Speaker 1: The Upper Room presents So you want to Stay married?
Speaker 1: Today's episode in this study of family life in the
Speaker 1: modern home is Two Heads Are Better Than One, Especially
Speaker 1: written and produced for The Upper Room by Cardony Morse,
Speaker 1: featuring John McIntyre as the Judge, Peggy Webber as Ruth,
Speaker 1: and Sam Edwards as Gordon. In every city of any
Speaker 1: size in the United States, there are one or more
Speaker 1: courts of justice whose time is almost completely taken up
Speaker 1: with dissolving unhappy marriages. The appalling tragedies stalking these miserable
Speaker 1: halls can be counted among society's foremost crimes against individual
Speaker 1: human beings. Into the divorce courts stream an unending flow
Speaker 1: of frustrated, unhappy men and women, and out of the
Speaker 1: divorce court come aimless, hopeless, lost humanity now completely adrift.
Speaker 1: How many of those unhappy marriages could have been saved
Speaker 1: if only there had been some understanding, sympathetic man of
Speaker 1: sufficient stature and experience to take the dissatisfied young couple
Speaker 1: in hand, a man such as Judge Hardwick, for instance.
Speaker 2: Er Ruth and Gordon mcnight. Yes, yes, your honor, you
Speaker 2: came here to this court this morning to have your
Speaker 2: marriage dissolved. Yes, Ruth, you both desire this divorce a no, sir,
Speaker 2: just ruth Er Ruth. I see your complaint. Charges incompatibility yes,
Speaker 2: your honor, not cruelty?
Speaker 3: Oh no, say never?
Speaker 2: They were not unfaithfulness, no, of course, not just plain incompatibility. Yes, Ruth,
Speaker 2: I want to see you in gordon My private chambers.
Speaker 2: Theyll have courts adjourned for half an hour.
Speaker 3: This way, but it's all settled this way.
Speaker 2: Please inside, Please place is down, Judge.
Speaker 4: As much as I don't want Ruth to divorce me,
Speaker 4: I think she's got the right to do it, and
Speaker 4: I don't see why we have to go through another
Speaker 4: painful scene.
Speaker 2: Sit down, Gordon. Yes, sir, Ruth. Inasmuch as you're the
Speaker 2: plaintiff in this divorce action, I'm going to have to
Speaker 2: ask you the questions in what manner is Gordon's in
Speaker 2: your life incompatible?
Speaker 3: I'm just bored to death. Marriage isn't the kind of
Speaker 3: thing I thought it was at all. I'm well, I'm
Speaker 3: just bored, that's all. I'll go crazy if I have
Speaker 3: to stand much more of it.
Speaker 2: Don't you love him anymore? Oh?
Speaker 3: I don't know what is love?
Speaker 2: Well, let's put it this way. Don't you like him anymore?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: Most of the time. That's one of the reasons I
Speaker 3: want to be divorced. There's nothing the matter with Gordon,
Speaker 3: and then I don't want to dislike him. But there
Speaker 3: are times when I can't stand him, and those times
Speaker 3: come oftener and oftener. But I don't look out. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: turn out hating him, and that'd be awful.
Speaker 4: Judge, Is this necessary?
Speaker 2: I think so, Yes, sir. Don't you have anything to
Speaker 2: say against Ruth's accusations.
Speaker 4: We've talked to all this out endlessly. I've told her
Speaker 4: over and over that I love her, and I've tried
Speaker 4: to prove it by my actions. I've done everything I know,
Speaker 4: and it makes no difference. At first, Ruth didn't seem
Speaker 4: to want my company. Now she wants her freedom. It's
Speaker 4: been a progressive thing and it's something in Ruth. I'm
Speaker 4: sorry and hurt and feel terribly frustrated, But Ruth's an individual,
Speaker 4: and if she feels that way.
Speaker 2: I see always the gentleman I only met. Yes, I know, Gordon, Ruth.
Speaker 2: Tell me what an ordinary day in your home is like.
Speaker 3: Well, naturally, Gordon has a long commute into the city
Speaker 3: in the morning. He has to get up at five
Speaker 3: thirty except Saturday and Sunday. Well except Sunday, because Saturday
Speaker 3: gets up just as early to go out and play golf.
Speaker 2: You'll get up and get his breakfast five thirty.
Speaker 3: Besides, the doctor has him on a diet, and all
Speaker 3: he can eat is a dish of fruit and toast
Speaker 3: and coffee.
Speaker 4: No, that's not Ruth's faultier, honor. I have my own
Speaker 4: business in town, and I like that hour in the
Speaker 4: morning by myself to think out some of my business
Speaker 4: problems and look at the morning.
Speaker 2: Paper I see, and then how does your day go? Ruth?
Speaker 3: Mm mmm, get up when I feel like it.
