Happy Marriages Through Compromise

1907

Value of the Spirit of Compromise In Wedded Life

If marriage meant the wedding of a saint and an angel there would be no problems to solve, no perfections to attain, no progress to make. This may be why there are no marriages in heaven.

On earth it is different. Husband and wife are strongly human. No matter how lovingly united or how sweet their accord, they never have the same temperaments, tendencies or tastes.

Their needs are different, their manner of looking at things is not identical and in varying ways their individualities assert themselves. At any critical moment if both express at the same time a desire to defer to the other's taste the result is foreordained — happiness. This makes matrimony not merely union, but unison and unity.

The spirit of compromise does not mean a continuous performance in the way of self surrender and self sacrifice; it does not mean ceasing to be a voice and becoming an echo; it does not imply or justify the loss of individuality. It means simply the instinctive recognition of the best way out of a difficulty, the quickest tacking to avoid a collision, the kindly view of tolerance in the presence of weakness and errors of another, the courage to meet an explanation half way, the generosity to be first to apologize for a discord, the largeness of mind that does not fear a sacrifice of dignity in surrendering in the interests of the highest harmony of the two rather than the personal vanity. — Delineator.