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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42760 ***
+
+  THE MYTH IN MARRIAGE
+
+  _by Alice Hubbard_
+
+  _The Roycrofters
+  East Aurora N.Y._
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1912
+  By Alice Hubbard
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  FOREWORD                          7
+
+  ROMANCE                          13
+
+  THE REVELATION                   19
+
+  FACTS                            21
+
+  AN AWAKENING                     25
+
+  THE NATURAL MARRIAGE             29
+
+  THE SOCIAL MARRIAGE              33
+
+  THE MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE      37
+
+  CONCLUSION                       39
+
+  THE BUSINESS OF MARRIAGE         41
+
+  PRIMITIVE BONDAGE                45
+
+  NATURE'S METHOD                  49
+
+  ECONOMIC FREEDOM                 53
+
+  CITIZENS                         55
+
+  ENFORCED DEPENDENCE              63
+
+  HOMOGENEITY                      71
+
+  ROMANCE                          75
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+Marriage is a subject of interest to all adults, and at one time in almost
+every life it is the vision that fills the horizon.
+
+To many it is a mirage.
+
+To a few it proves to be the hills from whence cometh their strength. The
+rising sun of romance tips every blade of grass, every leaf and flower and
+twig, with the mystery and miracle of color and perfume.
+
+The noonday light reveals truth that the half-light of the dawn could not
+show.
+
+And evening twilight garners all the richness of marriage.
+
+The purpose of this book is to enlighten by bringing into the light of day
+experiences that must come into the lives of women and men.
+
+--_Alice Hubbard._
+
+
+
+
+The Myth in Marriage
+
+
+There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction
+that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that
+though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can
+come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is
+given to him to till.--_Emerson._
+
+
+
+
+ROMANCE
+
+    _The object of love expands and grows before us to eternity, until it
+    includes all that is lovely, and we become all that can
+    love.--Thoreau._
+
+
+Marriage, although a most common incident in life, is understood as little
+as is birth, life and death. People are perpetually ignorant on the
+subject, and insist upon remaining in this state until the veil of their
+temple is rent in twain, and their holy of holies has daylight thrown upon
+it.
+
+Love is a sacred mystery whose secret is as yet locked away from mortals.
+We recognize a few of its manifestations and dream of its power. We
+connect it in our thoughts with marriage and birth, but we assume its
+presence: we do not bring proof.
+
+Love is spirit, and can not be analyzed nor understood.
+
+The most that man can apprehend of it is to know its absence or its
+presence. Its most refined manifestations have come to us with the
+development of intellect.
+
+There are only a few examples of the manifestation of great love in
+history. So rare are the people capable of its expression that the whole
+world wonders and in awe has said that the Creator is Love.
+
+And lovers have been set apart as belonging to the Great Mystery and
+revered in degree as is the Source of Love.
+
+One of the phases of this manifestation in people is the desire to give.
+The lover withholds nothing from his beloved. There is one desire--to give
+all. Thus is the mind expanded until it reaches truth never before seen.
+
+Love is the enlightener of the soul. It is the all-seeing eye that
+discovers the highest possibilities in man. Its eternal desire is to
+fulfil these.
+
+"I can do no ill, because I could not meet the beloved on terms of
+equality if there were any stain upon my soul. My hands and my heart must
+be clean."
+
+Love's longing is to be entirely whole, clean and strong.
+
+Love would never deceive. It is kindred only to truth and good.
+
+All of life is sacred to the lover, and all life is sacred to him.
+
+The lover is not so anxious that the beloved shall be perfect, as that she
+herself, he himself, shall be without blemish. Love purifies the lover.
+Love makes the lover clean.
+
+There is no such thing as unrequited love, for to have loved is all the
+compensation there is. The soul asks no more.
+
+There is a sublime dignity in love--a majesty that suggests unlimited
+power.
+
+To love is an individual experience. The object of the love is only the
+means to this end of awakening and purification.
+
+When the lover asks aught from the beloved, he has descended from the
+spiritual estate and begins to haggle and barter. Then it is not love, but
+becomes something to buy and sell with.
+
+Love radiates from the individual, as rays of light from its source.
+
+When the lover wants to continue the ecstacy of the experience of
+unselfishness, prolong the forgetfulness of his sordid self, he does what?
+Just the opposite of what will secure for him this Nirvana! He begins to
+demand. He asks her to be forever near him, she asks him to forever stay,
+all in faith, believing that the soul-awakener is a person, when the
+person has only reminded the soul of an ideal. For a time this person
+keeps this ideal living before the soul of the lover.
+
+Elbert Hubbard says, "I love you because you love the things I love."
+There is a trinity in love. Lovers make the soul to see a similar ideal
+which both love.
+
+So long as each asks nothing from the other, makes no demand, this ideal
+may continue to come before the mind, and remain there while the person is
+present, and return at the thought of the beloved.