Speaker 2: No children, of course.
Speaker 4: No, no, we decided we couldn't afford children while I'm
Speaker 4: getting my business going. It takes every.
Speaker 2: Se wanned Ruth to tell this, Gordon, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Well as I say, there's no reason why I should
Speaker 3: get up at any particular time. It makes the day
Speaker 3: go faster. If I don't get up until ten or.
Speaker 2: Eleven, What a terrible thought. I don't understand lying in
Speaker 2: bed late to make the days go faster. Why, my
Speaker 2: dear child, I rise at five o'clock some morning, just
Speaker 2: to make the days long enough to do all the
Speaker 2: interesting things in the world I wanted to.
Speaker 3: But you have responsibility, do you? So?
Speaker 2: Does every wife keep the.
Speaker 3: House clean, get dinner. I can do that in an hour,
Speaker 3: send out all our laundry and pressing, things like that,
Speaker 3: and a cleaning woman comes in twice a week.
Speaker 2: If your husband needs extra money to get his business started,
Speaker 2: why not do those things yourself?
Speaker 4: Why should she? My wife's not an old fashioned house drudge.
Speaker 4: She's a good looking girl with nice hands and a
Speaker 4: nice complexion.
Speaker 2: But if your husband can afford a cleaning woman and
Speaker 2: arrange your living so that you can keep your nice
Speaker 2: hands and complexion, and I might add have your hair
Speaker 2: done by a beauty parlor, then why can't you afford
Speaker 2: to have children?
Speaker 4: They added, expense is expensive selfishness.
Speaker 3: I know that is really Gordon thought, if we waited
Speaker 3: a couple of years, then we'd be able to give
Speaker 3: the children everything they should have.
Speaker 2: Did you want to wait?
Speaker 3: Well, thought, maybe Gordon? You best he handled the money.
Speaker 3: He's the only one who knows about the business.
Speaker 2: It's the minute you say he handles the money. Yes,
Speaker 2: you mean to sit here and tell me that you.
Speaker 2: You say he's the only one who knows about the business.
Speaker 2: The business you're helping him to build by your sacrifices,
Speaker 2: by going without children, by doing without his companionship from
Speaker 2: five thirty in the morning until whatever hour he gets
Speaker 2: home in the evening. Six You don't know anything about
Speaker 2: the business. It's supposed to be the foundation for your
Speaker 2: future financial security and the security of your children. Doesn't
Speaker 2: the man talk to you now just a minute? I
Speaker 2: mean it, Gordon, what do you and your wife have
Speaker 2: in common? According to Ruth, you spend even your Saturdays
Speaker 2: on the golf course. What about Sunday? Do you spend
Speaker 2: that with her?
Speaker 4: Some of it?
Speaker 2: Some of it?
Speaker 4: Well, she likes to go to church. That gives me
Speaker 4: a good opportunity.
Speaker 2: Good opportunity not to be with us some more.
Speaker 4: Now look here, you, I mean your honor. If you're
Speaker 4: trying to make it look like I don't care for Ruth.
Speaker 2: Hither you don't care for her or else you have
Speaker 2: a most peculiar conception of what marriage consists.
Speaker 3: I don't see how you can say it's Gordon anymore
Speaker 3: than me said Gordon's faul. He has to go to
Speaker 3: the office at five point thirty. Is it his fault
Speaker 3: we haven't money enough for children? Or that he likes
Speaker 3: outdoor sports and I don't, or that I like to
Speaker 3: go to church and he doesn't. And it certainly is
Speaker 3: not his fault that I'm not very good about money
Speaker 3: and honestly wouldn't know what he was talking about if
Speaker 3: he were to tell me about the office.
Speaker 2: How do you know you wouldn't understand if you ever
Speaker 2: tried it, oh, Gordon said? As Gordon said, you wouldn't
Speaker 2: understand money or the office, and you believed it.
Speaker 4: I don't think she would. And why clutter up a
Speaker 4: woman's mind with such things anyway, Gordon?
Speaker 2: Didn't you ever hear of the Indian fakir who held
Speaker 2: his arm over his head until finally it grew that
Speaker 2: way and he couldn't take it down. Yes, sir, well,
Speaker 2: the mind can be abused in the same way. Looks
Speaker 2: to me like you consciously or unconsciously molded Ruth's mind
Speaker 2: to fit your conception of what a wife should know
Speaker 2: and be.
Speaker 4: That's not fair.
Speaker 2: Aren't you trying to pattern your Mariae Marge after your
Speaker 2: father and mother's marriage. Why I wasn't your father the
Speaker 2: dominating male and your mother the weak, protected woman.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's exactly the way it was, Judge.
Speaker 2: Yes, I suppose so, and so unconsciously at least, I'm
Speaker 2: giving you the benefit of the doubt. You've been trying
Speaker 2: to mold Ruth into the same kind of a family.
