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diff --git a/31529.txt b/31529.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ef6a87 --- /dev/null +++ b/31529.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5042 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Modern marriage and how to bear it, by Maud Churton Braby + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Modern marriage and how to bear it + +Author: Maud Churton Braby + +Release Date: March 7, 2010 [EBook #31529] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN MARRIAGE AND HOW TO BEAR IT *** + + + + +Produced by Louise Hope, Norbert H. Langkau and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[This e-text comes in three forms: Unicode (UTF-8), Latin-1 and ASCII. +Use the one that works best on your text reader. + + --If "oe" displays as a single character, and apostrophes and + quotation marks are "curly" or angled, you have the UTF-8 version + (best). If any part of this paragraph displays as garbage, try + changing your text reader's "character set" or "file encoding". + If that doesn't work, proceed to: + --In the Latin-1 version, "oe" is two letters, but French words like + "etude" have accents and "ae" is a single letter. Apostrophes and + quotation marks will be straight ("typewriter" form). Again, if you + see any garbage in this paragraph and can't get it to display + properly, use: + --The ascii-7 or rock-bottom version. All necessary text will still be + there; it just won't be as pretty.] + + + + + MODERN MARRIAGE + And How To Bear It + + + BY + MAUD + CHURTON + BRABY + + AUTHOR + OF + "DOWNWARD" + + + * * * * * + * * * * + + MODERN MARRIAGE AND HOW TO BEAR IT + + + * * * * * + * * * * + + + NEW SHILLING REPRINTS + + +LOVE INTRIGUES OF ROYAL COURTS.+ By THORNTON HALL. + +FALLEN AMONG THIEVES.+ By STANLEY PORTAL HYATT. + +THE UNCOUNTED COST.+ By MARY GAUNT. + +SIX WOMEN.+ By VICTORIA CROSS. + +DOWNWARD.+ By MAUD CHURTON BRABY. + +SCARLET KISS.+ By GERTIE DE S. WENTWORTH-JAMES. + +MISS FERRIBY'S CLIENTS.+ By FLORENCE WARDEN. + +RED LOVE.+ By GERTIE DE S. WENTWORTH-JAMES. + +MODERN MARRIAGE AND HOW TO BEAR IT.+ By MAUD CHURTON BRABY. + +BIOGRAPHY FOR BEGINNERS.+ By G. K. CHESTERTON. With 48 Illustrations. + +WHAT MEN LIKE IN WOMEN.+ By the Author of "How to be Happy + though Married." + +THE SALVING OF A DERELICT.+ By MAURICE DRAKE. + +THE NIGHT-SIDE OF LONDON.+ By ROBERT MACKRAY. With 65 Pictures + by TOM BROWNE. + +LADY JIM OF CURZON STREET.+ By FERGUS HUME. + +2835 MAYFAIR.+ By FRANK RICHARDSON. + +THE WILD WIDOW.+ By GERTIE DE S. WENTWORTH-JAMES. + +LETTERS TO A DAUGHTER.+ By HUBERT BLAND. + +THE GAME OF BRIDGE.+ By "CUT CAVENDISH." With New Rules of Bridge + and Auction Bridge. + +THE NIGHT-SIDE OF PARIS.+ By E. B. D'AUVERGNE. 20 Plates. + +THE WEANING.+ By JAMES BLYTH. + +THE METHODS OF MR AMES.+ By the Author of "John Johns." + +THE HAPPY MORALIST.+ By HUBERT BLAND. + +THE KING AND ISABEL.+ By the Author of "John Johns." + +THE SINEWS OF WAR.+ By EDEN PHILLPOTTS and ARNOLD BENNETT. + +MODERN WOMAN AND HOW TO MANAGE HER.+ By WALTER GALLICHAN. + + + + + _Press Notices Of_ + + MODERN MARRIAGE + _And How to Bear it_ + + + PRESS NOTICES + ++W. T. Stead in the Review of Reviews.+--"Mrs Maud Churton Braby has +achieved a remarkable success. She has written an original book upon the +most threadbare of all subjects, in which she has been as witty as she +is wise . . . packed full of good sense, sound morality, and admirable +advice. It is a book naked and unashamed, written by a woman of the +world with the naive simplicity of an innocent child, and arriving on +the whole at conclusions worthy of any mother in Israel; a book full of +profound wisdom irradiated by a pleasant wit and suffused with the glow +of a genuine human sympathy." + ++"Hubert" in the Sunday Chronicle.+--"On the whole I congratulate Mrs +Braby on her book . . . it is the only book on the subject of Modern +Marriage that has not made me feel rather ill . . . frank, without the +slightest indelicacy, and bold without the least impertinence . . . a +real contribution towards the solution of an intolerably difficult +problem." + ++Daily Telegraph.+--"Lively and frank . . . should prove instructive as +well as readable and provide people with plenty to think about. The +author has read widely, and thought deeply, and has a sufficiently broad +mind to give her conclusions real value . . . should be read by all who +think seriously on this most serious subject." + ++Standard.+--"A good deal of sound thinking has gone to the book's +composition and it is also illumined by a very kind and tender spirit." + ++Bystander.+--"A clever and most entertaining volume . . . the reader +may be assured of much that is sage and sound, and much that is witty." + ++Black & White.+--"No one has gone so fully and vigorously into the +various problems connected with marriage as Mrs Braby in her extremely +readable book . . . one of the most vivid and original contributions to +the discussion of a great problem that have appeared for a long time." + ++Literary World.+--"Very brightly written, and even when most audacious +is full of good feeling and good sense . . . amusing and shrewd . . . +clever and stimulating." + + + + + _By The Same Author_ + + DOWNWARD: + + An Attempt To Portray A + "Slice Of Life." + + _A NOVEL._ + + By MAUD CHURTON BRABY + (_Author of "MODERN MARRIAGE AND HOW TO BEAR IT."_) + + 6s. + +This is a powerful study of modern life in London, and concerns the +hearts and passions of live men and women. Being the first novel by Mrs +Maud Churton Braby, author of that vivacious and daring book, "Modern +Marriage and How to Bear it." As might be expected, some of the serious +problems of women are dealt with in its pages. The story concerns the +fortunes of brilliant and undisciplined Dolly who, on the death of her +mother, an actress, is compelled by the decree of a mysterious trustee +to go first to a convent-school and afterwards become a hospital nurse. +Her temptations and adventures at the Wimpole Street Nursing Home-- +(in which environment other characters of much interest appear) --her +tragic love affair, and the depths to which it brings her, together with +her subsequent redemption, are related in a manner which makes a special +appeal to the heart. + + + * * * * * + * * * * + + + MODERN MARRIAGE + AND HOW TO BEAR IT + + by + + MAUD CHURTON BRABY + + "Marriage is the origin and summit of all + civilisation."--GOETHE. + + + _POPULAR EDITION_ + + T. WERNER LAURIE + Clifford's Inn + London + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PART I + SIGNS OF UNREST + +Chap. Page + + I. The Mutual Dissatisfaction of the Sexes 3 + II. Why Men Don't Marry 14 + III. Why Women Don't Marry 26 + IV. The Tragedy of the Undesired 42 + + PART II + CAUSES OF FAILURE + + I. The Various Kinds of Marriage 57 + II. Why We Fall Out: Divers Discords 68 + III. The Age to Marry 85 + IV. Wild Oats for Wives 89 + V. A Plea for the Wiser Training of Girls 101 + VI. 'Keeping Only to Her'--The Crux of Matrimony 109 + + PART III + SUGGESTED ALTERNATIVES + + I. Leasehold Marriage a la Meredith 119 + II. Leasehold Marriage in Practice: + A Dialogue in 1999 129 + III. The Fiasco of Free Love 141 + IV. Polygamy at the Polite Dinner-Table 146 + V. Is Legalised Polyandry the Solution? 159 + VI. A Word for 'Duogamy' 161 + VII. The Advantages of the Preliminary Canter 171 + + PART IV + CHILDREN--THE _CUL-DE-SAC_ OF ALL REFORMS + + I. To Beget or Not to Beget--the Question + of the Day 177 + II. The Pros and Cons of the Limited Family 184 + III. Parenthood: The Highest Destiny 193 + + PART V + HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED + + I. A Few Suggestions for Reform 203 + II. Some Practical Advice to Husbands and Wives 209 + + + + + To + + C. STANLEY CHURTON + + The Best Father in the World + + With Deep Gratitude + + for a Lifetime of Loving-Kindness + + + + + PART I + + SIGNS OF UNREST + + + 'The Subject of Marriage is kept too much in the dark. Air it! + Air it!'--GEORGE MEREDITH. + + + + + MODERN MARRIAGE + + I + + THE MUTUAL DISSATISFACTION OF THE SEXES + + 'The shadow of marriage waits, resolute and awful, at the + cross-roads.' --R. L. STEVENSON. + + +Ever since the time, nineteen years ago, when Mrs Mona Caird attacked +the institution of matrimony in the _Westminster Review_ and led the way +for the great discussion on 'Is Marriage a Failure?' in the _Daily +Telegraph_--marriage has been the hardy perennial of newspaper +correspondence, and an unfailing resource to worried sub-editors. When +seasons are slack and silly, the humblest member of the staff has but to +turn out a column on this subject, and whether it be a serious +dissertation on 'The Perfections of Polygamy' or a banal discussion on +'Should husbands have tea at home?' it will inevitably achieve the +desired result, and fill the spare columns of the papers with letters +for weeks to come. People are always interested in matrimony, whether +from the objective or subjective point of view, and that is my excuse +for perpetrating yet another book on this well-worn, but ever fertile +topic. + +Marriage indeed seems to be in the air more than ever in this year of +grace; everywhere it is discussed, and very few people seem to have a +good word to say for it. The most superficial observer must have noticed +that there is being gradually built up in the community a growing dread +of the conjugal bond, especially among men; and a condition of +discontent and unrest among married people, particularly women. What is +the matter with this generation that wedlock has come to assume so +distasteful an aspect in their eyes? On every side one hears it vilified +and its very necessity called in question. From the pulpit, the clergy +endeavour to uphold the sanctity of the institution, and unceasingly +exhort their congregations to respect it and abide by its laws. But the +Divorce Court returns make ominous reading; every family solicitor will +tell you his personal experience goes to prove that happy unions are +considerably on the decrease, and some of the greatest thinkers of our +day join in a chorus of condemnation against latter-day marriage. + +Tolstoy says: 'The relations between the sexes are searching for a new +form, the old one is falling to pieces.' Among the manuscript 'remains' +of Ibsen, that profound student of human nature, the following +noteworthy passage occurs: '"Free-born men" is a phrase of rhetoric. +They do not exist, for marriage, the relation between man and wife, has +corrupted the race and impressed the mark of slavery upon all.' Not long +ago, too, our greatest living novelist, George Meredith, created an +immense sensation by his suggestion that marriage should become a +temporary arrangement, with a minimum lease of, say, ten years. + +That the time has not yet come for any such revolutionary change is +obvious, but if the signs and portents of the last decade or two do not +lie, we may safely assume that the time _will_ come, and that the +present legal conditions of wedlock will be altered in some way or +other. + +Fifteen years ago there was a sudden wave of rebellion against these +conditions, and a renewed interest in the sex question showed itself in +an outbreak of problem novels--a term which later came to be used as one +of reproach. Perhaps the most important of these was Grant Allen's _The +Woman Who Did_. I can recall as a schoolgirl the excitement it aroused +and my acute disappointment when it was forcibly commandeered from me by +an irate governess who apparently took no interest in these enthralling +subjects. A host of imitators followed _The Woman Who Did_; some of them +entirely illiterate, all of them offering some infallible key to the +difficult maze of marriage. + +Worse still was the reaction that inevitably followed, when realism was +tabooed in fiction, and sickly romance possessed the field. _The Yellow +Book_ and similar strange exotics of the first period withered and died, +and the cult of literature (!) for the British Home was shortly +afterwards in full blast. There followed an avalanche of insufferably +dull and puerile magazines, in which the word _Sex_ was strictly taboo, +and the ideal aimed at was apparently the extreme opposite to real life. +It was odd how suddenly the sex note--(as I will call it for want of a +better word)--disappeared from the press. Psychology was pronounced +'off,' and plots were the order of the day. Many names well-known at +that time and associated with a _flair_ for delicate delineation of +character, disappeared from the magazine contents bill and the +publisher's list, whilst facile writers who could turn out mild +detective yarns or tales of adventure and gore were in clover. + +Signs are not wanting that the pendulum of public interest has now swung +back again, and another wave of realism in fiction and inquiry into the +re-adjustment of the conjugal bond is imminent. But the pendulum will +have to swing back and forth a good many times however, before the +relations between the sexes succeed in finding that new form of which +Tolstoy speaks. What the revival I have foretold will accomplish remains +to be seen. What did the last agitation achieve? Practically nothing; +a few women may have been impelled to follow in the footsteps of Grant +Allen's Herminia to their undying sorrow, and possibly a good many +precocious young girls, who read the literature of that day, may have +given their parents some anxiety by their revolutionary ideas on the +value of the holy estate. But when that trio so irresistible to the +feminine heart came along--the Ring, the Trousseau, and the House of My +Own, to say nothing of the solid, twelve-stone, prospective +husband--which among these advanced damsels remembered the sermon on the +hill-top? + +Yet in the fourteen years that have elapsed since the publication of +_The Woman Who Did_, there have certainly been some changes. For one +thing, it is still harder apparently to earn a decent living. Times +are bad and money scarce; men are even more reluctant than before to +'domesticate the recording angel' by marrying, and a type of woman has +sprung up amongst us who is shy of matrimony and honestly reluctant to +risk its many perils for the sake of its problematical joys. Most +noticeable of all is the growing dissatisfaction of the sexes with each +other. Men do not shun marriage only because of unfavourable financial +conditions, or because the restrictions of wedlock are any more irksome +to them than formerly, but because they cannot find a wife sufficiently +near their ideal. Woman has progressed to such an extent within the +last generation or two: her outlook has so broadened, her intellect +so developed that she has strayed very far from man's ideal and, +consequently, man hesitates to marry her. There is something comic about +the situation, and at Olympian dinner-tables I feel sure the gods would +laugh at this twentieth-century conjugal deadlock. + +Another reason why men fall in love so much less than they used to do is +largely due to the decay of the imaginative faculty. As for women, +although they are in the main as anxious to marry as ever, although it +is universally acknowledged that the modern young woman does cultivate +the modern young man unduly, their reasons for doing so are less and +less concerned with the time-honoured motives of love. Marriage brings +independence and a certain social importance; for these reasons women +desire it. H. B. Marriot Watson has put the case neatly thus: 'Women +desire to marry _a_ man; men to marry _the_ woman.' Nevertheless women +are even now more prone to fall in love than are men, because they have +better preserved this imaginative faculty, which is possibly also the +cause of the disillusionment and discontent of wives after marriage. + +The upshot of it all is that men and women appear to have become +antagonistic to each other. However much they love the individual of +their fancy, a kind of veiled distrust seems to obtain between the sexes +collectively, but more especially on the part of men--perhaps because +man is more necessary to woman than woman is to man. This hostility +towards woman is particularly noticeable in the pages of the press. +Scarcely a week passes but some journalist of the nobler sex pours out +his scorn for the inferior one of his mother in columns of masterly +abuse on one score or another. Each article is followed by a passionate +correspondence in which 'Disgusted Dad,' 'Hopeless Hubby,' 'Browbeaten +Brother,' and the inevitable 'Cynicus' express high approval of the +writer, whilst 'Happy Mother of Seven Girls' and 'Lover of the Sex' +write to demand his instant execution and public disgrace. + +The range of men's fault-finding is endless; one will assert that women +are mere domestic machines, unfit companions for any intelligent man, +and with no soul above conversation about their servants and children; +another that they are mere blue-stockings striving after an unattainable +intellectuality; a third that they are mere frivolous dolls without +brain or heart, engrossed in the pursuit of pleasure, a fourth that they +are sexless, slangy, misclad masculine monsters. + +Judged by the assertions of newspaper correspondents, women are at one +and the same time preposterously masculine, contemptibly feminine, +ridiculously intellectual, repulsively athletic, and revoltingly +frivolous. In appearance they are either lank, gaunt, flat-footed +lamp-posts, or else over-dressed, unnaturally-shaped, painted dolls. +Their extravagance exhausts expletive! When they belong to the class of +society generally denoted with a capital S, they invariably smoke, +drink, gamble and swear. They neglect their homes and their children. +They have little principle and less sense, no morals, no heart and +absolutely _no_ sense of humour! + +'But,' the observant reader may possibly exclaim, 'there is nothing new +about this. Woman has ever been man's favourite grumble-vent, from the +day when the first man got out of his first scrape by blaming the only +available woman!' True enough, age cannot stale the infinite variety of +women's misdemeanours, as viewed by men; tradition has hallowed the +subject, custom carries it on; and probably when the last trump shall +sound, the last living man will be found grumbling loudly at the +abominable selfishness of woman for leaving him alone, and the last dead +man to rise will awake cursing because his wife did not call him sooner! + +But formerly man's fault-finding was more of the nature of genial chaff, +as when we affectionately laugh at those we love. There was nearly +always a certain good humour about his diatribes, which now is lacking. +In its stead can be noted a bitterness, a distinct animus. Men +apparently take with an ill-grace women's rebellion against the old +man-made conditions, and they retaliate by falling in love less +frequently, and showing still more reluctance to enter the arena of +matrimony. + +Nevertheless, they get there all the same, albeit in a different spirit. +Timorous and trembling, our faint-hearted modern lovers gird on their +new frock-coats and step shrinkingly into the arena where awaits +them--radiant and triumphant--the determined being whose will has +brought them thither. No, not _her_ will, but the mysterious will of +Nature which remains steadfast and of unswerving purpose, indifferent +to our sex-warfare and the progress of our petty loves and hates. The +institution of marriage battered, abused, scarred with countless +thousands of attacks, stained with the sins of centuries still continues +to flourish, for, as Schopenhauer says; '_It is the future generation in +its entire individual determination which forces itself into existence +through the medium of all this strife and trouble._' + +The _Will-to-Live_ will always have the last word! + + + + + II + + WHY MEN DON'T MARRY + + 'If you wish the pick of mankind, take a good bachelor and a good + wife.' + + 'There is probably no other act in a man's life so hot-headed and + foolish as this of marriage.' --R. L. STEVENSON. + + 'Whatever may be said against marriage, it is certainly an + experience.' --OSCAR WILDE. + + +'All the men are getting married and none of the girls,' a volatile lady +is once reported to have said, and one understands what she meant to +convey. In a newspaper correspondence on marriage I once noted the +following significant passage: '_But in these days it is different from +what it was when I was a girl. Then every boy had his sweetheart and +every girl her chap. Now it seems to me the boys don't want sweethearts +and the girls can't get chaps. For one youth who means honestly to marry +a girl, you will find twenty whose game is mere flirtation, regardless +of how the girl may be injured. The times are ungallant and they want +mending._' + +This letter is signed 'A Workman's Wife,' but it bears ample evidence of +having been written by a member of the staff, who seemed to consider +sufficient _vraisemblance_ had been given to the signature by the +inclusion of an occasional vulgarism, such as 'chap.' But in spite of +being penned to order, the statements expressed appear to be only too +true. The times are ungallant indeed and growing more so every year. + +Not long ago I was at a cheery social gathering where the non-marrying +tendency of modern men was being discussed. Someone put all the men into +a good humour with the reminder that 'by persistently remaining single, +a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation,' and as there +were fifteen bachelors present, the conversation naturally became +personal. + +One whom I will call Vivian, gallantly remarked that all the nice women +were married, so he perforce remained single. I happen to know that he +is deeply in love with a married woman. Another, Lucian, a very handsome +and popular man of thirty, said he fully meant to marry some day, but +wanted a few more years' freedom first. Dorian gravely asserted that he +was waiting for my daughter (aged eighteen months), but being in his +confidence, I know that his case is similar to Vivian's. Hadrian's +health would make his marriage a crime; we are all aware of that +fortunately, so no one asked him. The same discretion was observed with +regard to Julien of whom it is well known that he has formed an +'unfortunate' attachment and has practically not the right to marry. +Florian was jilted years ago, and is shy and distrustful of the sex, +which is a great pity, as he is the kind of man born for fireside and +nursery joys, and would make a wife very happy. + +Of Augustin and Fabian it may be truly said that 'the more they have +known of the others, the less they will settle to one;' and indeed I +fear they have spoilt themselves for matrimony, unless there is truth in +the old saying that a reformed rake makes the best husband. Endymion is +altogether too ineligible, his blue eyes and broad shoulders being his +only fortune; he makes plenty of capital out of these adjuncts: they +bring him in a rich return of feminine favour, but are nevertheless +hardly sufficient to support a wife. + +Claudian is really anxious to marry, but suffers from a fatal +faithlessness and, as he engagingly explains, can't love a girl long +enough to get the preliminaries settled. One day he is sure to be caught +by some determined and probably very unsuitable woman and led reluctant +to the altar. Galahad won't marry until he has found 'the one woman,' +and I fear he will prove a husband wasted, for poor Galahad already +wears spectacles and a bald spot; his devotion to an unrealisable ideal +bids fair to spoil his life. + +When I put the question to Aurelian, he smiled his evil smile, which +makes him more like an embittered vulture than ever, and remarked that +he was thinking over his offers and hadn't yet decided which was the +best. As the fact that he has been refused by seven women is well-known, +we really rather admire the persistence of his pose as a lady-killer. +He has even been known to write passionate letters to himself, in an +assumed hand, and drop cleverly-manufactured tears here and there upon +them, to give an air of greater realism to these amorous masterpieces, +which he uses as a proof of his wild stories of conquest. When dry, the +tears look most life-like; of course it is a dodge that every schoolgirl +knows, but I have never known a man have recourse to it before, and hope +never to again! + +Both Cyprian and Valerian gave as the reason for their continued +bachelorhood, the fact that they were too comfortable as bachelors and +had never felt the need of a wife. The latter added that if he could +find just _the_ girl, he would think it over, but as matters stood he +preferred certainty to chance and was taking no risks. Between +ourselves, both these two are very self-satisfied and egotistical +persons, and I don't think any woman has lost much by their resolve. + +The fourteenth man was Bayard, who belongs to a very exasperating type +of philanderer. Most women of the world have met and been bored by him +to their sorrow. It is his grievous habit to go about professing a +yearning for matrimony of the most ideal kind, and confiding at great +length to safely attached young matrons how he longs to find a home in +one good woman's heart, and what a great, pure, passionate, wild love he +is capable of. There is something rather engaging about him, and his +pose is naturally very attractive to unsuspecting spinsters. He is +always getting desperately entangled, but makes a great parade of his +poverty when the _affaire_ reaches the critical point, and wriggles out +successfully--generally without any too unpleasant explanation. If, +however, things have gone too far for this, he can always make good his +escape under cover of the 'I love you too much, darling, to drag you +down to poverty' plea. How many girls, wounded to the heart's core, have +listened to this hoary lie when they are more than willing to be poor, +if but with him, willing to economise and save, and forego for his sake. + +Not, of course, that Bayard and his like inspire such devotion; I mean +that the essentials of this particular excuse are given by very many +unmarried men nowadays as the reason of their single state. Generally +speaking, there are two main reasons why men do not marry: 1. Because +they have not yet met a woman they care for sufficiently; 2.--and these +constitute a large majority--because they are too selfish. Of course men +don't spell it that way. Like Bayard, they say they 'can't afford it.' +They think of all the things they would have to give up--how difficult +it is to get enough for their pleasure now, how impossible it would be +then, with the support of a wife and potential family added; how they +would hate having to knock off poker, find a cheaper tailor, and +economise in golf balls. They shudder at the prospect, and decide in the +expressively vulgar parlance of the day that it's 'not good enough.' The +things that are beyond price are weighed against the things that are +bought with money--and found wanting! + +It would, however, be the last word of foolishness to encourage +improvident marriages, already a source of so much misery, and of course +my remarks do not apply to the genuine poverty of the man who really +cannot afford to wed. For him I have a very real sympathy, since he is +missing the best things of life probably through no fault of his own. +The above strictures are intended solely for the man of moderate means, +who could afford to marry if he loved himself less and some woman more. +Five hundred a year, for instance, is a comfortable income for a +bachelor not in the inner circle of Society. On this sum a middle-class +man can do himself well, provided he has no particularly expensive vices +or hobbies--but it certainly means self-denial when stretched to provide +for a wife and two or three children. It means a small house in one of +the cheaper suburbs, instead of a bachelor flat in town, 'buses instead +of cabs, upper boxes instead of stalls, a fortnight _en famille_ at +Broadstairs instead of a month's fishing _en garcon_ in Norway. It means +no more suppers at the Savoy, no more week-ends in Paris, no more +'running' over to Monte Carlo; but it _can_ be done, and done happily, +provided a man puts love above luxuries. Almost every man can afford to +marry--the right woman! + +Of course, if a man has still to meet the woman of his fancy, all is +well, but it is the despicable plea of Bayard that so incenses me. If +men would own the truth, it would not be so bad, but, Adam-like, as +usual, they lay the blame on women and say: 'Girls expect so much +nowadays, it is impossible to make enough money to satisfy them.' This +is one of the many lies men tell about women, or perhaps they are under +a delusion and really believe the statement to be true. Let them be +undeceived, girls _don't_ expect so much; they are perfectly willing to +be poor, as I have said before, if only they care for the man enough. At +anyrate, once they have reached that stage of wanting the real things of +life they would sooner have wifehood and comparative poverty than ease +and empty hearts in their parents' home. They would sooner, in short, +be 'tired wives than restful spinsters.' + +Another delusion men spread about women is that they're too fond of +pleasure to settle down. How often one hears statements such as 'Juno +Jones wouldn't make a good wife, she's out all day playing golf;' or +'I couldn't afford to marry Sappho Smith, she's too fond of dress and +theatre-going.' God bless the man! What else have the poor girls to do? +Sappho has a taste for dainty clothes and a love for the theatre; she +fills her empty existence with these things as far as she can; Juno has +nothing in the wide world to do all day long, but she loves the open +air, and so concentrates her magnificent energies on a game with a stick +and ball, because any active part in the great game of life is denied +her. Marry her--if she will have you--and see what a grand comrade she +will make, and what splendid children she will bear you. Or marry +Sappho, and you will find she will never want any but simple pleasures +within your means, as long as you are kind to her and adore her as she +requires to be adored. She will cheerfully make her own clothes, and +find her greatest joy in planning out your income and adorning your +home. + +Everyone can recall having known frivolous and pleasure-loving girls +settle down into admirable wives whose nurseries are models and whose +households are beyond reproach. Doubtless their friends all predicted +disaster when these butterflies were led to the altar. I honestly +believe women only want extravagant pleasures when they are miserable. +It is generally the wretched wives, the unhappy, restless spinsters who +run up bills and fling away money. They feel that life is cheating them +and they must have some compensations. + +But to return to my fifteen bachelors. There only remains Florizel, +whose attitude towards wedlock is a blend of that of Bayard and +Claudian. He is genuinely eager to marry, ardent, affectionate, anxious +to do right, but lacking in moral courage and egotistical to the point +of disease. I would much like to see him happily wedded, as he then +would doubtless quickly lose that intense self-centredness, but I +question if any attractive woman exists who would be unselfish enough to +cope with him in his present state of egomania. His mind is always +inflamed with some woman or other, and he hovers about on the edge of +desperate _amours_, anxious to fall head over ears into the sea of love +and cast out an anchor of matrimony to hold him fast where he can swerve +no more. Unfortunately he cannot forget himself enough to take the fatal +plunge. With all his faults there is something very lovable about +Florizel, and I should like to see him knocked into shape, though it +would be a brave and patient woman who would take the task in hand. + +When all the fifteen bachelors had ceased to talk about themselves and +settled down to bridge with the rest of the company, an old lady who, +like myself, preferred to be a looker-on, came and sat beside me. 