Page:The Truth about Marriage.djvu/134

 need to witness a person's actions throughout the day and night to know if he is selfish and self-centered, thinking only of himself and his own comfort, to know if he is vain and conceited, to know if he is lazy and self-indulgent, to know if he has good manners, to know whether his manners are a garment worn only in public, to know if he is cleanly, to know if he is clean-minded, to know if he is honest and truthful and sincere; in fact, to know him in essential things.

What he is essentially will show itself continually in everything he says and does. He cannot help but express his inner life in some way, however much he may attempt to conceal what he is.

So I see no reason for marrying a person in order to know what kind of a person he is. It is a pretty big price to pay to enter into all the intimacies of marriage to find out another's character. Simply keep your eyes open, and do not be rushed into marriage under any pretext whatsoever.

Watch closely the person who wants to marry you and measure him up first by one standard of character and then another until you feel that you know him.

And do not be carried away by your enthusiasm over getting married. Better a life-time of single-blessedness than a day's marriage with a brute.