Speaker 2: Probably your father likewise said there she would be no
Speaker 2: children until he was a man with money.
Speaker 4: Well, they had been married fifteen years before I was born.
Speaker 2: Well, Gordon, don't you see that's mid Victorian. That's not
Speaker 2: the way family life has lived to day. Ruth's a modern,
Speaker 2: intelligent girl, a companion, a helpmate. She's been bred and
Speaker 2: trained to stand beside a man, do her part. I
Speaker 2: wonder she's been bored to distraction by the role you've
Speaker 2: given her to live.
Speaker 4: But Ruth, you never protested, you never said that you.
Speaker 3: I guess. I guess I didn't quite realize what was
Speaker 3: going on myself. After all, your mother always agreed what
Speaker 3: your father said and didn't ask questions, And I don't
Speaker 3: remember my own mother, Gordon. Maybe I could understand about
Speaker 3: what you do at the office, maybe not right at first,
Speaker 3: but I not in.
Speaker 2: Our Ruth, Gordon. I have a feeling that whether this
Speaker 2: marriage succeeds or fails from this point on depends on you.
Speaker 4: You mean Ruth isn't getting a divorce? You mean that, Ruth?
Speaker 3: What why I hadn't thought.
Speaker 2: Now to wait just a moment? I'd so fast?
Speaker 3: You too.
Speaker 2: There are a few fundamentals about marriage of which neither
Speaker 2: of you seem to have any knowledge. It's been found
Speaker 2: throughout long periods of study by competent people that our
Speaker 2: attitude toward marriage, the expectation of success, is one of
Speaker 2: the strongest motives for keeping a man and woman interested
Speaker 2: in making their marriage successful together. Mind you, the hope
Speaker 2: of success, the expectation of success. It's a common goal,
Speaker 2: a common interest. It gives zest to living, don't you see, Gordon,
Speaker 2: You've been depriving Ruth of much of her interest in
Speaker 2: living by shutting her out. It never occurred to me that, I,
Speaker 2: of course noer. But think about it now, and don't
Speaker 2: neglect children. They're a common interest too. Children and a
Speaker 2: common working goal are two elements which bind a man
Speaker 2: and woman close together. There's so many problems to be
Speaker 2: worked out, so many solutions they've got to find together, Gordon,
Speaker 2: Many many of your problems at the office would dissolve
Speaker 2: into nothing if you were to tell them to Ruth
Speaker 2: just in the telling will bring balm to your spirit,
Speaker 2: even if there isn't a solution.
Speaker 3: Oh, Gordon, would you?
Speaker 4: Could you? I I don't see why not. I mean,
Speaker 4: you really think you'd be interested, of course, but I
Speaker 4: never thought of you as interested in business and figure.
Speaker 3: It's not the figures I'd be interested in. It'd be
Speaker 3: you what you'd do with those figures, what they mean
Speaker 3: to you and me.
Speaker 4: Then you mean you don't want a divorce.
Speaker 3: We can do it this new way, and if you'll
Speaker 3: let me do all the houseworks that we can have
Speaker 3: the children.
Speaker 4: You mean you want to do things that you don't
Speaker 4: care if we have a hard time financially or.
Speaker 3: About anything, if I'm a part of it. But Gordon Darling,
Speaker 3: don't ever put me away in a box again, or
Speaker 3: put me on a pedestal or whatever you were doing.
Speaker 3: I'm a living, breathing human girl, and I've got a
Speaker 3: lot of red corpuscles in my bloodstream, and I want
Speaker 3: to be somebody and do things and feel things. I
Speaker 3: want to love and be loved. I want to fight
Speaker 3: and win or lose and do all the other things
Speaker 3: women do with their husbands all over the world.
Speaker 4: Why not? I must have been blind.
Speaker 3: What an empty lonesome world if I'd have gone out
Speaker 3: of here with a divorce.
Speaker 4: You're telling me your honor?
Speaker 1: We owe you that.
Speaker 4: Hey, where'd he go?
Speaker 3: You must have slipped out?
Speaker 4: Well, bless his kind, understanding heart. I tell you what
Speaker 4: we'll do. We'll name our first son after him.
Speaker 3: Oh yes.
Speaker 1: If the family ties are uncertain and giving way, family
Speaker 1: worship will help to strengthen them. Worship in the church
Speaker 1: of your choice, and have daily devotions in your home.
Speaker 1: The church and the home are the basic rocks upon
Speaker 1: which the moral structure of this nation is built. They
Speaker 1: should be and must be, one united foundation. Ask your
Speaker 1: pastor for devotional helps or send a postcard to the
Speaker 1: Upper Room, Nashville, Tennessee your announcer, Russell Thorson