'How +they _do_ talk,' she said! 'But I can tell you why they don't marry, in +six words, my dear: because they don't fall in love! And why don't they +fall in love? Because the girls are too eager; because the girls meet +them all the way--that's why! I've seven sons, all unmarried, and _I_ +know!' + + * * * + +NOTE.--It is interesting to note that Westermarck in his _History of +Human Marriage_ quotes a number of authorities to prove that among many +ancient nations marriage was a religious duty incumbent upon all. Among +Mohammedan people generally it is still considered a duty. Hebrew +celibacy was unheard of, and they have a proverb, 'He who has no wife is +no man.' In Egypt it is improper and even disreputable for a man to +abstain from marriage when there is no just impediment. For an adult to +die unmarried is regarded as a deplorable misfortune by the Chinese, +and among the Hindus of the present day a man who remains single is +considered to be almost a useless member of society, and is looked upon +as beyond the pale of nature. + + + + + III + + WHY WOMEN DON'T MARRY + + 'It's a woman's business to get married as soon as possible and a + man's to remain unmarried as long as he can.' --G. BERNARD SHAW. + + 'Marriage is of so much use to a woman, opens out to her so much + of life, and puts her in the way of so much more freedom and + usefulness, that whether she marry ill or well, she can hardly + miss some benefit.' --R. L. STEVENSON. + + +'Why women don't marry? But they do--whenever they can!' the intelligent +reader will naturally exclaim. Not 'whenever they get the chance,' mark +you; no _intelligent_ reader would make this mistake, though it is a +common enough error among the non-comprehending. Most spinsters over +thirty must have winced at one time or another at the would-be genial +rallying of some elderly man relative: 'What! you not married yet? Well, +well, I wonder what all the young men are thinking of.' I write _some +man_ advisedly, for no woman, however cattishly inclined, however +desirous of planting arrows in a rival's breast, would utter this +peculiarly deadly form of insult, which, strangely enough, is always +intended as a high compliment by the masculine blunderer. The fact that +the unfortunate spinster thus assailed may have had a dozen offers, and +yet, for reasons of her own, prefer to remain single, seems entirely +beyond their range of comprehension. + +But the main reason why women don't marry is obviously because men don't +ask them. Most women will accept when a sufficiently pleasing man offers +them a sufficiently congenial life. If the offers they receive fall +below a certain standard, then they prefer to remain single, wistfully +hoping, no doubt, that the right man may come along before it is too +late. The preservation of the imaginative faculty in women, to which I +have previously alluded, doubtless accounts for many spinsters. It must +also be remembered that the more educated women become, the less likely +they are to marry for marrying's sake as their grandmothers did. + +Then there are a few women, quite a small section, who, unless they can +realise their ideal in its entirety, will not be content with second +best. By an irony of fate, it happens that these are often the noblest +of their sex. Yet another small section remain single from an honest +dislike of marriage and its duties. It is perhaps not too severe to say +that a woman who has absolutely no vocation for wifehood and motherhood +must be a degenerate, and so lacking in the best feminine instincts as +to deserve the reproach of being 'sexless.' This type is apparently +increasing! I shall deal with it further in Part IV. + +Then there are those--I should not like to make a guess at their +number--who will marry _any_ man, however undesirable and uncongenial, +rather than be left 'withering on the stalk.' It is an acutely +humiliating fact that there exists no man too ugly, too foolish, too +brutal, too conceited and too vile to find a wife. _Any_ man can find +_some_ woman to wed him. In this connection, one recalls the famous +cook, who, when condoled with on the defection of a lover, replied: +'It don't matter; thank God I can love any man!' + +One cannot help being amused by the serious articles on this subject in +feminine journals. We are gravely told that women don't marry nowadays +because they price their liberty too high, because those who have money +prefer to be independent and enjoy life, and those who have none prefer +bravely wringing a living from the world to being a man's slave, a mere +drudge, entirely engrossed in housekeeping, etc., etc.; and so on--pages +of it! All this may possibly be true of a very small portion of the +community, but the uncontrovertible fact remains that the principal +reason for woman's spinsterhood is man's indifference. + +I have every sympathy with the women who wish to postpone taking up the +heavy responsibilities of matrimony till they have had what in the +opposite sex is termed 'a fling,' that is until they have enjoyed a +period of freedom wherein to study, to travel, to enjoy their youth +fully, to meet many men, to look life in the eyes and learn something of +its meaning. But there comes a period in the life of almost every +woman--except the aforesaid degenerate--when she feels it is time to +'put away childish things,' and into her heart there steals a longing +for the real things of life--the things that matter, the things that +last--wedded love and little children, and that priceless possession, +a home of one's own. + +It is the fashion nowadays to discredit the home, and it has been +jestingly alluded to by Mr Bernard Shaw as 'the girl's prison and the +woman's workhouse;' but what a wonderful sanctuary it really is!--and +exactly how much it means to a woman, only those who have felt the need +of it can tell. In our youth, home is the place where hampers come from, +where string and stamps and magazines grow on the premises, a place +generally where love is, but nevertheless essentially a place we take +for granted and for which we never dream of being grateful. Later on it +is sometimes associated with irksome duties; to some it even becomes a +place to get away from; but when we have lost it, how we long for it! +How reverently we think of each room and the things that happened there; +how we yearn in thought over the old garden and dream about the beloved +trees. No matter how mean a home it may have been, every bit of it is +sacred and dear--from the box-room, where on wet days we played at +robbers, to the toolshed, where on fine days we played at everything +under the sun. To this day if I chance on a badly-cooked potato it +almost brings tears to my eyes, not because of its badness, but because +it recalls the potatoes that three small children used to cook with +gladness and eat with silent awe, in the ashes of a bonfire, in an old +garden, long, long ago--whilst the smell of a bonfire itself makes me +feel seven years old again! + +But whether she has a home with her parents or not, every normal woman +longs for a home of her own, and a girl who resents even arranging the +flowers on her mother's dinner-table will after marriage cheerfully do +quite distasteful housework in the place she calls her own. + +This passionate love of home is one of the most marked feminine +characteristics; I don't mean love of being _at_ home, as modern women's +tastes frequently lie elsewhere, but love of the place itself and the +desire to possess it. A great number of women marry solely to obtain +this coveted possession. As for those who don't, the advertisement +columns of the _Church Times_, the _Christian World_, and other papers +tell a pitiful story of their need. Ladies 'by birth' (pathetic and +foolish little phrase!) are willing to do almost anything in return for +just a modest corner, a very subordinate place even in someone else's +home. They will be housekeepers, servants, companions, secretaries, +helps for 'a small salary and a home,' and sometimes for no salary at +all. They will pack, sew, mend, teach, supervise; they offer their +knowledge of every kind, such as it is, their music, their languages, +their health and strength, their subservience and all their virtues, +real or acquired--all in return for a little food and fire, and the +sheltering of four walls, which constitute their extreme need, their +utmost desire--a home! Beautiful women, gifted and good women, sell +themselves daily just to gain a home. Even Hedda Gabler, most degenerate +of modern heroines, who shot herself rather than be a mother, sold +herself in a loveless marriage only for a home. And yet constantly we +read a list of trivial and fantastic reasons why women don't marry! + +A girl-bachelor who was compelled to spend most of her time in that +uncomfortable place technically known as 'one's boxes,' once told me +that her greatest desire was a spot just big enough for a wardrobe in +which to keep her spare clothes and little possessions. She did without +a home, but she longed intensely for that wardrobe. 'I shall have to +marry Tony soon,' she said, 'just for the convenience of having room for +my clothes. I don't like him, and I want to wait till someone I do like +comes, but if ever I take him, it will be for wardrobe room, you just +see.' I must add that 'someone' _did_ come, and she now possesses +several wardrobes and three bouncing babies, and Tony cuts her when he +meets her in the Park! + +This home passion is even more noticeable in that class of society +usually referred to as the lower. I have occasionally employed a poor +woman who has been in service as cook since her husband died nineteen +years ago. All that time, she has 'kept on the home,' _i.e._ a single +room which contains her furniture. She has scarcely ever had to use the +room, except for an odd day or two, and has had to spend much of her +scanty leisure in cleaning it. For nineteen years she has paid +three-and-six a week for the room sooner than sell her furniture. The +L172 thus expended would have paid for the furniture over and over +again. The woman quite realises the absurdity of it, but 'I simply +couldn't part with the 'ome,' is her explanation. + +Yet another instance. Once when staying in seaside lodgings, I had the +misfortune to break a homely vessel of thick blue glass which had +evidently begun life as a fancy jam jar, but had been relegated, for +some reason obscure to me, to the proud position of mantel 'ornament,' +if that be the term. To my surprise the worthy landlady wept bitterly +over the pieces, and when I spoke of gorgeous objects wherewith to +replace her treasure, explained snappishly: 'Nothing won't make it good +to me! Why, that there blue vorse was the beginning of the 'ome!' + +I must ask pardon for this digression and return to the subject in hand. +The most depressing aspect of the question is that even if every man +over twenty-five were married there would be still an enormous number of +women left husbandless. This is really very serious, and is a condition +that gives rise to many evils. To make up for it as far as possible, +every man of sound health and in receipt of sufficient income ought to +marry. If it is merely 'not good' for man to be alone, then it is very +bad indeed for women! Every woman should have a man companion, a man to +live with--if only to take the tickets, carry the bags and get up in the +night to see what that noise is. Since society as at present constituted +does not countenance men and women living together for companionship, +then clearly every woman ought to have a husband! + +Mr Bernard Shaw has written: 'Give women the vote and in five years +there will be a crushing tax on bachelors.' So there should be, subject +to certain qualifications of age and income; this is one of the many +matters in which we should take a lesson from the Japanese where all +bachelors over a certain age are taxed; in France too, a bill, to this +effect, is being discussed. At the time of writing, women are full of +anticipation of being speedily enfranchised, and there is a good deal of +talk about what use they will make of the vote. I regret to say that +although there have been some utterly idiotic threats to abolish that +boon to wives--the man's club--yet so far, with one exception, nothing +has appeared in print as to the advisability of taxing bachelors. The +exception is a very interesting anonymous novel called _Star of the +Morning_, which strongly advocates such a tax, among several other +thoughtful suggestions for political reform. + +It is obviously only just that the man who is doing nothing for the +State in the way of rearing a family should be taxed to relieve the man +who is. We hear so much about the falling birth-rate, and the duty of +every married couple to have a family, yet everything is done to +discourage those who do. The professional man slaving to earn, say, +L1000 a year, and bring up three or four children for the State, is +taxed exactly as much as the bachelor in receipt of the same income who +does nothing at all for the State, and can even avoid the other taxes by +being a lodger, if he choose. + +But even if we eventually get reasonable legislation, which would offer +rewards instead of additional burdens to those who do their share in +keeping up the birth-rate; even if a bachelor over twenty-five became as +rare an object in these islands as an old maid in a Mohammedan country, +still there would be this enormous superfluity of spinsters. Why is it? +Why should Great Britain be regarded as a paradise of old maids? Why +should we have more spinsters than other countries? Is it because our +colonies swallow up so many men? Then why can't they swallow up an equal +number of women? I should like this most important matter to be taken up +by the State and an Institution for Encouraging Marriage started under +State auspices. One of the duties of this institution would be to induce +numbers of suitable women to emigrate, so as to preserve the proper +balance of the sexes in the home country, and that every colonist might +have a chance to get a wife. I heard the other day of a very ordinary +colonial girl who had eleven men all wanting to marry her at once. +Eleven men! And yet there are scores of charming English girls who grow +old and soured without having had a single offer of marriage. + +Another duty of the Institution for Encouraging Marriage would be to try +and reach and bring together the thousands of lonely middle-class men +and women in large towns, who are engaged at work all day and have no +means of meeting members of the opposite sex. I have just been reading +Francis Gribble's very interesting novel, _The Pillar of Cloud_, in +which he describes the existence of half a dozen girls in 'Stonor House' +one of those dreary barracks for homeless females engaged during the +day. The frantic desire of these girls to meet men of their own class is +painfully true, and this desire is not so much the outcome of young +women's natural tendency to cultivate young men, but because all such +men to them are possible husbands, and marriage is the only way out from +Stonor House and the joyless existence there. + +In _The Pathway of the Pioneer_ published a few years ago, Dolf Wyllarde +breaks similar ground, but her young women are more morbid and less +frankly anxious to meet men with a view to matrimony. Both books, +however, give one a good idea of the cheerless, unnatural lives led by +young middle-class women, whose relatives, if any, are far away, and who +work for their living in large towns--condemned almost inevitably to +celibacy by these unfavourable social conditions. + +That large numbers of daintily-bred women should be condemned to such an +existence is the strongest possible argument in favour of the +establishment of two French institutions, viz., strictly limited +families and the system of _dots_. Of late years, the former has been +largely adopted in England, and until the latter custom also becomes the +rule, the Institution for Encouraging Matrimony could take the matter in +hand. Two or three unusually sensible philanthropists have already given +their attention to this important subject, but any movement of this +nature at once assumes too much the aspect of a matrimonial agency to be +approved by the class for whose welfare it is destined. However, the +I.F.E.M. would have to deal with this obstacle and conceal its real +intentions under another name. I am sure if its object were sufficiently +wrapped-up that refined men and women could take advantage of it without +loss of self-respect--the response to such an institution by both sexes +would be enormous. A club, ostensibly for promoting social intercourse, +might be the solution, and subscription dances, concerts, organised +excursions would not be difficult to arrange, and would make a source of +brightness and interest in many drab lives. Country branches could be +started if the thing proved a success. + +One constantly sees in the newspapers proof of the fact that there are a +very large number of middle-class young men able and anxious to marry, +who lack feminine acquaintances of their own social standing from whom +to make a choice. Unfortunate _mesalliances_ are often the result, and +it seems to me a sad and wasteful thing that these uxoriously-inclined +men cannot be brought into contact with some of the thousands of young +women whose lives are passed in uncongenial toil and who are eating out +their hearts in their anxiety for a home and a husband of their own. +Until the I.F.E.M. becomes fact, here is splendid work ready to hand for +a philanthropist of infinite tact, and large, sympathetic heart. What a +chance to add to the sum of human joy! What a rich reward for the +expenditure of but a little time and money! + + + + + IV + + THE TRAGEDY OF THE UNDESIRED + + 'So man and woman will keep their trust, + Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust. + + 'Yea, each with the other will lose and win, + For the Strife of Love's the abysmal Strife, + And the Word of Love is the Word of Life. + + 'And they that go with the Word unsaid, + Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead.' + + --W. E. HENLEY. + + +This is a tragedy of which few men know the existence and certainly no +man in these woman-ridden isles can ever have experienced. Men always +treat with derision the woman anxious for matrimony, and gibe equally at +the spinster who fails to attain it. Heaven alone knows why, since by +men's laws and traditions the married state has been made to mean +everything desirable for a woman, and the unmarried condition everything +undesirable. 'People think women who do not want to marry unfeminine; +people think women who do want to marry immodest; people combine both +opinions by regarding it as unfeminine for women not to look longingly +forward to wifehood as the hope and purpose of their lives, and +ridiculing and contemning any individual woman of their acquaintance +whom they suspect of entertaining such a longing. They must wish and +not wish; they must not give, and certainly must not withhold, +encouragement--and so it goes on, each precept cancelling the last, +and most of them negative.'[1] + + [Footnote 1: Augusta Webster.] + +Both Mr Bernard Shaw and Mr George Moore have stated in print that women +frequently propose to men, and several men have confided in me details +of the proposals they have received from forward fair ones. I believe it +is one of the tenets of advanced women that the sex that bears the child +has a right to choose the husband. Although unpleasantly revolutionary +this seems eminently sane. That the right to choose a mate should be +open to all adults, instead of being the sole privilege of the most +selfish and least observant sex, will possibly be acknowledged in the +future, when the woman question shall be set at rest for ever. + +In those far-off days there will, let us hope, be no more tragedy of +the undesired. It seems almost indelicate to apply this phrase to the +noble army of British spinsters, for the most part dignified, worthy +women, comprising ratepayers, householders, philanthropists, +mothers-in-all-but-fact--working parochially, among the poor, in +hospitals, schools, homes, offices, and studios--on public bodies, +on the staff of newspapers--generally cheerful and helpful, sometimes +clever, often charming, occasionally a little narrow perhaps, but on the +whole upholding the best traditions of their sex, and of course _never_ +admitting that they would like to have married. Deep in their own +hearts, however, almost all of them must feel the sadness of their +unfulfilment, comfort themselves how they may with other interests. +Those that have engrossing occupations should be thankful, for the woman +whose whole heart is set on finding a husband and who fails to attain +this object generally becomes fretful, bitter, disappointed and useless +in every way. But women whose minds are sufficiently broad to hold other +ideals than the matrimonial one find other work to do, and do it capably +and faithfully. Loving and sympathetic women are always wanted. Marriage +is not essential to such a woman's life, though it may be to the highest +development of her happiness. + +Again, the large number of women who have had chances of marrying can +comfort themselves that they chose to be single for their ideal's +sake--or for whatever the reason was. Larger still is the number of +those possessing the non-marrying temperament of which Bernard Shaw has +written: 'Barren--the Life-Force passes it by.' This rarely troubles +them; they have a host of minor pleasures and interests which suffice; +no storms of feeling, no pangs of stifled mother-longing ruffle the +placid surface of their lives. The real tragedy of the undesired does +not touch either of these classes; it is reserved in all its poignancy +for those who belong to the type of the _grande amoureuse_, whom lack of +opportunity generally, lack of attractiveness sometimes, has prevented +from fulfilling the deepest need of their nature. + +I once met at a hotel on the Riviera an elderly spinster who was always +incredibly depressed. However bravely shone the sun, however fair seemed +the world in that fairest spot, nothing had the power to cheer her. +I tried once to get her to join in an excursion which a party of us were +going to make on donkey-back to a neighbouring village in the hills, but +she refused. Another time I invited her to accompany me to the rooms at +Monte Carlo, but she again refused, and after several well-meant efforts +on my part to cheer her had led to the same result, the poor soul told +me in hesitating words that she shunned gay places and lively +gatherings. 'They always make me discontented and remind me of what I +might have had; it brings home to me the--what shall I call it?--the +_tragedy of the might-have-been_.' I understood what she meant, and no +further words on the subject passed between us, much to my relief, as +confidences of this nature are very painful to both sides. My readers +will probably despise this poor lady as morbid, selfish and unbalanced. +Possibly they are right, but the sadness of an empty heart, a lonely +life, was the cause of her warped nature. Fortunately hers is an extreme +case; the majority of spinsters I imagine can take a delight in seeing +girls happy, and are generally deeply interested in the love affairs of +others. I recall a beautiful line of Fiona Macleod's to the effect that +'a secret vision in the soul will hallow life.' This will suffice to +keep many spinsters happy--the memory of some love and tenderness, +a romance of some kind to sweeten life; women need it. + +To give another instance: a woman once asked me why men fell in love. +'I wonder if you can tell me what it is about women that makes men +propose to them,' she said. 'I've known numbers of plain women married +and numbers of penniless ones, and some quite horrid ones without a +single quality likely to make a man happy, yet there must have been +_something_ about them that attracted--some reason for it.' + +She went on to tell me in such a pathetic way how she longed to have a +home and a 'nice, kind man,' to care for her, and yet no man had ever +asked her; no man had ever desired her or looked on her with love; she +had never known the clasp of a man's passionate arms, nor the ecstasy of +a lover's kiss. It seemed very strange to me, strangely painful and +horribly humiliating. I could scarcely bear to look at her while she +told me these things. + +'I would make a man so happy,' she said, and her mournful dark eyes +filled with tears; she had rather fine eyes, and was quite a +nice-looking woman with a most sweet and gentle manner. 'I would be so +good to him,' she went on; 'I'd simply live for him. I try to put it out +of my mind, but as I grow older, and it's more hopeless, I think of it +more and more and sometimes I feel I shall go mad with the misery of it. +The future is so utterly grey and it's all so unjust. I'm so fitted for +love, and now my life's going and I've had nothing, _nothing_!' + +She wept bitterly and I wept too in sympathy with her. Curiously enough, +this woman was not only attractive, as I have said, and anxious to +please, and thoroughly feminine, but she had had ample opportunities of +meeting men. I suppose she lacked what the Scotch peasant-woman called +the '_come hither in the 'ee_'--some subtle sex-magnetism which had been +possessed by those 'plain, penniless, and horrid women' whom she talked +about. Or perhaps it was that the 'will to live' was absent and +therefore no mate came to the woman. + +There are thousands of women who feel the same, though in most cases +they would scorn to own it. We hear a good deal of man's right to live; +what about woman's right to love? Women are so constituted that the need +for loving and being loved is the strongest factor of their being, the +essential of their existence. All over the country there are lonely +women of every class, leisured and working women, pretty and plain, good +and bad, who are hungering and thirsting for love, for a man to take +care of them, for the right to wifehood and the thrice blessed right to +motherhood. In the Press the parrot cry of men echoes ceaselessly: +'Women shouldn't meddle in politics; women shouldn't do this or +that--let them mind their homes and their children.' But the restless +women who do these things have generally no homes or children to mind; +what is the use of preaching the sacredness of motherhood when you will +not allow them to be mothers? To what end prate of the duties of +wifehood when you do not ask them to be wives? + +It is a well-known physiological fact that numbers of women become +insane in middle life who would not have done so if they had enjoyed the +ordinary duties, pleasures and preoccupations of matrimony--if their +women's natures had not been starved by an unnatural celibacy. This is +not a suitable subject to go into here, but I recommend it to the +attention of my more thoughtful readers and those who concern themselves +with the amelioration of the wretched social conditions of our glorious +twentieth-century civilisation. + +Hardest of all is the case of the woman who longs not merely for +wifehood and 'a kind man,' but more especially for motherhood, the +bitter-sweet crown of the sex that celibate priests preach ceaselessly +as woman's first duty and highest good, but which thousands of women in +this country are debarred from fulfilling! Surely no bitterness must +be so poignant as the bitterness of the woman who longs for +motherhood--ceaselessly in her ears the Life Force is calling, and deep +in her heart the dream children are stirring, crying, 'Give us life! +give us life!' becoming more importunate every year, as each year finds +the divine possibilities unrealised. + +I often think how everything combines to torment a generous-hearted, +full-blooded, mother-woman whose nature is starved thus. She has, of +course, to suppress all emotion on the subject, to hold her head high, +and endure with a smile the 'experienced' airs of girls, much younger +than herself, who happen to wear that magical golden ring that changes +all life for a woman; to pretend generally that she has no wish to +marry, never had, and could have if she chose, to laugh at this page if +she should happen to read it, and call the writer a morbid idiot--in +short, she always has to act a part before a world which professes to +find exquisitely humorous the fact of a woman being cheated out of the +birthright of her sex. Every paper and book she picks up nowadays +contains some reference to the glories of motherhood, the joys of love. +Music, pictures, novels and plays, all speak of sex fulfilled and +triumphant, not starved and denied like hers. The same principle is +everywhere in Nature--the sky, the sea, the flowers, the green trees, +the sound of summer rain--all beautiful sights and sounds have the same +meaning, the same burden, the same sharp sting for her. If she is +inclined to be morbid, every child's face seen in the street turns the +knife in the wound; every sweet baby's cooing is another pang. 'Not for +me--not for me!' must be the perpetual refrain in her mind. Her arms are +empty, her heart is cold; she belongs to the vast, sad army of the +undesired. + +_Do you wonder the madhouses are full of single women?_ + + * * * + +NOTE.