take a risk and put up with the imperfect would have brought them.  No man or woman is perfect; no one can expect to find a wholly ideal mate; it is foolish to be too exacting, and it is conceited, implying that one is flawless one’s self.  Nevertheless, the counsel of caution is more commonly needed.  Happily we have pretty generally got away from mariages de convenance, marriages for money, or title, or other extraneous advantages.  And we have recognized the right of the two who are primarily concerned to make their own choice without interference, other than friendly counsel and warning, from others.  But we still have many marriages from which the basic desiderata are in too great degree absent.

(1) There should be genuine sex attraction; not necessarily a violent passion, or love at first sight, but some measure of that instinctive organic attraction, that unpredictable and irrational emotional satisfaction in physical proximity, which differentiates sex love from the love of men or women for one another.  Not that “platonic” relations between husband and wife are not possible or permissible; but if a young couple are not linked by this sweetest of bonds, they not only miss much of the charm and mutual drawing- together of marriage, but they stand in gravest danger of an eventual arousing of the instinct by another-and that means either a bitter fight for loyalty or actual tragedy.  It is never to be forgotten that husband and wife have to spend a great part of their life in the same house, in the same room.  No degree of similarity of interests can take the place of that mere instinctive liking, that pervasive content at each other’s presence, that enjoyment in seeing each other about, and in the daily caresses and endearing words that rightly mated couples know.

(2) But this underlying physical attraction, however keen at first is not of guaranteed permanence; it must be buttressed by common tastes and sympathies.  To like the same people, to enjoy doing the same things, to judge problems from the same angle, to cleave to similar moral, aesthetic, religious canons is of great importance.  A certain amount of contrast in ideas and ideals is, indeed, piquant and stimulating; and where marriage is early there is likelihood of an adequate convergence in Weltanschauung.  But too radically different an outlook upon life may lead to continual friction, to loneliness, and mutual antagonism.  The two who are to be comrades in the great experiment of life must be able to help each other, strengthen each other’s weaknesses, and admire each other’s