Angela, one of my co-workers is getting married soon. When her fiance arrived to take her home, Paul--the only other male on staff at St. Max--and I seized the opportunity to pontificate a little about married life.
My advice (to the fiance) was "If you think about it, you're not all that attached to your opinion." I owe my life of bliss to following that proverb, and I don't care who knows it. Consequently, my recommendation to every engaged man is "Surrender. Resistance is futile."
Paul's wisdom was directed toward Angela: "You have three years to train him. If you don't like how is by then, it's your own fault."
Of course, Chesterton, who wrote "Marriage is a duel to the death that no man of honor should refuse," is far more poetical in his advice:
"Every woman has to find out that her husband is a selfish beast, because every man is a selfish beast by the standard of a woman. But let her find out the beast while they are both still in the story of 'Beauty and the Beast.' Every man has to find out that his wife is cross -- that is to say, sensitive to the point of madness: for every woman is mad by the masculine standard. But let him find out that she is mad while her madness is more worth considering than anyone else's sanity."
-- G.K. Chesterton, "Two Stubborn Pieces of Iron" in The Common Man
Angela, may you and John's domestic safari be as wild and fun as mine has been.
HT to Chestertonian at the Blue Boar for the Chesterton quotation.
