книги / Striving For Happiness. I Am a Part of All that I Have Met

Buying a suitable outfit for the groom is not difficult - he just needs a black suit and a flower buttonhole. However, dressing the bride is an altogether different matter. The answer is in this old rhyme which is as relevant today as it was more than a hundred years ago:

Something old, something new

Something borrowed, something blue

And a silver sixpence in your shoe.

"Something old" is usually given to the bride by a happily married woman in the hope that her happy marriage will be passed on to the new bride. "Something new" symbolises the newlyweds' happy and prosperous future. "Something borrowed" is a valuable item lent by the bride's family which needs to be returned to ensure good luck. "Something blue" is normally a blue ribbon in the bride’s hair to symbolise fidelity. The placing of a silver sixpence in the bride’s shoe is to ensure future wealth.

Different Types Of Marriages

Marriage is a general term used for determining matrimonial relationships. But people say that there are different types of marriages: arranged marriages, marriages of convenience, marriages for love, money and others. Now you’ll read some stories about different types of marriages. What pluses and minuses do they have? What kind of marriage would you prefer and why?

Rigidly patriarchal family life in pre-Revolutionary times in Russia and in many other countries was quite normal. And marriages at that time were mainly arranged by parents. The family's backgrounds of both bride and groom were carefully studied and traced down to the sixth generation. And no horoscopes whatsoever!

There are countries where long-established traditions are still respected and observed. Let’s take India, for example. Most marriages are arranged by parents there.

Sometimes fathers see about a hundred candidates before they choose the best one. All information about them including education, their background and especially their family's background is found out. The young boy and the young girl are not allowed to see each other in private and after the engagement and up to their marriage they can meet only in the presence of third party.

This established custom rests upon the belief that arranged marriages are much more successful than those resulting from love and often ending in divorce. Nowadays marriages for love and marriages of convenience are mostly popular.

An Arranged Marriage

Sarita and Ranjit Sharma talk about their arranged marriage.

-How was the marriage arranged?

-(Sarita) I was studying in America at the time. A friend of my family told us there was this man living in Britain who was looking for a suitable girl. My Dad liked the sound of him. We made some enquiries - his education, what he did, that kind of thing. The news

was very encouraging. Ranjit was a good catch.

- (Ranjit) The first I knew about Sarita was the day before she arrived here. My father organized the whole thing. I was happy to meet Sarita but I knew I could always say no if I didn't think we'd be right together.

- What were your first impressions of each other?

-(Santa) Good. Although there wasn’t a great surge of attraction I remember thinking, "He seems nice." The atmosphere that day was quite intense because our families were watching us, so, Ranjit suggested we go out for a drink on our town.

-(Ranjit) I liked Sarita. I found her attractive, but there wasn't that spark you get if you see someone you fancy at a party. It was more mental attraction.

-How did you decide on each other?

-(Sarita) We met up three more times over the two weeks before I returned to America - by then I'd decided that Ranjit was right for me.

-(Ranjit) There was pressure from my family after the very first meeting. I'd seen three girls before Sarita, but she was the first I was interested in. So I said yes after those first three meetings.

-Do you love each other now?

-(Sarita) Yes we do. I couldn't pinpoint an exact time when love began, but it was about two years into the relationship.

-(Ranjit) Love came into our relationship after a while. I didn't wake up one morning and think, "I love this woman." The love we now have is warm, deep and lasting.

liked the sound of him - liked what he heard about Ranjit

a good catch - a good person to marry for reasons of social status a great surge - a sudden powerful feeling

fancy - find attractive

My Mother's Diary

This is a story about how my parents married, which I found out when I read my mother's diary after her death.

My mother came from a tiny village where rules were very strict for women and arranged marriages were common. When she was quite young, my mother's parents had promised her to a man from a well-off family. This particularly pleased my mother's parents, who were not wealthy.

