How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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300 (canvas 320)
The image contains the following text:
Germany have an excellent device for testing the mutual
cooperation of two people who desire to marry. The
prospective bride and groom are escorted by their friends
to a large fallen tree in the forest, given a huge double-
handled saw, and told to saw through the tree trunk.
Differences in strength and size must be nicely adjusted
in this communal activity, and the friends of the betrothed
pair prophesy their happiness according to the speed,
despatch, and ease with which the lovers accomplish their
task. There is no such simple device for city dwellers,
unless it be the packing of a trunk or the unravelling of a
tangled and knotted cord. We can judge of the success
of any marriage solely by the examination of the past
performances of the contracting individuals, with respect
to their cooperativeness and social responsibility.
But, when we examine the broken marriages and the
unhappy loves, we learn very definitely that most of the
avoidable unhappiness in marriage is due to three great
causes : i, ignorance of the physiology and art of love ;
2, competition for prestige between the sexes ; and
3, infantile romanticism in the approach to the problem
of choosing and living with a mate. One of these factors
is almost certain to be present in any unsuccessful
marriage, and frequently more than one is an active
determinant of the marital disaster. We shall do well
to examine in greater detail these three great groups of
vicious determinants of sexual maladjustment.
Ignorance as a Cause of Marital Disaster
Let us consider ignorance of the physiology and the art
of love first, because it is the least excusable of the three.
Sexual ignorance, bred of the Puritan tradition under
which we still labour, is one of the chief factors in the
production of unhappy marriages. This patriarchal
tradition is very insidious, because it poisons official as
well as unofficial sources of information, and effects its
nefarious influences very early in our lives. Our whole
system of education is permeated with the underlying