Yet the fact that family choices usually united those of similar financial standing and power of gratification of taste did lead toward an easy adjustment of the young couple to life together.

One of the chief causes of unhappiness in marriages wholly from personal choice and in response to an impulse of passionate attachment is that the taste and "style" of living of the two has been so different that it is hard, after the first glamour wears away, to settle down to agreeable compromises.

As a rule, "the beggar maid and King Cophetua" can get on better than the young woman heiress and the ex-chauffeur in such compromises; for it is always easier to extend one's income than to contract it, and women can still owe all to the loved one with better grace than men can bear the position of one "marrying above his lot." The tendency of the older custom, however, to limit all marriage choices on the basis of money to be contributed to the common fund was, and is when now in force, as destructive to real happiness in marriage as any ill-considered leaping across social barriers could well be.

It is well, therefore, that it is outgrown.
The second condition believed essential to success in marriage from the point of view of family stability, when the marriage choice of the loved one was made by the elders, is far more important than that of financial equality.

It is the congeniality of the two families to be united by the marriage.