My mother left school early and during the year before she was due to be married, she worked as a seamstress in her parents' tailoring business. She spent her time working, or in the home under the watchful eye of her grandmother.

One day, my mother went into the town to deliver a customer's clothing. When she knocked on the door of the house the owner's son opened the door. My mother and he were instantly attracted to each other and had some time at the door in conversation. Before she left, they agreed to meet again and soon my mother was delivering orders to this customer on a weekly basis. Very quickly my mother knew she was in love.

My mother was too afraid to tell her parents that she had fallen in love with someone else as not only was she promised to someone else, but also they would punish her severely for meeting a man unchaperoned. Eventually, she and the young man had to make a decision as the arranged marriage was looming.

My mother was in a terrible position - either run away with the man that she loved and never see her own family again, or marry a man she didn't love but have a safe, comfortable life.

Finally, my mother couldn't stand the indecision any longer, and decided to submit to her parents' wishes. On 1st July, she went one more time to see the young man and told him that she could not break her parents' hearts and bring disgrace on her family by running away. On 1st August, my mother submitted to the arranged marriage. Her true love was heartbroken and soon left the town, never to return. My mother had a safe, comfortable life, but wrote that she often woke at night in tears, dreaming of her true love.

After I read this story it explained to me the secret tears that my mother cried every year on 1st July.

A Marriage Of Convenience

After W. S. Maugham

I left Bangkok on a shabby little ship. I had gone on board early in the morning and soon discovered that I was thrown amid the oddest collection of persons I had ever encountered. There were two French traders and a Belgian colonel, an Italian tenor, the American proprietor of a circus with his wife, and a retired French official with his.

The French official had been accompanied on board by the French minister at Bangkok, one or two secretaries and a prince of a royal family. He was evidently a person of consequence. I had heard the captain address him as Monsieur le Gouvemeur.

Monsieur le Gouvemeur was a little man, well below the average height, and smally made, with a very ugly little face; he had a bushy grey head, bushy grey eyebrows, and a bushy grey moustache. He did look a little like a poodle and he had the poodle's soft, intelligent and shining eyes.

The Governor’s wife was a large woman, tall and of a robust build. She towered over her diminutive husband like a skyscraper over a shack. He talked endlessly, with vivacity and wit, and when he said anything amusing her heavy features relaxed into a large fond smile.

In such a small ship having once made the acquaintance of my fellow passengers, it would have been impossible, even had I wished it, not to pass with them every moment of the day that I was not in my cabin.

Talking of one thing and another we watched the day decline, we dined, and then we sat out again on deck under the stars. Soon, influenced perhaps by the night, the Italian tenor, accompanying himself on his guitar began to sing. He had the real Italian voice, and he sang the Neapolitan songs.

I saw that the little French Governor had been holding the hand of his large wife and the sight was absurd and touching.

"Do you know that this is the anniversary of the day on which I first saw my wife?" he said, suddenly breaking the silence. "It is also the anniversary of the day on which she promised to be my wife. And, which will surprise you, they were one and the same. You see, ours was a marriage of convenience pure and simple."

"C'est vrai," said the lady. "But sometimes love comes after marriage and not before, and then it is better. It lasts longer."

"You see, I had been in the navy, and when I retired I was forty-nine. I was strong and active and I was very anxious to find an occupation. And presently I was sent for by the minister to the Colonies and offered the post of Governor in a certain colony. The minister told me that I must be ready to start in a month. I told him that would be easy for an old bachelor."

"You are a bachelor?" "Certainly," I answered.

"In that case I am afraid I must withdraw my offer. For this position it is essential that you should be married."

"It is too long a story to tell you, but the gist of it was that owing to the scandal my predecessor had caused, it had been decided that the next Governor must be a model of respectability. I expostulated. I argued. Nothing would serve. The minister was adamant. He asked me to think it over and said that if I couldn't find a wife in a month there would be no job."