--A clever and delightful friend of mine, a spinster by choice, +takes exception to my views on the single estate. I should be deeply +grieved if any words of mine were to cause pain to other women. I have +said before that some of the best women are spinsters, which is sad to a +believer in marriage like myself. Two of the sweetest and noblest women +I know are unmarried; one of them especially seems absolutely without a +thought of self, and has worked hard for others all her life, giving her +powers of brain and body to their utmost limit, and the treasures of her +beautiful heart generously and without stint. I beg my readers to note +that I have tried to differentiate between those spinsters who do not +want to marry and those who do; between the rich spinster who can +command all the amenities of life, and the poor one compelled to a +relentless and unceasing round of uncongenial toil. Still more do I wish +to distinguish between the placid contented woman who can adapt herself +to circumstances and find a quiet sort of happiness in any life--and the +less well-balanced, more passionate natures, with deeper desires and an +imperious need of loving. It is this need of loving stifled, crushed and +fought against that awakens my profound compassion--a compassion which +my friend informs me is wasted and misplaced. My readers must judge. + + + + + PART II + + CAUSES OF FAILURE + + + 'For Marriage is like Life in this, that it is a field of battle, + not a bed of roses.' --R. L. STEVENSON. + + 'Marriage is to me apostasy, profanation of the sanctuary of my + soul, violation of my manhood, sale of my birthright, shameful + surrender, ignominious capitulation, acceptance of defeat.' + --_Man and Superman._ + + 'A wise man should avoid married life, as though it were a burning + pit of live coals.' --_Dhammika Sutta._ + + + + + I + + THE VARIOUS KINDS OF MARRIAGE + + 'Marriage is the great mistake that wipes out the smaller + stupidities of Love.' --SCHOPENHAUER. + + +In one of his essays Stevenson says: 'I am so often filled with wonder +that so many marriages are passable successes, and so few come to open +failure, the more so as I fail to understand the principle on which +people regulate their choice.' + +Out of the chaos which envelops this 'principle' four special motives +seem to stand out, and we can therefore roughly divide the marriages +that take place into five sections thus-- + + 1. The Marriage of Passion. + 2. The Marriage of Convenience. + 3. Marriage for a Purpose. + 4. Haphazard Marriage. + 5. The Marriage of Affection. + + * * * + +_The Marriage of Passion._--One of Mr Somerset Maugham's characters in +_The Merry-Go-Round_ says: 'I'm convinced that marriage is the most +terrible thing in the world, unless passion makes it absolutely +inevitable.' Although a profound admirer of Mr Maugham's work, here I +find myself entirely at variance with him. Most of the mad, unreasonable +matches are those which 'passion makes inevitable.' Theoretically this +is one of the most promising types of marriage--in practice it proves +the most fatally unhappy of all. 'They're madly in love with each other, +it's an ideal match' is a comment one often hears expressed with much +satisfaction, but it is a painful fact that these desperate loves lead +very frequently to disaster and divorce. Most of the miserable married +couples personally known to me were 'madly in love' with each other at +the start. + +Is it to be wondered at when one considers the matter? Nature, who +seldom makes a mistake where primitive mankind is concerned is by no +means infallible when dealing with the artificial conditions of our +Western civilisation. In the East where greater sex licence is allowed, +it seems quite safe to trust Nature and follow the instincts she +implants. Not so in our hemisphere. The young man and maid who fall +under passion's thrall are temporarily blind and mad; their judgment is +obscured, their reasoning powers non-existent, nothing in the world +seems of the slightest importance except the overwhelming necessity _to +give_ themselves--_to possess_ the beloved, the being who has fired +their blood. + +If the Fates are cruel, these two are permitted to rush into matrimony. +Nature has worked her will and pays no more heed. She is well-satisfied: +the children born of these unions of utter madness are generally the +finest and strongest, and what else does Nature care about? But for the +young couple? . . . Gradually the roseate clouds lift, the intoxicating +fumes are wafted away--the rapture subsides, and each awakes from the +effects of the most potent drug in the universe to find a very ordinary +young person at their side--and around them a chain which men name +'Forever!' + +Unhappy indeed are these two if, when they stand facing each other over +passion's grave, there proves to be no link at all between them except +the memory of the madness that has died. Fortunately this is by no means +always the case, but when it is a very unhappy married life must +inevitably follow. Schopenhauer gives as the reason for such matches +proving unhappy the fact that their participants look after 'the welfare +of the future generation at the expense of the present,' and quotes the +Spanish proverb, 'He who marries for love must live in grief.' From the +point of view of the individual's interest, and not that of the future +generation, it certainly seems a mistake to wed the object of intense +desire unless there is also spiritual harmony, community of tastes and +interests, and many other points of union in common. But under the +influence of suppressed passion people lose their clearness of mental +vision and are therefore more or less incapable of judging. + +Let there be passion in marriage by all means--so far I entirely agree +with Mr Maugham--but let it be merely the outer covering of love--a +garment of flame the embrace of which is ecstasy indeed, but which, when +it has burnt itself away, still leaves love a solid form of joy and +beauty, erect beneath its ashes. 'Real friendship,' founded on harmony +of sentiment, does not exist until the instinct of sex has been +extinguished.[2] + + [Footnote 2: Schopenhauer's _Metaphysics of Love_.] + + * * * + +_Marriages of Convenience_ are of two kinds, the wholly sordid, when +money, social position, or some personal aggrandisement has been the +motive on one or both sides, without any basis of affection; and the +partially-sordid, when these reasons are modified by some existing +affection or liking. In this category come the people who marry +principally in the interests of their business or profession, such as +the barrister who weds the solicitor's daughter, or the young doctor who +marries into the old doctor's family. In this connection one recalls the +father who advised his sons not to marry for money, but to love where +money was. No doubt the possession of a little money or 'influence' is +an added attraction to a maiden's charm in the eyes of the go-ahead +young man of to-day; and considering how hard it appears to be to earn a +living nowadays one cannot altogether blame them--distressing as it +seems from the sentimental point of view. I don't believe, however, that +there are so many wholly sordid marriages outside the confines of the +set generally prefixed as 'smart.' People who are not members of this +glittering circle are already sufficiently shy of matrimony nowadays, +and are afraid of the enormous additional handicap such a match would +carry. Of course these unions are almost inevitably miserable failures, +and one wonders what else the victims could have expected. + + * * * + +We now come to the third division, _Marriage for a Purpose_. These +matches are distantly allied with the partially-sordid, but there is +nothing sordid about them, as they are frequently undertaken from the +highest motives. In this class are the widowers who wed for the sake of +their children, the spinsters whose motive is their desire for +motherhood, the men and women who marry to possess a home, or for the +sake of companionship. All these reasons are justifiable enough, and +people who embark on matrimony with a set purpose generally take it very +seriously, and determine to make a success of it. Such marriages often +prove extremely happy, perhaps for the very reason that so little is +asked. The spirit of contentment is an excellent influence in married +life, since love is often killed by its own excessive demands, as I +shall endeavour to show later. + + * * * + +_Haphazard Marriages_ seem to me the best way to describe those unions +into which men drift without any special reason, sometimes almost +against their own wish. Nature does not care how the young people come +together as long as they do come, and sometimes a man finds himself +drifting into matrimony almost before he is aware. I write a 'man' +advisedly as women never _drift_ into wifehood. In these cases it is +generally their set and deliberate purpose that has steered the man into +the conjugal harbour unknown to him. He has merely followed the line of +least resistance and found to his surprise that it leads to the altar. +Mr Bernard Shaw has given a very amusing, and, in spite of itself, +convincing, picture of this manoeuvring in _Man and Superman_, where he +also expresses his conviction that 'men, to protect themselves . . . +have set up a feeble, romantic conviction that the initiative in sex +business must always come from the man . . . but the pretence is so +shallow, so unreal that even in the theatre, that last sanctuary of +unreality, it imposes only on the inexperienced. In Shakespeare's plays +the woman always takes the initiative. In his problem plays and his +popular plays alike the love interest is the interest of seeing the +woman hunt the man down. . . . The pretence that women do not take the +initiative is part of the farce. Why, the whole world is strewn with +snares, traps, gins, and pitfalls for the capture of men by women. It is +assumed that the woman must wait motionless to be wooed. Nay, she often +does wait motionless. That is how the spider waits for the fly. The +spider spins her web. And if the fly, like my hero, shows a strength +that promises to extricate him, how swiftly does she abandon her +pretence of passiveness, and openly fling coil after coil about him +until he is secured for ever!' + + * * * + +_The Marriage of Affection._--'Do you know any thoroughly happy +couples?' says one of the characters in _Double Harness_. + +'Very hard to say. Oh, ecstasies aren't for this world, you know--not +permanent ecstasies. You might as well have permanent hysterics. And, as +you're aware, there are no marriages in heaven. So perhaps there's no +heaven in marriages either.' + +These sentiments are of a nature to disgust and irritate the ignorant +girl of twenty by their callous unreality in her eyes, and to delight +the experienced woman of, say, thirty, by their profound truth in +hers--so utterly do one's ideas about life change in the course of ten +years or so! + +Sixty years ago George Sand wrote: 'You ask me whether you will be happy +thro' love and marriage. You will not, I am fully convinced, be so in +either the one or the other. Love, fidelity, maternity are nevertheless +the most important, the most necessary things in the life of a woman.' + +To the same effect writes R. L. Stevenson when he says: 'I suspect Love +is rather too violent a passion to make in all cases a good domestic +character.' Of course no very young people will believe this, but it is +a horrid sordid truth that, as a rule, the happiest marriages are those +in which the couple do not love too intensely. I am speaking of solid, +workaday happiness, not of ecstasies and raptures. The excessive claims +made by passionate love and the fevered state of mind it produces are +often the cause of its shipwreck. 'If I am horrid, darling,' a girl once +said to her lover, when trying to make up a quarrel she herself had +brought about, 'it's only because I love you so intensely.' 'Then, for +God's sake, love me less, and treat me better,' snapped the outraged +lover, and we can but sympathise with him. + +I have purposely used the word _Affection_ in this division, in place of +one signifying a greater degree of feeling, and I unhesitatingly state +that generally speaking, the most successful marriages are those +which--'when the first sweet sting of love be past, the sweet that +almost venom is,' develop into the temperate, unexacting, peaceful and +harmonious unions which come under this heading. To the ardent youths +and maidens--restless seekers after the elusive joy of life--who will +have none of this prosaic and inglorious counsel, and who are prepared +to stake their all on the belief that the first sweet sting of love is +going to last for ever, I say: Get your roses-and-raptures over some +other way; don't look for romance in marriage or, unless your case prove +the exception to the rule, you will inevitably make a terrible +mistake! . . . Oh, don't ask _me_ how it is to be done, but remember +what I say, and don't marry until the quiet, sober, beautiful and +restful affection you now scorn becomes in your eyes a haven of peace +from the storm and stress of life, and the highest good it contains. + +Another reason why the Marriage of Affection is the most likely to prove +a success is because mutual respect enters so largely into its +composition, and how enormously important this is in the holy estate, +none can realise until they marry. I shall have more to say later about +the urgent necessity for respect in married life. + + + + + II + + WHY WE FALL OUT: DIVERS DISCORDS + + 'And yet when all has been said, the man who should hold back from + marriage is in the same case with him who runs away from battle.' + --R. L. STEVENSON. + + +We have discussed those types of marriage more or less doomed to failure +from the outset, and now come to the reason why so many matches prove +unhappy when apparently every circumstance has been favourable. + +It was Socrates, I think, who said: 'Whether you marry or whether you +remain unmarried, you will repent it.' The people who assert that +marriage is a failure seem to lose sight of the fact that the estate was +not ordained for the purpose of happiness, but to meet the necessities +of society, and so long as these necessities are fulfilled by marriage, +then the institution must be pronounced successful, however unhappy +married people may be. + +If the reasons 'why we fell out, my wife and I,' were to be considered +exhaustively, the subject would overflow the bounds of this modest +volume and run into several hundred giant tomes; indeed I believe an +entire library could be filled with books on this matter alone. Ever +since Adam and Eve had a few words over their dessert, husbands and +wives have gone on quarrelling continuously and the humble philosopher +who said that certain people quarrelled 'bitter and reg'lar, like man +and wife,' was merely describing a condition that habit had made +familiar to him. + +As with the rest of life, in matrimony it is the little things that +count, and the frail barque of married happiness founders principally on +the insignificant, half-perceived rocks--the little jealousies, little +denials, little irritations, little tempers, little biting words, which +by degrees wear so many little holes in the stern that at last an +irreparable leak is sprung and the ship goes down in the next storm. The +big obstacles make a worse crash when they _do_ get in the way, but they +can be seen from afar and steered clear of. + +A miserable husband who had come to the parting of the ways (having +started in the madly-in-love section), once confided in me that the +bitter and terrible quarrels between him and his wife always began for +some utterly trivial reason, generally because he did not admire her +clothes! Could anything be more pitifully absurd? 'Then why,' I asked, +'as you're so anxious to keep the peace, do you volunteer any criticism +at all?' 'Oh, I never do,' was the answer. 'She asks me my opinion of a +new gown, say, and gets angry when it's unfavourable. Then of course I +get angry too, I'm no saint, and presently we come to curses and words +that sting like blows. Then I clear out for a couple of days, and of +course there's the devil to pay when I go back, and it begins all over +again. Why, this present row has lasted five weeks or so, and in the +beginning it was simply because I said I didn't like the ostrich feather +in her hat!' + +Again: I once met at a race-meeting a school-friend, long lost sight of, +whom I had last seen as a newly-wedded wife, loving and beloved. She was +now very much changed, hard and haggard of face. I asked after the man I +remembered as a radiant bridegroom. + +'Oh, he's gone the way of all husbands,' she said, with a sigh; 'liver, +my dear.' + +'Do you mean he's dead?' I asked, shocked and pained. + +'Oh, dear, no, he's alive enough, but he's developed liver and that's +killed our love,' was the cynical reply. + +It had. Devotion and dyspepsia are hard to reconcile and my friend's +husband had developed a nasty knack of throwing his dinner in the fire +whenever it displeased him, a habit hardly conducive to home happiness. + +Food, as a fact, is one of the chief sources of friction in married +life. It sounds farcical, but I am perfectly serious. Food, the ordering +and cooking of it and the subsequent paying for it, is one of the great +tragedies of a wife's existence. Time, the great healer, mercifully +deadens the intensity of this anguish, and matrons of fifty or so can +face the daily burden of food-ordering with something like indifference. +But to a woman who has not yet reached the fatal landmark aptly +described as 'the same age as everybody else, namely, thirty-five,' it +is the greatest cross, whilst many a bride has had her early married +life totally ruined by the horrid and ever recurring necessity of +finding food for her partner. Men make fun of women because their +dinner, when alone, so often consists of an egg for tea, but women have +such a constitutional hatred of food-ordering, inherited, no doubt, from +a long line of suffering female ancestry, that the majority of them +would gladly live on tea and bread-and-butter for the rest of their +lives sooner than face the necessity of daily meditating on a menu. For +this reason I believe vegetarian husbands are particularly desirable, +since the whole principle of food-reform is simplicity. Those who go in +for it acquire an entirely fresh set of ideas on the importance of food, +and become quite pathetically easily pleased. I know a woman whose +husband is a vegetarian and she declared that the food question, so +disturbing a factor in most homes, had never caused her a single tear, +or frown, or angry word, or added wrinkle. She assured me that her +husband would cheerfully breakfast off a banana, lunch off a lettuce, +dine on a date and sup on a salted almond. When the house was upset on +the occasion of a large evening party and there were no conveniences for +the ordinary family dinner, the creature actually ate cheese sandwiches +in the bathroom, by way of a dinner, and was quite pleased to do so, +moreover! I could scarcely credit it at first, but it was really true. + +Of the many paltry little causes for friction in married life +incompatibility of temperature has doubtless been a very fruitful source +of dissension. If one shivers when the window is opened and the other is +a fresh-air faddist and can't breathe with it shut, an endless vista of +possibilities of unhappiness is opened out. It was, I believe, +Napoleon's second wife, Marie Louise, who always got rid of her husband +when she wished to, by merely keeping her apartments cold. The great man +was only comfortable in a very hot room with a blazing fire. + +That grievous deficiency, no sense of humour, is another of the tiny +little rocks on which married happiness often splits. This is natural +enough, since an absence of this priceless quality is about the worst +deprivation a traveller on life's journey can suffer from. Among men the +conviction is rife that women invariably suffer thus, but I think we can +afford to leave them this delusion, since it affords them so much +satisfaction. At one time I had a journalist friend of a painfully +stodgy and unusually depressing literary habit. This poor soul fancied +his vein was humour, and from him I have often endured the reading aloud +of the dreariest laboured pages of japes and jests, which to his +thinking were sparkling with wit. My patient, long-suffering listening +only brought bitter derision for my alleged lack of humorous perception, +but my criticism inspired the young man to write a cynical article on +'Women and Humour,' of the kind that editors--being men--delight in, +and for which he consequently got well paid. + +As a fact, the things that amuse men frequently fail to amuse women and +_vice versa_ but it is surely illogical to deduce from this that women's +humorous sense is inferior to men's--or non-existent. As, however, this +apparently insignificant question is of such importance in life +generally, whether it be in a palace, a convent, a villa or a +workhouse--I think a wife would be well-advised to assume amusement if +she feels it not, laugh with her lord even when she doesn't see the +point, and cultivate indifference when he fails to laugh with her. + +Writers on marriage seem to have paid very little attention to this +important point. Stevenson is one of the exceptions: 'That people should +laugh over the same sort of jest,' he says, 'and have many an old joke +between them which time cannot wither or custom stale is a better +preparation for life, by your leave, than many other things higher and +better-sounding in the world's ears. You could read Kant by yourself, +if you wanted; but you must share a joke with someone else.' + +In a beautiful poem, Stephen Phillips describes how a bereaved lover can +think calmly of his dead, when he looked at her possessions, the things +she had worn, even when he read her letters; and her saddest words had +no power to pain him, but when he came to-- + + 'A hurried, happy line! + A little jest too slight for one so dead: + This did I not endure-- + Then with a shuddering heart no more I read,' + +In truth, the little joke shared, the old allusion at which both are +accustomed to laugh, is a more potent bond than many a deeper feeling. +One can recall these trifles long after one has forgotten the poignant +moments of passion, the breathless heartbeats, the wild embraces which +at the time seemed to promise such deathless memories. All, all are +forgotten, but the silly little joke has still the power to bring tears +to our eyes if the one with whom we shared it is lost to us. + + * * * + +A great many people are wretched who would have been perfectly happy +with another partner. 'In the inequalities of temperament lies the main +cause of unhappiness in marriage. Want of harmony in tastes counts for +much, but a misfit in temperament for more.' So ludicrously mismated are +some couples that one wonders how they could ever have dreamed of +finding happiness together. This again is frequently the fault of our +absurd conventions, which make it so difficult for single young men and +women to really get to know each other. However, things have improved so +much in this direction during the last decade or two that we ought not +to grumble, but, even now, if a man show a decided preference for a +girl's company his name is at once coupled with hers in a manner which +can but alarm a youth devoid of matrimonial intentions. That relic of +the dark ages, the intention-asking parent, is by no means extinct, and +many a promising friendship that might have ended in a happy marriage is +spoilt by the clumsy intervention of this barbaric relative. + +A young barrister friend of mine--we will call him Anthony--once tried, +for reasons of professional policy, to make himself agreeable to a +solicitor with a very large family of daughters. Being a shrewd man, +he selected one of the girls still in the schoolroom to pay particular +attention to, and thus escaped the necessity of showing special interest +in her elder and marriageable sisters. His intimacy with the family +prospered, and the father became a very useful patron. However, as time +went on, he discovered to his dismay that his little friend, Amaryllis, +had grown up and that he was regarded in the family as her special +property. Speedily he transferred his attachment to Aphrodite, the +youngest girl then in the schoolroom, and by this means saved himself +from an entanglement with Amaryllis, whilst at the same time preserving +the valuable friendship of her father. In an incredibly short time, +however, Aphrodite was nubile, and the family once more expectant of +securing Anthony as a permanent member. Once again he executed the same +manoeuvre, choosing this time the little Andromeda, a plain child still +in the nursery. The family, though disappointed, remained hopeful, and +the years passed peacefully on, bringing a few sons-in-law in their +train, and innumerable boxes of sweets to the unprepossessing Andromeda. +When, however, Andromeda too grew up, the wily Anthony feared his +fruitful friendship must inevitably come to an end, since the only +remaining daughter had already reached the dangerous age of fifteen, +and bore moreover the improper name of Anactoria! + +A long friendship and a short engagement is perhaps the best +combination. A prolonged engagement is the most trying relationship +between the sexes possible to conceive. For the woman it means the +drawbacks of matrimony without its charm of restful finality, or any of +its solid worldly advantages. On the man's side it means the irksomeness +of the marriage yoke without any of its satisfactions and comforts. On +the man, indeed, a long engagement is especially hard, as at least the +woman is spared the burden of ordering his food and coping with his +servants. Many a sincere affection has been killed by the restraints and +irritations of a long engagement. Many a genuine passion has waned +during its dreary course, until but a feeble spark of the great flame is +left to light the wedded life, and both man and woman carry the mark of +that suppressed ardour which, under happier circumstances, might have +come to a joyous fruition. Their children, too, sometimes lack vitality, +and show the need of the fire that died before they were begotten. + + * * * + +I don't know who it was who first coined the phrase 'the appalling +intimacy of married life'; certainly it is an apt expression, and one +wonders at what period in the world's history men and women began to +find that intimacy 'appalling.' It sounds a modern enough complaint, and +somehow one feels sure it was never indulged in by our grandmothers, who +looked upon their husbands as a kind of visible embodiment of the Lord's +Will, and respected them accordingly. They would never have dreamed of +finding irksome what Mrs Lynn Linton called the '_chair-a-chair_ +closeness of the English home.' + +Much has been written of the degradation of love by habit, and Alexandre +Dumas expresses the whole question to perfection in one crystal +sentence: 'In marriage when love exists habit kills it; when love does +not exist habit calls it into being.' This is profoundly true, and for +every passion habit has killed it must certainly have created more +genuine affections. + +The Spartan plan of allowing husband and wife to meet only by stealth +shows an acute understanding of human nature and has much to recommend +it, if the object in view is to prolong the period of passion. But we +are not now dealing with passion, but with the ordinary affection +between people who have to live together under the trying conditions of +modern marriage, and in these circumstances one must agree with Dumas as +to the wonders worked by habit. + +Indeed, if people only realised it, habit is the cement which holds the +edifice of matrimony together. With the passing of years, given the +slightest basis of mutual harmony, one's partner becomes +indispensable--not by reason of her charms or the love we bear him, but +simply because she or he is a part of our lives. That is why I think the +policy of constant separation foolish. It is based presumably on the +erroneous supposition that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Where +the basis of mutual harmony does _not_ exist, it may be true; and if a +couple dislike each other and get on badly, a short separation may serve +to relieve the tension, and to send them back each resolved to try and +make things smoother in future. But where affection exists, it is a +mistake. One learns to do without the other; that linking chain of +little daily intimacies, oft-repeated jests, endearing customs, is +temporarily snapped, and it is not easily put together again. My friend +Miranda said to me not long ago: 'If Lysander's been away from me a day +I've heaps to talk about when he returns--if we've been parted a month, +I've nothing on earth to say.' + +I think it is de la Rochfoucauld who says: 'Absence deepens great +passions and lessens little ones just as the wind puts out the candle +and heightens the fire.' This is fine from the literary point of view, +but is it true? My experience says No. Yet _during_ the absence this +aphorism seems true enough. Disillusion comes with reunion. Who does not +remember that first departure of the Beloved--the innumerable letters, +the endless meditation, the ceaseless yearning and the everlasting +planning for the glorious return? What a meeting that is going to be! +How one dwells in thought on that first goodly satisfaction of the +desire of the eyes; goodlier still that joyous clasping of the hands; +goodliest of all that glorious locking of the lips, that unending +embrace in the ecstasy of which all the wretched hours of absence are to +be forgotten--and, oh! laughter of the gods! how different it really +proves! What a hideous disappointment the meeting is! How different the +Beloved looks from our passionate dream; his hair wants cutting; we +don't like his boots; his tie is not of our choosing; his speech does +not please us; his kiss has no thrill; his remarks bore; his presence +irritates: in short, _we have learnt to do without him_, so nothing he +does seems right. Poor Beloved! and did you think the same of us? Are +you disappointed too? Did you say to yourself: 'How fagged she looks! +By Jove! she's getting a double chin. I thought pink used to suit her. +What's she done to her hair? Her voice seems sharper. Why does she laugh +like that? I don't like her teeth. Good heavens, the woman's hideous!' +In short, _he has learnt to do without us_. When husbands and wives +learn this lesson, the good ship 'Wedded Bliss' is getting into perilous +waters where danger of utter wreck looms large. + +But it is equally fatal to go to the other extreme, and I entirely agree +with that authoress (who was she?) who said that no house could be +expected to go on properly unless the male members of the family are out +of it for at least six hours daily, Sundays excepted. The woman whose +husband's occupation, or lack of it, keeps him at home all day has my +profound sympathy. Merely to have to think out and order a man's lunch +as well as his breakfast and dinner must be a bitter trial. For this +reason among others women should never marry a man who does not work at +_something_. If he has no bread-winning business to remove him from his +wife's sphere of action for several hours daily, then he must have a +hobby, or a game mania, or engrossing duties which serve the same +purpose. Otherwise the wife must be constituted on a plane of inhuman +goodness and possess infinite love, tact, and patience if the two are to +live happily together. + +The same principle applies to women, though it is not generally +recognised. I am convinced that a great number of middle-class marriages +prove unhappy merely because the woman has not enough to do. Possessed +of sufficient servants, her household duties occupy a very small portion +of her leisure, and if her children are at school (or perhaps she has +none) she has nothing more engrossing to do than read novels and pay +visits. The result is that one type of woman cultivates nerves and +becomes a neurasthenic semi-invalid; another cultivates the opposite sex +and fills her leisure hours with undesirable philandering; another +develops temper or melancholy or jealous fancies; and so on--all of them +spoilt as companions merely for want of sufficient occupation. + + + + + III + + THE AGE TO MARRY + + 'To me the extraordinary thing is not that so many people remain + unmarried, but that so many rush into marriage, as they might rush + into a station to catch a train. And if you catch the wrong train, + what then? All you have to comfort you is the fact that you have + travelled.' --ROBERT HICHENS. + + +A great many unhappy unions might be prevented if people could find +their right age for marrying. As it differs with the individual, it is +impossible to lay down any exact rule. Some men are capable of making a +good choice at twenty-two; others don't know their own minds at double +that age. Some girls are fit for wifehood and maternity in their teens; +others never. + +In the interests of abstract morality early marriages are desirable, +and in England everything the law can do is done to encourage them. In +France the preservation of family authority is considered all-important, +and the law apparently tries to check early unions by every means in its +power, regardless of the high percentage of illegitimate births which is +the direct consequence.