> The quality of your wife is 40% who you are, 20% who you choose, and 80% how you conduct yourself during courtship and marriage.
This is incredibly idealistic - and doesn't really jive with the real world. It says if a man is a good man and conducts himself exceptionally during courtship and marriage, his wife is almost certain to be quality.
And this is false! I mean, there's so many real world examples - some people are undisciplined, unambitious, self-centered, reckless, not grounded, etc, etc. Unfortunately, I know a couple guys, good guys overall, who married such women. No matter how much he toils in the marriage, it can't and won't be a good marriage.
The character and quality of your spouse has a lot to do with their character - you can help them grow to some extent, but you need to start from a good place. The idea that "be a good person and conduct yourself well and things will work out" sounds nice, but is in fact dangerous and bad advice. For both men and women, the base character of your spouse matters a lot - and that's before even starting to look at compatibility and having complimentary views. Idealism - "be a good man and things will work out" - sounds nice, but it's the sort of thing you need to be careful with.
"It says if a man is a good man and conducts himself exceptionally during courtship and marriage, his wife is almost certain to be quality."
No; you've misinterpreted Dove's point[1]. Let me clarify:
The amount of effort it takes to ensure that one marries a "quality" person is very small compared to the amount of effort the other stuff takes. One does not need to pick the very most perfect woman in order to have a great marriage, only to pick a woman within the set of "quality women".
Put in the 20% effort to restrict your search to quality women. To optimize further, focus the rest of your efforts on being a quality person yourself and on treating your wife well, instead of focusing on finding "the best" of the quality women.
It is dangerous advice to ignore the character of your spouse. Pick someone of good character. But honestly, that's easy in comparison to living a life of integrity and treating your wife appropriately.
[1] as Dove's husband, I have additional insight into her intended meaning.
Fair. Of course, the whole thing is a simplistic rhetorical device; real life is complicated.
If you really could expect full marks in "be a man of character" and "treat her right" categories -- if you were some mythical combination of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus Christ, perhaps you could redeem a fairly self-centered wife. Those are, after all, men who made their names by succeeding at redeeming evil cultures with little more than compassion and force of character. But it'd sure be difficult and painful. I'm not claiming things would "work out" easily even in the best case, and that's the worst one. Most folks really can't expect straight A's there. Most folks, if they're honest with themselves, are shooting for more like a C+ and maybe don't even always get there. So in a way, how my model handles that corner case is academic.
My point by assigning such a low value to who you choose isn't that it doesn't matter at all -- of course it does. Of course you can easily doom the whole thing to failure (short of heroic measures) by marrying an utterly irredeemable jerk. My point is that it's not a relatively big contributer. And I'm strongly of the opinion that it isn't. Stick to quality women, or even just decent women, and the other factors dominate.
Over ten, fifteen, twenty years of marriage, the single largest factor in who your wife is, is who you are. And vice versa. Her criticisms become your defensive sore spots. Your generocity becomes her avid interest. Your callousness becomes her indifference. Her complacency becomes your disinterest. And on and on. After many years, every groove in your soul matches a cusp in hers, and vice versa. There's feedback. There's resonance. That's why the quality of your wife is 120% you.
You grow to be like who you hang out with. You rise to high expectations or sink to low ones.
Do you want your wife to be beautiful at 35? It doesn't matter whether she was a 6 or 10 or 8 at 24 when you married her. It matters whether you've been buying her jewelry, telling her her beauty is worth sacrifice and expense to you. It matters whether you've been telling her she's beautiful, encouraging her to experiment with new shoes, or making fun of her when you find her with green goop all over her face. It matters whether you criticize or support, because her outward appearance is a measure of her self-esteem, her confidence, and whether she thinks being pretty is a hobby worth keeping up with.
Do you want a sexually engaged wife? Make sex something she loves. Be generous. Be romantic. Be attentive. And wait five years.
Do you want a kind and generous wife? Be kind and generous. Do you want a wife who understands you? Talk to her. Do you want a wife who is not annoyed with you all the time? Listen to her criticism, don't defend yourself, change your behavior, explain in tenderest and most loving tones what has been misunderstood.
To optimize your wife, optimize yourself. Because marriage is really long, and after just a few years, she's mostly who you've made her.
(Goes the other way, too. But this place is mostly guys).
if you were some mythical combination of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus Christ, perhaps you could redeem a fairly self-centered wife.
The irony of this list is that (as I understand it) King was unfaithful to his wife and Gandhi refused to have sex with his wife while frequently sleeping in the arms of beautiful younger women to prove to himself he could resist temptation and Jesus never married at all.
Men who are deemed to be heroes/men of great character in the eyes of society don't necessarily make wonderful spouses.
(Not at all meant to disagree with your basic point.)
Sometimes it's difficult to know if the person is "quality", especially character. You could live with a person and know their worst habits and dark secrets after only a couple of years.
I find both of you to be lucky (well you pushed also your luck by being hard-working). It's refreshing though to read this; lots of food for thought, thanks.
This is incredibly idealistic - and doesn't really jive with the real world. It says if a man is a good man and conducts himself exceptionally during courtship and marriage, his wife is almost certain to be quality.
And this is false! I mean, there's so many real world examples - some people are undisciplined, unambitious, self-centered, reckless, not grounded, etc, etc. Unfortunately, I know a couple guys, good guys overall, who married such women. No matter how much he toils in the marriage, it can't and won't be a good marriage.
The character and quality of your spouse has a lot to do with their character - you can help them grow to some extent, but you need to start from a good place. The idea that "be a good person and conduct yourself well and things will work out" sounds nice, but is in fact dangerous and bad advice. For both men and women, the base character of your spouse matters a lot - and that's before even starting to look at compatibility and having complimentary views. Idealism - "be a good man and things will work out" - sounds nice, but it's the sort of thing you need to be careful with.