It is far more difficult to be of one heart and mind than to be physically one. This unity of heart and mind is manifest in sincere expressions of ‘I appreciate you’ and ‘I am proud of you.’ Such domestic harmony results from forgiving and forgetting, essential elements of a maturing marriage relationship. Someone has said that we ‘should keep [our] eyes wide open before marriage, and half shut afterward’ (Magdeleine Scudéry, in John P. Bradley and others, comps., The International Dictionary of Thoughts [1969], 472). True charity ought to begin in marriage, for it is a relationship that must be rebuilt every day.