[3] + + [Footnote 3: In 1903 one tenth of all the children born in France + were illegitimate. In Paris alone the percentage was higher + still--about one in every four.] + +Broadly speaking, no woman should wed until she understands something of +life, has met a good many men, has acquired a certain knowledge of +physiology and eugenics and a clear understanding of what marriage +really means. No woman should marry until she has learnt the value of +money, and how to manage a household--until she has had plenty of +girlish fun and gaiety, and is thus ready for the more serious things of +life. Not until then is she likely to be happy in the monotony of +wedlock or capable of attuning her mind to the necessity of being +faithful to one man only, in thought as well as in deed. Broadly +speaking, also, no man is likely to marry happily until he has seen life +and plenty of it, has hammered out for himself something of a philosophy +and obtained considerable knowledge of women and a consequent +understanding of how to make one happy. + +This is not so easily done as men suppose, and it takes time to learn. +Few men under thirty are fit to have the care of a wife, and Heaven +preserve a girl from a young husband who is still a cub! No doubt she +will have glorious moments, for there is something intoxicating about +the ardour of a very young heart, and that is why we find boy and girl +marriages so charming--in theory. Sometimes in the case of an +exceptional couple, well suited to each other, they really are charming, +and then it is the most beautiful marriage conceivable--two young +things, starting off hand in hand on life's journey, brave-hearted, +loving, full of high hopes. But as a rule the glory is limited to +moments only; young girls are mostly shallow and frivolous; very young +men are often madly selfish and reckless. They are so proud of being the +sole possessor of an attractive woman that their conceit, always +immense, swells into monstrous proportions and they grow wholly +unbearable. If dark days should come to the young couple, the +boy-husband has no philosophy to support him, no knowledge of women to +enable him to understand his wife and live happily with her, and little +self-control for his help; she has the same defects of youth, and the +result is failure. Stevenson puts it perfectly thus: 'You may safely go +to school with hope, but before you marry you should have learned the +mingled lesson of the world.' On the other hand, Grant Allen says that +'the best of men are, so to speak, born married,' and that it is only +the selfish, mean, and calculating man who waits till he can afford to +marry. 'That vile phrase scarcely veils hidden depths of depravity,' he +continues. 'The right sort of man doesn't argue with himself at all on +these matters. He doesn't say, with selfish coldness: "I can't afford a +wife"; or "If I marry now I shall ruin my prospects." He feels and acts. +He mates like the birds, because he can't help himself.' + +I must say that these young men who do not think, but merely feel and +act, scarcely seem of the highest type in my opinion, and if mating like +the birds were to be generally accepted as a sign of a noble +nature--well, nobility would be decidedly less rare than at present! + + + + + IV + + WILD OATS FOR WIVES + + 'Nothing that is worth saying is proper.' --G. BERNARD SHAW. + + 'I don't believe in the existence of Puritan women. I don't think + there is a woman in the world who would not be a little flattered + if one made love to her. It is that which makes woman so + irresistibly adorable.' --OSCAR WILDE. + + +If there be any readers whose susceptibilities are shocked by this +headline, they are respectfully requested--nay, commanded--to read no +further. If there be any whose susceptibilities waver without as yet +experiencing any actual shock, they are affectionately asked--nay, +implored--to re-read several times the above quotation from Mr Shaw's +immortal _Candida_, to thereupon pull themselves together and take the +plunge. I can promise them it won't be anything like as terrible as they +half hope--in fact its essential propriety will probably disappoint them +bitterly! + +Curiously enough, though women are more anxious to marry than men, +and do everything in their power to achieve what men often strive to +resist--after marriage it is generally the woman who is most +discontented. Of late years a spirit of strange unrest has come over +married women, and they frequently rebel against conditions which our +grandmothers would never have dreamed of murmuring at. There are a +variety of causes for this: one that marriage falls short of women's +expectations, as I said in the opening chapter, another that they have +had no _feminine_ wild oats. Please note the qualifying adjective, duly +italicised, and do not attempt to misunderstand me. I am no advocate of +the licence generally accorded to men being extended to women. + +'Wild oats' of this nature, otherwise an ante-hymeneal 'fling,' was +certainly not a necessity of our grandmothers, but a certain (fairly +numerous) type of modern women seem to make better wives when they have +reaped this harvest. Take for example the cases of Yvonne and Yvette +which are personally known to me. Yvette was engaged at eighteen and +married at twenty-one. At the age of twenty-six she was the mother of +four children. She had scarcely time to realise what youth meant and +begin to enjoy it before her girlhood was stifled under the +responsibilities of marriage and maternity. She had accepted her first +offer, and he was practically the only man she knew anything of. Beyond +him she had seen nothing of men, or of the world; certainly she had +never flirted or had men friends or enjoyed any admiration but that of +her _fiance_. + +At twenty-six Yvette began to realise that she had been cheated out of a +very precious part of life and an invaluable experience. Though a fairly +happy wife and a devoted mother, she felt that she might have had those +lost delights as well as the domestic joys, and the knowledge enraged +her. + +A dangerous spirit of curiosity entered her heart, and a still more +dangerous longing for adventure and excitement. She realised that there +were other men in the world who admired her besides her Marcus, and that +she was pretty and still quite a young woman. At thirty Yvette was a +mistress of the art of intrigue--had engineered several dangerous +_affaires_, and might have come to serious grief had not Marcus been a +singularly wise, tender, and understanding husband. + +'It isn't that I don't love him dearly,' she confided in me when +resolving to turn over a new leaf. 'I wouldn't exchange him for anyone +in the world, and you know what the children are to me--but somehow I +want something else as well--some excitement. I feel I've had no _fun_ +in my life, and I wanted to have a fling before it was too late. When I +was engaged I scarcely ever even danced with anyone but Marcus, and for +the first four years of my married life I had a baby every eighteen +months--it was nothing but babies, nursing the old one and getting ready +for the new one! Not that I didn't love it, but the reaction was bound +to come, and it did. If only I could have had the excitement and the +gaiety and the glamour first, and then married when I was about +twenty-five, I should have been perfectly satisfied then, like Yvonne!' + +Yvonne certainly managed her affairs better. Fate saved her from the +misfortune of falling in love too soon. She always had a train of +admirers, and was enabled to enjoy the power of her womanhood to the +full; she travelled, made delightful friendships with both sexes, learnt +to know the world and acquired a philosophy of life. When she married, +at twenty-nine, she had seen enough of other men to know exactly the +kind of husband she wanted, and had had enough excitement to make her +appreciate the peace and calm of matrimony. + +The secrets of many wives lie heavily on my soul as I write, and more +than one woman, with some real reason for remorse, has confided in me +that it was only that fatal desire for excitement that primarily caused +her undoing. I shall instruct my son to be sure to marry a woman who has +got her wild oats safely over, or select a wife of the more +old-fashioned type who does not require them. With the modern +temperament they must almost inevitably come sooner or later, and to +what extent the modern temperament will have evolved by the time the Boy +of Boys is marriageable, the ironical gods alone know! + +Bachelors take note! A woman--new style--who has knocked about over half +the world and sown a mild crop of the delectable cereal will prove a far +better wife, a more cheery friend and faithful comrade than the girl _of +more or less the same type_ whose first experience you are, and who will +make enormous claims on your love and patience by reason of her utter +ignorance of men. You will possibly even have to live up to an ideal +founded on novel-reading, and that you will find very wearing, my +friend! The experienced woman knows men so thoroughly, she will expect +nothing more of you than you can give her, and will appreciate your +virtues to the utmost and make the best of your vices. 'But she has +flirted so outrageously,' you say? Well, so much the better, she is less +likely to do it after marriage. 'But, hang it all, she has been kissed +by other men,' you say? Well then, she has no need for further +experiences of this kind and is not likely ever to give her lips again +to others once she is yours. . . . How can you be sure? That is one of +the innumerable risks of marriage. How can _she_ be sure that _your_ +last crop is sown, still less reaped? . . . Oh, my dear man, you really +make me very angry--do for heaven's sake try and get away from +conventional ideas of right and wrong! Judge things _for yourself_, and +as they would seem, say, at the edge of an active volcano! . . . All the +things we fuss so much about would doubtless quickly assume their real +value if viewed from this perilous situation. + +And even in the sad cases where a woman has sown real wild oats in the +man's sense of the word, how different the little moral rules and +regulations which we keep for these occasions would appear in the face +of an immediate and violent death. I heard not long ago of a very sad +story which bears this out. A man very narrowly escaped death from +drowning, shortly after he had broken his engagement with a girl he +genuinely loved, on her confessing to him that, many years before, she +had once yielded to the importunities of a passionate lover. I do not +know what were his emotions in the awful moment when the waters closed +over him, and he was experiencing that horrible fight for breath which +those who have known it describe as the most terrible sensation +conceivable. Apparently his hairbreadth escape from death tore from his +eyes the swathings of conventional opinion with which he had been +blinded. Instead of regarding himself as a deeply wronged man he +realised that he had behaved horribly to the unfortunate girl, who had +thus been doubly outraged by his sex. He sought her at once and begged +to be taken back again, but she happened to be a woman of some spirit, +and she refused to trust herself to a man of such narrow views, and +given to such harsh judgment. + +Of course this treatment increased his love a thousandfold. It obsessed +him to a painful degree, and in the end his desperate entreaties +prevailed on her deep affection for him and she relented. Their marriage +was not very happy, as may be imagined; they both loved to madness and +the ghost of that dead passion stood ever between them, an invisible, +poisonous presence that killed their joy in each other. After a time a +deep melancholy settled on the woman, and she allowed some trifling +illness to take such a hold on her that it caused her death. + +When she was dying, I am told, she said to her faithful friend: 'If ever +you meet another woman who has made one little slip--a thing which at +the time seemed so natural and inevitable as not to be sin at all--tell +her never _never_ to confess it to the man she is going to marry, least +of all if she loves him. If that confession doesn't part them +altogether, it will always be between them. One does it wishing to be +straight, but it's the most dreadful mistake a woman can make.' + +Her wish to be straight had cost this poor woman not only her whole +life's happiness, and her very life itself, but the happiness of the man +she loved, in whose interests she had made the confession that wrought +the harm. 'How dearly I have paid! how dearly I have paid!' she used to +say over and over again in her last illness. + +This is an absolutely true story, and it seems to me a burning injustice +that a woman should suffer so bitterly for what would be absolutely +disregarded in a man. I have no doubt there are many similar cases, and +emphatically I say that such confessions are ill-advised. The ordinary +conventional-thinking man placed in these circumstances would either +throw a woman over, or marry her against his convictions. The +extraordinary masculine code, for some reason beyond my feminine powers +of comprehension, will not admit that a spinster who has had a lover, or +even made one 'false step,' is a fit person to wed, though no man would +object to marrying a widow, and many men take respondent _divorcees_ to +wife. + +Even in the case of a rarely generous-minded, tolerant and understanding +man, who judged the offence at its true computation, such knowledge +would only prove disturbing and a source of insecurity to conjugal +happiness. No good purpose of any kind can be served, and the ease which +confession is proverbially supposed to gain for the sinner would be +bought at a very heavy price. + +'But two wrongs don't make a right, and surely it can't be proper for a +woman to deceive a man on such a vital point,' the stern moralist may +exclaim. Possibly not, according to the strictly ideal standard of +ethics; but, viewed from the larger standpoints of life and of +commonsense, this 'deceit' would appear to be advisable. And be assured, +my unpleasant moralist (I'm sure you are an unpleasant person), that the +sinner will not get off 'scot free,' as you seem to fear. Many and many +a stab will be her portion, for memory is a potent poison, and every +expression of love and trust from her husband will most likely carry its +own special sting, whilst the round, innocent eyes of adoring little +children, to whom she is a being that can do no wrong, will be a meet +punishment for an infinitely greater fault. Meanwhile the man is _in all +probability_ in every way a gainer by the woman's silence, for doubtless +he is doubly dear to her for the very fact that the first man treated +her badly, and she may perhaps be a better wife, a stronger and sweeter +woman, a more capable mother, by reason of the suffering she has +undergone. + +Now let no maliciously obtuse person attribute to me the pernicious +doctrine that a woman with a past is the best wife for a man. I merely +say that a good woman who has surrendered herself to an ardent lover and +been afterwards deserted by him must necessarily have gone through such +intense suffering that her character is probably deepened thereby and +her capacity for love and faithfulness increased. It is another truism +that suffering is necessary to bring out the best qualities in women. + +Men too should keep the details of their wild oats severely to +themselves. In married life there are bound to be secrets and the +happiest couples are those who know how to keep them, each to him or her +self. A very good motto for the newly betrothed would be that of Tom +Broadbent in _John Bull's Other Island_--'Let us have no +tellings--perfect confidence, but no tellings: that's the way to avoid +rows!' + + + + + V + + A PLEA FOR THE WISER TRAINING OF GIRLS + + +If girls were more reasonably trained with regard to matters of sex, +there would be far fewer miserable wives in the world, and fewer +husbands would be driven to seek happiness outside their home circle. +If, when girls reach years of discretion, they were systematically +taught some rudimentary outline of the fundamental principles of +existence, instead of being left in utter ignorance as at present, the +extraordinarily false notions of sex which they now pick up would cease +to obtain, and a great deal of harm would thus be avoided. As it is, +maidens are now given tacitly to understand that the subject of sex is a +repulsive one, wholly unfit for their consideration, and the functions +of sex are loathsome, though necessary. I write tacitly with intention, +for little if anything is ever said to a girl on this subject; indeed, +it is extraordinary how the ideas are conveyed to her without words, but +inculcated somehow they certainly are, and it is difficult to understand +how mothers manage to reconcile this teaching with their evident wish +that their girls should marry. The ideal held up to girls nowadays is +apparently the sexless sort of Diana one--not merely chastity, but +sterility. + +Most girls are aware from a very early age of the social advantages and +importance of marriage, and grow up with a keen desire to accomplish it +in due course, although secretly dreading it, because of their absurd +perverted ideas of its physical side. Why cannot girls--and boys too, +for that matter--be taught the plain truth (in suitable language of +course) that sex is the pivot on which the world turns, that the +instincts and emotions of sex are common to humanity, and in themselves +not base or degrading, nor is there any cause for shame in possessing +them, although it is necessary that they should be strenuously +controlled. Why cannot girls be taught that _all love_, even the +romantic love which occupies so large a portion of their dreams, +_springs from the instinct of sex_?[4] This may be thought a dangerous +lesson, but the present policy of silence on this subject is far more +dangerous, inducing as it does a tendency to brood over the forbidden +theme. + + [Footnote 4: Schopenhauer's _Metaphysics of Love_.] + +I remember when in my early teens a schoolfellow of about fifteen +confided in me that 'a man'--he was a harmless boy of about twenty--had +kissed her hand when passing her a tennis racquet. She drew her hand +indignantly away, and said: 'How dare you insult me!' then left the +tennis court and refused to play any more. I do not think many girls are +so silly as this, but the incident illustrates the general tone +inculcated at that school. And it shows what an emphasis on sex matters +the girl's mind had received, when she saw an insult in a perfectly +innocent and courteous act of admiring homage. What a harmful +preparation for life such training must be! This is the kind of teaching +that results in those wretched honeymoons which one occasionally hears +of in secret, and which produces unwilling wives whose disdainful +coldness is their husbands' despair. This lack of feeling and lack of +comprehension of the needs of stronger, warmer natures is one of the +deepest and most incurable causes of married misery. + +Let us teach our girls to regard sex as a _natural_ and _ordinary_ fact, +and the infinite evils which spring from regarding it as extraordinary +and repulsive will thus be avoided. Let us bring them up to think that +loving wifehood, passionate motherhood are the proper expression of a +woman's nature and the best possible life for her. + +In a very interesting book called _Woman in Transition_, recently +published, this view of woman's destiny is repeatedly scoffed at. The +writer, Annette B. Meakin, is a fellow of the Anthropological Institute, +and evidently widely read and travelled. I will give a few quotations: +'In the happy future when higher womanly ideals have spread around us we +shall all realise, no matter to which sex we belong, that to hold +unqualified motherhood before every girl's eyes as her highest ideal is +to play the traitor to our race and to humanity.' . . . 'English Head +Mistresses--though often unmarried themselves--still consider it their +pious duty to tell their pupils that motherhood is woman's highest +destiny, and the pupils . . . make marriage their first aim, and other +success in life has consequently to take a second place.' . . . 'Some +very good women in England are still telling our young girls that +motherhood is, for every woman, the worthiest goal, without suspecting +that the doctrine they preach is dangerously conducive to that legal +prostitution euphemistically known as loveless marriage, if not to +greater evils.' . . . 'How can any girl who has been taught that +maternity is woman's only destiny dare to run the risk of losing it?' + +In answer to these objections: of course no sane person would hold +_unqualified_ motherhood up to girls as their noblest ideal. Nor does +any thoughtful individual believe that maternity is woman's _only_ +destiny. But as to _highest_ (_i.e._ most noble) destiny--if worthy +motherhood (and by the word worthy I wish to imply all the fine +qualities of body and mind that go to produce healthy, intelligent, and +well-trained children) does not fulfil it, I should like to know what +does? In answer to this question that naturally springs to the mind of +every reader, Miss Meakin contents herself with the statement: 'In +Finland and Australia, as in America and Norway, the young girl is +taught that woman's highest destiny is within the reach of every woman; +that her highest destiny and her highest ideals depend, not on some man +who may or may not come her way, but on herself; and that the highest +ideal of womanhood is to be a true woman.' This is well enough, but it +is far too vague to be held up as woman's standard. We want a more +definite ideal than this to aim at. What, for instance, _is_ a 'true +woman' specifically? I should have thought the most essential part of +such a one's outfit was her potentialities for wifehood and motherhood. + +Miss Meakin blames teachers for inculcating the importance of motherhood +into their pupils' minds with the result that 'other success in life has +to take a second place.' What then does this writer consider ought to +take the first place? Does she seriously think the success of women in +business or politics, as municipal councillors, as writers, artists, +thinkers, is of more importance than the success of women as mothers? +_Is it possible?_ . . . I recall a poem of W. E. Henley's on the woman +question, one line of which runs 'God in the garden laughed outright.' +Surely there must often be uproarious laughter in heaven nowadays when +the woman question is being discussed on earth! + +So much for abstract ideals, but when we come to facts I must admit the +lady's argument is sound. 'In a country where there are a million and a +half more women than men,' she pertinently states, 'it is worse than +foolish to teach young girls that motherhood is their highest destiny. +Such teaching, if persisted in, will lead to greater evils than we care +to contemplate even at a distance.' But what greater evil could there +possibly be than the existence of 30,000 prostitutes in London alone, +as is the case to-day? If every one of these unfortunate women had been +made to believe firmly, as an article of faith, that worthy motherhood +was her highest destiny, there might be a good many less noughts to this +number. + +Miss Meakin continues: 'Besides the sacred duties of motherhood, there +are the equally sacred duties of fatherhood, yet man does not allow +these latter to interfere with his mental growth.' Nor is there any need +that woman should do so; the idea that a woman, to be a good wife and +mother, must necessarily stunt her mental growth and forego all culture +has long since been discarded. + +To my mind the whole trouble arises from the practice of teaching one +set of catchwords to girls and another to boys, as Stevenson says. Since +women cannot be mothers by themselves, it is useless to teach girls that +motherhood is their highest destiny when we do not also teach boys that +fatherhood is theirs, but--quite the contrary--give them to understand +that marriage is something to be avoided, in early manhood at least. + +If we were to instruct all young people of _both_ sexes that worthy +marriage and parenthood are the highest destiny for average mortals, +and they acted on this precept, many of the problems of the day would be +solved, the numbers of superfluous women would be greatly reduced, the +social evil would perceptibly diminish, the physique of the race would +improve, and the birth-rate would quickly rise. In short, there would be +less ironical laughter in heaven, and a great deal more honest happiness +and health on earth! I shall have more to say of parenthood as an ideal +in Part IV. + + + + + VI + + 'KEEPING ONLY TO HER': THE CRUX OF MATRIMONY + + 'We make gods of men and they leave us; others make brutes of them + and they fawn and are faithful!' --OSCAR WILDE. + + 'It is part of the curse of nature that a man ceases after a time + to worship the body of a woman, and when after that there is nothing + his mind and soul can revere--who shall remain true, as it is + called?' --MARY L. PENDERED. + + +'And keep thee only to her as long as ye both shall live.' How many men +have solemnly undertaken this exacting vow sincerely meaning to abide by +it? I have no data for answering this question, but I have sufficient +belief in the essential good in human nature to believe that most people +start their married life meaning to be faithful. This belief was not +even shattered by the shock of hearing a very modern bride remark the +other day: 'Max says he can't promise to be faithful but he'll do his +best.' The amazing complacency of the young woman was a thing to marvel +at, though hardly to admire. + +Schopenhauer asserts that 'Conjugal fidelity is artificial with men, but +natural to women.' Judging by the Divorce Court returns, it would seem +that this natural feminine trait has weakened somewhat, since this view +was expressed some sixty years ago. According to the Society +chroniclers--self-appointed--it certainly has in 'London's West End, +littered with broken vows.' + +It is dangerous to generalise on such a topic, but since people resist +temptation far less often than moralists suppose, it is perhaps safe to +state that when men are faithful, it is principally from lack of +opportunity, or disinclination to be otherwise. This may disgust those +of my feminine readers who refuse to acknowledge, with Professor Lester +Ward, that man is essentially a polygamous animal, but the more +experienced in the sorrowful facts of life will own the truth of this +statement. + +On the other hand, when women break their marriage vow, it is seldom for +any merely frivolous or sordid reason (of course excepting the +essentially wanton type, whom no man should be fool enough to marry), +but nearly always either because they are under the spell of infatuation +for the other man, or because they are utterly miserable in their +marriage and seek to drug themselves to forgetfulness or indifference by +means of the poison of some intrigue. Perhaps the Judge who is more +merciful than men will count both these reasons as excuses and will +pardon the sinners who have greatly loved or greatly sorrowed. + +A doctor who is interested in the study of social questions once showed +me some interesting statistics on this subject. From seventy-six men +selected at random from his list of acquaintances, fourteen were +childless, and all but two of these were much happier than most men, and +gave their wives no cause for jealousy. This high percentage of happy +though childless marriages is rather curious--I cannot account for it. +Of the remaining sixty-two, all had families: five were fond of their +wives, but not faithful; two lived apart with other women; three others +were unhappily married, quarrelling bitterly and constantly. Of two +others, my friend was doubtful. One other disliked his wife, but was too +busy to bother about other women. The remaining forty-nine were +comparatively happy and devoted: 'Most of them are kept free from any +great temptation by busy lives and regular hours,' the doctor added, +'and those who are especially appreciative or susceptible in regard to +the fair sex have had enough love-making, and want no more outside their +homes.' I suspect this latter cause is applicable to a great many +so-called 'model' husbands! + +This list, however, can scarcely be considered representative, as it +contained only two actors, three soldiers, one sailor, and no +stockbrokers--four classes in which inconstant husbands are particularly +numerous. The conditions of an actor's life obviously tend towards +infidelity; the unhealthy excitement and alternating depression of a +stockbroker's existence may have the same effect. Members of the +services are popularly supposed to be less faithful than the rest of +husbands, but possibly if the business and professional men had the same +amount of opportunities and temptation, a similar excess of leisure and +equally long intervals of separation from their wives, they would prove +as inconstant as the country's defenders are supposed to be. My doctor's +list also contains no members of the 'Smart Set,' a class containing +practically no faithful husbands, according to Father Vaughan! + +Although it is the little things that spoil conjugal happiness, it is +the big things which separate husband and wife, and of these undoubtedly +infidelity is the most frequent cause. It might truly be called the crux +of marriage. Personally I think only three faults are bad enough to make +it socially worth while for a woman to leave her husband: drunkenness +with violence; misconduct with members of the household, temporary or +permanent; and introducing a mistress under a wife's roof. In the case +of a woman with children, even these are not enough if she cannot take +the children with her. For the last-named act alone a wife could obtain +a divorce under the code of Justinian. + +Lapses from the marriage vow on the part of one's spouse are best +treated, like all other troubles, in a philosophical spirit. It is, +however, 'easy to talk!'