+
+
+
+
+THE REVELATION
+
+    _The gay enchantment was undone,
+    A gentle wife, but fairy none.--Emerson._
+
+
+The ecstacy of feeling the presence of the ideal may continue for many
+meetings and partings, until the lovers believe that each is responsible
+for the beautiful ideal that is theirs.
+
+They arrange to live permanently in each other's presence.
+
+But this living together has induced a thousand conditions that had
+nothing whatever to do with the ecstacy of the soul.
+
+Young people do not realize how much economics has to do with every-day
+living until they are face to face with every-day life.
+
+Earning money, the drudgery in housework, the personal habits of the
+individuals, intimate tastes and prejudices, are all foreign to the
+awakening of ideals in the soul. The beloved, who was once an angel,
+becomes a wife, a weaver, a worker, a plain human being, subject to the
+shortcomings and ignorance that other human beings have.
+
+And the lover, who is also beloved, becomes a husband, an earner of money,
+in competition with other workers, subject to irritation, weariness,
+discouragements, human failings.
+
+The human qualities, the frailties and shortcomings, do not inspire the
+soul to high ideals. And each looks across the impassable gulf of the
+breakfast-table and wonders why they "introduced into their lives a spy."
+
+"Where is the ideal I was to dwell with?"
+
+"Where is the ideal that was to abide with me?"
+
+Their souls are wrenched in anguish.
+
+
+
+
+FACTS
+
+    _You must stand up straight and put a name upon your
+    actions.--Stevenson._
+
+
+The business in marriage requires commonsense about ninety-nine per cent.
+
+There is usually less romance in marriage than in any other relationship
+of life.
+
+But the general idea concerning marriage is that it is all or nearly all
+romance.
+
+There is no other business partnership so intimate and complex as that in
+marriage.
+
+And this partnership is entered into, the legal papers are drawn,
+witnesses to the transaction are called, and a life agreement is made
+without thought, discussion or an agreement concerning the business part
+of this partnership.
+
+Emphasis has been placed only upon the love, the part of the contract
+which mortals can not control.
+
+The business part of this contract holds the destinies of the contracting
+parties as no other partnership can. Husband and wife can ruin each
+other's fortunes utterly. No outsider can do this.
+
+We would consider two men ridiculous who entered into a business
+partnership, discussing with each other only the pleasure they anticipated
+in seeing each other so constantly as they would, working side by side
+each day.
+
+Imagine one partner saying to the other, "With all my worldly goods I thee
+endow," and slipping upon his finger a little gold ring. Then for the
+duration of this partnership, the privileged partner giving to him who
+wears the ring what he is inclined, varying as the joy in each other's
+presence waxes or wanes. The idea is silly.
+
+And yet a man and a woman may contract to live together, giving little
+serious thought to the business part of such living, until they find that
+mortals can not live on romance, and that the joy of their lives has flown
+away.
+
+Ecstacy continued, burns up life, and is not intended except for
+inspiration.
+
+Love may continue with marriage, and it may not. Civilization has drifted
+us into conditions where it is difficult for romance to continue after the
+lovers enter into the business of life together.
+
+Marriage is of universal interest. The weal or woe of the race is involved
+in it.
+
+It is a natural incident in the lives of lovers; but the marriage of
+lovers, although an incident in love, becomes an event in their lives
+because of the business partnership, which phase they did not contemplate.
+
+The primal purpose in the marriage of lovers is that they may be
+perpetually purified, that they may live constantly their best. To do
+this they must have the Ideal forever before them.
+
+When the business part of marriage shows another "side" of their natures,
+the Ideal may take wings. Then they naturally feel they are cheated. Their
+first impulse is to run away from this "trouble," to get back to the Ideal
+before it has been effaced.
+
+
+
+
+AN AWAKENING
+
+    _Love, indeed, is light from heaven;
+    A spark of that immortal fire by Allah given.--Byron._
+
+
+The expressions, "falling in love," and "making love," are terms
+suggesting something that is impossible.
+
+No one falls in love. The experience of loving may come when a person has
+evolved where fine perceptions are possible. All living is an awakening
+process in which there are many degrees of consciousness. At a certain
+stage in his evolution, a human being is able to see and feel certain
+truth.
+
+The imagination is a power which is developed with intellect and fine
+feeling. The imagination can create a world and people it. In this way,
+ideals are perpetually made. Humanity's effort to realize ideals is
+evolution.
+
+When man can image a human being that fulfils the highest ideal he can
+create, the soul rejoices. Man forgets the imperfect in his ecstacy when
+contemplating the perfect. And when one human being sees another human
+being who reminds him, more or less, of his ideal, he is said to love.
+
+He does not "fall" nor "make," he realizes, he awakens, and sometimes
+re-creates.
+
+It may often occur that the person who awakens one to this ideal may
+recall this ideal once, twice, again and yet again. Or this person may
+constantly recall it, or cease altogether to recall it.
+
+That man and woman are lovers who constantly keep before each other the
+Ideal.
