Discovering How Many Interests You and Your Fiancé Have in Common

What entertainment, sports, events, and other amusements do you enjoy together? We start with this, not because fun is too important, but because it is what so often first brings the young couple together. A boy and a girl find that they like to swim, play tennis, and go to shows together. This is a fine start, and some of these activities can be enjoyed together for many years. But physical activities can do no more than to give the initial push. As people grow older their physical energies diminish. They become interested in other things. And in any case, marriages are not mainly recreation. Therefore it is essential that the couple consider other interests which will hold up better under the long pull.

What cultural or intellectual interests do you pursue, such as music, drama, literature, painting, or history? This list may seem to be of possible interest only to highbrow intellectuals. Yet many people of little formal schooling have developed considerable interest in, and taste for good music and art. Other people have less pretentious hobbies, such as woodworking, dog breeding or clay modeling. Every family should have at least one amateur photographer. Some of these interests may be related to a vocation. Frank had a very real interest in his garage work. The girl whom he finally married developed a very profitable, but no less real interest in raising chickens.

It is not necessary that both husband and wife have the same interests. In some ways, their relationships will be more fruitful if one specializes in one thing and the other in another. Then by sharing, they can both have a broader development. It is important that they do have interests. The person who has interests is more interesting as a person. The wife who spends considerable time in her garden and really tries to do a good job, may prove far more attractive to her husband than if she spent the time in a beauty parlor. Furthermore, interests which seem quite divergent can often be shared in most valuable ways. Edith was a research physician and Alvin a sculptor and painter. When she wrote a book on a technical medical subject, he illustrated it. One need not be a specialist in the field of the other. A couple needs only interests to share, and interest enough in what the other is doing to make possible the sharing. A young couple will rarely know in advance just what and how their interests may later develop. They should be able to tell, however, the extent to which either or both is alive to any part of life which is beyond them.

But if you discover that one or both of you has no significant interests, what then? Your answer will depend upon what you want from each other. Some men, often because they feel inferior, want a wife who will be little more than an appendage to the household. They will want her to cook, clean, receive guests, and perhaps bear a child or two, but otherwise be as colorless as possible. Likewise, some wives will want husbands who will provide reasonably well financially, but who otherwise will trouble them as little as possible. We shall not here pass judgment upon such persons. We shall say only that if this is what either or both of you want, you should both know it and face fully what it means. But if you want your marriage to be a rich companionship, real interests are essential. Marry a person without hair, teeth, fingernails, or a nose, but not one without interests. And be assured on this point before you become engaged. The strongest and most enduring interest is a common purpose.

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