on the other side o f the a l tar continued H nto the flushed and Polly- anna-clouded minds o f most new wives and brides-to-be is the half-formed assump
marriage com ing along?” But after reading each o f m y own articles as they were published month after month, I used to ask it myself. Still, our tests indicated that we would be compatible. Our religious back grounds were similar. Our motiva tions almost dovetailed. W e both loved children, animals, a simple life, good music, Early American
where I was, in a comfortable, easy climate, among friendly neighbors and in a new and desirable home. Some o f our conflicts were petty, rather amusing even to us. M y hus band likes home-made bread, home- canned food, baked beans cooked eight horn's, vegetables that do not come in frozen containers. I could go along with most of these ideas
tion that success in marriage among Christians is a foregone conclusion. The young woman longing for marriage and preoccupied with preparations for it has a tendency to forget the problems on the other side o f the altar, and is apt to fall into the subconscious notion that there are no problems there. W ith marriage, she knows, w ill come the new esteem of n e ig h b o r s and friends; she w ill feel suddenly rec ognized. She believes (sometimes smugly) that marriage w ill put her into her proper place o f woman hood, giving her security and ma turity which comes from being loved and loving with abandon. And much of this is true. But to assume that m a r r ia g e between Christians is the end o f all frustra tions, failures and foozles is as naive as to believe that upon ac cepting Christ into our lives, we have wiped out all the obstacles, heartaches and conflicts o f living. Often it is on ly the beginning of them, but God gives us an armour with wh ich to face the old and new problems. M y romance and marriage two years ago was described in detail in a national woman’s magazine with a circulation o f over 4 million. M ine had been almost a show-case marriage, since I was one o f several selected to write in diary form the entire story o f m y husband’s and m y romance. For our benefit and the benefit o f millions of readers we had taken personality tests after our engagement to determine our mutual likes and differences. And it was gratifying to know how closely bound together were those interests. But the real story, to me, was not the highly-played romance and courtship which ended in marriage, but the marriage itself— and espe cially during those four months the articles ran in serial form. A t the time our personal lives were held up for public scrutiny, no one asked, “ Just how is your
we had moments of disagreement . . .
. . . our motivations dovetailed
but it seemed at times he was try ing to push me back into another era— where wives churned butter, mashed vegetables through colan ders, and stood elbow deep in flour and yeast for hours on end. W e had occasional moments of disagreement upon how to train our puppy, m y method of starching m y husband’s shirts, how many pieces o f toast one should eat at one meal time, what color shirt or tie looked best, what kind o f house dress I should buy, how to grow grass on alkali soil, how many marigolds to plant and where to put the stepping stones, how to invest m y pre-mar riage savings, what color o f dutch curtains to hang in the den, how many hours o f sleep per day seemed logical (m y husband works the 5:00 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. shift on a newspaper and falls asleep at the drop o f a pin outside o f work-' ing hours— even with eight hours’ sleep behind h im ). Most o f these little differences were solved easily and promptly. Others, including a difference in the w ay we each ex pressed ourselves verbally, needed more time, prayer and patience. This would probably fall under a heading of marriage adjustment which every newly-married couple
furniture, open country, good books. And we wanted our marriage to be a monument honoring our God in some direct service for Him. W ith c o u n s e lo r , psychologist, marriage advisor all giving the Go signal to our marriage, and with a desire in our hearts to put God first in our home, it would appear that life should bubble placidly on ever after. But we discovered that marriage doesn’t necessarily u n it e every thought^ desire and interest of a husband and wife. The man is still a separate entity; so is the woman. Ideas formed during a quarter of a century apart from each other do not mesh in the months o f engage ment and 30-minute ceremony. W e went through all the difficul ties other young married couples usually do. M oney handling seemed to fall high on the list o f conflicts. And every time we discussed where we eventually wanted to live, we wound up on opposite sides o f the county. I conceded this point, since I reluctantly admitted to myself that it should be up to the husband to select the location in which to earn his living, but it didn’t stop m y inner longing to remain right
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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