+
+They wish to abide together, because together they live their best lives,
+do their best work, are most kind to their fellow-man, do no wrong, can do
+no wrong. This is commonly accepted today as the basis of marriage. It is
+this ideal which is vaguely or definitely in the minds of thinking people
+when they wish to marry.
+
+The poet Dante had a wonderful, complete ideal. He saw but twice the woman
+who reminded him of his Perfect. He wrote in poetry of his Ideal and
+called Her by this woman's name.
+
+His wife, the mother of his children, was another woman.
+
+Many critics say that Dante's love for Beatrice was pure. Probably they
+say this, because he asked nothing of her. That he never knew Beatrice was
+fortunate, for the two people had very little in common. Dante was a poet
+and dreamer. Beatrice was a woman of the nobility without serious cares
+and responsibilities.
+
+
+
+
+THE NATURAL MARRIAGE
+
+    _Cell seeks affinity with cell.--Reedy._
+
+
+When young people meet on a natural basis our present civilization insists
+that it must necessarily be followed by a permanent, life-long friendship
+or disgrace.
+
+The cosmic urge causes a meeting which, if followed by an enforced close
+relationship, usually has incompatability as a sequence.
+
+Nature has one thing forever in mind. Civilization has not counted on
+this.
+
+A youth and a maiden meet when passion is strong, the will undisciplined
+and judgment undeveloped. Convention says there is but one thing to do
+when young people are thus strongly attracted to each other, and that is
+to get the sanction of society (church and state) and make arrangements
+for a permanent intimacy.
+
+The youth expects the perpetual beauty, smile and charm of the ballroom,
+reception or parlor. The maiden expects protestation of love, and her
+ideals and promises fulfilled.
+
+Each has firmly fixed in the mind an idea of something that has none or
+little of the real in it--an idea that is impossible. Yet in it there are
+hope and fond desire somewhere hinted.
+
+The facts are that a struggle has just begun with some of the unpoetic
+realities of existence, of which neither has ever before dreamed.
+
+Perhaps the wife must rise early, prepare the breakfast, keep the rooms in
+order. This is work.
+
+The husband goes to business.
+
+Business perplexes.
+
+"Oh, she is just like other women!"
+
+"Oh, he is just a common man!"
+
+They complain.
+
+The cosmic urge has nothing to do with any of this. It has come--and
+gone, perhaps.
+
+There is left a social situation. These two young people have had
+something in common, and possibly only a transitory something.
+
+How shall they live together when she loves what he hates, and he has
+hopes, ambitions, desires that are nothing to her?
+
+"He has cheated me!" "She has fooled me!" is their heart-cry.
+
+The truth, however, is something like this: "We have been deceived. Nature
+said one thing to us, and we confused with it something else and thought
+what society said was true. We have been deceived."
+
+There was nothing in the first attraction that made these two understand
+anything about hardships, disagreeable duties, discomforts, weariness,
+pain.
+
+Those who are anxious to uphold church authority are saying a good deal
+about the divorce evil. They bring statistics to show that one out of
+every twelve marriages results in divorce.
+
+They have not, however, secured any statistics as to whether the people in
+the other eleven marriages enjoy what our Constitution affirms to be the
+rights of American citizens: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
+
+The Church is talking about a "cure" for the divorce evil! One bishop
+earnestly recommends the Jewish anathematization, "Let neither party ever
+be spoken to again." But how would this remedy the social condition of the
+two?
+
+This is punishment, but not cure. The cause of the trouble is not even
+looked for by the bishop.
+
+"Is marriage a failure?" According to the divorce-courts it is.
+
+The Church concedes that one-twelfth of all marriages are failures.
+
+
+
+
+THE SOCIAL MARRIAGE
+
+    _I am not surprised that some make shipwreck, but that any come to
+    port.--Stevenson._
+
+
+A social marriage is based on the idea of a high and lofty friendship, an
+indissoluble partnership, an intimacy of relationship unknown in any other
+phase of existence.
+
+Such a marriage was not intended by Nature. A new element is introduced
+when a social marriage occurs of which Nature had no thought, and we
+should reckon with this, not without it.
+
+This new element is the intellect. Nature does not recognize it in the
+cosmic urge. So the meeting of man and woman on an intellectual plane, on
+a basis of the sweetest friendship imaginable, is the only condition by
+which Nature can endure the social marriage tie--which so often binds,
+imprisons, and makes slaves.
+
+Even at this time man considers that he owns a woman; that he has
+purchased her freedom, her will, her habits, her aspirations, her time,
+her love, her energies, her future, every activity of her life. She is in
+very truth under a master. And the woman, as well, usually considers this
+true.
+
+The woman thinks, because she is owned, that there are certain rights
+connected with her husband which she also has. In the majority of cases
+the wife realizes her inferior strength when might makes right, and the
+husband is not trusted. He must give an account of himself, morning, noon
+and night; of his money, his letters, his attentions.
+
+The woman has certain laws which she, too, tries to enforce. He must
+support her, with all that the term implies.
