The minister who performs the wedding ceremony can give advice and guidance, but love, which is to ensure unity, must be cultivated by the spouses. Love has not only inspired music, art, and literature - it has also been the source of vitality and contentment in the married life of many.

The marriage relationship will be a success if husband and wife take the attitude of learners, if they find out gradually how to live together at their best, if they experience together the anticipated joys and responsibilities of home life.

A successful marriage has a healthy influence on one’s personality. In an atmosphere of love the mates see each other at their best, each appreciating the good things revealed by the other. In the strength of such a relationship, husband and wife find their highest happiness together. Success in marriage is a real success in life.

Working on sound principles, many have found that the greatest scientific discoveries in the world are less important to them than their discovery of ways to answer the questions that arise in their new relationship and to make their love bear fruit in domestic harmony.

In a venture such as marriage - which requires delicate adjustments - mutual understanding is necessary for a common purpose. Is there anything that deserves more careful attention than the harmony and success of the home? Other plans may fail without wrecking happiness; but if marriage fails, happiness is wrecked.

Mutual understanding is needed to keep things at their best. “Do I understand how to make good in this relationship?” is a question which marriage partners should frequently put to themselves.

Success comes when mutual understanding, devotion, and respect reinforce one another in a blending of personalities. As musical notes in a right combination produce harmony, while the same notes inharmoniously arranged give nothing but discord, so it is with the elements of human nature in the family. Unless these elements are adjusted in a correct relationship, even those persons who might appear to be happy may become miserable. Marriage is a duet in this respect. The two performers will have just what they create - harmony or discord. If, therefore, two persons find some discord in the duet of matrimony, this indicates that they need to learn to be better players.

The self-centered person tests all things by the question: “Am I getting in marriage the happiness which I deserve?” But those who are imbued with the Spirit of Christ raise another question: “Am I giving in marriage the best that it is possible for me to give?” Husband and wife, each thinking in terms of the other, share a generous store of durable satisfactions. The mature person finds satisfaction in knowing that others receive joy through and because of him or her, while the underdeveloped person, thinking mainly of self, is handicapped in marriage.

Two persons who love each other become richer through the accumulation of a mass of pleasant associations. Enjoying good times together, they cultivate delicate forms of endearment, little courtesies in the home, tasks accomplished together, mutual help in difficulty, and a hundred daily experiences of love and mutual confidence. Out of such material each can create a pleasant and trustworthy world of happiness for the other; for the reality that we seek in marriage, as in life, is not merely something that we find, but rather something which we create.

A Christian writer says: “The moral character of those united in marriage is either elevated or degraded by their association; and the work of deterioration accomplished by a low, deceptive, selfish, uncontrollable nature is begun soon after the marriage ceremony. If the young man makes a wise choice, he may have one to stand by his side who will bear to the utmost of her ability her share of the burdens of life, who will ennoble and refine him, and make him happy in her love. But if the wife is fitful in character, self-admiring, exacting, accusing, charging her husband with motives and feelings that originate only in her own perverted temperament; if she has not discernment and nice discrimination to recognize his love and appreciate it, but talks of neglect and lack of love because he does not gratify every whim, she will almost inevitably bring about the very state of things she seems to deplore; she will make all these accusations realities.”1

Marriage partners should endeavor to improve their adjustments, both in the home and in the world outside, according to Christian principles. They should realize that their characters need development.

“Finally, brethren [and sisters], whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8).

The new homemakers certainly have abilities that are worth developing. Their talents should be used. Their artistic skills and intellectual aspirations should be cultivated. In this way their family life will be enriched.

An important part of our growth takes place through our interests. When two persons share their enthusiasms they make life more interesting for each other. Such sharing is the very stuff of which marriage is made on the mental side. Even if the two don’t have the same education, and even if their interests are not identical, they should live in a world of common thought and understanding. Each can enrich the thinking and add to the insight of the other by being an interesting person with whom to live. In other words, each ought to be growing intellectually that there may be a real marriage of minds.

In marriage, a person seeks not only his or her own happiness, but also the happiness of another, and the one who most truly brings joy into the life of the other will most surely have it as well. It is easy to think of one’s own pleasure. A child can do that. But only a mature personality will share happiness.