I walked away from the ministry with death in my heart. Suddenly I made up my mind. I walked to the offices of the Figaro, composed an advertisement, and handed it in for insertion. You will never believe it, but I had four thousand three hundred and seventy-two

replies. It was an avalanche. It was hopeless, I had less than a month now and I could not see over four thousand aspirants to my hand in that time. I gave it up as a bad job. I went out of my room hideous with all those photographs and littered papers and to drive care away went on to the boulevard and sat down at the Cafe de la Paix. After a time I saw a friend passing. My friend stopped and coming up to me sat down.

"What is making you look so glum?" he asked me. I was glad to have someone in whom I could confide my troubles and told him the whole story. He laughed. Controlling his mirth as best he could, he said to me: "But, my dear fellow, do you really want to marry?" At this I entirely lost my temper.

"You are completely idiotic," I said. "If I did not want to marry, do you imagine that I should have spent three days reading love letters from women I have never set eyes on?"

"Calm yourself and listen to me," he replied. "I have a cousin who lives in Geneva. She is Swiss. Her morals are without reproach, she is of a suitable age, a spinster, for she has spent the last fifteen years nursing an invalid mother who has lately died, she is well educated and she is not ugly."

"There is one thing you forget. What inducement would there be for her to give up her accustomed life to accompany in exile a man of forty-nine who is by no means a beauty?"

When I made this remark to my friend he replied: "One can never tell with women. There is something about marriage that wonderfully attracts them. There would be no harm in asking her."

"But I do not know your cousin and I don't see how I am to make her acquaintance." "I will tell you what to do," said my friend. "Go to Geneva and take her

a box of chocolates from me. You can have a little talk and then if you do not like the look of her you take your leave and no harm is done."

That night I took the train to Geneva. No sooner had I arrived than I sent her a letter to say that I was the bearer of a gift from her cousin. Within an hour I received her reply to the effect that she would be pleased to receive me at four o'clock in the afternoon. As the clock struck four I presented myself at the door of her house. She was waiting for me. Imagine my surprise to see a young woman with the dignity of Juno, the features of Venus, and in her expression the intelligence of Minerva. I was so taken aback that I nearly dropped the box of chocolates. We talked for a quarter of an hour. And then I said to her.

"Mademoiselle, I must tell you that I did not come here merely to give you a box of chocolates. I came to ask you to do me the honour of marrying me."

She gave a start.

"But, monsieur, you are mad," she said. Then I repeated my offer.

"I will not deny that your offer has come as a surprise. I had not thought of marrying. I have passed the age. I must consult my friends and my family."

"What have they got to do with it? You are of full age. The matter is pressing. I cannot

wait."

"You are not asking me to say yes or no this very minute? That is outrageous." "That is exactly what I am asking."

"You are quite evidently a lunatic."

"Well, which is it to be?" I said. "Yes or no?"

She shrugged her shoulders. She waited a minute and I was on tenterhooks. "Yes."

"And there she is. We were married in a fortnight and I became Governor of a colony I married a jewel, my dear sirs, one in a thousand."

He turned to the Belgian colonel.

"Are you a bachelor? If so I strongly recommend you to go to Geneva. It is a nest of the most adorable young women."

It was she who summed up the story.

"The fact is that in a marriage of convenience you expect less and so you are less likely to be disappointed. Passion is all very well, but it is not a proper foundation for marriage. For two people to be happy in marriage they must be able to respect one another, and their interests must be alike; then if they are decent people and are willing to give and take, to live and let live, there is no reason why their union should not be as happy as ours." She paused. "But, of course, my husband is a very remarkable man."

Answer thefollowing questions.

1.What people were on board the ship?

2.What did the Governor and his wife look like?

3.How did it happen that the Governor started telling his story?

4.Why was it necessary for him to be married?

5.How did the Governor find his future wife?

6.What impression did his future wife produce on him?

7.Did they fall in love with each other?

8.What piece of advice did the Governor give to the narrator?