+
+"Didn't he promise to do this on the wedding-day?" Certainly, yes! So far
+as I know, humanity is one in its nature, and neither male nor female. No
+woman naturally wants to be owned and possessed. Humanity rebels against
+tyranny; and there is more discord, more heartaches, more wrangling, more
+unhappiness among married people than among the unmarried.
+
+Were it possible for men and women when they marry to realize that they
+own nothing more in "rights" after marriage than they did before, and
+would make no more demands upon each other, marriage even with its present
+accepted meaning would not be a failure.
+
+The import of marriage, as it is understood today, is on the basis of
+intellectual friendship, a business partnership, mutuality in all
+interests of life. Few people know this.
+
+We have mixed methods. Nature makes no compulsory laws in this matter of
+living together.
+
+Society has done this. The laws man makes, man must enforce. But what God
+hath joined together, no man can put asunder. What God hath not joined
+together, man is not very successful in combining.
+
+We have demonetized woman, taking away from her the natural strength,
+courage and independence that belong to the mother; made of her a slave,
+under which condition she does not thrive.
+
+And neither does man thrive in being master, for the chain that holds the
+one is fastened to the wrist of the other.
+
+Woman must make herself economically free, find work that exercises her
+body and her mind, and most of the cause of discord, unrest and
+unhappiness will have disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+THE MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE
+
+    _Its only end is the principle of existence.--Disraeli._
+
+
+People who marry without ideals entering in as part of the contract have
+few disappointments or troubles.
+
+If the woman expects the man simply to provide shelter, food, raiment, and
+the man expects a good cook, housekeeper and valet, and each fulfils his
+part of the expectation, there are few other demands.
+
+Tenderness, kindness, attentions are asked for very moderately, and good
+service brings its own reward. Each understands the situation and has
+accepted this business arrangement with marriage. So there is no
+disappointment, no heartache. They get out of their marriage all they had
+expected. They are not guilty of experiment and folly. They have their
+quota of commonsense--and use it. Their ideals are simple and easily
+attained.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+    _We two have climbed together,
+    Maybe we shall go on yet, side by side.--Schreiner._
+
+
+Lovers who marry think more of the Ideal than of all else. And if or when
+the Ideal ceases to remain in the presence of the husband or the wife,
+then love is gone. In its place sorrow sits.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whatever marriage may have been in the past, it has now two distinct
+phases which should be definitely understood by all people.
+
+I. The business partnership.
+
+II. The spiritual relation.
+
+
+
+
+THE BUSINESS OF MARRIAGE
+
+    _You are dealing with something far more precious than any plant--the
+    priceless soul of a child.--Burbank._
+
+
+The civic recognition of marriage does not take direct cognizance of the
+Ideal, or love-phase, of this unilateral contract, although it assumes
+that love is the motive of the union. The state takes it for granted that
+the purpose of this union is to perpetuate the race, give to the state
+citizens. The permanence of the marriage is supposed to be desirable,
+because the physical support and welfare of wife and children rests with
+the husband, unless he become insane, sick or criminal.
+
+Then Charity gives the pauperizing support of a tyrant. Desirable citizens
+are seldom evolved in "Institutions."
+
+Occasionally, a mother is endowed with power to maintain her family alone;
+but the instances are few.
+
+In marriage the state obtains the promise of the contracting parties to
+love, honor and cherish; to love, honor and obey, through sickness,
+through health, until death.
+
+However, the state is able to enforce but one portion of the promise, "to
+cherish," which, being interpreted, means that the husband must contribute
+a certain portion of his income to the woman, provided she has not broken
+the letter of the law in one respect, and has not deserted nor flagrantly
+quarreled with her husband. If she has been acquiescent, she is still to
+be "cherished." This alimony, as such tax is sometimes termed, is required
+whether the wife is mother or not, or is engaged in educating citizens or
+not. It may be exacted--the letter of the law--although the intent of the
+marriage may not have been fulfilled.
+
+Tacitly, the state recognizes the desirability of love in marriage,
+although it has no jurisdiction over it, and can not enforce the keeping
+of this promise by husband or wife.
+
+Loving or not loving is not within the control of mortals.
+
+It is admitted now by men and women that the laws of all countries of the
+world were made by men for men. They do not discriminate against women so
+seriously and so unjustly as did Moses, but the civil laws give wife and
+mother no chance for independence.
+
+Until recently, the promise to obey has been enforced; also, the wife's
+promise to be true to one man and none other. So we have had the prayer
+which is international: "Make our women virtuous and our men brave," the
+meaning of brave being, able to fight man and beast.
+
+"Virtue" has been interpreted as being a negation, an indifference to all
+but husband.
+
+Nothing that can transpire in wedlock is considered not virtuous.
+
+"Oh, Liberty! Liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!"
+
+Woman has found submission easier than to assert and obtain the human
+right of independence in the control of her own mind and body.
+
+"It is a hard world for girls," said Martin Luther, five hundred years
+ago.
+
+It is still a hard world for girls and women.