--one often hears that sexual jealousy is the +most frightful of mental tortures: Men are more keenly affected by it +than women, and the man whose wife has been unfaithful seems to suffer +more acutely, even when he does not care for her, than the woman in the +reverse circumstances. That is because his passions are stronger, a man +will tell you, or because he looks up to the mother of his children as a +being above the sins of the flesh. Probably the real reason is that man +has generally had his own way since the _menage_ in Eden, and he resents +having his belongings taken from him. Woman, however, can bear this +deprivation better, being more accustomed to share her lord from the +time when her sex began to multiply in excess of his--or is it that +women have no instinctive antagonism to polygamy? + +The world has become well accustomed to man's polygamous instinct by +now, and even its laws are framed accordingly. In novels, the discovery +of a husband's infidelity always causes a perfect cataclysm; the reader +is treated to page after page of frenzied scenes; the wife almost loses +her reason; her friends and relatives sit in gloomy council deciding +'what is to be done'; the news is shouted from the housetops; and +everybody cuts the man dead. + +But in real life, women keep these tragedies to themselves, sometimes +bearing them with a strange calmness and philosophy. Fortunately a man +is seldom so lacking in worldly wisdom as to let his wife discover his +misconduct, and, as a rule, a woman would rather die than reveal such a +wound to the world. The burden of a husband's infidelity is borne for +years in silence with smiling face and head held high, by many a wife +too proud to own herself incapable of keeping a man faithful. Only when +years have accustomed her to the humiliation, and dulled the sharp edge +of her grief, does she permit herself the relief of confidences. + +Few women can understand why a husband, though fond of and devoted to +his wife, should nevertheless seek elsewhere that which she has ceased +to possess for him. She whose knowledge of the springs of life is deep +enough to enable her to understand this, knows also that hers is the +better part, that she represents to her husband the centre and +mainspring of his existence, which remains steadfast long after his +temporary amorous madnesses have burned away to ashes. + +Nevertheless, after 'Alone'--'_Unfaithful_' is perhaps the saddest and +most awful word in human speech. One can imagine it written innumerable +times, in flaming letters, across the confines of Hell. . . . +_Unfaithful!_ + + + + + PART III + + SUGGESTED ALTERNATIVES + + + 'For me the only remedy to the mortal injustices, to the endless + miseries, to the often incurable passions which disturb the union of + the sexes, is the liberty of breaking up conjugal ties and forming + them again.' --GEORGE SAND. + + 'Until the marriage tie is made more flexible, marriage will always + be a risk, which men particularly will undertake with misgiving.' + --H. B. MARRIOTT-WATSON. + + + + + I + + LEASEHOLD MARRIAGE A LA MEREDITH + + 'Twenty years of Romance make a woman look like a wreck; twenty + years of Marriage make her look like a public building.' + --OSCAR WILDE. + + +Leasehold marriage was one of the customs of early Roman society. +Nowadays it has a revolutionary savour, and is so apparently +impracticable that it would be hardly necessary to do more than touch +upon it here, but for the fact that its most recent and most +distinguished advocate in modern times is Mr George Meredith. Any +suggestion from such a source must necessarily receive careful +consideration. It was also advanced by the great philosopher Locke, +and was considered by Milton. + +It is scarcely three years since our veteran novelist cast this +bombshell into a delighted, albeit disapproving Press; but as memories +are so short nowadays, perhaps a brief recapitulation of the +circumstances might not be amiss. + +The beginning of the business was a letter to _The Times_ by Mr +Cloudesly Brereton complaining of the 'growing handicap of marriage' +and, according to invariable custom, attacking women as the cause of it. +He stated that in the middle classes 'the exigences of modern wives are +steadily undermining the attractions of matrimony; in her ever-growing +demands on her husband's time, energy, and money the modern married +woman constitutes a very serious drag, and in the lower classes of +society, marriage even seriously militates against a man's finding +work.' How women can be held responsible for this last injustice was +wisely not stated. It would have been difficult to prove the indictment, +I think. + +This document's chief claim to interest was the discussion in _The Daily +Mail_ that followed it, and the curious fact that the writer was married +a few weeks after its publication! The usual abuse on marriage in +general and women in particular followed, until the late Mrs Craigie +joined the discussion, and brought to bear on it that peculiar quality +of tender understanding, that wonderful insight into women's hearts, +which were among the most striking characteristics of her brilliant +work. It would be a pity to quote from such a letter, so I reproduce it +in full. + +'Women, where their feelings are in question, are not selfish enough: +they appraise themselves not too dearly, but too cheaply: it is the +suicidal unselfishness of modern women which makes the selfishness of +modern bachelors possible. Bachelors are not all misogynists, and the +fact that a man remains unmarried is no proof that he is insensible to +the charm of woman's companionship, or that he does not have such +companionship, on irresponsible terms, to a most considerable degree. +Why should the average vain young man, egoistic by organism and +education, work hard or make sacrifices for the sake of any particular +woman, while so many are too willing to share his life without joining +it, and so many more wait eagerly on his steps to destroy any chivalry +or tenderness he may have been born with? Modern women give bachelors no +time to miss them and no opportunity to need them. Their devotion is +undisciplined and it becomes a curse rather than a blessing to its +object. Why? Because women have this strange power of concentration and +self-abnegation in their love; they cannot do enough to prove their +kindness; and when they have done all and been at no pains to secure +their own position, they realise they have erred through excess of +generosity and the desire to please. This is the unselfishness shown +towards bachelors.' + +In answer to this letter, another woman novelist, Miss Florence Warden, +challenged Mrs Craigie as to the existence of such women, but elicited +no further reply. _The Daily Mail_ commented on it thus: 'Hundreds of +thousands of our readers can give an answer to this remarkable statement +out of their own experience, and we have little doubt as to what the +tenor of that answer will be.' One can imagine that this was written +with a view to being read at the breakfast-tables of Villadom; but men +and women of the world, whose experience is not confined to Villadom, +nor their opinions of life coloured by the requirements of the Young +Person, will recognise the undoubted truth of Mrs Craigie's statements. +Whilst agreeing that the state of things between the sexes which she +describes is a true one, I venture respectfully to differ as to women's +motive for this 'excess of generosity.' There is an enormous amount of +wonderful unselfishness among women, but it does not expend itself in +this direction, in my opinion. Rather is the motive a passionate desire +for their own enjoyment, the gratification of their own vanity by +pleasing the opposite sex, often at the cost of their own self-respect. +H. B. Marriott-Watson takes the same view in a subsequent letter, where +he says: 'Women's unselfishness does not extend to the region of love. +The sex attraction is practically inconsistent with altruism, and the +measure of renunciation is inversely the measure of affection. This is +the order which Nature has established, and it is no use trying to expel +her. A woman may lay down her life for the man she loves, but she will +not surrender him to a rival.' + +Another letter of interest came from Miss Helen Mathers, who stated that +'all women should marry, but no men!'--the advantages of the conjugal +state being, in her opinion, entirely on the woman's side. + +At this point appeared Mr Meredith's contribution to the discussion in +the less authoritative form of an interview--not a letter or article, +as, after this lapse of time, so many people seem to imagine. On +re-reading this interview recently, I was struck with Mr Meredith's +peculiarly old-fashioned ideas about women. Where the woman question +was concerned the clock of his observation seems to have stopped many +decades ago. + +'The fault at the bottom of the business,' he affirms, 'is that women +are so uneducated, so unready. Men too often want a slave, and +frequently think they have got one, not because the woman has not often +got more sense than her husband, but because she is so inarticulate, not +educated enough to give expression to her real ideas and feelings.' + +This was before the vogue of the suffragettes, but it is a sufficiently +surprising statement for 1904. He continues: 'It is a question to my +mind whether a young girl, married, say, at eighteen, utterly ignorant +of life, knowing little of the man she is marrying, or of any other man +in the world at all, should be condemned to live with him for the rest +of her life. She falls out of sympathy with him, say, has no common +taste with him, nothing to share with him, no real communion except a +physical one. The life is nearly intolerable, yet many women go on with +it from habit, or because the world terrorises them.' + +This is true enough, but Mr Meredith speaks as if it were still the +rule, as in our grandmothers' day, for a girl to marry in the teens, +whereas it is now quite the exception. Every year the marrying age seems +to advance, and blushing brides decked in orange blossoms are led to the +altar at an age when, fifty years ago, they would be resigned old maids +in cap and mittens. If a girl is foolish enough to marry immediately she +is out of the schoolroom, she must be prepared to take the enormous risk +which the choice of a husband at such an immature age must entail. + +Elsewhere Mr Meredith says: 'Marriage is so difficult, its modern +conditions are so difficult, that when two educated people want it, +nothing should be put in their way. . . . Certainly one day the present +conditions of marriage will be changed. It will be allowed for a certain +period, say ten years, or--well, I do not want to specify any particular +period. The State will see sufficient money is put by to provide for and +educate the children. Perhaps the State will take charge of this fund. +There will be a devil of an uproar before such a change can be made. It +will be a great shock, but look back and see what shocks there have been +and what changes have nevertheless taken place in this marriage business +in the past.' + +'The difficulty,' he continues, 'is to make English people face such a +problem. They want to live under discipline more than any other nation +in the world. They won't look ahead, especially the governing people. +And you must have philosophy, though it is more than you can hope to get +English people to admit the bare name of philosophy into their +discussion of such a question. Again and again, notably in their +criticism of America, you see how English people will persist in +regarding any new trait as a sign of disease. Yet it is a sign of +health.' + +It will be seen that Mr Meredith puts forward the ten-year limit merely +as a suggestion. I recall in one of Stevenson's essays an allusion to a +lady who said: 'After ten years one's husband is at least an old +friend,' and her answer was: 'Yes, and one would like him to be that and +nothing more.' The decade seems to have a special significance in +marriage. After the trying first year is over, most couples settle down +comfortably enough until nearing the tenth year. The president of the +Divorce Court has called this the danger zone of married life. One of +the subsequent letters in _The Daily Mail_, approving Mr Meredith's +suggestion, alluded to the present form of marriage as 'the +life-sentence,' and suggested a still shorter time limit, five years for +choice, since during that time a couple would have found happiness or +the reverse, and in the latter case ten years was too long to wait for +freedom. + +A writer in another paper cited America as an example of terminable +marriage in full working order. 'It appears from the statement of an +American bishop that the people of the United States are actually living +under Mr Meredith's conditions already. Last year (1903) as many as +600,000 American marriages were dissolved. This means that there was one +divorce to every four marriages. In some districts the proportion was +more like one to two. And the most frequent cause of divorce was a +desire for change!' + +It seems to me that the establishment of a leasehold marriage system +would only result in wholesale wretchedness and confusion, beside which +the present sum of marital misery would be but a drop in the ocean. If +our marriage laws must be modified, let us trust it will not be in this +direction, though it is obvious enough that such a change would come as +a boon to thousands of men and women, who from one cause or another have +come to loathe the tie that binds them. Whether it would not also +disturb the prosaic content that passes for happiness with millions more +is too big a question to be more than mentioned here. + +The fate of those who are tied for life to lunatics, criminals, and +drunkards is pitiable indeed, but an extension of the laws of divorce +would meet their exceptional case, without disturbing the marriage bond +of normal people. I have endeavoured to indicate some of the many +difficulties of leasehold marriage in the following dialogue. + + + + + II + + LEASEHOLD MARRIAGE IN PRACTICE + A DIALOGUE IN 1999 + + 'There is one thing that women dread more than celibacy--it is + repudiation.' --MARCEL PREVOST. + + +_Katharine and Margaret, both attractive women on the borderland of +forty, are lunching together. They are old friends and have not met for +years._ + +_Margaret._ 'How nice it is to be together again, but I'm sorry to find +you so changed; you don't look happy, what is the trouble?' + +_Katharine._ 'I ought to look happy, I've had wonderful luck, but the +truth is, I'm utterly tired. The conditions of marriage nowadays are +horribly wearing, don't you think?' + +_M._ 'Well, of course, we miss that feeling of peace and security that +our mothers talked of, but then we also miss that ghastly monotony. +Think of living year after year, thirty, forty, fifty years, with the +same man! How tired one would get of his tempers.' + +_K._ 'I'm not so sure of that. Monotony of tempers is better than +variety. All people have them, anyway. Besides, I've a notion that our +fathers were nothing like so difficult to live with as our husbands are. +You see, in the old days they knew they were fixed up for life, and that +acted as a curb. We seem to miss that curb nowadays.' + +_M._ 'Yes, there's something in that. I remember my grandmother, who was +married at the end of the last century, used to say that her husband was +her Sheet Anchor, and he called her his Haven of Rest.' + +_K._ 'Oh, I envy them! That's what I want so badly--a haven, an anchor! +How peaceful life must have been then before this horrible new system +came in.' + +_M._ 'People evidently didn't seem to think so, or why should they have +altered it? But what's your quarrel with the system? You've had four +husbands and changed the first two almost as quickly as the law +allowed.' + +_K._ 'Yes, and I'm only forty-one. I began too young--at eighteen--but +one naturally takes marriage lightly when one knows it's only for five +years. One enters upon it as thoughtlessly as our happy mothers used to +start their flirtations.' + +_M._ 'The consequences are rather more serious though; we are +disillusioned women at the age when they were still light-hearted +girls.' + +_K._ 'It's the families that make it so difficult. Fatherhood is quite a +cult nowadays. All my husbands have been of a philoprogenitive turn, and +I have eight children.' + +_M._ 'Eight children! No wonder you look worried.' + +_K._ 'Exactly! my mother would have been horrified. Two or three was the +correct number in her days, four at the utmost, and five a fatality and +very rare.' + +_M._ 'Well, my dear, you needn't have had so many; you should have +curbed that cult of Fatherhood. No woman is compelled to bear children +nowadays, as our unfortunate grandmothers were. Have you got all eight +with you?' + +_K._ 'No, that's just the trouble. I didn't want to have so many, but of +course now I've got them I want them with me, and of course their +fathers want them too.' + +_M._ 'Oh dear! how tiresome; that's the worst of having children in +these times. I'm sometimes glad I have none.' + +_K._ 'Then perhaps you don't know the law about the children of our +present marriage system? A sum of money has to be invested annually for +each child, in the great State Infant Trust; when the marriage is +dissolved the mother has the sole custody of them, unless the father +wishes to share it; in the latter case they spend half the year with +each parent.' + +_M._ 'It's fair.' + +_K._ 'I suppose so, but oh! so terribly hard on a mother! My two elder +girls are almost grown up, they've been at a boarding school for some +time, and it was easy and natural enough for George and I to share them +in the holidays, but now, I can't keep them at the school any longer, +and they will have to spend half the year with him. Thank heaven, he +hasn't been married for some time, and isn't likely to again, so I +haven't the horror of a strange woman influencing them, but how can I +guide them? how have any real control or influence over them in such +circumstances?' + +_M._ 'Yes, that must be very sad for you.' + +_K._ 'It's awful, but there's much worse than that. My second husband, +Gordon, the father of Arthur and Maggie, is married again, and his wife +is jealous of his eldest children, and hates the time when they come to +stay. And my little Arthur is so delicate, he requires ceaseless care +and studying--I never have a happy moment when he is with them; he +doesn't get on well with the other children either, and always returns +from the visits looking ill and wretched. I couldn't tell you all I have +suffered on account of Arthur! Oh! when I think of him, I could curse +this infamous marriage system--it is a sin against nature!' + +_M._ 'But, my dear, it's no use abusing the laws. Why didn't you stay +with Gordon, or in the first instance with George? It's often done, even +now.' + +_K._ 'I know, I know, but George and I were utterly unsuited--we married +as boy and girl. Under the old system prudent parents generally +intervened, and the young couple were obliged to wait until they were +sure of their own minds. But you know how things are now; in one's first +young infatuation, one is sure of five years ahead at least, and one +doesn't need to look beyond that.' + +_M._ 'Well, you were twenty-four when you married Gordon; why didn't you +choose him more carefully?' + +_K._ 'That was largely "a matter of economics" as I read in an old play +called _Votes for Women_, not long ago--so quaint their ideas were in +those days!--and there was something in it too about "twenty-four used +not to be so young, but it's become so!" Still, I was old enough to know +better, but I was light-hearted and luxury-loving, and I couldn't live +on that pittance, which was all the law compelled George to allow me. +I don't blame him, it was all he could do to save the necessary tax for +the children. So I married Gordon for a home, and of course it was +hateful!' + +_M._ 'And your third husband died?' + +_K._ 'Yes; the one who should have lived generally dies. I lost him +after two years only, but I can't talk of him, dear; he was just my Man +of Men.' + +_M._ 'Ah! I'm glad you have had that.' + +_K._ 'Oh! I have been lucky with all my troubles, as I told you. I was +alone for four years after I lost my Best, and I should like to have +been faithful to him for ever. But I wasn't strong enough; in spite of +the dear children I was very lonely, as the elder ones were always at +school.' + +_M._ 'Yes, and one wants a man, somehow, to fuss round one.' + +_K._ 'True, it's a fatal weakness. So at last I married my good little +Duncan, just for companionship. I chose _him_ carefully enough. +Experience has taught me a lot, and I didn't mean to be left in the +lurch at forty as so many are.' + +_M._ 'I'm glad he's good to you. Yes; it's fearful how many women get +left alone just when they need care and love most, when their looks and +freshness are gone, and their energy weakened. But, as you haven't got +that to fear, why should you be so worried now?' + +_K._ 'It isn't exactly that I'm worried--I'm used up! Twenty years of +uncertain domestic arrangements is enough to wear out anyone. I've never +been able to feel settled in any house, or let myself get attached to a +place, or plant out a garden even. One's set of friends is always +breaking up; people never seem to buy houses and estates now, or to get +rooted anywhere. In the novels of fifty years ago, how they used to +complain about being in a groove! They little knew how miserable life +could be for want of a permanent groove.' + +_M._ 'I dislike monotony, but it certainly has its advantages. You +remember my first husband, Dick?--such a good-looking boy--he was crazy +about golf and outdoor games. I got quite into his way of living, and it +was a great trial when I married Cecil Innes, who hated the open air, +and cared only for books and grubbing about in museums.' + +_K._ 'Why did you leave Dick?' + +_M._ 'I didn't really want to, we were very comfy together, but he fell +in love with another woman. He was mad about her, and asked me to +release him. As I had no children, I thought it only fair to agree. +Cecil interested me very much at first, and he adored me, but I had a +very dreary time with him. You know I'm not a bit literary, and he was +so "precious" and bookish, he bored me to death. I was glad to leave him +for Jack, my present husband, but Cecil's grief at parting was so +frightful I shall never forget it, and when he died soon after I felt +like a murderess.' + +_K._ 'It must have been a painful experience, but one gets accustomed to +these tragedies, one hears of so many. There is always one who wants to +be free, and one to remain bound.' + +_M._ 'Yes; and the unwritten tradition that it is a matter of honour +never to seek to hold an unwilling partner quite negatives the law that +a marriage can only terminate when both parties desire it.' + +_K._ 'I'm sure the tragedies of parting one hears of nowadays are far +worse than the occasional tragedies in the old days, caused by being +bound, and ever so much more frequent.' + +_M._ 'It wouldn't be such an irony if _anyone_ were benefited, but as +far as I can see the men suffer nearly as much as the women, especially +when they are old. According to our early century newspapers, an old +bachelor or widower could always get a young and charming wife, but now +nobody will marry an elderly man, except the old ladies, and the men +don't want them.' + +_K._ 'It's a pity they don't, that would solve a lot of the unhappiness +one sees around. It must be awful to be deserted in one's old age.' + +_M._ 'Talking about the old newspapers, it's very amusing to read them +in the British Museum, and see what wonderful things were expected of +the leasehold marriage system when it was first legalised. All the +abuses of the old system were to disappear: divorce, adultery, +prostitution, and seduction--all the social evils were to go in one +clean sweep.' + +_K._ 'How absurdly shortsighted people were then. Divorce is abolished, +it's true, but the scandals and misery, broken hearts and broken homes +that it caused are now multiplied a thousand times. Infidelity may be +less frequent, but if people have the wish and the opportunity for it +they're not likely to wait for a certain number of years, until it +ceases to be technically a sin. The same with the other evils. There +will always be a large number of men who postpone marriage for financial +or other reasons, and a large number of women who can only earn a living +in one way--the oldest profession in the world will always be kept +going! Seduction, too, is not likely to cease as long as the law is so +lenient to it. There will always be ignorant, silly, unprotected girls +and always men to take advantage of them.' + +_M._ 'There seem to be just as many elderly spinsters, too, as before; +the women who don't attract men remain the same under any system, and +often they are the best women.' + +_K._ 'How strange it must be _never to have had a husband!_' + +_M._ 'It must be peaceful, at anyrate; but spinsters don't look any +happier than married women.' + +_K._ 'I can only see one good result of the leasehold system--that women +are as anxious for motherhood now as in the early century they were +anxious to avoid it. We grow old with the fear of almost certain +desertion and loneliness before us, and the one hope for our old age is +our children----Oh! I am sorry, I forgot you had none.' + +_M._ 'Never mind, I often think of it, and whenever Jack admires or pays +attention to another woman, I am in terror for fear he has found a fresh +attraction and may want to leave me. What stuff they used to write +formerly about the necessity for love being free. As if freedom were +such a glorious thing! Why, we are all slaves to some convention or +passion or theory; none of us are free, really free, and we wouldn't +like it if we were. It may be all very well for the fantastic love of +novels to be free, but that strange _need of each other_, which we call +"love" in real life, for want of a better term--_that_ must be forged +into a bond, or what help is it to us poor vacillating mortals? Love +must be an Anchor in real life--nothing else is any use!' + + + + + III + + THE FIASCO OF FREE LOVE + + 'The ultimate standards by which all men judge of behaviour is the + resulting happiness or misery.' + + 'Conduct whose total results, immediate and remote, are injurious + is bad conduct.' --HERBERT SPENCER. + + +Free love has been called the most dangerous and delusive of all +marriage schemes. It is based on a wholly impossible standard of ethics. +Theoretically, it is the ideal union between the sexes, but it will only +become practical when men and women have morally advanced out of all +recognition. When people are all faithful, constant, pure-minded, and +utterly unselfish, free marriage may be worth considering. Even then, +there would be no chance for the ill-favoured and unattractive. + +Under present conditions no couple living _openly_ in free love is known +to have made a success of it--a solid, permanent success, that is. +I believe there are couples who live happily together without any more +durable bond than their mutual affection, but they wisely assume the +respectable shelter of the wedding ring, and call themselves Mr and Mrs. +Thus their little fledgling of free love is not required to battle +against the overwhelming force of social ostracism. And moreover one has +no means of knowing how long these unions stand the supreme test of +time. The two notable modern instances of free love that naturally rise +to the mind are George Eliot and Mary Godwin. But both the men with whom +they mated were already married. As soon as Harriet was dead, Mary +Godwin married Shelley, and when George Lewes had passed away, George +Eliot married another man--an act which most people consider far less +pardonable in the circumstances than her irregular union with Lewes. +Even the famous Perfectionists of Oneida relapsed into ordinary marriage +on the death of their leader, Noyes, and by his own wish. + +As an institution, free love seems widely practised in the East End of +London, but judging by the evidence of the police courts its results are +certainly not encouraging. I am told that the practice is common among +the cotton operatives of Lancashire. The _collage_ system is also very +prevalent in France among the working classes, and seems to answer well +enough. But only when women have the ability and the opportunity to +support themselves is free marriage at all feasible from the economic +standpoint, and even then there remains the serious question of +illegitimacy. All right-minded persons must acknowledge that the +attitude of society towards the illegitimate is unjust and cruel in the +extreme, resulting as it does in punishing the perfectly innocent. But +every grown man and woman is aware of this attitude, and those who act +in defiance of it, to please themselves or to satisfy some whim of +experiment, do so in the full knowledge that on their child will fall a +certain burden of lifelong disadvantage. Many perhaps are deterred from +breaking the moral law by this knowledge, but the number of +illegitimates born in England and Wales in 1905 was 37,300; and, in the +interests of these unfortunate victims of others' selfishness, I think +it is high time a more kindly and broad-minded attitude towards their +social disability was adopted. + +I remember as a young girl going to see a play called _A Bunch of +Violets_. The heroine discovers that her husband's previous wife is +alive and that her child is therefore illegitimate. She tells her +daughter to choose between the parents, explaining the worldly +advantages of staying with her rich, influential father. The harangue +concludes with words to the effect: 'With me you will be poor and +shamed, and _you can never marry_.' Doubtless this ridiculous point of +view was adopted solely for the benefit of the young girls in the +audience, but its unreasonableness disgusted me for one. Even to the +limited intelligence of seventeen it is obvious that, since a name is of +so much importance in life, an illegitimate girl had better marry as +quickly as she possibly can, in order to obtain one! + +Free love has recently been much discussed in connection with socialism, +and, thanks no doubt to the misrepresentations of certain newspapers, +the idea seems to have gained ground that the abolition of marriage and +the substitution of free love was part of the socialist programme. +No more untrue charge could possibly be made, as inquiries at the +headquarters of the various socialist bodies will quickly prove. + +The people who advocate free love are very fond of arguing that so +personal a matter only concerns themselves. All who think thus should +have had a grave warning in a recent _cause celebre_, in which murder, +attempted suicide, permanent maiming, and a tangle of misery involving +innocent children down to the third generation, were proved to have +resulted from a 'free' union entered on nearly thirty years before. This +and the many other tragedies of free love, which appear in the +newspapers from time to time, seem to prove the mistake of imagining +that we are accountable to none for our actions. A relationship which +affects the future generation can never be a private and personal +matter. E. R. Chapman in a very interesting essay on marriage published +some years ago says: 'To exchange legal marriage for mere voluntary +unions, mere temporary partnerships, would be not to set love free, +but to give love its death blow by divorcing it from that higher human +element which is the note of marriage, rightly understood, and which +places regard for order, regard for the common weal above personal +interest and the mere self-gratification of the moment.' + + + + + IV + + POLYGAMY AT THE POLITE DINNER-TABLE + + 'Last and hardest of all to eradicate in our midst, comes the + monopoly of the human heart which is known as marriage . . . this + ugly and barbaric form of serfdom has come in our own time by some + strange caprice to be regarded as of positively divine origin.' + --GRANT ALLEN. + + +We call it the polite dinner-table, because we never hesitate to be +extremely rude to each other, when necessary for the purposes of +argument. On this particular occasion, the inevitable marriage +discussion, which is always to be found in one or other of the +newspapers, was the subject of conversation, and the Good Stockbroker +(unmarried) was vigorously defending the Holy Estate. His moral attitude +is certainly somewhat boring, but nevertheless the Good Stockbroker is +one of those people to whom one really is polite. Although obvious +irritation was visible on the face of the Family Egotist we listened +respectfully, with the exception of the Wicked Stockbroker, whose dinner +was far too important in his scheme of life to be trifled with by moral +conversations. + +Whatever the Good Stockbroker says the Weary Roue is of course bound to +contradict as a matter of honour. I may mention that the Weary Roue is a +man of the highest virtue and a model husband and father. His pose of +evil experience has gained him his sarcastic nickname, but in no way has +he earned it by his conduct. 