Page:The Truth about Marriage.djvu/155

 natures and development, and satisfied to be animal, so many marriages fail of true happiness.

Now the advocates of trial marriage and companionate marriage urge us to believe that we can find happiness by trying out new mates and thus in going from one honeymoon to another. In other words, to enter marriage with the idea of getting one out of many who will enable us to keep on with a perpetual honeymoon.

But we are not made spiritually to go through marriage after marriage. If we are only seeking honeymoon after honeymoon, but necessarily with a different persons, we are only selfishly trying to get animal pleasure.

Our spirit is that of getting, always getting. Inevitably it is selfish, self-seeking, and the selfish, self-seeking person cannot be happy in marriage or out of it. There is no happiness for the selfish soul anywhere in the universe. It is the spirit of exploitation. The man or the woman who exploits another for his or her own selfish gratification is never going to be satisfied.

True marriage happiness results from the spirit of giving, from love that desires to benefit the beloved. There is happiness only in the spirit of giving. Therefore, if the marriage is to stand the strain that follows the honeymoon it must have on both sides