+
+Nature is said to love the female more than the male, for she serves Her
+more devotedly, and Nature has taken care that she shall.
+
+
+
+
+PRIMITIVE BONDAGE
+
+    _Woman pays the first cost on human life.--Schreiner._
+
+
+When a woman feels the first grip of her child's dependence upon her, she
+has forever lost her freedom. If the child dies, a grave shackles her soul
+through life. If the child lives, the welfare of that child keeps
+perpetually between her and the sun.
+
+Before her babe is born, Nature has absorbed the mother's strength and
+charm that Her one purpose may be accomplished. Man finds it easy to
+neglect woman then. In fact, his honor, pride, fear and loyalty to a
+principle, one or all, are his safeguard and the mentor that holds him to
+duty when his wife is absorbed by motherhood.
+
+Nature demands all from the mother. She takes possession and uses her so
+that the woman has no will for the time. She is Nature's, body and soul,
+"Used by an unseen Power for an unknown end."
+
+Does a woman enter into this prison-house voluntarily?
+
+Never.
+
+Nature blindfolds and lures her into it.
+
+Before civilization developed a hectic super-sentiment in woman, she lived
+as do the animals. Naturally, motherhood was an incident in her life. Her
+children early became independent, and she had a comfortable, healthy
+indifference to their welfare after they were able to get a living.
+
+All the time she was a mother she was economically free. She had had the
+strength to take care of herself from childhood, and when her child came,
+she was able to care for both.
+
+The father of her baby made no demands upon her for service as cook,
+housekeeper, laundress, valet, lover or friend. He took care of himself
+wholly, and so did she. All they wanted was food and shelter.
+
+But since man's needs are multiple, the demands upon male and female are
+great.
+
+
+
+
+NATURE'S METHOD
+
+    _The more intimately we attach ourselves to Nature, the more she glows
+    with beauty and returns us our affection.--Froebel._
+
+
+Nature does not seem to have expected man to get more than a primitive
+living. She has not changed Her methods at all.
+
+Man has changed. He makes and directs machinery that earns for one man
+what fifty men can earn; so that one man is fifty times richer than a
+primitive man.
+
+Nature uses no machinery.
+
+It takes more than twenty years of the mother's time to develop one
+citizen. There are no short cuts nor quick methods in woman's special
+work.
+
+The mother of a large family has given twenty-five of the best years of
+her life to the work which none but her can do.
+
+She has given to the state citizens.
+
+This has cost her all her strength, all her time and the ambitions of a
+quarter of a century.
+
+As our present civilization is, she has given her economic independence,
+her individual ambitions.
+
+She pays dearly for the privilege of being mother to citizens. She is
+dependent upon one man for the maintenance of both herself and her
+children.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The man, too, is blindfolded by Nature and is led where he knows not.
+
+The desire to give all of his earnings to the development of citizens may
+never have been his. He may not know nor care about the welfare and
+perpetuation of the state.
+
+But Nature has not bound him hand and foot to Her plans. When, or if, his
+affection ceases for this woman who is dependent upon him for food,
+shelter and clothing, he may use his own judgment about the woman's and
+the children's needs. So long as they escape the attention of the Humane
+Societies, the family is at his mercy. The woman and her work are
+dependent upon him just the same.
+
+Unwilling money buys poor food, clothing and teaching. It has evolved
+bargain-days and cheap goods.
+
+
+
+
+ECONOMIC FREEDOM
+
+    _She considereth a field and buyeth it. With the fruit of her hands
+    she planteth a vineyard.--Solomon._
+
+
+The wisdom of stateswomen and of statesmen should evolve a sure
+foundation-fund, whereby mothers shall have a solid financial basis for
+doing woman's work.
+
+Civilization has placed a ban upon motherhood. There is ever the stigma
+upon it which Moses placed there. It is hard, cruelly hard, to be a mother
+in the United States, this "land of the free."
+
+We anathematize and practically kill a mother who has not conformed to our
+laws, irrespective of what Nature has said about it. We take her child
+from her, hide it, falsify about it, and then disown the mother if she
+demands the inherent rights of a mother.
+
+We talk about the glory of motherhood, but we do not act to the glory of
+motherhood.
+
+The business of marriage is to develop citizens. The financial part of
+this partnership should receive the most careful attention of all people
+who are to marry. They should realize that they are assuming
+responsibilities great and unknown to them. They are leaving a simple life
+to enter into one vastly more complex.
+
+Woman is fast evolving a brain. And women are thinking. Brain, not
+sentiment, will be the directing power under which women live. Wisdom and
+judgment will guide them. They will not give the best in their lives to
+the work of rearing children, without reasonable, business assurance of
+funds with which to do their work.
+
+
+
+
+CITIZENS
+
+    _It is true that I am an alien.
+    But my son--my son is Themistocles.--Euterpe._
+
+
+A citizen is one who has evolved from a condition where he was content to
+live alone, care for himself alone, into a state where he desires to live
+with others, and is interested in the welfare of others.