'You forget,' he interposed languidly, when +the Good Stockbroker paused, 'that no less a philosopher than +Schopenhauer said that the natural tendency of man is towards polygamy, +and of woman towards monogamy.' + +'I deny the first statement,' said the Good Stockbroker heatedly. He was +always heated where questions of morality were concerned, and was +proceeding to give chapter and verse for what promised to become a +somewhat dull discussion when the Bluestocking firmly interposed in her +small staccato pipe: + +'To hear you, one would suppose monogamic marriage was a divine +institution.' + +'Absurd, isn't it?' grinned the Weary Roue. The Good Stockbroker looked +pained and cleared his throat. At this formidable signal, the Family +Egotist--whose irritation had been increasing like the alleged +circulation of a newspaper--showed every sign of hurling the boomerang +of his opinion into the fray. This would have meant the death of all +liveliness for some hours to come, and a general sigh had begun to +heave, when once more our brave Bluestocking stemmed the tide. + +'You make rather a cult of the Bible,' she quacked scornfully, directing +her remarks principally at the Good Stockbroker; 'but you don't seem +very conversant with the Old Testament. You will find there ample proof +that monogamic marriage is no more divine than--than polygamy or free +love. Nor has it any celestial origin, since it varies with race and +climate. It is simply an indispensable social safeguard.' + +'I'll have a shilling each way on it,' murmured the Ass (an incorrigible +youth, quite the Winston Churchill of our family cabinet), using his +customary formula. Unheeding, the Bluestocking chirruped on severely: +'You must know, if you have ever studied sociology, that marriage is +essentially a _social contract_, primarily based on selfishness. At +present it still retains its semi-barbarous form, and those who preach +without reason of its alleged sacredness would be better employed in +suggesting how the savage code now in vogue can be modified to meet the +necessities of modern civilisation.' + +She paused for breath. The Good Stockbroker was pale, but faced her +manfully. 'Well done, Bluestocking!' said the Weary Roue. 'Wonderful +woman, our Quacker,' said the Ass, 'I'll have a shilling each way on +her.' The Wicked Stockbroker took a second helping of salad, and ate on +unheeding, whilst the Gentle Lady at the head of the table anxiously +watched the Family Egotist, who looked apoplectic and was toying +truculently with a wineglass with evident danger of shortening its +career of usefulness. + +'I was taught,' said the Good Stockbroker slowly, 'to regard marriage as +a sacred institution--a holy mystery.' + +'Then you were taught rot,' snapped the Bluestocking, thus living up to +the worst traditions of the polite dinner-table, and quivering with +intellectual fury. + +'Recrimination--' began the Good Stockbroker. + +('Good word that, I'll have a shilling each way on it,' murmured the +Ass.) + +'--is not argument,' continued the Good Stockbroker. + +'It may not be, but what you said was _rot_,' replied the Bluestocking, +'"a holy mystery, instituted in the time of man's innocency"--I +recognise the quotation! And when was that time, pray? Are you referring +to the Garden of Eden, or to what part of the Bible? The chosen people, +the Hebrews, were polygamists from the time of Lamech, evidently with +the approval of the Deity. Even the immaculate David had thirteen wives, +and the saintly Solomon a clear thousand. Not much of a holy mystery in +those days, eh?' + +'Dear Bluestocking, you really _are_--' murmured the Gentle Lady. + +'Not at all; she's perfectly sound,' interposed the Weary Roue, gloating +with ghoulish joy over the Good Stockbroker's apparent discomfort. + +'I give in,' said the latter, and a yell of joy burst from the Ass and +the Weary Roue. 'I really cannot argue against a lady of such +overwhelming eloquence,' he continued, bowing in his delightful courtly +way. 'All the same, I shall always believe that marriage is a holy +institution.' + +'My dear old chap,' said the Weary Roue, hastily, with one eye on the +Family Egotist, who was certainly being treated badly that evening: +'your high-mindedness is admirable, quite admirable, but it won't work; +it doesn't fit into modern conditions. Theoretically, Marriage is a Holy +Mystery no doubt--in practice it's apt to be an Unholy Muddle, sometimes +a Mess. Personally I believe in polygamy.' + +Roars of laughter were stifled in their birth, as we thought of the +Weary Roue's circumspect spouse, and his several circumspect children, +discreet from birth upwards. + +'So do I--a shilling each way,' said the Ass, inevitably. + +'Not for myself, of course,' continued the Weary Roue, without a trace +of a smile, 'that is to say, not--er--not now, but speaking for the +majority and--er, in the abstract, polygamy would be a sensible +institution. Just think how it would simplify all our modern +complications, how it would mend our two worst social evils.' + +'Yes, _think_, please--thinking will do,' interposed the Gentle Lady, +hastily. + +'How it would solve the superfluous woman question,' continued the Weary +Roue, enthusiastically. 'Think of the enormous number of miserable +spinsters who would be happily provided for.' An indignant quack came +from the Bluestocking. + +'Think of the expense,' remarked the Good Stockbroker, dryly, and the +Weary Roue collapsed like a pricked gas-bag. + +'Herbert Spencer says,' continued the Good Stockbroker, 'that the +tendency to monogamy is innate, and all the other forms of marriage have +been temporary deviations, each bringing their own retributive evils. +After all, monogamous marriage was instituted for the protection of +women, and has been held sacred in the great and noble ages of the +world. Quite apart from the moral point of view, however, polygamy could +only be possible in a tropical climate, where the necessities of life +were reduced to a minimum, and one could live on dates and rice, but as +the average man in our glorious Free Trade country can't afford to keep +one wife, in decent comfort, let alone several--I ask, how in the name +of the bank rate--?' + +'You stockbroking chaps are so devilish sordid,' returned the Weary +Roue. 'Didn't I say _in the abstract_? Of course I know it wouldn't do +practically, not yet anyway, but honestly I believe it would go far to +solve the whole sex problem.' + +'You neither of you seem to take the woman into consideration at all,' +piped the Bluestocking. 'Do you suppose we modern women with our +resources and our education would consider such an idea for a moment?' + +'Well, what do you think?' asked the Weary Roue, with diplomatic +deference. + +To our surprise the Bluestocking began to blush, and her blush is not +the coy, irresponsible flushing of an ordinary girl, but a painful rush +of blood to the face under stress of deep earnestness, the kind of blush +which forces one to look away. + +'Well,' she said, with a gulp, 'I think, perhaps--they might.' It was +obvious the admission had cost her something. We were all dumfounded. +The Family Egotist forgot his burning desire for speech and ceased to +threaten his wineglass; the Gentle Lady was quite excited; the Weary +Roue became almost alert, and the Good Stockbroker looked as if he were +about to burst into tears. + +'I think women might not be averse from polygamy--as a choice of evils,' +continued the little Bluestocking bravely, 'for the present waste of +womanhood in this country is a very serious evil. Of course the +financial conditions make it impossible, as the Good Stockbroker says, +but if it _were_ possible, if it were instituted for highest motives, +and in an entirely honourable, open manner authorised and sanctioned by +the--er--the proper people--I think women could concur in it without any +loss of self-respect, especially if the first ardent love of youth were +over. After that, and when a woman forgets herself, having truly found +herself, in the love and care of her children and a larger view of life +and its duties--then I think most women could be happy in such +circumstances. I think a great deal of utterly untrue stuff is talked +about the agony of sexual jealousy, and women's jealousy especially. +Men may suffer thus, I can't say, but I'm sure women don't. It's the +humiliation, the unkindness, the _being deceived_ and supplanted that +hurts so when a man is unfaithful. But if it were all fair and +above-board, if it were grasped that polygamy is more suited to men's +nature, and more likely to make for the happiness of the greatest number +of women--their numerical strength being so far in advance of men that +they couldn't possibly expect to have a mate each--then I really think, +after women had had time to readjust their ideas to this new +condition--it may take a generation or more--I think they would accept +it gladly, and find peace and contentment in it.' + +The Bluestocking paused and looked round the circle of interested faces. +Even the Ass was intent on her words, but the Good Stockbroker's eyes +were averted and the Bluestocking was quite pale as she continued: + +'Of course the word at once recalls the harem, the zenana, but nothing +of that kind would do. The wives would have to live separately, as the +Mormons do, each in her own home, with her own circle of interests and +duties, her own lifework. No one ought to live in idleness, which is the +cause of all sorts of discord and trouble. Every woman should work at +something, and to help someone. I'm not thinking now, of course, of +happily married and contented women, but of the thousands leading +miserable, dull, and lonely lives, who would be infinitely happier if +they had a certain week to look forward to, at regular recurring +intervals, when their husbands would be living with them. It would bring +love and human interest and, what is most important of all, a _motive_ +into their existence. I know it sounds dreadfully immoral,' she went on, +blushing again painfully, 'but, oh! I don't mean it like _that_. After +all, the chief reason why people marry is for companionship, and it is +companionship that unmarried women, past the gaiety of first youth, +chiefly lack. The natural companion of woman is man; therefore, as there +aren't enough husbands to go round, it follows that one might do worse +than share them. I don't say it would be as satisfactory as having a +devoted husband all to oneself, but it might be for the greatest good of +the greatest number, and it would surely solve to a certain extent +the--the social evils.' + +They all clapped when she had finished somewhat breathlessly. It was +obvious that the brave Bluestocking so far lacked the courage of her +opinions as to be agonisingly embarrassed at this public expression of +them. The Gentle Lady, who is the most tactful creature in existence, +accordingly rose before anyone had time to speak, and the two women left +the room together. + +A babble of talk arose from the men, under cover of which the Good +Stockbroker also slipped quietly away. + +'Pass the port,' said the Wicked Stockbroker, briskly. 'She's a deuced +bright little woman, but how even the brainy ones can be so ignorant of +life beats me, and how you chaps can be such hypocrites. . . . !' + +'Hypocrites! what d'you mean?' blustered the Family Egotist, who was by +now almost bursting with suppressed talk. + +'Not you, old chap, but the Weary Roue and the Good Stockbroker, jawing +away as if they really thought monogamy was in the majority in this +country, and polygamy was something new! Of course one expects it from +the G. S., but you, W. R., really ought to know better--by the way, +where is the G. S?' + +'I think he must have gone to propose to the Bluestocking--to save her +from polygamy and her own opinions,' drawled the Weary Roue, lighting +his cigarette. + +'Stout fella! I believe he has!' cried the Ass, excitedly. 'I'll have a +shilling each way on it with any of you--I mean it, really!' + +'Oh! what if he has?' said the Family Egotist, irritably. 'What does one +fool more in the world matter? Do stop rotting, you fellows, and pass +the port.' + + + + + V + + IS LEGALISED POLYANDRY THE SOLUTION? + + +In Mr W. Somerset Maugham's very interesting psychological study, _Mrs +Craddock_, he makes one of his characters say: 'The fact is that few +women can be happy with only one husband. I believe that the only +solution of the marriage question is legalised polyandry.' + +This is the kind of statement which it is only respectable to receive +with horror, but if the secrets of feminine hearts could be known it +might prove that a goodly amount of this horror is assumed. I decline to +commit my sex either way. Mr Maugham is evidently a gentleman very +deeply experienced in feminine hearts, and I daresay he knows what he is +talking of. He is, moreover, safely unmarried, but even he entrenches +himself behind one of the characters in his novel, and who am I that a +greater courage should be expected of me? + +There is, of course, a marvellous virtue in the word 'legalised.' The +most unholy and horrible marriages between fair young girls and rich or +titled dotards, drunkards, or _cretins_ are considered perfectly proper +and respectable because 'legalised.' Yet the people who countenance +these abominations would probably be unutterably shocked by the very +whisper of polyandry--an infinitely more decent relation, because +regulated by honest sex attraction, and free presumably from mercenary +considerations. But whether legalised polyandry is THE solution to the +marriage question or not, it is clearly an impossible one for +women-ridden England, and though of late years women have made startling +strides, and shown themselves possessed of unsuspected vitality, it +seems unlikely that their superfluous energies will be expended in this +direction. + + + + + VI + + A WORD FOR DUOGAMY + + 'God made you, but you marry yourself.' --R. L. STEVENSON. + + +The day after the polite dinner-party, Isolda, Miranda, and Amoret came +in to tea, and I retailed to them the discussion of the previous evening +on polygamy. + +'I see the Bluestocking's point,' said Isolda, thoughtfully: 'polygamy +might be acceptable to the superfluous woman who can't marry under +present conditions--the discontented spinster to whom the single state +is so detestable that even polygamy would be preferable--but it would +never be acceptable to the woman who can and does marry.' + +'Yet how many married women put up with it nowadays?' said Miranda; +'aren't there ever so many wives who condone their husband's infidelity, +and endure it as best they can, for the sake of the children, or for +social reasons, or because they're sufficiently attached to the man to +prefer a share of him to life alone without him? And what is that but +countenancing polygyny?' + +'Ah! but then the other women are only mistresses,' exclaimed Isolda. +'One might tolerate that unwillingly, but another legal wife, with +rights equal to one's own or, worse, with children to compete with one's +own--never!' + +'Well, perhaps not,' agreed Miranda; 'I suppose a legal and permanent +rival would be somewhat different, but, after all, it's only the middle +class in England who can be termed strictly monogamous--the upper and +lowest are as polygynous as can be. It's only our British hypocrisy that +makes us pretend monogamy is our rule!' + +'Don't quarrel with British hypocrisy,' said Amoret, lazily, 'it's our +most valuable national asset. Hypocrisy simply holds the fabric of +society together.' + +'Agreed,' said Isolda, 'we must pretend to believe monogamy is the rule, +for peace sake, and for the ideal's sake. Of course everybody knows +there are plenty of polygynous husbands about, and, for the matter of +that, polyandrous wives, but hypocrisy is a great aid to decency, and a +nation must have decency of _theory_ at least, if not of practice, or we +should--er--h'm--decline like the Romans.' + +'I was waiting for one of you to mention the Romans,' interposed Amoret, +who for all her frivolity has a certain humorous shrewdness of her own. +'It's an invariable feature of all discussions on marriage. Directly one +so much as breathes a suggestion that the marriage tie should be made +more flexible to suit modern conditions, everyone present, except the +unhappily married, pulls a long face and quotes the awful example of the +Romans. Now I've got a gorgeous idea for solving the marriage problem.' + +'Tell us,' cried three voices in unison. + +'Not yet, let's get rid of the Romans first. I confided my idea to a man +the other day, and when he had floored me with the Romans as usual, +I went and looked up Gibbon.' + +Laughter interrupted her: the idea of our butterfly Amoret poring over +Gibbon. + +'Yes, I did,' she continued, 'and, as far as I could make out, it wasn't +their easy ideas about marriage that caused their decline, but +their--what shall I say?--their general moral slackness. . . .' + +'I know,' said Isolda, coming to the rescue. 'I was reading a +frightfully interesting book about it the other day, _Imperial Purple_. +It was the relaxing of all ideals, the giving way entirely to carnal +appetites, the utter lack of moral backbone consequent on excess of +luxury and prosperity that smashed up the Romans. But if a strenuous, +cold-blooded nation like ourselves chose to relax the stringent +conditions of marriage, and kept strictly to the innovation, well, it's +absurd to say all our ideals would deteriorate and the Empire collapse +in consequence!' + +'Hear, hear! Worthy of the Bluestocking herself!' + +'Very well,' said Miranda. 'I'll give in about the Romans if you like, +just so as to get on with the conversation. Now let's have your gorgeous +idea, Amoret.' + +'It's just this,' said Amoret. '_Duogamy._' + +'_Duo_--two?' + +'Exactly--two partners apiece. We're all so complex nowadays that one +can't possibly satisfy us. Two would just do it. Two would serve to +relax the tension of married life, and yet would not lead to what the +newspapers call licence. Everyone would have another chance, and what +the first partner lacked would be supplied by the second.' + +'It's not such a bad idea,' said Isolda, musingly. 'Launcelot could +choose a good walker and bridge player for his alternative wife, and I'd +try to find a man who hated cards and never walked a step when he could +possibly ride.' + +'I think it's a grand idea,' cried Miranda, enthusiastically. 'Lysander +could find a woman who'd play his accompaniments and love musical +comedies, and I'd look out for a man who made a cult of the higher drama +and had two permanent stalls at the Vedrenne-Barker Theatre.' + +'It would simply solve everything,' cried Amoret, ecstatically. +'Whenever Theodore was disagreeable, off I'd go to my other one--and yet +without feeling I was neglecting him, as he could go to _his_ other one. +She would probably be a worthy, stolid, stayless lady with none of my +faults, and when he was fed up with her stolid staylessness he could +come back to me, and my very faults, you see, would be pleasing to him +by reason of their contrast to hers, and _vice versa_.' + +'It's really a wonderful idea,' said Isolda, thoughtfully, 'I wonder no +one thought of it before. There would be fewer old maids, as men +wouldn't be so terribly shy of matrimony when they knew there would +always be that second chance. They wouldn't expect so much from one wife +as they do now. And think what a good effect it would have on our +manners, too--how kind and polite and self-controlled we would be, under +fear of being compared unfavourably with the other one.' + +'Yes, it would certainly keep us all up to the mark,' reflected Miranda, +'slovenly wives would make an effort to be smart, and shrewish ones +would put a curb on their tongues. Husbands would be quite loverlike and +attentive, in their anxiety to outdo the other fellow.' + +'It would smooth out the tangles all round,' declared Amoret; 'now just +take the cases known to us personally. The Fred Smiths, for instance, +haven't spoken to each other for three years, just because Fred fell in +love with Miss Brown and spends nearly all his time with her. Mrs Smith +is broken-hearted, Fred looks miserable enough--a home where no one +speaks to you must be simply Hades--and the Brown girl is always +threatening to commit suicide. The affair has quite spoilt her life, and +it must be very hard luck on the Smith children, growing up in such an +atmosphere. My plan would have done away with all this misery: Fred +could have married Miss Brown, and gone on living happily at intervals +with Mrs Smith.' + +'But what would Mrs Smith do in the intervals? She happens to have found +no counter attraction.' + +'Well, perhaps if duogamy had been the custom, she would have looked out +for one,' said Amoret, 'most married women could find one alternative, +I'm sure. But, any way, no plan is perfect, and there are lots of wives +who wouldn't want a second husband at all, and who would be only too +glad of a restful period, when no dinners need be ordered. Then take the +case of the Robinsons: Dick Jones adores Mrs Robinson and is utterly +wretched because he can only be a friend to her. She is very fond of +him, and fond of her husband too; she could make them both very happy if +they would share her.' + +'I have often felt I could make two men happy,' said Isolda. 'Some of my +best points are wasted on Launcelot. Then, too, he never tires of the +country and his beloved golf, but I do, and when one of my fits of +London-longing were to come over me I'd just run up to town and have a +ripping time with my London husband.' + +'Without feeling you were doing anything wrong,' supplemented Amoret, +whose apparent experience of the qualms of conscience struck me as being +rather suspicious. + +'It's no good, girls,' said Miranda, suddenly. 'It's no good--duogamy's +off! Think of the servants!' + +'Horrors, the servants!' said Isolda, blankly. + +'Yes, I was afraid you would soon find out the one weak spot,' said +Amoret, regretfully. 'Of course it would be awful having to cope with +two lots of servants. One husband could afford to keep four or five, +say, and the other only one or two, and each lot would get out of hand +during the wife's absence.' + +'So instead of having a perfectly deevy time with two husbands vying +with each other in pleasing one, one would have a fearsome existence +constantly breaking-in minions. Directly one had got A.'s servants into +order, it would be time to go back to B. and do the same there.' + +'No; thank you,' said Isolda, firmly, 'one lot is enough for me. I've +said dozens of times, for the servant reason alone, that I wish I had +never married. It would be madness to actually double one's burden. +You can strike me off the list of duogamists, Amoret, until the Servant +Question is solved by some new invention of machinery, or the +importation of Chinese.' + +'Perhaps,' Amoret suggested hopefully, 'your alternative might consent +to live in a hotel.' + +'No such luck,' said Isolda, mournfully, 'when a man marries it's mostly +for a home--why else should he marry unless it's for the children? Good +gracious! I'd forgotten all about the children. Of course that +settles it.' + +'The _cul-de-sac_ of all reforms!' said Amoret, tragically. 'It's +impossible to suggest any revision in the marriage system that isn't +instantly quashed by the children complication.' + +We all sat silent, busy with our thoughts, and then Isolda shuddered. + +'Duogamy's no good,' she said emphatically, 'and I _am_ so +disappointed!' + + + + + VII + + THE ADVANTAGES OF THE PRELIMINARY CANTER + + 'Marriage is terrifying, but so is a cold and forlorn old age.' + --R. L. STEVENSON. + + +Of all the revolutionary suggestions for improving the present marriage +system, the most sensible and feasible seems to me marriage 'on +approval'--in other words, a 'preliminary canter.' The procedure would +be somewhat as follows: a couple on deciding to marry would go through a +legal form of contract, agreeing to take each other as husband and wife +for a limited term of years--say three. This period would allow two +years for a fair trial, after the abnormal and exceptionally trying +first year was over. Any shorter time would be insufficient. At the +conclusion of the three years, the contracting parties would have the +option of dissolving the marriage--the dissolution not to become +absolute for another six months, so as to allow every opportunity of +testing the genuineness of the desire to part. If no dissolution were +desired, the marriage would then be ratified by a religious or final +legal ceremony, and become permanently binding. + +In the case of a marriage dissolved, each party would be free to wed +again; but the second essay must be final and permanent from the start. +This restriction would be absolutely necessary if the preliminary canter +plan is not to degenerate into a species of legalised free love, as +there are many men, and some women, who would 'always go on cantering,' +as Amoret expressed it once--and the upshot would be nothing less than +leasehold marriage for the short term of three years. + +It might be urged against this plan that many couples who come to grief +in the danger zone of married life--_i.e._ nearing the tenth year--are +perfectly happy in the early years. But human love being as mutable as +it is, and people and conditions being so liable to change, it is +impossible to arrive at any permanent marriage system which allows for +this. It must, however, be remembered that, in the majority of unhappy +unions, it is not the system, but the individuals who are to blame. The +institution of the conjugal novitiate would, however, reduce the number +of divorces considerably, by making less possible the miserable misfits +in temperament now so prevalent. It would give a second chance to those +who had made a mistake, yet without resulting in that promiscuity of +intercourse which is a danger to society and fatal to the best interests +of the race. Of what other scheme can the same be said? + +For married women in the novitiate period a new prefix would have to be +invented, which they would retain if the union were dissolved. _Mrs_ +would be the distinguishing prefix of women who had entered on the final +and permanent state of matrimony. Whether the wife would take the +husband's surname during the probationary term would be another question +for decision by the majority; I should incline to her retaining her +maiden name with the aforesaid prefix, and only assuming that of the +husband with the Mrs of finality. But these are mere details. + +As regards the important question of the children, the issue of a +probationary union would, of course, be legitimate, but I think wise +people would see to it that no children were born to them until the +marriage had been finally ratified. Certainly children would be the +exception rather than the rule, but the question of their custody in the +case of dissolved marriages would be one requiring the most thoughtful +legislation. To divide the child's time between the parents is an +undesirable expedient, and one that must to a certain extent be harmful, +since a settled existence and routine is so essential for children's +well-being. Yet to deprive the father of them altogether is equally +undesirable. + +The conjugal novitiate is not a new scheme. It was practised prior to +the Reformation in Scotland under the name of 'hand-fasting.' The +parties met at the annual fairs, and by the ceremony of joining hands +declared themselves man and wife for a year. On the anniversary of this +function they were legally married by a priest--if all had gone well +with them. If they had found the union a failure they parted. + + + + + PART IV + + CHILDREN--THE _CUL-DE-SAC_ OF ALL REFORMS + + + 'An early result, partly of her sex, partly of her passive strain + is the founding, through the instrumentality of the first savage + Mother, of a new and beautiful social state--Domesticity. . . . One + day there appears in this roofless room that which is to teach the + teachers of the world--a Little Child.' --HENRY DRUMMOND. + + 'Every good woman is by nature a mother, and finds best in + maternity her social and moral salvation. She shall be saved in + child-bearing.' --GRANT ALLEN. + + 'Children are a man's power and his honour.' --HOBBES. + + + + + I + + TO BEGET OR NOT TO BEGET--THE QUESTION OF THE DAY + + 'Marriage is therefore rooted in family rather than family in + marriage.' --WESTERMARCK. + + +If we could leave children out of the question, the readjustment of the +conjugal conditions would be simple enough. But Amoret has truly called +this problem 'the _cul-de-sac_ of all reforms.' Any system, whatever its +form, whether leasehold marriage, free love, polygamy, polyandry, or +duogamy--any scheme that tends to confuse the fatherhood of the child, +or deprive the child of the solid advantages of a permanent home--is +hopeless from the start. This, however, obviously applies only to the +couples who have children. Formerly those who married expected to have a +family, and were disappointed if this hope were not fulfilled. That it +was possible to limit the number of their offspring, or even to avoid +parenthood entirely, was of course unknown to them. Nowadays all this is +changed, and the doctrines of Malthus obtain everywhere. + +Bernard Shaw says: 'The artificial sterilisation of matrimony is the +most revolutionary discovery of the nineteenth century.' It certainly +makes possible the revolutionary suggestions about marriage, or rather +_would_ make them more feasible if the 'discovery' were universally put +into practice. + +Let us take it then, that where children are desired no relaxation of +our present marriage system is advisable, and that people who wish to +experiment in new matrimonial schemes must resolutely avoid the +'_cul-de-sac_ of all reforms,' and remain childless. + +To beget or not to beget--that is the question nowadays, and a very +vexed question it is. There is hardly a subject on which opinions are +more diversified. Some people regard parenthood as the most horrible +disaster; others think that to die without creating is to have lived +uselessly. I heard a woman say once: 'I hate children; it's much better +to keep a few dear dogs,' and she was not an ignorant or devitalised +girl, but a healthy, sensible, fully developed young woman of +six-and-twenty. Not long ago another woman, in announcing her engagement +to me, added in the same breath that she didn't mean to have children on +any account. Mr George Moore, in that sinister and repulsive book, _The +Confessions of a Young Man_ says: 'That I may die childless, that when +my hour comes I may turn my face to the wall, saying, I have not +increased the great evil of human life--then, though I were murderer, +fornicator, thief, and liar, my sins shall melt even as a cloud. But he +who dies with children about him, though his life were in all else an +excellent deed, shall be held accursed by the truly wise, and the stain +upon him shall endure for ever.' (One wonders on reading this why Mr +Moore continues to perpetuate the great evil of human life in his own +person, when he could so easily end his existence without paining +anyone!) + +But I have heard many people, both men and women, married and single, +say that without children marriage is meaningless, in which opinion I +heartily concur. More than one young woman dowered with generous blood, +vitality, and courage has confided in me that whether she should marry +or not she wished to be a mother at all costs. It is one of the +disastrous results of men's shrinking from matrimony that fine women +like these must deliberately stifle this glorious passion of motherhood, +or pay a terrible price for expressing it--a price exacted not only from +themselves but from the child to whom they have given life. Such women, +however, are not often met with. + +And now we come to the reason why people do not want children. 