Page:The Truth about Marriage.djvu/153



Here is another question that ought to interest many people: "Ought one not to expect that marriage shall begin with a flourish and end as a fiasco? Is it not the fact that the beginning of marriage is apt to be about all there is to it so far as happiness is concerned? Can one reasonably expect the honeymoon to continue very long? Is your high ideal of marriage anything more than a tame friendship after the honeymoon is past?"

This is my reply: Of course, people who enter upon marriage with delight look forward to a lifetime of joy. The first joys of marriage, however, begin to pall, oftentimes because those joys are too often largely animal. Then comes a waning interest. Then possibly comes mutual adjustment.

Too often each finds the other totally different from what he or she expected. Little by little, or sometimes suddenly, the conflicts develop, and