+
+Women were the first human beings to qualify as citizens.
+
+Their care for their children early extended their interest beyond their
+own welfare. From protecting and providing for her immediate family, the
+mother's interests naturally extended first to all children and then to
+all human beings who were in need of care.
+
+Women are potential mothers, and so are inherent citizens.
+
+Women are citizens by natural tendency.
+
+Men are citizens by education.
+
+The desire to co-operate is the natural desire of an evolving, sane
+people. Supremely selfish people, who care not at all for others, are
+either barbaric or insane.
+
+A city was the result of the citizen instinct.
+
+The mother's brain was evolved through her desire to benefit her children.
+She then saw that what was good for her own was good for her neighbor's
+family, and for all families. All manufactories, all industries, reforms
+and civic improvements have originated in woman's brain, evolved because
+of the mother-instinct of love.
+
+From the city, human interest extended into the state, from the state into
+the nation. From the limitation of belonging to a nation, we shall
+sometime become citizens of the world.
+
+A stateswoman or statesman is one who is intelligently active in work
+that materially benefits the citizens of a state or nation.
+
+The rights of citizenship naturally belong to all people who wish to and
+can contribute to the welfare of their fellow-man.
+
+Formerly statesmen were businessmen of experience and ability who had
+prescience. They could see what was beneficial to their own interests, and
+from this their interest expanded, and they saw what was good for the
+well-being of many men. They were men, like Benjamin Franklin, who were
+able to project themselves into the lives of others. They were the first
+monists.
+
+Statesmen had had experience--they had lived. They knew values, what
+served and what was not desirable. They also knew that no one reaches any
+goal alone. No man can progress much faster than the rest of his kind.
+
+So the statesman was a representative man, but a pioneer in progress. His
+avocation was to work for his kind. His vocation was his own business,
+which he minded very carefully.
+
+Appreciative people saw the benefit to others, and gave the statesman the
+recognition of honors. This was all he desired or needed. He was not a
+pauper, he was not submerged in financial difficulties. The oppressed can
+not see beyond their own needs--are incapable of generous thoughts or wise
+judgment.
+
+Statesmen were and are strong, successful men. People want for a savior
+one who can first save himself.
+
+There came a time when statesmen, like lawyers, received pay for services
+rendered.
+
+And lo, politicians and grafters, plums and taxes!
+
+Today, statesmen are few and are classed as politicians.
+
+All political offices have a little twig of laurel tied to the door, but
+the pay-envelope inside is generally what lures men to enter and abide.
+"The laborer is worthy of his hire," they affirm. And he is, provided he
+labors for the thing for which he was hired.
+
+"The people" are willing to pay politicians for piecework, provided the
+quality is right.
+
+When we say, "Children are the greatest asset of the nation," everybody
+nods assent to the sentiment, and many applaud.
+
+"What we do with the children decides what they will do with the nation,"
+we add, and there is never a dissenting look or voice.
+
+We affirm that the greatest work the state can do is to develop citizens.
+Perpetuity of the state is synonymous with perpetuity of the race. This is
+supposed to be Nature's dearest desire--to perpetuate the race.
+
+So it should be the dearest desire of statesmen, politicians, to
+perpetuate the state, and the state is the aggregation of its citizens.
+
+We are in a dense fog with regard to the value of citizens.
+
+We say that man is all. This is lip-service.
+
+Politicians are interested in acquiring and holding power, in war
+appliances and armies. They give some assistance in the development and
+care of vegetables, fruits, trees, and the flora in general. They are also
+interested in the development of all domesticated animals, the
+preservation of the birds, forests and natural parks, the protection of
+the fish. They have game-laws which are wise and whose results are
+beneficial.
+
+And the state hires and pays people to take care of all these interests.
+It also hires and pays people who see that the laws are respected which
+have been made for the protection and perpetuity of flora and fauna.
+
+But as yet, lawmakers, politicians, reformers, and influential citizens
+have not made provision for the development of citizens, except as the
+institution of the school system assists in this work.
+
+
+
+
+ENFORCED DEPENDENCE
+
+    _Thou givest man bread. Let my aim be to give man himself.--Froebel._
+
+
+There was a time when women, like statesmen, were economically free. They
+spun and wove, manufactured, planted, harvested, cooked. Land was cheap
+and needs were few. The women gave a part of their time to the state in
+rearing citizens, but they did not give all. They were self-supporting, in
+great measure; therefore, self-respecting and capable.
+
+But women lost their economic independence when industries were taken from
+the home.
+
+Farming, dairying, spinning, weaving, tailoring, laundering, baking,
+dressmaking, millinery, building, carpentering, are all done on a big
+scale, outside of the home, where the women, because they were mothers,
+could not follow their industries.
+
+Women are left with the dependent occupations of working for the state and
+working for their husbands, for neither of which can they collect money.
+
+Husbands' policy is: Where the treasury is, there will the wives' hearts
+be also.
