A Turkish father heard that his son was continually absent on long visits to a country place, and ordered him to give up these journeys and to remain strictly at his studies. He was a man of influence and position, and his son, from fear of him, fell in with his wishes. But later, hearing that his son had involved himself in an affair with a woman in that country place, the father sent him back to her, saying, "How otherwise shall I feel secure that my own daughter will meet with honesty and sincerity?"

Here there was no covering up of the truth for material convenience although it would certainly have been easier to repudiate the woman, and to make a virtue out of convenience; and there was no insincere adherence to an external standard of morality, nor any dishonest attempt to enforce an ideal of monogamy upon a mind incapable of sustaining it.

The English law of breach of promise was framed to protect women; but does anyone really imagine that there are now in England, owing to this law, fewer tragedies of the kind where innocent and sincere women have been betrayed? The really sincere woman is silent before treachery of this kind as before death, feeling herself to be in the presence of something against which she is powerless.

The average man is apt to look with awe upon the social laws which govern his community, as if these laws were of divine ordinance. He forgets that they are simply means devised for the most part by the average among his fellow-men, to keep order; and that they can often be traced to a materialistic point of view, directly opposite to the divine spirit of the teacher whom he professes to follow as his religious lord and guide.

Every individual has a certain motive in his life. The higher his motive, the greater the current of thought or feeling that streams from him towards it. If two mates are drawn by the same motive, they advance through life together; but if it is not so, then life may be like swimming against the tide for each of them.

Before marriage it is hope that keeps love alive. Acquaintance, friendship, courtship are deepening stages through which hope leads the human being to that partnership called marriage. After marriage life's progress may become difficult, unless life presents a new scope and a new avenue for hope. Hope may center round the children; and yet that is not enough. There must be some incentive to stimulate each partner to progress along the path of life, and this is best given by each to the other when a common interest makes them share both joy and sorrow together, their gaze centered on the same aim.

Where there is no common interest or aim or ambition, harmony may still exist if each has an ideal of his responsibilities to the other as a human being; it is indeed through the lack of this ideal that life breaks into pieces. And it is truly noble on the part of a couple when, through miseries and difficulties, they always have regard to the sacredness of the tie that connects them.

Nature is such that no two things are created alike; and the human being cannot expect his or her mate, whom nature made, to be as docile and flexible as that creature whom his imagination alone conceives. To make a friend, forgiveness is required which burns up all things, leaving only beauty; but to destroy friendship is easy.

Vol. 3, Life's Creative Forces: Rasa Shastra

11. Marriage

ii

Vol. 3, Life's Creative Forces: Rasa Shastra

11. Marriage

ii