Marriage based on love is a noble idea. Many people dream of meeting a great love and strive for this kind of marriage thinking that it is a solid basis for the spouses to "live happily ever after". But is love a guarantee of a happy and lasting marriage? What can save marriage for love when the spouses misunderstand each other? Here are two stories which describe such situations.

In A Glass Darkly

After Agatha Christie

I've no explanation for this story. I've no theories about the why and wherefore of it. It's just a thing - that happened.

All the same, I sometimes wonder how things would have gone if I'd noticed at the time just that one essential detail that I never appreciated until so many years afterwards. If I had noticed it - well, I suppose the course of three lives would have been entirely altered. Somehow - that's a very frightening thought.

For the beginning of it all, I have got to go back to the summer of 1914 - just before the war - when I went down to Badgeworthy with Neil Carslake. Neil was, I suppose, about my best friend. I'd known his brother Alan too, but not so well. Sylvia, their sister, I'd never met. She was two years younger than Alan and three years younger than Neil. Twice, while we were at school together, I'd been going to spend part of the holidays with Neil at Badgeworthy and twice something had intervened. So it came about that I was twenty-three when I first saw Neil and Alan's home.

We were to be quite a big party there. Neil's sister Sylvia had just got engaged to a fellow called Charles Crawley. He was, so Neil said, a good deal older than she was, but a thoroughly decent chap and quite reasonably well-off.

We arrived, I remember, at about seven o’clock in the evening. Everyone had gone to his room to dress for dinner. Neil took me to mine. Badgeworthy was an attractive old house. It was full of little steps up and down, and unexpected staircases. It was the sort of house in which it's not too easy to find your way about. I remember Neil promised to come

and fetch me on his way down to dinner. I was feeling a little shy at the prospect of meeting his people for the first time. I remember saying with a laugh that it was the kind of house where one expected to meet ghosts in the passages. And he said carelessly that he believed the place was said to be haunted but that none of them had even seen anything, and he did not even know what form the ghost was supposed to take.

Then he hurried away and I set to work to dive into my suitcases for my evening clothes.

Well, I was standing in front of the glass, tying my tie. I could see my own face and shoulders and behind them the wall of the room - a plain stretch of wall was just broken in the middle by a door - and just as I had finally settled my tie I noticed that the door was opening.

I don't know why I didn't turn round - I think that would have been the natural thing to do; anyway I didn't. I just watched the door swing slowly open - and as it swung I saw into the room beyond.

It was a bedroom - a larger room than mine - with two bedsteads in it, and suddenly I caught my breath.

For at the foot of one of those beds was a girl and round her neck was a pair of man's hands and the man was slowly forcing her backwards and squeezing her throat as he did so, so that the girl was being suffocated.

There wasn't the least possibility of a mistake. What I saw was perfectly clear. What was being done was murder.

I could see the girl's face clearly, her vivid golden hair, the agonized terror of her beautiful face, slowly suffusing with blood.

Of the man I could only see his back, his hands, and a scar that ran down the left side of his face towards his neck.

It's taken some time to tell, but in reality only a moment or two passed while I stared dumbfounded. Then I wheeled round to the rescue.

And on the wall behind me, the wall reflected in the glass, there was only a large Victorian mahogany wardrobe. No open door - no scene of violence. I swung back to the mirror. The mirror reflected only the wardrobe.

I passed my hand across my eyes. Then I sprang across the room and tried to pull forward the wardrobe and at that moment Neil entered by the other door from the passage and asked me what the hell I was trying to do.

He must have thought me slightly barmy as I turned on him and demanded whether there was a door behind the wardrobe. He said, "Yes, there is a door, it leads into the next room" I asked him who was occupying the room and he said some people called Oldham - a Major Oldham and his wife. I asked him then if Mrs. Oldham had very fair hair and when he replied very dryly that she was dark I began to realize that I was probably making a fool of myself. I pulled myself together, made some explanation and we went downstairs together. I told myself that I just must have had some kind of hallucination - and felt generally rather ashamed and a bit of an ass.