+
+The welfare of the women who give their time--twenty-four hours of the
+day, and for twenty-five or thirty years of their lives, their prime--for
+the development of citizens has been left to chance.
+
+The state has made no provision whereby potential citizens shall be
+assured of the proper care.
+
+The mother's time has been considered of no value, that is, her service is
+not paid for in money.
+
+If, in her youth, a woman married a man who was able to make money, she
+might be assured of food, clothing and shelter for her children unless
+or until Fortune frowned and the property was lost.
+
+Any woman, whose husband dies, gives her time to the care of her children,
+no matter how poorly equipped she may be to earn a living for them in the
+world. She tries to do her own work, and besides that, what her husband
+did--maintain the family.
+
+The state has made no provision for the care of potential citizens whose
+father has died, thereby cutting off the income which was once theirs.
+
+We say that the purpose of the home is to develop children, that the home
+is established for children.
+
+The purpose of the school is to supplement the teaching of the home, and
+this is to be re-enforced by the influence of the church. The office of
+the state is to wisely protect the home and safeguard the interests of its
+citizens. The government is the mentor of the citizens.
+
+The theory is admitted that the business world is organized and operated
+for the one purpose of maintaining the home and its adjuncts--school,
+church and government. But the fact is, that, except for the taxes which
+great business institutions pay, there are very few children taken care of
+directly by big businesses.
+
+The very rich have one, possibly two, rarely three children, and these,
+instead of being developed for working citizens, often evolve into
+ornaments, and sometimes become a nuisance and an expense to the state.
+
+The mothers who give their time to the care of large families have no
+regular incomes. Their husbands are poor, and contribute to the
+development of citizens what they can, or will.
+
+The people who are doing the most important work for the state, for whom
+all business is operated (as tradition sayeth), have no capital, and are
+carrying on their more or less great work by donations, given at the
+discretion of the donor. They can not receive more than their husband's
+income, and never have that amount.
+
+No matter how efficient these women may be as mothers, there is no
+recognition of this excellence, except by a few friends of the family.
+
+Nothing has been done to make a large family popular. The trend of the
+whole course of civilization has been and is to do anything but evolve
+citizens.
+
+Of course, women are supposed to be too spiritually minded to want
+compensation in money for work done for love.
+
+However, is any great work done that is not done for love of the work? No
+one writes, paints, plays, builds, prints, binds books, models in leather
+or clay, raises cattle, fruits, grains, but him who loves his work. There
+is little response in any part of life, other than to love.
+
+All workers accept the world's custom of using money as a medium of
+exchange for their time and energy--all except mothers and wives. So much
+service is given for so much money, and so much money for so much service.
+
+Women are human beings, no more and no less than are men. They are just as
+human as men. They love freedom, independence and justice.
+
+There is no natural reason why they should not have public recognition for
+work and development.
+
+The custom of the world is to use money as a medium of exchange or as a
+representation of wealth. Wealth is an accumulation of energy held in
+reserve. People should be very careful to use this reserve advantageously.
+They are very jealous of expending time and energy unless it counts in
+wealth.
+
+All people but mothers do this. This is why motherhood has become
+unpopular and a burden. The mother is in economics a pauper, a dependent,
+at the mercy or bounty of one man.
+
+The first use of a home was to care for children, to protect them. Women
+built the first houses and for this one purpose.
+
+Modern houses are made for adults more than for children. They are places
+of luxury. The thought of a nursery is seldom in the minds of the makers
+of houses. The architect does not have for his recurring theme, "How will
+this add to the development of citizens?"
+
+Women are human beings. They are very much like men. They need
+recognition.
+
+Self-preservation is the first law. And women, like men, are selfish. They
+often stifle the instincts of Nature in one direction that they may live
+in the world as it is today.
+
+Rapid travel, the opportunity to see and know what there is to be seen and
+known, lures women just the same as it does men. Independence is just as
+dear to women as it is to men.
+
+
+
+
+HOMOGENEITY
+
+    _What we request of life is that the tools should be given to his hand
+    or hers who can handle them.--Schreiner._
+
+
+Woman is a human being before she is a mother and all the time she is a
+mother. And after her active work of motherhood is finished, she will
+still be a human being, subject to all the ambitions, hopes, desires and
+interests that humanity has.
+
+Daughters have inherited tendencies from their fathers as well as from
+their mothers, and all daughters have done this from prehistoric times to
+the present. Sons have belonged to mothers as well as to fathers. The race
+is one.
+
+Women can not be limited in the expression of this great miracle of life
+which stirs her soul, as it stirs man's.
+
+Woman and man are awakening, brain and heart.
+
+Woman must have freedom to work, to think, to find happiness, to express
+herself. She must be accepted as a part of every part of this becoming
+Democracy. She must be accepted in the world as it is today. She belongs,
+not to the past, but to this present.
+
+There is work that she alone can do, and to do this she must be
+economically free.
+
+The freedom of woman is the most important of all subjects that statesmen
+and citizens can consider.