'We can't +afford it' is the plea most frequently heard, and a despicably selfish +one it is. I have said previously that every man can afford to +marry--when he meets the right woman. To this I add that every man who +can afford a wife can also afford a child. People who are too selfish to +afford a couple of children (or at least one, sad though it be for the +youngster to have neither brother nor sister) ought not to marry at all. +Some people say they are happy enough without little ones. A good many +women deliberately forgo their prospect of motherhood because it would +interrupt their pleasures, spoil the hunting season, interfere with +their desire to travel or their craze for games. Perhaps some day they +may think too high a price was paid for indulgence in these hobbies. +Others honestly dislike children, and would be entirely at a loss in +possessing them. It is as well that such people should have none: the +poor little unwanted ones can always be recognised. + +'Delicacy' is another plea put forward by neurotic women who are not one +whit too delicate to bear a child. Where the ill-health is genuine, or +some constitutional weakness or disorder is present, of course this plea +is sensible enough. An apparently sane woman once told me quite +seriously that she would have liked a child, only she often had a bad +cough in the winter, and would not risk the possibility of 'handing it +on.' Her lungs were perfectly sound, it was merely a temporary cough +that troubled her. On the same occasion another woman present remarked +that she too would have liked a child, only 'there wouldn't be room in +our flat, and it is so convenient, we shouldn't like to leave it.' My +state of mind on hearing these remarks could only have been adequately +expressed by knocking these two ladies down and trampling on them, and +as this course would not have found favour with our hostess, I had to +content myself with merely being rather rude to them. + +I believe the root of the whole matter is that the maternal instinct is +not so general as formerly. The causes for this I am not wise enough to +determine. It may be due to the greater enfranchisement of women, the +widening of women's lives and ambitions, the new occupations, the new +interests which have so transformed feminine existence. Maternity and +the grievous and irksome processes of its accomplishment are apt to +interfere with all this. The instinct of motherhood is still doubtless +innate in the majority; when the babies come, often unwelcome, the +instinct reasserts itself as a rule, but it is certainly not general for +the average woman of to-day to feel it stirring before marriage or +actual motherhood, and I honestly believe that the number of women who, +like the female bee, are utterly without this instinct is yearly +increasing. It has often occurred to me that men are really fonder of +children than are women. In my own experience, I hardly know a man who +does not love them, whereas I know many women who positively detest +children, and many others who only endure their own because they must. +I have also observed that quite devoted mothers dislike all other +children, whereas men, if fond of the little ones at all, seem fond of +every child. Note the attention men will pay a not particularly +attractive child in a railway carriage, whilst the women present are +entirely indifferent to it. A lady who has kept a girls' school for many +years told me recently that in her opinion the very nature of girls +seems changing, and love of dolls and babies is apparently decaying. +Can this be generally true? Is it possible that the higher education of +women has such grave drawbacks? + +Fortunately for the honour and ideals of our country, the +philoprogenitive element is still in an overwhelming majority and many +people who for various reasons do not actually want children are ready +enough to welcome the Stork if he does elect to pay them a visit. In +after years they will tell one that they can't imagine what life would +have been like without the noise of little feet throughout the house, +the clamour of little voices, the tender faces of little children. + + + + + II + + THE PROS AND CONS OF THE LIMITED FAMILY + + 'The child--Heaven's gift.' --TENNYSON. + + +On the other hand, though I think it the greatest possible mistake for +legally married people to intentionally remain childless, for any reason +other than mental or physical degeneration, I am strongly against the +Lutheran doctrine of unlimited families. Times have changed since +Luther's day, and the necessity for small families is fairly obvious in +the twentieth century for all but very wealthy people. Where money is no +object, and the parents are thoroughly robust, the great luxury of a +large family may be indulged in. And it _is_ a luxury, let cynics sneer +as they choose. We modern parents with our two and three children, or +our one ewe lamb who can scarcely be trusted out of our sight because he +is our unique creative effort--we miss much of the real domestic joy +that our mothers and fathers must have known, with their baker's dozen +or so of lusty boys and girls. Our children can't even get up a set of +tennis among themselves without borrowing one or more from another +household. Much of the anxiety and worry we suffer over our rare +offspring was unknown in the days when blessings were numerous, and +families ran into two figures as a matter of course. + +Nowadays these joys are the luxuries of the wealthy, who, however, +rarely avail themselves of this special privilege of riches. With the +necessities of life getting dearer every year, a continual panic in the +money market, and the pressure of competition assuming nightmare +proportions--a small family of two or three children is all the man of +moderate income can allow himself. Four is an outside number, but it is +worth making some sacrifices to attain it. Professor E. A. Ross has +recently stated in _The American Journal of Sociology_ that although +restriction 'results in diffusion of economic well-being; lessens infant +mortality; ceases population pressure, which is the principal cause of +war, mass poverty, wolfish competition and class conflict,' yet there +are 'disquieting effects, and in one-child or two-child families both +parents and children miss many of the best lessons of life; the type to +be standardised is not the family of one to three but the family of four +to six.' The German scientist, Moebius, has also stated his opinion that +the general adoption of the two-children system would lead to +deterioration of the race. + +But whether the family numbers one or six, it is all one to Father +Bernard Vaughan, who in his violent attack on modern parents draws no +distinction between the rich man who has but one child and the +hard-working professional man who has several. To limit one's family at +all is in his eyes a heinous and revolting sin, 'a vile practice,' and +people who do it are 'traitors to an all-important clause in the sacred +contract which they called upon God to witness they meant to keep.' This +last is hardly logical--none of us are responsible for the wording of +the marriage service, and we cannot very well interrupt the recital of +its barbaric formulae to explain that there are limitations to our desire +for multiplication. + +Father Vaughan also says that this disinclination to multiply means 'the +extinction of Christian morality,' and constitutes 'defiance of God.' It +is not clear to me why a respectable middle-class couple who decide that +three children is a more suitable number than twelve or fourteen for an +income of, say, L300 a year, should be accused of defying God by this +exercise of common-sense and self-control. Is the idea that the children +will only be sent if the Almighty wishes us to have them, and it is +therefore impious to regulate the number? It would be just as fair to +accuse a young woman who refuses several offers of marriage of defying +God, since He clearly wishes her to marry. Bodily ills and accidents +presumably come from the same divine agency, yet no one thinks it sinful +to seek to remedy these with the means science has provided for the +purpose. Why are the means of regulating families made known to us if we +are not to use them when population-pressure becomes acute? The doctrine +of Free-will becomes a positive farce if Father Vaughan is right. If he +confined his remarks to people who deliberately refuse to have _any_ +children, he would have found many adherents, but he alienates our +sympathy by the very excess of his denunciation. He even brands as +immoral the practice of regulating the time between the births of +children, which is so essential to the mother's health. Apparently he +would think it right for a woman to have a baby every eleven months or +so, irrespective of her husband's limited income, until she became an +ailing wreck or died of over-production, leaving her family in the +plight of being motherless. His remarks are of course directed +principally at 'smart' society people, but as Father Vaughan considers +lack of means no excuse for 'deliberate regulation of the marriage +state,' his strictures must be taken as applying to all alike. One feels +inclined to echo with a character in _The Merry-Go-Round_: 'In this +world it is the good people who do all the harm.' + +I learn that as long ago as 1872, before there was any perceptible fall +in the birth-rate to consider, an article by Mr Montagu Crackenthorpe, +Q.C., appeared in _The Fortnightly Review_, contending that small +families were a sign of progress rather than of retrogression. This +article was recently republished in a book entitled _Population and +Progress_. There are many other books on the subject, and to them I must +refer those of my readers who desire further knowledge of this very +important problem. I have no space for an exhaustive consideration of it +here. It is a subject essentially considered by the majority from a +narrow, personal point of view, for it is impossible to expect people +struggling for existence to 'think imperially,' and put the needs of the +Empire before the limitations of their income. The question from the +economic standpoint has been exhaustively dealt with by that master of +political economy, Mr Sidney Webb in a pamphlet entitled _The Decline of +the Birth Rate_, published by the Fabian Society at 1d. + + * * * + +I wish I could convince people, however, of the mistake of having only +one child. The loss to the parents is heavy and to the child +incalculable. All parents who have tried it know what disadvantages they +experience in their early attempts at training, when there is 'no one to +play with,' and no one to give up to--perhaps the most important of +life's lessons. Two or more children growing up together are twice as +easy to manage and to teach as is one alone, and infinitely happier in +every way. Later on, schoolfellows to a certain extent supply the +deficiency, but the only child is still no less an object for +commiseration, as are his parents. All their hopes are centred in the +one, and, as the circumstances almost inevitably combine to spoil the +one, their hopes are more or less handicapped. Parents find out too late +that they have made a mistake. + +I was at a children's party not long ago where 'sole hopes' were greatly +in the majority. A lovely little family trio consisting of a boy and two +tiny girls was much admired and the mother openly envied. Several of the +mothers present said they often wished that Joan or Tommy had a brother +or sister. As few of the children mentioned were over five, the +difficulty did not seem insuperable, but opinions were unanimous among +the ladies that it was 'too late to start the nursery again'; 'it was no +good unless the two could grow up together, five years was too great a +gap,' and so on. No doubt they will one day bitterly regret their +timidity, as many women to my personal knowledge have already done. Joan +or Tommy may be taken from them, or what is worse may turn out unloving +and undutiful, and in that sad day they will have no other children to +turn to. + +If the facile writers of those endless newspaper articles on the +degeneracy of modern women really wish to make good their case, they had +better abandon their foolish complaints as to women's inability to +manage the spinning-wheel or preserve pickles, and other tasks which the +progress of machinery have rendered unnecessary. Let them instead turn +their attention for proof of degeneracy to the strange helplessness of +middle-class mothers in training their children, and their dread of +nursery complications. I know many a woman whose financial ability and +capacity for organising almost amounts to genius, who would doubtless +not be at a loss in dealing with a burglar, yet who would on no account +face the terrors of a longish railway journey in sole charge of her +two-year-old child, whilst to 'take the baby at night' once in a way +during the nurse's absence from home is a nerve-shattering experience +which necessitates at least one day's complete rest in bed afterwards. + +'To start the nursery again,' with all its complicated machinery, when +the sole hope has got over its teething torments, can walk, feed itself, +and generally be companionable, is a prospect before which modern +mothers seem to quail. The remedy is to multiply the number of hopes +before the nursery has time to be outgrown by Hope No. 1, in fact to +keep the nursery going a good many years longer than is nowadays +fashionable--though by no means for the unlimited period advised by +Father Vaughan and other celibate priests entirely ignorant of nurseries +and their exigences! + + + + + III + + PARENTHOOD: THE HIGHEST DESTINY + + 'O happy husband! happy wife! + The rarest blessing Heaven drops down + The sweetest treasure in spring's crown, + Starts in the furrow of your life.' + --GERALD MASSEY. + + +Perhaps I may be accused of dealing with marriage in a too flippant +manner. Most of the treatises that I have read have erred in the +opposite direction and have treated the subject from a tediously +transcendental point of view. I have purposely tried to deal with +realities, with facts, with matrimony as it really is--I mean as it +really appears to me--in this very workaday world, and not as it might +be in a glorious ideal world of noble spirits. + +In truth, marriage, as it is carried out by the large majority does not +seem to me to possess much of a sacred element. What is there holy in +the fact of two human beings agreeing to live together to suit their own +convenience, for purely social and domestic reasons, and very often with +a strong commercial motive? There is, of course, a certain sanctity +about all love, but, of the various kinds of human love, the sexual +variety seems the least holy in itself. Family love, where the tie of +blood exists, the love between friends--purest of all affections--is +often more essentially sacred than the so-called holy love between +husband and wife. Marriage, the mere social and physical union of men +and women, _apart from parenthood_, is simply a partnership--resulting, +if you like, in an enormous increase of happiness and good to the +contracting parties--essentially an excellent contract, but a mere +mundane contract for all that. But when the children come, when the +divine and wonderful miracle is accomplished, then, indeed, is marriage +placed on a wholly different basis, and in dealing with it, I willingly +take my shoes from off my feet, for it is holy ground. + +On the birth of a child the union that produced it acquires an immortal +significance. Formerly of importance only to the two people concerned, +the union is now of importance to the State and to posterity, and +consequently a truly awful responsibility devolves on the parents. On +the physique, the character, the intelligence of each child the fate of +future generations may depend. If we do not feed our child properly he +may be rickety, and a future generation may be deformed for our +carelessness. If we do not teach him thoroughly the duty of self-control +he may become a drunkard or a libertine, and a thousand subsequent evils +may curse our grandchildren. 'The responsibilities of perpetuating the +existence of a race, with all its immeasurable possibilities of sin and +suffering, is one from which the boldest might recoil. But the only +effective way of improving the lot of man is to rear up a new generation +of better stock. For the reflecting to shirk parentage is to make over +the future to the spawn of unreflecting indulgence. In the world's great +field of battle no duty is higher than to keep the ranks of the forces +of Light well filled with recruits. It is to no holiday that our +offspring are called--rather it is to a combat long and stern, ending in +inevitable death.'[5] + + [Footnote 5: W. T. Stead, _Review of Reviews_, January 1908.] + +It has been truly said that children are the wealth of nations: if we +were to take our parenthood very seriously indeed--far, far more +seriously than we now do, surely this would prove the strongest defence +against the moral and physical decay of which we hear so much. I would +like to see parenthood elevated to the dignity of a great spiritual +ideal. Not that I advocate the ultra-glorification of mere procreation +in itself, though to bring fine and healthy children into the world is +an excellent service, and one that men and women ought to take the +highest pride in, but 'to summon an immortal soul into being--what act +is comparable to this?' To train the new-born spirit to grow towards the +sun, striving to develop in it the nobler possibilities of the complex +human organism and make of it an 'upright, heaven-facing speaker'--what +better lifework can a man or woman hope to achieve, what greater +monument to leave behind? + +If parenthood were to become a great ideal, in time public opinion--that +mighty weapon--would grow so strong that unworthy parenthood would be +regarded with disfavour by all decent people. The unfit would not dare +to commit the crime of perpetuating their kind, and the stigma attached +to this sin against the community might eventually even equal the stigma +attached nowadays to the awful crime of cheating at cards! + +Inspired by the ideal of noble parenthood, maidens would look for the +father's heart in their lovers; men would seek the beautiful maternal +qualities in the girls they were wooing, and the material considerations +that now so largely influence both would obtain less and less. The bond +of marriage would be strengthened a hundredfold. Infidelity would be +rarer, for the husband and wife who had been blessed with children would +feel that their union had been dignified, made truly indissoluble. The +father and mother who had embraced for the first time over the form of +their first-born could never forget that ineffable moment. The man and +woman who had shared a baby between them, taught it to talk and to play +and guided its first faltering steps, could never lightly set aside the +vows that bound them. The soft hands of little children were made to +link men and women's hearts together, and wonderfully they fulfil the +task! + +'Only when we become fathers and mothers do we realise all that our +fathers and mothers have done for us'--and what a revelation it is! What +a new heaven and a new earth are opened to us by the magic of a little +child's presence in our home--the little body that has been mysteriously +fashioned in our image, the little soul given into our keeping. + +But for the children, marriage would indeed be a universal failure. In +their interest it was instituted and it is they who make it possible. +Children make a happy union perfect and an indifferent one happy. Very +often they patch up an utter failure into at least an endurable +partnership. When a childless marriage proves happy--really happy--it is +generally because the man and woman are particularly attached to each +other, or are people of unusual character. + +One knows of rare instances where husband and wife have grown dearer and +more closely knit by reason of having no other object to divide their +affection. The wife, with lesser cares, not needing to merge the +sweetheart in the mother, remains more youthful in her husband's eyes +than would otherwise be possible, whilst on the man is lavished her +maternal as well as her wifely devotion, and he is at once husband and +child to her. In such a union one can see the sacred element, although +it has produced no children; a couple of this kind does not seem to miss +the little ones that never come. The same is sometimes the case with +artists, whose whole interest and creative energies are absorbed in +their work. + +With all my heart I despise those married people in full possession of +health and strength who deliberately elect to remain childless. With all +my heart I pity the celibate and those to whom children are denied. Yet +they have compensations--though they lose the rapture, they miss also +the infinite anxieties, the innumerable worries, the constant +self-denial, the often bitter disappointments. Children bring many other +pains than those of birth. Tennyson says, 'the saddest soul in all the +world is she that has a child and sees him err.' Yet by some subtle +alchemy of nature, the strings of mother hearts are sometimes attuned +even more tenderly to the children who err. I think one of the most +beautiful lines ever written occurs in Stephen Philips' _Marpessa_. When +the maid Marpessa rejects the god in favour of the humble mortal lover, +of the latter she says: + + 'And he shall give me passionate children, not + Some radiant god that will despise me quite, + But clamouring limbs, and little hearts that err.' + +But the clamouring limbs soon wax great, alas! out of all recognition; +the little hearts become wise and worldly and err in a less pleasing +manner--our passionate children outgrow us quickly nowadays. That is the +real tragedy of motherhood--_to be outgrown_. + + + + + PART V + + HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED + + + 'To dwell happily together they should be versed in the niceties of + the heart and born with a faculty for willing compromise.' + + 'Goodness in marriage is a more intricate problem than mere single + virtue, for in marriage there are two ideals to be realised.' + --R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + + I + + A FEW SUGGESTIONS FOR REFORM + + +Within the last twenty-five years the worst injustices of our marriage +laws have been rectified, and compared with them the remaining +grievances appear relatively mild. It is scarcely credible in these days +of advanced women that only a few years ago a husband could take +possession of his wife's property and spend it as he liked, or, what is +still more monstrous, could appoint a stranger as sole guardian to his +children after his death, entirely ignoring the natural rights of the +mother. + +The most serious injustice remaining is that the relief of divorce is +more accessible to men than to women. This obviously is a law made by +men for their own advantage, but its existence is a blot on the fair +fame of English justice, and also of English morality, that a husband's +infidelity should be so lightly regarded. Let us hope the day is not far +off when the conditions of divorce will be exactly the same for both +parties. + +The opinion is almost universally held nowadays that a dissolution of +marriage should be obtainable if either party be a confirmed drunkard, +or a lunatic, or be sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. How +degrading it is to the best instincts of our sex that a woman can get a +decree of nullity of marriage by proving certain physical disabilities +on the part of the husband, which in no way affect her happiness, +health, or self-respect, yet can only obtain the partial relief of +separation if her husband be a drunkard, an adulterer, and a +criminal--so long as she cannot additionally prove cruelty or desertion! +It is also an injustice that divorce should be so expensive that only +people with money or the very poor (by means of proceedings _in forma +pauperis_) can afford it. + + * * * + +Perhaps the most necessary reform of all is that the marriage of the +mentally and physically unfit be legally prevented, or rather that they +should be prevented from having children, which is all that really +matters. It would be perfectly feasible to ensure the sterilisation of +the unfit, though a law to this effect would require the most delicate +handling, and one can hardly imagine a parliament of men blundering +through it with any degree of success. Perhaps it may come to pass in +the day when we have the ideal Government that represents both sexes and +all classes. A health certificate signed by doctors in the service of +the State should certainly be compulsory before any marriage could be +ratified. When cancer, tubercle, insanity, and all the attendant ills of +alcoholism and of riotous living have infected every family in the land, +our far-seeing lawgivers may begin to realise the necessity for some +restriction of this kind. At present, the liberty of the subject is +preserved at too heavy a cost to the race. + +Another much-needed reform is that children born out of wedlock should +be legitimised by subsequent marriage of the parents, as in many other +countries. This would hurt no one, could not possibly encourage vice, +and would enable many grievous wrongs to be righted. The present +regulation is unreasonable in the extreme. + +England is almost the only European country where no attempt is made to +provide a dowry for the daughters, except among the wealthy classes. +Quite well-to-do Englishmen think it unnecessary to give their daughters +anything during their lifetime, though they are willing to seriously +inconvenience themselves to start their sons well in life. English +fathers give everything to their sons; in many of the Continental +countries the daughters are rightly considered first, and among all +classes, rich and poor alike, the parents strive to provide some kind of +a dowry for them, beginning to save from the day of the child's birth. + +I feel sure that if _dots_ for daughters became the custom in this +country an enormous impetus would be given to marriage, and much trouble +between husband and wife would be avoided if the woman had some means of +her own, however small. It is surely most humiliating and unpleasant for +a well-bred woman to be dependent on her husband for every omnibus fare +and packet of hairpins! + +English people, however, are apt to pride themselves on their faults, +and are moreover so incurably sentimental that they take credit to +themselves for being the exception in this respect to other countries, +and boast that there is no inducement but love for them to marry. In the +same absurd and improvident spirit is the customary disinclination to +ask for settlements on our daughters. Only of very rich men is this +expected, whereas it is but right that every man should make a +settlement on his wife, if only of the furniture and the policy of life +insurance. + +A chapter on marriage reforms would not be complete without some +reference to our barbarous marriage service. Is it any good complaining +about it, though? Ever since I learnt to read I have been reading +attacks on it; apparently no one has a good word to say for it, not even +clergymen, yet still it remains in use, unamended, just as it was +written in the days of James I. If ever a man-made religious formula +required revising to suit the progress of ideas it is this one. How can +the Church expect us to regard marriage as a sacrament when its +conditions are expressed in such coarse language and from so false a +standpoint. Is it not false to glorify by inference those persons who +have 'the gift of continency,' a 'gift' which, if common to the +majority, would soon result in the extinction of the human race? This +special clause is a horrible insult to a pure-minded, innocent bride, +and is wholly unnecessary. Surely if no other improvement is made, this +opening explanation of the 'causes' for which marriage was ordained +might well be omitted, if only for the fact that it places last the +principal reason for marrying--_i.e._ 'for the mutual society, help and +comfort.' The Church of England might