And then - and then - Neil said: "My sister Sylvia," and I was looking into the lovely face of the girl I had just seen being suffocated to death and I was introduced to her fiance, a tall, dark man with a scar down the left side of his face.

Well - that’s that. I'd like you to think and say what you'd have done in my place. Here was the girl - the identical girl - and here was the man I'd seen throttling her - and they were to be married in about a month's time.

Had I - or had I not - had a prophetic vision of the future? Would Sylvia and her husband come down here to stay sometime in the future, and be given that room (the best spare room) and would that scene I'd witnessed take place in grim reality?

What was I to do about it? Could I do anything? Would someone - Neil - or the girl herselfwould they believe me?

I turned the whole business over and over in my mind the week I was down there. To speak or not to speak? And almost at once another complication set in. You see, I fell in love with Sylvia Carslake the first moment I saw her. And in a way that tied my hands.

And yet, if I didn't say anything, Sylvia would many Charles Crawley and Crawley would kill her.

And so, the day before I left, 1 told everything to her. 1 said I expected she'd think me touched in the intellect or something but I swore solemnly that I'd seen the thing just as I told it to her and that I felt if she was determined to marry Crawley, I ought to tell her my strange experience.

She listened to me quietly. There was something in her eyes I didn't understand. She wasn't angry at all. When I'd finished, she just thanked me gravely. I kept repeating it like an idiot, "I did see it. I really did see it," and she said "I'm sure you did if you say so. I believe you."

A week later, as I got to know, Sylvia broke offher engagement to Charles Crawley. After that the war happened, and there wasn't much time for thinking of anything else.

I came across Sylvia once in a while, but as far as possible I avoided her. I loved her, but I felt some sort of guilt, that she had broken off her engagement to Crawley.

Then, in 1916, Neil was killed and it fell to me to tell Sylvia about his last moments. We couldn't remain on a formal footing after that. Sylvia had adored Neil and he had been my best friend. She was sweet - adorably sweet in her grief. I realized that life without Sylvia wasn't worth living. I went out praying that a bullet might end my miserable life.

But there was no bullet with my name on it. One nearly got me below the right ear but I came safe through the war. Charles Crawley was killed in action at the beginning of 1918.

Somehow - that made a difference. On learning that, I went straight to Sylvia and told her I loved her. I hadn't much hope that she'd care for me straight away, and was shocked a bit when she asked me why I hadn't told her sooner. I stammered out something about Crawley and she said, "But why did you think I broke it off with him?" And then she told me that she'd fallen in love with me just as I'd done with her - from the very first minute.

I said I thought she'd broken off her engagement because of the story I told her and she laughed at me and said that if you loved a man you wouldn't be as cowardly as that, and we went over that old vision of mine again and agreed that it was queer, but nothing more.

Well, there was nothing much to tell for some time after that. Sylvia and I were married and we were happy. But I realized, as soon as she was really mine, that I was not the best kind of husband. I loved Sylvia devotedly, but I was jealous, absurdly jealous of anyone at whom she would smile. It amused her at first. I think she even rather liked it. It proved, at least, how devoted I was.

As for me, I realized quite fully and unmistakably that I was endangering all the peace and happiness of our life together. I knew that but I couldn't change. Every time Sylvia got a letter and didn't show it to me I wondered who it was. If she laughed and talked with a man, I found myself getting sulky and watchful.

At first, as I say, Sylvia laughed at me. She thought it a huge joke. Then she didn't think the joke so funny. Finally she didn't think it a joke at all - and slowly, she began to draw away from me. I no longer knew what her thoughts were. She was kind but sadly, as though from a long distance.

Little by little I realized that she no longer loved me. Her love had died and it was I who had killed it.

