_Concerning Creeds and Marriage_
Before you left us, I realized that you and my pretty secretary were
finding matters of mutual interest.
Therefore, I am not surprised that you are thinking seriously of her as
a future companion.
Rosalie is a charming, intelligent, warm-hearted, excellent girl, and
there is no reason why she would not make you a good wife, save the one
you mention--the difference in your creeds.
You are a Roman Catholic, Rosalie is a devout Protestant.
Were the cases reversed, and were you the Protestant and Rosalie the
Catholic, I should say the chances of happiness were greater than as
conditions now stand.
As a rule, the most religious man is more liberal than the religious
woman. And when marriage between a Roman Catholic and a Protestant is
the question, there is need of greater liberality on the part of the
Protestant than on that of the Catholic.
Why? Because with the Protestant there is no consideration to be thought
of outside of his or her own convictions and feelings.
With the Catholic, the power of the Church and the law regarding the
rearing of the children in its faith walks beside the contracting party,
sits at the table, and sleeps on the marital couch.
There is no happiness for the husband or wife who has entered into such
a marriage, after the arrival of children, unless the laws of the Church
are obeyed.
When the wife is a Catholic, the fact that she is a good woman and true
wife satisfies the Protestant husband, as a rule, and he makes no
objection to her carrying out the contract with her Church regarding the
education of the children.
If they are as moral and good as their mother, he does not care what
faith occupies their hearts or in what way they worship God.
But to the mother this is a matter of vital importance.
Woman is by nature more devout than man.
Woman is by nature more tyrannical than man.
Take those two characteristics, and add to them the tendency of many
women to bigotry and intolerance, and it makes the matter of creeds
vital in marriage.
Rosalie is broader-minded than many women, yet she is devoted to the
Congregational Church, and rarely misses attendance.
It will be an easy matter for her to accept your faith for yourself and
to allow you to attend your own church, and she is, I am sure, broad
enough to go with you occasionally, if you request it.
But when she becomes a mother, and the children's minds are unfolding, I
doubt her willingness to have them brought up in any faith save her own.
To an unwedded girl in love, a child is a very indistinct creature.
To a mother, it is a very real being.
I have seen men as deeply in love as you are, with women as
liberal-minded as Rosalie, become very unhappy after marriage through
the opposite ideas of the wife regarding the education of children.
You must remember how much more closely a mother's life is entwined
about her children, and how much more of their association usually falls
to her than to the father.
This is especially true of daughters, and is true of sons up to a
certain age.
You can understand, I am sure, how much more companionship a mother
would find in children who accepted her faith and attended her church
than in those whose spiritual paths led in another direction.
I know Rosalie realizes that a good life, not a certain creed, leads to
the goal she seeks, after this phase of existence closes, and she does
not ask you to change your faith. But while she would also believe her
children were on the road to that goal, she would want them to walk
through her path and by her side.
It will be hard to relinquish the woman you love, to-day, for the
children who might not come to-morrow.
Yet I can give you the counsel you asked on this matter only from my
personal observation of similar unions.
I should advise you to try an absence of some duration, and to forget
Rosalie if you can, since you have not yet declared yourself.
Better a little temporary sorrow than a life of discord.
As you grow older your religion will, in all probability, gain a
stronger ascendency over your nature, and the church to which you belong
is very tenacious in its hold upon its members.
Rosalie is not of a yielding nature, and as I said before, she is more
devoted to her church than most young women of the day.
The physical phases of your love blind you now. But these phases are
only a part of the tie which must bind husband and wife to make love
enduring through all of life's vicissitudes.
There must be mental companionship, and to be a complete union there
must be sympathy in spiritual ideas.
The very young do not realize this fact, but it is forced upon the
mature.
Marital love is like a tree. It first roots in the soil of earth, and
then lifts its branches to the heavens. Unless it does so lift its
branches it is stunted and deformed, and is not a tree. Unless it roots
in earth it is not a tree, but an air-plant or a cobweb.
You want to be sure the tree you are thinking to make a shelter for your
whole life, will have far-reaching and uplifting branches, and will not
be merely an earth-bound twig.
Since your church permits no second marriage save by the door of death,
do not make a mistake in your first.
Take a year, at least, of absence and separation, and think the matter
over.