The finest marriages are those in which love is constantly developing. In part, love comes without our planning. It is something into which we are drawn, and it is much more than that. It is a life undertaking of two persons who not only feel that their life will be happier if they are together, but who set out to make life more satisfactory for each other in every way.

Toward this end each will consider the needs, wishes, and ambitions of the other, and will learn how best to provide friendship, help, appreciation, encouragement, and whatever else the mate happens to need. Mature and happy partners will help each other to achieve success in marriage. Some things please and others annoy, and the strategy of harmony will be for each to increase pleasures and avoid annoyances in the home.

Marriage should include many attractions that two people can have for each other. As they develop their mental friendship, exchanging thoughts and learning how best to stimulate and supplement each other, they will experience a richer sharing of life, and each will grow into a deeper understanding of the mind of the other. This close friendship becomes one of the greatest things in life. Its reward will be seen in the avoidance of unnecessary tensions and in the securing of a sense of harmony.

Mature marriage fellowship is an affair of two people unified through love in the midst of all the relationships in which they move. Sharing their friendships will add to the unity of their life, and will help them to a deeper appreciation of one another.

The spiritual growth of love gives husband and wife an urge to struggle toward yet unattained heights, for love has an essential kinship with all that is excellent. Religion teaches that love is of God, and the love of true hearts in wedlock is also of God, making the individual want to be his or her best for the other and for the home.

Two persons coming together in marriage will also have differences in their thinking and feeling about spiritual matters. Each should learn to appreciate thoroughly the ideals of the other, and if either realizes that the other has taken a higher ground, he or she should take the attitude that life is a constant growth, and that there are greater heights above those to which they have attained.

The continued sharing of love in words, in actions, and in the life program is the best means to ensure success. Love is deeper than speech, but it needs to be spoken. Even when it is taken for granted, it should be revealed joyously in one’s behavior. Then it lifts the daily experiences in marriage on a tide that floods the whole being.

Not only are two persons united in marriage, but each becomes in a sense a member of the other’s family also. Some of their old associations stemming from a God-fearing home may have woven sweet memories into the very fiber of their being. Therefore, each should cultivate the best relationship with the family of the other. Husband and wife should not try to draw each other too far away from his or her’s original group, as long as Christian principles are not compromised. While undue emotional dependence on parents has been pointed out as dangerous, ignoring earlier ties too much may impair the joys of life. Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and other dear ones still mean much to the marriage partners.

Although friends and family connections have a proper place, it is desirable for a young married couple to set up a home by themselves. A relative is better as an occasional visitor than as a regular member of the household. No one should feel free to interfere in the life of the new home, “edging in” between husband and wife. While old loyalties may be important, the new loyalty must be supreme.

The family has its part to perform in the business of the community and should perform this part well, both outside the home and within.

In a good home, members help each other to perform their duties more effectively, as each shows an interest in the work of the other. A home-minded person does not think of his or her work as drudgery. Though work is a necessity, it is also an expression of personality. Every person who does a common task well improves the world so far as his or her part is concerned.

Because a woman’s work in the home can now be done by fewer hands than in earlier times and because of special interests, many women work outside. In this case the wife must not put so much of herself on the altar of her job that she sacrifices her duties at home.

To some extent, the same principle applies to a man also. A husband may be tempted to become so engrossed in his work that he will have very little time for his home. Success suggests that we keep all things in proportion and dedicate balanced attention to the various departments of life in a harmonious plan.

Many changes have taken place since the time of our forefathers when a greater part of the necessary work was done in the home. In the twentieth century, the home lost some of the functions it used to have before. Therefore, some people suppose that marriage has lost some of the meaning which it once used to have. This is a mistaken idea. The essential things in marriage - such as the response of heart to heart, the thrill of mutual understanding, sharing joys and sorrows, mutual support in difficulty, planning together for children and for all the precious values of the home, and finding the deeper meaning of life in the heart of another person - are even more important now that the family grows in significance as a means of gaining deeper satisfaction and intangible securities.

In the Christian marriage relationship the narrower “I” feeling is to grow into a broader “we” feeling. While there is a losing of the smaller self, there is a gaining toward a more complete family unit. This process involves a new awareness of marriage as a spiritual unity having much to do with the inner meaning of life. For homemakers, the essence of the art of living is that they make as much as possible of their life together. By giving high regard to their common interests and to the things they do and enjoy in common, they will experience, in the very heart of their being, a blending of personalities.