The next step was inevitable, —Derek Wainwright came into our lives. He had every­ thing that I hadn't. He had brains and a witty tongue. He was good-looking, too, and - I'm forced to admit it - a thoroughly good chap. As soon as I saw him I said to myself: "This is just the man for Sylvia".

She fought against it. I know she struggled but I gave her no help. I couldn't. I was suffering like hell - and I couldn't stretch out a finger to save myself. I let loose at her one day - a flow of rude, unwarranted abuse. I was nearly mad with jealousy and misery. The things I said were cruel and untrue and I knew that, and yet I took a wild pleasure in saying them.

I remember how Sylvia flushed and shrank. I drove her to the edge of endurance. I remember she said: "This can't go on".

When I came home that night the house was empty - empty. There was a note - quite in the traditional fashion.

In it she said that she was leaving me - for good. She was going down to Badgeworthy for a day or two. After that she was going to the one person who loved and needed her. I was to take that as final.

I suppose that up to then I hadn't really believed my own suspicions. This confirmation in black and white of my worst fears made me actually mad. I went down to Badgeworthy after her as fast as the car would take me.

She had just changed her frock for dinner, I remember when I burst into the room. I can see her face - startled - beautiful afraid.

I said: "No one but me shall ever have you. No one."

And I caught her throat in my hands and gripped it and bent her backwards.

And suddenly I saw our reflection in the mirror. Sylvia choking and myself strangling her, and the scar on my cheek where the bullet grazed it under the right ear.

No - 1 did not kill her. That sudden revelation paralysed me and I loosened my grasp and let her slip onto the floor

And then I broke down - and she comforted me. Yes, she comforted me.

I told her everything and she told me that by the phrase "the one person who loved and needed her" she meant her brother Alan. We saw into each other's hearts that night, and I don't think, from that moment, that we ever drifted away from each other again.

A thought to go through life with - but for the grace of God and a mirror, one might be a murderer!

One thing did die that night - the devil ofjealousy that had possessed me so long. But I wonder sometimes - suppose I hadn't made that initial mistake - the scar on the

left cheek —when really it was right reversed by the mirror should I have been so sure the man was Charles Crawley? Would I have warned Sylvia? Would she be married to me - or to him?

Or are the past and the future all one?

I'm a simple fellow - and I can't pretend to understand these things - but I saw what I saw - and because of what I saw, Sylvia and I are together - in the old-fashioned words - till death do us part. And perhaps beyond.

Answer thefollowing questions.

1.Who is the narrator of the story?

2.Who was his best friend?

3.Who was Neil's sister engaged to?

4.What did the narrator see in the glass?

5.What did he understand when he was introduced to Neil's sister Sylvia and her

fiance?

6.Did he tell Sylvia about the vision he had seen?

7.Why did Sylvia break off her engagement? Was she frightened by the vision?

8.What did the narrator do when he learnt about Charles Crawley’s death?

9.Why wasn’t the narrator the best kind of husband?

10.What could his jealousy have led to?

11.What stopped him from committing a murder?

12.What sort of feeling is jealousy? What provokes it?

13.Does jealousy inevitably accompany marriages for love?

14.How can people fight this feeling?

Lost In The Post

After A. Philips

Ainsley, a post-office sorter, turned the envelope over and over in his hands. The letter was addressed to his wife and had an Australian stamp.

Ainsley knew that the sender was Dicky Soames, his wife's cousin. It was the second letter Ainsley received after Dicky's departure. The first letter had come six months before, he did not read it and threw it into the fire. No man ever had less reason for jealousy than Ainsley. His wife was frank as the day, a splendid housekeeper, a very good mother to their two children. He knew that Dicky Soames had been fond of Adela and the fact that Dicky Soames had years back gone away to join his and Adela's uncle made no difference to him. He was afraid that some day Dicky would return and take Adela from him.

