![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqh3NsNqFtPEILJgww6yLfL-0Qrx7pDDlMMCssi2NBL8-dAT96idBki6gK1mYkflnzoPKB2DJhEYIrlb0AdvcCYgi650aU8UDlfsASWp1W_JoVSwMV4fQDJlYPixANjp0RPwlRZwTmDR3T/s200/C.+M.+Guthrie+stock+pic+When+You%2527re+Young%252C+etc..jpg)
of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune
April 21, 1956
A PET conviction of the match-makers is that both parties to the marriage contract must have much in common to be happy. If you discover that you and Prudence don't have similar tastes and temperaments, you had better back out of the deal as gracefully as possible before the clergy makes it binding, else there will be the devil to pay.
Believe this if you will, but I refuse to buy the whole package. Although you would start with two strikes on you if you and your lady had no mutual interests, you can get along passing well if you see eye-to-eye in a mere 50 percent of the area.
THIS does not mean, as the slide-rule boys might have you suspect, that you and Prudence are on speaking terms only half the time. It does not mean that your marriage must be temporary. If it did, divorce would be more the rule than the exception.
If, before you and your beloved felt you could decide that you were meant for each other you had to compare likes and dislikes and undergo a psychiatric check, you'd probably retreat into permanent bachelorhood.
As I get it, a fellow marries a girl because he loves her and even his prior knowledge that she is crazy about Liberace and green onions will not dissuade him.
SIMILAR tastes and similar interests imply similar traits and nothing could strip the marital gears quicker than the latter. Suppose two reticent souls get married and then can't think of anything to say. What a stupid situation! Not as bad, of course, as the mating of two blabbermouths, but certainly not sparkling. Or let a couple of hot-heads be joined. Their mutual regard for pickled herring or "The $64,000 Question" will not keep them from screaming at each other.
The chatterbox, I'm sure, makes a better go of marriage if he or she weds someone who doesn't always have something to say. And the hot-head would do well to exchange vows with his opposite, a person of tolerance and restraint.
I HAVE been mulling over the things my wife and I don't have in common and have toted up quite a formidable list. They are little things, perhaps, but even little things can grow with the years. In the face of these divergent tastes, traits and opinions, however, and maybe in defiance of the psychological percentages, we have muddled through without benefit of expert counsel or apparent need of it.
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She does not know what the World Series is all about and she might even suspect that the National league is on the attorney general's list of subversive organizations. As a consequence relations get a bit strained about this time of year, when I am glued to a ball game and she is making pointed references to the sad state of the yard.
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BUT WE are as one in many ways. Neither of us can get to bed at a civilized hour. We both love fried chicken and corn on the cob, we both play horrible bridge and are indifferent to television, and neither of us chews gum in church.
In the big things we are highly compatible. And that, I confess, is a help.
Copyright 2018 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.