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TEMPERAMENTAL EVIL

This is not going to be a sermon pro or con concerning divorce. It is merely a collection of simple facts which everyone who goes through divorce learns sooner or later. We'll take the Joneses for example although of course that isn't their name. After nine years of marriage and three children they have decided to get a divorce. No. they're not poor nor sick nor afflicted by any sudden tragedy. They simply want a divorce because they have decided that they don't understand each other. Does that seem silly? It is silly but no sillier than most of our divorce complaints.

Mrs. Jones is a splendid little woman and he is a fine sort of chap. They have all the virtues which might go to make a great success of marriage but they simply cannot agree on countless small matters. He is crazy about golf. She adores canasta. The sight of a golf club makes her ill and when her card players gather to an afternoon he goes off and has a very satisfactory and audible sleep. It seems childish, doesn't it? They should have outgrown this sort of thing before they were even married. But they didn't. And most of us cling to just such childish reactions.

Very few divorces are founded on actual hate or cruelty or unkindness. They do not conform to the letter of any law but they do fit the erratic pattern of our human nature.

Now mind you I am no saint do not set my code up as an example for anyone on earth I am as weak and adolescent and frivolous when it comes to a crisis as anyone could possibly be by looking from the outside, I see the pity and the tragedy of nine out of ten of these divorces which seemed so imperative at the time If we would only wait a little while . . . if we would only control ourselves a little longer the mood that prompts divorce would pass and we would find the serene companionship of which we once dreamed. But we can't wait and we won't control ourselves We insist that our mates should make us happy and do so which of course is the crowning folly. For there is nothing in the God Book nor in legal volumes which says that we are under obligation to understand each other. As a matter of fact if we had the sense God gave a woodtick we would be increasingly grateful that we are not understood. But we lack that simple common sense We cherish the dreams we had at 18 even though we are 50 and those dreams will not fit any circumstance of our mature life So thank God for what you have and don't go grabbing Be grateful if you have laughed together sometimes and wept together sometimes and don't expect the impossible out of life For it won't happen and you wouldn't like it if it did.