Some people are very exact in what they say. They are so exact that their exactness terrifies others. Every word they say has to be exactly right. Other people may not be inaccurate on purpose, but they are not as careful in their words. Again, this is not a matter of morality but of personality. If you put these two kinds of people together, one may criticize the other for telling lies while the other may say that it is better to keep quiet than to speak as the other one does. To be fair, if every word had to be so accurate, perhaps no more than twenty sentences a day would be spoken in the world. You can see that incompatibility of personality is indeed a big problem.
Take another example. Some people are very energetic, while others are very quiet. Both are right since this is not a matter of morality. But when a very lively person marries a very quiet one, even though one is a brother and the other a sister, it will no doubt spell trouble for the marriage. Sooner or later, a personality problem will be turned into a moral problem. They will magnify each other’s peculiarity. The quiet husband will feel that his wife is too outgoing. The lively wife, in turn, will feel that she has married an insensitive man. A big problem will arise in this family. I know a husband who likes to stay at home, but he is married to a sister who likes to visit others in this place and that place. The husband finds it unbearable. He cannot stand going from place to place with his wife all the time, yet he feels imprisoned at home if he does not follow her. When he comes home, she is never there. He continuously tries to endure. If the situation goes on unresolved in this way, trouble will break out. Again, this is not a matter of morality but of personality; it is something that was overlooked at the time of their marriage.
One sister cares very much about cleanliness at home. Everything in her house has to be very clean. She walks behind her husband with a rag and cleans up everything. But the husband takes pleasure in sloppiness. One day I visited their home and found her husband throwing a pillow on the floor, turning over a chair, and shuffling everything around. I asked him why he was doing this. He said, “I am so happy today because my wife has gone to her parents’ house.” He had been so frustrated by her cleanliness that he reveled in sloppiness. This is not a matter of morality. There is nothing wrong with being a little neat, and there is nothing wrong with being a little sloppy.
A new believer must see that there are two basic conditions for love. One is natural attraction, and the other is compatibility of personality. When you want to choose a mate, you must first choose one who attracts you. A marriage that has no attraction will not work. Second, choose one whose personality is similar to yours. The mature ones should help the young ones to know their personality. Do not neglect the matter of compatibility in personality just because there is natural attraction.
I know of a couple in Shanghai who are always quarreling. I asked the husband why he married her in the first place. He replied that when he first saw her, he was attracted by her dark eyes. This is natural attraction. He just liked her dark eyes. But soon after they were married, the whiteness and the darkness of her eyes were forgotten. He only remembered that she liked to be tidy, and that he did not like to be tidy. She liked to be cheerful, but he liked to be quiet. She liked to be fast, while he liked to be slow. Please remember that personality is something permanent, while natural attraction is something temporal.
In choosing their mates, young people should not consider only natural attraction. No doubt there should be natural attraction. I like to see young brothers and sisters paying attention to natural attraction. There is nothing wrong with this. But natural attraction is not enough. You must consider also the compatibility of your personalities. This is something altogether different. If personalities clash, natural attraction will soon disappear. Natural attraction may induce you into a marriage, but it will never sustain your marriage. These are actual problems that we must be made aware of.
Some have said that a person can have two heavens or two hells. A person may go up to one heaven and down to one hell. He may also go up to two heavens or down to two hells. The happiest place on earth is a happy family; it is like heaven. The most terrible place on earth is a sad family; it is like hell. When a family is happy, one feels as if he were in heaven. When a family is sad, one feels as if he is in hell. A believer may have one heaven and one hell. An unbeliever may have two hells. He has a hell when he lives on earth and another hell when he dies and goes into hell. There are many Christians who live in hell today but who will go to heaven in the future. They live this way because the harmony of personality is missing from their families.
I recall the case of a brother whose wife fought and quarreled with anyone anywhere. She could be very spiritual when she wanted to be, praying beautifully and acting very spiritual. But when her temper flared up, no one could talk to her. She fought with her neighbors all the time, and no one could do anything about it. Her husband had to go around and apologize to this and that family all the time. Every time he came home, he had to find out whom she had quarreled with in order to apologize to that person. She was in trouble every day. Actually, if that brother had married a quiet sister or that sister had married an active brother, everything would have been fine. When an energetic sister marries a quiet husband or a quiet brother marries an active wife, trouble certainly will arise in the family.