well take a lesson from the +Quakers or from the New Jerusalem Church, a religious community founded +on the writings of that great mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg. In the case of +the Society of Friends, the procedure is simple in the extreme. After a +time spent in silent prayer, the parties stand and, holding hands, say +solemnly in turn: 'Friends, I take this my friend, A. B., to be my +_wife_, promising, through divine assistance, to be unto _her_ a loving +and faithful _husband_, until it shall please the Lord by death to +separate us.' The New Church formula is longer, but equally beautiful +and free from objectionable matter. + + + + + II + + SOME PRACTICAL ADVICE TO HUSBANDS AND WIVES + + 'One doesn't want a lot of fine sentiments in married life--they + don't work.' --W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM. + + +The most valuable piece of advice it is possible to give a couple +starting on the 'long and straight and dusty road' of matrimony is: +'Blessed are they who expect little.' The next best is 'Strive to +realise your ideal, but accept defeat philosophically.' It is difficult +to live happily with a person who has a very high ideal of us; somehow +it creates in us an unholy longing to do our worst. Miranda often says +to me: 'The reason Lysander and I are so perfectly happy is because we +never mind showing our worst side to each other, we never feel we need +pretend to be better than we are.' Mark this, Bride and Bridegroom; +remember a pedestal is a very uncomfortable place to settle on, and +don't assign this uncomfortable elevation to your life's partner. More +marriages have been ruined by one expecting too much of the other than +by any vice or failing. + +On the other hand, at the risk of being tedious, I must repeat that the +most essential thing in Marriage is respect. It is above love, above +compatibility, above even the priceless sense of humour. Respect will +hold the tottering edifice of matrimony together when passion is dead +and even love has faded. Respect will make even the 'appalling intimacy' +endurable, and will bring one through the most trying disagreements, +with no bruise on the soul, whatever wounds there may be in the heart. +Therefore, Bride and Bridegroom, cultivate respect between you at all +costs and, men and women, never _never_ marry anyone you don't really +respect, however passionately you may love. I believe one can be fairly +happy in marriage without love, once the ardours and madness of extreme +youth have passed. Without respect one can never be anything but +wretched. + + * * * + +'There is always one who loves and one who is beloved.' If you find you +are the one who loves, remember--_it is the better part_, especially for +a woman. Don't weary your companion with constant claims, with scenes +and reproaches, tears and prayers, it will serve you no purpose, and +probably only alienate the beloved from you. And, while on the subject +of tears, let me urgently warn all wives against giving way to this +natural feminine weakness. The sensible, hard-headed, athletic girls of +to-day as a rule scorn to do so; but after marriage occasions for +weeping occur that these self-reliant young spinsters never dream of. +But the old idea that tears prevailed against a man, and served to +soften the harder male heart, is entirely exploded; and, if women only +realised it, tears distil a poison that acts as a fateful irritant to +love and often causes its death. Just at first, when he is quite young +and in the height of his ardour, tears may influence a man, but not for +long, and very seldom after marriage. They frequently gain their end, +however, as exceptionally tender-hearted men often so dread tears that +they immediately concede the point at issue on the appearance of this +danger-signal. But their irritation is none the less, and they often end +in disliking the woman who has traded on their gentleness, and taken +what they consider is an unfair advantage of them. The wife who weeps +perpetually, whenever things go wrong, does not command anyone's respect +or sympathy, and generally drives her husband to seek the society of +other women. Men detest a sad face in their home--other than their own, +that is. If they are ever miserable, they feel entitled to let +themselves go, but their wives must not, or when they do, it must +certainly not take the form of tears. The brilliant anonymous author of +_The Truth about Man_ advises women to remember that men 'must never be +contradicted, reproached, or censured.' To this I would add emphatically +that he must never on any account be cried at. + + * * * + +Is it necessary to advocate the cultivation of the most perfect courtesy +between you? Not at first possibly, but it certainly will be. The time +may even come when Perseus may raise his voice and roar out his +disapproval of Persephone. A certain type of man always shouts when +annoyed, not at his friends or clients of course; merely to his clerks +and his servants and his wife and the people who are afraid of him. This +was a nasty habit of our grandfathers--modern wives are hardly meek +enough to stand much of it. However, if Perseus by some freak of atavism +ever should so far forget himself in this way, Persephone will find the +Biblical soft answer more efficacious than the loudest returning volume +of sound. To speak in an exaggeratedly gentle voice always shames the +shouter of either sex into silence. + +Courtesy is more necessary between husband and wife than in any other +relation in life. A great deal of bitterness would be saved if this were +studiously remembered. Nothing is more painful than to hear a married +couple _being rude_ to one another, and the claims of courtesy would +prevent all sorts of remarks that belong to the category of the +better-left-unsaid. Women, especially, have sometimes a most +objectionable habit of hurling home-truths at their husband's head +whenever temper runs a little high; and most men are sensitive enough +under their shield of cultivated indifference to resent this acutely, +and remember stinging sentences of this kind for years. The fact that +they are generally pointedly true does not make them less objectionable. +Some wives who are in reality devoted to their husbands, nevertheless +make a point of invariably belittling them in private and public, and, +though he would rarely admit it, this takes the heart out of a man more +than one unversed in the hearts of men could possibly believe. The truth +is, men like admiration and praise just as much as women do, though it +is part of their strange code to conceal this. They resent a snub just +as bitterly as a woman does; why shouldn't they? + +And while we are on this subject, let me whisper to Persephone what a +wonderfully soothing effect a little judicious flattery has on the race +of husbands, and how smoothly it makes the marital wheels go round. +I don't mean false, blatant, absurd flattery, such as men often bestow +on us when desirous to please, not realising that compliments laid on +with a trowel are an insult to one's intelligence. Nothing of that kind, +of course, but delicate, subtle, loving flattery. An attitude of gentle +admiration toward your Perseus, subdued a little possibly for public +use, but none the less markedly appreciative, will not only endear you +more to him than any protestation of your love could do, but will have +an excellent effect on him mentally and morally. Just as you always feel +dazzling when in company of people who admire you and always talk +brilliantly when with those who think you clever, similarly Perseus will +be spurred on by your admiration (real or assumed) to try to justify it. + +The same thing applies to you, gallant Perseus. A compliment to your +Persephone's bright eyes, a word of awed adulation for her new hat, or +of praise for her conduct as a hostess will not only make her absurdly +happy but will materially increase your capital in Love's Bank, by +laying up treasure for you in Persephone's heart. + +By way of illustration, I will quote two real conversations I heard not +long ago. The first was between a young couple, Pelleas and Nicolette, +who had recently started housekeeping on a small income. They had been +giving an afternoon party, and all the guests had left but me. (I am a +privileged person, as you must have noticed; nobody minds being natural +before me.) + +Nicolette heaved a sigh of relief as the front door shut for the last +time, and turned with sparkling eyes to Pelleas. + +'_Hasn't_ it been a success?' she said enthusiastically. + +'Not bad,' said Pelleas. + +'Aren't the flowers lovely, and haven't I made the rooms look sweet? +Don't you think it was all done very nicely, dear? I did work so hard!' +she added, longing for a word of praise. + +'Pooh! d'you call cutting up a few cakes work?' was the answer. + +Nicolette happens to be a discreet woman who knows when to be silent, +but she looked sad, and all her natural pleasure in her little +entertainment was spoiled. How delighted she would have been if Pelleas +had kissed her, and told her she had made a charming hostess, and all +her arrangements had been perfection. The annoying part of it is that +this is what he really _did_ think. He was bursting with pride of his +home and his wife, and inclined to think himself a very fine fellow for +having won such a charming and clever woman. Only it wasn't his way to +say so! + +The second instance was when I had been trying to reconcile Geraint and +his wife. I was always very fond of dear old Geraint, and the utter +misery of his married life was a source of great trouble to me. On this +occasion we talked freely, and from the depths of his sore heart he +brought up woe upon woe. 'Here's another instance,' he said at length. +'It's rather ridiculous, but you won't laugh at me, I know. Of course +it's absurd of me to have remembered it, but--well, I have. She was +sitting up in bed brushing her hair, I came into the room to ask if +there was anything I could bring her from town, and I happened to stand +at her dressing-table and straighten my tie. We were both reflected in +the mirror and she said, suddenly, with a little laugh: "What an ugly +brute you are!" . . . that's all, she said it quite politely, but--well, +it hurt me absurdly, it was so devilish unnecessary. And I suppose it's +true, too, I'd never thought of it before, but I often have +since. . . .' + +Yet another example of how not to do it: 'If I'm shabby,' a despairing +wife told me once, 'he says: "Why can't you look decent." When I'm +smart, it's "More new clothes! I don't know who's going to pay for +them." If the _menu_ is exceptional he says: "This extravagance will +ruin me," and when it's ordinary he asks: "Is that all?"' + + * * * + +I have previously referred to men's clubs as a boon to wives, and so +they have always appeared to me. But evidently this opinion is not +generally held, as a number of women have recently expressed in print +their intention--when they get the vote--of agitating for complete +abolition, or at least compulsorily early closing, of all men's clubs. +It seems sadly ridiculous that women should want their husbands +compelled by Act of Parliament to return to them at a fixed hour. Let me +endeavour to convert these misguided wives, if any of them should deign +to read this book. + +Dear ladies, almost everything your husbands cannot get at home they can +get at the club--the more completely their wants are satisfied the more +pleasant they are to live with, and consequently your home is the +happier! If they have a hobby, they generally join a club connected with +it, or where they can meet other men similarly enslaved. Be it politics, +sport, horses, cards, music, golf, or the theatre--if it is in their +blood, it must come out, and sensible wives allow it to do so. A hobby +suppressed means a hubby embittered. At the club they can have their +rubber, or their rage against the Government; they can put +half-a-sovereign in the sweep-stake, and compare notes about last +night's grand slam and their latest bunker, or whatever the term may be. +At the club they can meet other men, and have a complete change both +from office and home, consequently returning to both work and wife +refreshed and stimulated thereby. + +When your cook has managed, by that occult secret of her own, to get the +locked tantalus open and it isn't consequently convenient or possible to +have any dinner at home, you remain calm, and break it to your lord on +the telephone, for can he not feast royally--yet economically--at the +club? And when you are away on a holiday he can do the same, and spend a +pleasant evening there afterward, instead of moping about alone in the +empty house. When you indulge in disagreements of a disturbing nature, +if ever you do, the same friendly haven is open to him, surely a more +comfortable thing for you than to have him maledicting about the house +while the little difference is cooling off. In short, there is no end to +the blessings and benefits of a man's club, and why in the world you +want to abolish them, dear ladies, I for one cannot imagine. + +Of course the necessary moderation should be observed, as with all other +good things, and club nights once or twice a week should suffice. On +these occasions the wife can have a picnic dinner--always a joy to a +woman--with a book propped up before her, can let herself go and let her +cook go out. Or if she be of a strenuous turn she can utilise the free +evening to get her accounts and correspondence up to date. Or be her +habit gay she can go out on her own account and do a little dinner and +theatre with a discreet admirer, or even with a friend of her own sex. +Look at it how you will, a club, provided a man does not abuse it, is an +unalloyed blessing in married life. + +But perhaps it is the tragic fate of the wives in question not to be +able to trust their husbands, and with cause. Perhaps their hearts hold +sorrowful knowledge of betrayal, and they fear that the club may be used +to shield an evening spent in company less desirable from the wifely +point of view. Even so, the club is a blessing, for at least a woman can +_hope_ and try to believe her husband _is_ really there, whilst if he +has no club to go to, the transparency of his alternative excuse must +give colour to her worst suspicions. If a man is resolved to do this +sort of thing, nothing can stop him; should one pretext to spend his +time away from home fail, he will put forward another, and the less +chance his wife has of discovering the real state of affairs the better +for her peace of mind. + +That ignorance is bliss is a profound truth in married life and wives +should strive to be guided by it. I believe women exist who actually +make a practice of going through their husbands' pockets when +opportunity offers, presumably in the expectation of finding some +incriminating letter or bill. What they expect to gain in the event of +an unpleasant discovery, heaven alone knows! Nothing but a more or less +hateful scene, and a consequent loss of all peace between them, without +the real source of the trouble being affected in the least. Fortunately +few husbands are fools enough to carry compromising documents on their +persons. In any case this surveillance is revolting, and where mutual +respect exists, for which I have so strongly urged the necessity, these +lapses of taste could not occur. + +In justice to those unhappy women who suffer the terrible affliction of +a husband given to excessive drink or gambling, I must add that, when +this is the case, a wife is right to try by every means in her power to +keep her husband away from his club, which offers greater opportunities +than the home circle for indulging in these vices. + + * * * + +And now for a special word to men. On a foregoing page I mentioned the +possibility of a married woman going out to dinner and the theatre with +a man friend. In London life this is so usual an occurrence that any +explanation of it would seem homely and a little absurd to the +initiated. But the initiated are a very small section of the community, +and as this book is humbly put forward for anyone interested in marriage +to read--in short, for everyone who _will_ read it--I propose therefore +to enlarge somewhat on this theme for the benefit of the uninitiated +majority. A great many men would never dream of allowing their wives to +go out at night alone with other men; why, I cannot pretend to know, +since they surely cannot insult their wives and their friends by the +idea of any impropriety in connection with them. Possibly it is due to +the survival of some primitive masculine feeling that they cannot +explain. (In former times husbands were even more exacting, and under +the Justinian code a man could divorce his wife merely for going to a +circus without his consent, or for going to baths and banquets with +other men!) To me it seems equally as unreasonable as women's +disapproval of men's clubs. Just as a sensible wife makes no objection +to her husband's club, so a wise husband allows his wife to be taken out +by another man, if she desire it. If he knows anything of the feminine +temperament--and no man should marry till he does--he realises that the +admiration of other men is pleasing to his wife, and a little gaiety has +a wonderful effect on her spirits. + +I remember the time when Theodore and Amoret used to disagree violently +on this point, but eventually Theodore gave way. 'He used to think it so +wrong of me to like having other men a tiny bit in love with me,' Amoret +said, 'but I explained to him that I liked it because it gave me such a +nice powerful feeling and was a kind of added zest in life. Then he +always said it was very dangerous for a married woman to have any zest +in life apart from her husband, and I used to answer that _he_ had no +end of zests apart from me, and what was I to do during the long +evenings when he was eternally playing bridge. Finally I promised it +would make me more contented and able to bear the monotony of marriage +better, if only he would let me go. He thought it was awfully wicked of +me to call marriage monotonous, and said his mother would have been +horrified at such a remark. I told him it was no good expecting a young +wife to behave like one's mother, and he said he'd rather I didn't. Then +we laughed, and the dear old boy gave in, and said that Everard was a +white sort of man, and might take me out once as a trial trip. Since +then I've gone to theatres with them all, and I'm fonder of Theodore the +more I see of other men, and ever so much more peaceful and contented.' + +Which testimony speaks for itself. + +Few seem to realise the many advantages of marrying a man of a silent +habit. The ideal husband rarely talks; he realises that women prefer to +do this themselves, and that there is not room for two talking people in +one happy family. The loquacious man had better look out for a +silence-loving woman, and marry her immediately he finds her. Such +creatures are as rare as comets, and as a rule they are generally +married already to equally silent husbands--another of Nature's painful +bungles. Nothing is more appalling than to have to entertain one of +these speechless couples; an over-talkative pair is infinitely +preferable, as at least one can listen peacefully and let them run on. + + * * * + +An endless source of trouble between married couples is the money +question. Wives are often extravagant and generally sinfully ignorant of +financial matters at the start. Undoubtedly, as Isolda says: 'Money (and +Menials) mar Matrimony.' Of the second I cannot trust myself to write, +but I know that money--the want of it, the withholding of it, and the +mis-spending of it--is responsible for a great deal of conjugal +conflict. Some men seem to imagine their wives ought to be able to keep +house without means, and these unfortunate women have to coax and beg +and make quite a favour of it before they can obtain their due +allowance. Even then they are treated like children, and their use of +the money is inquired into in a most insulting manner, as if there was +such a royal margin for extravagance. + +I remember the case of poor little Hildebrand. He was a very young +husband, and had been brought up in a very old-fashioned way. One of his +quaintly mediaeval notions was that woman had no financial capacity and +could on no account be trusted with cash. If he had had time, I really +think he would have done all the housekeeping himself. Fortunately for +the peace of that family this was impossible. However, he exercised as +much supervision over the _menage_ as was possible, even to the extent +of looking over the tradesmen's books. Of course he did not understand +their cryptic symbols in the least, and it was a funny sight to see +little Hildebrand poring over the small red books, and puckering his +conscientious brows in an agony of puzzlement. Every now and then he +would turn for enlightenment to his wife, who happily possessed a very +robust sense of humour. + +'What's this, Valeria, "3 m'lade, 11-1/2d."?' + +'Three pounds of marmalade, dear, it's cheap enough, surely.' + +'Too cheap to be good, I'm sure, you'd better get a superior quality.' + +'But, my dear boy, it _is_ the best!' + +'Oh!' Slightly discomfited Hildebrand would resume his study of the +grocer's hieroglyphics and presently a deep sigh would burst forth from +him. + +'What's the matter, darling? Are those wretched accounts annoying you?' +Valeria would ask sympathetically, suppressing her desire to laugh. + +'These fellows keep their books so deucedly queerly. What does this mean +"1 primrose, 7-1/2d., and 12 foreign safety, 1-1/2d."?' + +'One pound of Primrose candles and a dozen boxes of matches; we must +have them, and it's only 9d. anyway.' + +'That's not the point. What's this, "2 sunlight, 1s. 2d."?' + +'Two boxes of Sunlight Soap for cook--it'll last ages.' + +'And this, "one brooks, 3d."?' + +'Why, Brookes' Soap, of course.' + +'Is that what we use? . . . Really I don't see anything to laugh at.' + +'Excuse me, dear, I really couldn't help it, the idea of _us_ washing +with Monkey Brand is too excruciatingly funny. Of course it's for the +pots and pans and sinks!' + +'You seem to use a great deal of soap in the house.' + +'No, dear, quite a little, as any _housekeeper_ would tell you' (Valeria +could not resist this thrust), 'and I don't think you would like the +result if we economised in soap. But why worry so, since the total is +reasonable? You'll find nothing there but absolute necessities. Why +won't you leave it all to me?' + +In the end he was compelled to, but few wives would have shown Valeria's +patience under this very unnecessary infliction. + +Of course this is an extreme case, but a great many men do interfere in +their wives' department to a most irritating extent. To my mind the +perfect way is for the whole financial budget of the house to be left to +the wife, just as the whole budget of the office or estate is left to +the husband. I am now dealing of course with people of limited means. +As a rule, a man has quite enough money worry during his day's work and +does not want any more of it when he gets home. To have to sit down to +write cheques in the evening is a task that seems to bring out all the +worst qualities in a husband. He may enter the house a devoted lover, +and heap evening papers, flowers, and chocolates on his wife's knee. +During dinner he may be genial, witty, affectionate, delightful--but +present him with a bundle of bills at ten P.M. with the remark that +really these ought to be seen to--and at once he becomes a fierce, +snarling, primitive, repulsive, and blasphemous creature. No matter if +his balance at the bank be ever so satisfactory, no matter if every bill +be for something he has personally required, and no single one incurred +by his wife--these facts weigh not at all with him. Bills are bills, +and at the sight of them husbands become savages. If I should call on +Miranda one morning about the seventh or eighth of the month, I am sure +to find her red-eyed and worn and to be told: 'Last night Lysander said +he'd do the bills and of course he's been damning and blasting ever +since, though they're ridiculously small this month.' Exactly the same +with Isolda. 'Launcelot wrote the month's cheques last night,' she will +say, 'and handling bills always has a terrible effect on him; it's a +kind of disease with him, poor dear, and I never can sleep after it.' +Yet both Launcelot and Lysander are in every other respect ideal +husbands. + +My advice to wives therefore is: Firstly, do away with all weekly or +cash payments, which are a weariness to the wifely brain. Check all +books once a week, examine the items with whatever degree of care your +tradesmen's moral standard requires. Enter these sums in an +account-book. At the end of the month, when all the bills are in, +prepare a monthly balance-sheet for your husband. He will assuredly +glance first at the total and should it be satisfactory he will look no +further if he be wise. Let him then write one cheque to cover the whole +amount, pay it into your bank, and you do the rest. When the bills +arrive for rates, and whatever else is sent in quarterly, include them +in your monthly list, and thus your husband will only have to write +twelve cheques a year on behalf of his home instead of scores. The +fearful frenzies that beset him monthly will thus be reduced to a +minimum. If you have stables or an extensive wine-cellar give orders +that the bills for these and any other item which belongs to the man's +department should be sent to his office or club, together with his +tailor's and other personal bills. Thus you will not suffer when their +settlement becomes necessary. It is a strange fact that a man sits down +like a lamb to write cheques at his office, although at home the same +business would cause him to raise the roof and shake the foundations. + + * * * + +Volumes could be written on how to be happy though married, but my last +page is at hand. To sum up therefore. Wives: if you would be happy, +remember, make much of your husband, flatter him discreetly, laugh at +his jokes, don't attempt to put down his club, never tell him home +truths, and _never_ cry. + +Husbands: praise and admire your wife and let other men admire her too; +don't interfere in her department; write your monthly cheque with a +cheerful mien; be reasonable about money even if you cannot be generous, +and be not overfond of your own voice. + +And, both of you: be very tolerant, expect little, give gladly, put +respect before everything, cultivate courtesy and love each other all +you can. If you do all this you are sure to be happy, though married. +Hear also what Robert Burton says in his wonderful book, _The Anatomy of +Melancholy_. 'Hast thou means? Thou hast none, if unmarried, to keep and +increase them. Hast none? Thou hast one, if married, to help and get +them. Art in prosperity? Thine happiness is doubled with a wife. Art in +adversity? She'll comfort and assist thee. Art at home? She'll drive +away melancholy. Art abroad? She'll wish for thee in thy absence and +joyfully welcome thy return. There's nothing delightsome without +society, and no society as sweet as matrimony!' + + +THE END + + + + +COLSTONS LIMITED, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. + + + * * * * * + * * * * + * * * * * + + +Errors and Inconsistencies + +The inconsistent hyphenization of "re-adjust(ment)" and the variable +spelling of "vice versa" (with or without circumflex) are unchanged. +The term "anyrate" is always written as a single word. + + + Part I + The Subject of Marriage is kept too much in the dark. [. missing] + I.IV + ridiculing and contemning + [_archaic spelling unchanged; elsewhere "condemn"_] + ... and most of them negative.'[1] [_footnote tag missing_] + + II.I. + but when it is a very unhappy married life must inevitably follow. + [_punctuation unchanged: may need comma after "is"_] + 'Real friendship,' founded on harmony of sentiment + [_close quote missing_] + You ask me whether you will be happy thro' love and marriage. [hapy] + II.II + I think it is de la Rochfoucauld who says [_spelling unchanged_] + + Part III + --GEORGE SAND. [GEORGES] + III.I + He continues: 'It is a question to my mind whether [" for '] + III.II + They are old friends and have not met for years. [. missing] + except the old ladies, and the men don't want them.' [" for '] + III.IV + 'Not at all; she's perfectly sound,' [opening " for '] + III.VI + '_Duo_--two?' [closing " for '] + + V.II + To speak in an exaggeratedly gentle voice [exaggerately] + ... did not understand their cryptic symbols in the least [crytic] + 'Two boxes of Sunlight Soap for cook--it'll last ages.' [. missing] + + +Missing Text + +The edges of some preliminary pages, mainly advertising, were damaged. +Reconstructed text is shown here in {braces}, with the original line +breaks. + +[NEW SHILLING REPRINTS] + + +THE SINEWS OF WAR.+ By EDEN PHILLPOTTS an{d} + ARNOLD BENNETT. + +MODERN WOMAN AND HOW TO MANAGE H{ER.}+ + By WALTER GALLICHAN. + +[PRESS NOTICES] + + _{PR}ESS NOTICES OF_ + + ... + + {s}erious subject." + + +Standard.+--"A good deal of sound thinking has gone to the + book's composition and it is also illumined by a very kind and + {t}ender spirit." + + +Bystander.+--"A clever and most entertaining volume . . . the + {re}ader may be assured of much that is sage and sound, and much + {th}at is witty." + + +Black & White.+--"No one has gone so fully and vigorously + {into} the various problems connected with marriage as Mrs Braby + {in he}r extremely readable book . . . one of the most vivid and + {origin}al contributions to the discussion of a great problem that have + {appea}red for a long time." + + +{Lit}erary World.+--"Very brightly written, and even when + {most a}udacious is full of good feeling and good sense . . . amusing + {and shre}wd . . . clever and stimulating." + + +[DOWNWARD] + + _BY THE SAME AUTH{OR}_ + + ... Maud Churton Braby, author of that vivacious an{d} + daring book, "Modern Marriage and How to Bear it.{"} + As might be expected, some of the serious problems o{f} + women are dealt with in its pages. The story concern{s} + the fortunes of brilliant and undisciplined Dolly who, o{n} + the death of her mother, an actress, is compelled by t{he} + decree of a mysterious trustee to go first to a conve{nt-} + school and afterwards become a hospital nurse. H{er} + temptations and adventures at the Wimpole Street Nurs{ing} + Home--(in which environment other characters of {much} + interest appear)--her tragic love affair, and the dep{ths to} + which it brings her, together with her subse{quent} + redemption, are related in a manner which ma{kes a} + special appeal to the heart. + +[The word given as "much" (interest) could also be "some", taking up +the same amount of space.] + +[Title Page] + + MODERN MARRIAG{E} + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Modern marriage and how to bear it, by +Maud Churton Braby + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN MARRIAGE AND HOW TO BEAR IT *** + +***** This file should be named 31529.txt or 31529.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/5/2/31529/ + +Produced by Louise Hope, Norbert H. 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