+
+Pay mothers for the work they do for the state. Give them the opportunity
+for economic freedom, that they may be self-respecting, and develop on
+equal terms with men.
+
+The great need of the world is for better women and men--an evolving race.
+
+There is just one way: we must have evolving mothers.
+
+Servile mothers have slave sons and stupid daughters, and sometimes
+criminal children.
+
+Women must be free to choose their occupations.
+
+If they marry, they must recognize the business in marriage and enter into
+the business partnership with true intelligence.
+
+With no less intelligence must men understand that the contract in
+marriage can not be unilateral and bring benefit or happiness to either
+person, nor can the purpose of marriage be best accomplished.
+
+Democracy in marriage is the Great Imperative. We would have a democratic
+form of government? Democracy must begin at the foundation of all
+government--the home.
+
+
+
+
+ROMANCE
+
+    _We are ministered unto by the moonbeams and the starlight as well as
+    by the god of day._
+
+
+Romance is the color and the perfume of life. It is that which gives charm
+to living. Romance lures us to live. It called us into being, has bound us
+to life, and does not desert us at its close.
+
+Although Romance is the most intangible thing in the world, the moonshine
+of living, it is the most real.
+
+It is the will-o'-the-wisp that has led to all invasions, all discoveries,
+all victories, all heroism, all inventions, all arts, all business, all
+human endeavor. Without it there would be no marriage. The human race
+would cease to be.
+
+One of the myths in marriage is to assume that the Romance is all, or
+will continue under all conditions.
+
+Business belongs to the realm of fact and deals with tangible substances.
+It has to do with the practical part of life. It gives us food, clothing,
+shelter. It furnishes us great problems, exercise for body and mind. It is
+a great factor in the evolution of man.
+
+One of the myths in marriage is to assume that business and business
+struggles do not enter into the lives of lovers. The fact is that business
+occupies much of the time of every honest man and honest woman. It is
+necessary to life. Without work, romance would cease, the human race would
+die.
+
+The ideal and the real are interdependent in all phases of human life.
+
+In marriage there is a myth that the twain are one flesh. But the two are
+two, just as surely as one and one make two, unless neither is worth
+counting.
+
+It might not be such folly for a woman to trust her happiness to a man,
+if any man could make any woman happy. But happiness is within the power
+of the individual alone. Nature intended it to be so.
+
+If a woman were an incompetent, unable to earn or provide for herself, it
+might be well to leave her finances wholly in the hands of her husband.
+
+But women who have the right to give children to society are capable of
+taking care of themselves and financing their personal interests.
+
+Mothers should be thus capable.
+
+In marriage we must recognize the individuality in the partnership, just
+as we must the romance and the facts.
+
+A helpless, dependent, undeveloped, sentimental woman is not an inspirer
+of ideals. The man absorbed and involved in business is not an awakener or
+reminder of the Perfect.
+
+A little time is necessary for the appreciation of the beautiful, the
+charming, the wonderful in life.
+
+Leisure to think together and work together on things of mutual interest,
+is necessary to marriage, or there can be little love.
+
+When lovers are independently dependent upon each other, it is a wonderful
+privilege to meet.
+
+When lovers are economically free, as they were before marriage, there is
+no asking of favors nor demanding rights.
+
+When lovers are grateful for the privilege of being together, and meet
+only when it is a joy to do so, love will abide.
+
+And Romance, that lured them to life, and lighted their path to marriage,
+will ever illumine the way, even unto death.
+
+If a woman's desire is to seek ease and luxury, and find oblivion, let her
+not marry, for that is not the easiest way thither. A woman has neither
+natural nor moral right to involve others in her selfishness.
+
+If a man wants adoration, comfort, indulgence, cheap service and ease,
+let him not marry. He probably can get them all with more certainty and
+with less expense without marrying. A man has neither natural nor moral
+right to marry for these.
+
+Men and women have not evolved far. "It doth not yet appear what we shall
+be."
+
+Higher ideals will lure humanity on and on to a higher state of
+intelligence, and to better living, to a more refined and nobler justice
+than we have yet imagined.
+
+Men and women will not long be looking for ease, nor want to have what
+they do not earn.
+
+When love calls, they will respond with intelligence, knowing that this is
+Nature's voice, and therefore divine. They will rejoice in the most
+strenuous exercise of living.
+
+Then with deep joy we can say at the close:
+
+"To live is glorious. I have lived!"
+
+
+
+
+  THE MYTH IN MARRIAGE
+  WRITTEN BY ALICE HUBBARD
+  TITLE-PAGE, INITIALS AND
+  ORNAMENTS ESPECIALLY
+  DESIGNED FOR THIS BOOK
+  BY RAYMOND NOTT
+  TYPOGRAPHY BY
+  A. V. INGHAM
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  PRINTED BY THE ROYCROFTERS
+  AT THE ROYCROFT SHOPS
+  EAST AURORA, NEW YORK
+  MAY, MCMXII
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Myth in Marriage, by Alice Hubbard
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42760 ***