ther child. The babies kept
Mabel tied down rather closely to the home. Sam often found her with
wildly straying hair and a mussed dress when he came home, and her
temper was apt to be on wire edge after nights of being up with the
children. Sam always seemed to be sound asleep when the children needed
attention.

Mabel became careless about the cooking: the food was often burned,
cold, lumpy, and poorly seasoned. She noticed that Sam always
brightened up when a pretty girl was near.

He used to go out often "to play cards with the boys," and Mabel twice
found lipstick on his handkerchief.

A nice medical student who rooms next door has now taken to dropping in
to talk to Mabel. She wonders--since Sam is so free and easy--whether
she might not also pick up a little thrill on the side. And the
neighbors have recently overheard some violent arguments between Sam and
Mabel.

* * * * *

Four typical cases of unhappy marriage have been sketched: a man and
woman who are allowing differences of opinion to grow into intense
antagonism, a couple suffering from miscarriage of their sex life, a
vigorous woman married childlessly to a mother-absorbed man, and an
overworked and rather careless mother married to a man who is always
seeking fresh romance. By way of contrast let us look at a quite
different type of marriage.

Charles and Anna have been married twenty years. Loving each other has
been the great adventure of their lives--that and having their three
children. They always regarded marriage as a partnership--fifty-fifty,
they used to say. There have been times of stress, but they have always
been able to talk their problems out together. There have even been
outbursts now and then when they have got behind on their sleep, and
when each of them has been trying so hard to hold down the lid that it
has finally blown off. But always these storms have cleared the air, and
afterward they have come closer to each other than before. Marriage, for
them both, is the great central core of life--focus of love, faith, and
joy.

In spite of all that appears in the tabloid newspapers, the
Charles-and-Anna type of marriage is far more typical than the
experiences of the other four couples whose stories have just been
sketched. In almost every marriage there are rich values to be preserved
and possibilities of deeper and fuller joy than have ever been achieved.
Our purpose in this article is to point