Modern marriage and how to bear it Part 5

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 prost.i.tutes 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_ s.e.xes 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 G.o.ds 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 a.s.serts 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 s.e.x 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.s 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 s.e.xual 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 circ.u.mstances. That is because his pa.s.sions 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 s.e.x 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 h.e.l.l... .

_Unfaithful!_

PART III

SUGGESTED ALTERNATIVES

'For me the only remedy to the mortal injustices, to the endless miseries, to the often incurable pa.s.sions which disturb the union of the s.e.xes, 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 bombsh.e.l.l into a delighted, albeit disapproving Press; but as memories are so short nowadays, perhaps a brief recapitulation of the circ.u.mstances 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 cla.s.ses '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 const.i.tutes a very serious drag, and in the lower cla.s.ses 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 doc.u.ment'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 s.e.xes 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 pa.s.sionate desire for their own enjoyment, the gratification of their own vanity by pleasing the opposite s.e.x, 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 s.e.x 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.