There are several universals to useful life that have worked well for me. Sometimes I call them my tools. They are not cast rigidly (although some are for me), but there has to be good reason to amend those that may have to be negotiated. They find themselves repeated in these Pages in various contexts, a deliberate way for me to repeat for emphasis and importance to the good life. (I have never forgotten the statement given to me in high school that, the mother of learning is repetition.) These aids become larger, and more useful, when they are combined. For example, two of these tools are Questions and Percentages.
Questions: These are important to pleasant and useful communication. (One of my professors in my doctoral program believed it to be the most useful factor in cultivating communication. I had already discovered that Scripture is constructed on the question technique so to find the main tracks to solutions.) If couples entered marriage by agreeing on non-judgmental questions as a means for finding solutions to domesticity, we may be sure that marriages would be happier and better oriented than so many seem to be. This tool (questions) then works in the follow up details on the answers to the first question, whatever it may be. An attitude of problem solving, rather than problem reaction, is introduced. Now that our problem is clear: What can we do to fix it? So the line goes until mutual ground is found for tracking a resolution. The question is the door to learning, and the invitation to seek objective solutions that deliver from selfish responses. The wife of T. S. Eliot, the poet, was so demanding of her husband, and received such condescending agreement in his conduct toward her, that she thought she ought to go out and commit suicide so as not to stand in his way for fulfilling his literary career. Had they given time to problem solving rather than condescension and life stalling, both would have been happier than was the case.
Percentages: We are well informed that money matters are, taken together, an important factor in marriages. Some believe it to be the most important. When I first launched my life work, the tension was related to the vast majority of husbands making the family income. So he was presumed to hold first authority on distribution. Often it put the wife in second class position. She was dependent on two heartbeats, his and hers, while he was dependent upon his alone for sustenance. The balance of financial power in marriage has been shifting to equity. Reports show that some wives are making more than the husbands, and some of these have taken independent attitude toward finances. Team family may have weakened. There is effort to find out its extent.. Counselors are being faced with marriage tensions in which the wives have taken attitudes formerly deplored in their husbands. The problem then is a human one to be met, in advance if possible, by the education of persons about money management in the family.
So to the questions, beginning with the understanding that this is a common problem, the couple ought to ask: How are we going to manage our resources? Knowing about the problem, I asked my wife if she wanted her own checking account. She said that would offend her, in that one of her ideals was that we shared everything equally. She hoped that I would not object to having everything together. I was, in fact, complimented by her response, but I do not remember that I felt as warmly as I now remember it. I said in response, that I had felt the Lord had given a secret to good management in the percentage route. He gave the tithe as a goal for his people in returning what they had been given so to support his objectives with others. Could we live by percentages? And so we did. The rent, the groceries, the transportation was all divided by the percentages of what we had. So we avoided excessive debt. Although Christian ministry in our decades was low paid, we did well enough, our children were educated. We felt gratified that we were in the middle class in our own minds, so in balanced living standards. Twice our savings after retirement were reduced when we participated with friends in objectives that did not survive the economy, but the planning using percentages, savings and faith brought us through, once during her lifetime, and once after her demise. I am taken with the Biblical concept of fiscal management – use percentages, together. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020