by Elsie Lincoln Benedict
Available in 98 free installments
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In other words, more than seventy per cent of American divorces are granted because husbands and wives can not adapt themselves to each other in the matter of how they shall spend their LEISURE hours.
"People who can not play together will not work together long," said Elbert Hubbard. Human Analysis, which shows that each type tends automatically to the doing of certain things in certain ways whenever free to act, proves that this is just as literal as it sounds.
The only time we are free to act is during our leisure hours. All other hours are mortgaged to earning a living?in the accomplishment of which we often have very little outlet for natural trends. So it is only "after hours" and "over Sundays" that the masses of mankind have an opportunity to express their real natures.
¶ The less one's work permits him to do the things he enjoys the more surely will he turn to them in the hours when this restraint is removed. If such a one has a husband or wife who encourages him in the following of his natural bents during leisure hours, that marriage stands a big chance of being happy.
These two people may differ widely in their respective religious ideas?one may be a Catholic, the other a Protestant, or one a Shaker and the other a Christian Scientist?but they can build lasting happiness together.
On the other hand, two people who agree perfectly as to religious, social and political views but who can not agree as to the disposition of their leisure hours are bound for the rocks.
As the honeymoon fades, each reverts to the kind of recreation congenial to his type. If his mate is averse to his diversions each goes his own way.
¶ The tragedy of "the other man" and "the other woman" is not a mystery to him who understands Human Analysis. It is always the result of finding some one of kindred standards and tastes?that is, some one whose type is congenial. The Eternal Triangle arises again and again in human lives, not accidentally, but as the inevitable result of violating inexorable laws.
¶ MARRIAGE SHOULD TAKE PLACE ONLY BETWEEN THOSE WHOSE FIRST TYPE-ELEMENTS ARE SUFFICIENTLY SIMILAR FOR THEM TO ENJOY THE SAME GENERAL DIVERSIONS, YET WHOSE SECOND TYPE-ELEMENTS ARE SUFFICIENTLY DISSIMILAR TO MAKE EACH STRONG WHERE THE OTHER IS WEAK.
¶ The application of the law to each of the five types will be explained in the following sections of this chapter.
¶ Just as each type reacts differently to all the other situations in life, each reacts differently to love.
The Alimentive, as we have pointed out, is less mature than the other types, with the Thoracic next, and so on down to the Cerebral which is the most mature of all. Because the Alimentive has rightly been called "the baby of the race;" because no extremely fat person ever really grows up, this type prefers those love-expressions natural to the immature.
¶ Caressing, petting, fondling and cuddling?those demonstrations not of wild passion but of affection such as children enjoy?are most often used by Alimentive men and women when in love.
¶ Because they are inclined to bestow little attentions more or less promiscuously, they often get the reputation of being flirtatious when they are not. Such actions also are often taken by the one to whom they are directed as indicating more than the giver means.
So beware of taking the little pats of fat people too seriously. They mean well, but have the baby's habit of bestowing innocent smiles and caresses everywhere.
¶ Each type has traits peculiar to itself which tend to make others fall in love with it. In the Alimentive the outstanding trait which wins love is his sweet disposition.
The human ego is so constituted that we tend to like all interesting people who do not offer us opposition. The Alimentive is amenable, affable, agreeable. His ready smile, his tendency to promote harmony and his general geniality bring him love and keep it for him while more clever types lose it.
¶ "Why does a brilliant business man marry that little fat woman who is not his equal mentally?" the world has asked many a time. Human Analysis answers it, as it answers so many of the other age-long queries about human eccentricities.