Ainsley did not take the letter when he was at work as his fellow-workers could see him do it. So when the working hours were over he went out of the post-office together with his fellow workers, then he returned to take the letter addressed to his wife. As the door of the post-office was locked, he had to get in through a window. When he was getting out of the window the postmaster saw him. He got angry and dismissed Ainsley. So another man was hired and Ainsley became unemployed. Their life became hard, they had to borrow money from their friends.

Several months had passed. One afternoon when Ainsley came home he saw the familiar face of Dicky Soames. "So he had turned up," Ainsley thought to himself.

Dicky Soames said he was delighted to see Ainsley. "I have missed all of you so much," he added with a friendly smile.

Ainsley looked at his wife. "Uncle Tom has died," she explained, "and Dicky has come into his money". "Congratulation," said Ainsley, "you are lucky."

Adela turned to Dicky. "Tell Arthur the rest," she said quietly. "Well, you see," said Dicky, "Uncle Tom had something over sixty thousand and he wished Adela to have half. But he got angry with you because Adela never answered the two letters I wrote to her for him. Then he changed his will and left her money to hospitals. I asked him not to do it, but he wouldn't listen to me!" Ainsley turned pale. "So those two letters were worth reading after all," he thought to himself. For some time everybody kept silence. Then Dicky Soames broke the silence, "It's strange about those two letters. I've often wondered why you didn't answer them?" Adela got up, came up to her husband and said, taking him by the hand. "The letters were evidently lost." At that moment Ansley realized that she knew everything.

Answer thefollowing questions.

1.What is the message of this story?

2.Can we call Adela wise?

3.Can jealousy be cured?

4.Is it difficult to live with a person who is jealous?

Marriages with foreigners have recently become very popular in Russia. There are even specially established international dating agencies for this purpose. Do you believe that such marriages can be successful? What can actually secure their success? If you were married to a foreigner what culture, traditions and religion would you follow? In what way would you bring up your children?

Mixed Marriages: Pros And Cons

The world is getting smaller. People travel from one part of it to another in a matter of hours. And increasingly, men and women from different nationalities, cultures and races meet, marry and have children. This is a fact of life now; it will always continue to be one. Mixed marriages are not something which one thinks about as strange any longer; they have become commonplace.

Strangely enough, however, when one talks to partners in mixed marriages, often it is not the very extreme example, such as a Japanese woman married to a British man, where one finds complications and problems. Real problems of understanding can occur within the same language group, such as the British and Americans, or similar culture groups, such as the Scandinavians and the Germans.

We have spoken to several mixed couples and have come up with some rather surpris­ ing conclusions. When couples are from very obviously different backgrounds, each person is very careful, or tends to be very careful, to try to understand what the other is saying or what the other person feels, or thinks. When there are apparent similarities, however, such as the same language or similar culture backgrounds, the couples tend to assume they already understand each other, when in fact on very many different points they don't understand each other at all. This is what leads to problems.

Compatibility... What is it? It is a term used when different ideas or systems can exist or work together. Can it be applied when we speak about people? Yes, it can. Moreover, it's very important. Psychologists say that compatible people are likely to have a good relationship because of being similar.

Compatibility

Do we really like people who are similar to ourselves or do "opposites attract"? There is a great deal of evidence that we prefer people who share our beliefs, attitudes and values. We tend to forget that some of our friends whom we consider very different from ourselves are often quite similar to us in terms of such variables as age, religion, education and socioeconomic class. Hundreds of statistical studies show that husbands and wives are respect to physical characteristics like height and eye colour and psychological characte­ ristics. Thus most evidence indicate that liking is correlated with similarity on most dimentions.

The sayings that "opposites attract" may apply mainly to certain complementary traits. To take the most obvious example, one partner may be quite dominant and thus require someone who is relatively more submissive. A person with strong preferences may do best with someone who is more flexible.

One of the compelling reasons for liking people is their liking for us. We tend to like people who like us and to reject those who reject us.