Chapter 3

Then the Church arrived and turned marriage into a sacrament; presumably with the noble intention of trying to elevate man and overcome his carnal nature. Man outwardly conformed, and, with his whole soul's desire to be true and to uplift himself, each individual who really believed no doubt did war with his instincts, and numbers probably succeeded in conquering them. While woman, always a creature of more delicate nervous susceptibilities, flung herself with furore under the influences of spiritual things, and in the truly devout cases overcame her grafted desires and returned to natural instincts. But in beings of both sexes who were unconvinced by religion, infidelity continued to flourish, as it does even to this day. A man who truly believes that he is sinning in being unfaithful, and who understands that outside opinion is nothing in the soiling of his own soul, but that the matter is between himself and God, will always be faithful _in body_ to a woman he has wedded, whether he cares for her or not. But a man who has not this conviction, and who does not live in this intimate relation to God, has no reason to hold him from indulging his natural instinct, except the fear of being found out, and when his sagacity has suggested safeguards against this, his instinct will certainly give itself expression. It is all a question of personal belief. There are numbers of good and honest characters who do not feel convinced that entire fidelity in man to one woman was intended by the Creator, and who therefore feel no degradation in the latitude they allow themselves. It is not for us to argue which are right and which are wrong, but to stick to the subject of marriage and how it can perhaps be made happier in these present days, when all other conditions of life are changing, by a better comprehension of fundamental instincts and laws of nature.

Woman has developed so far that generally she thinks she is (and sometimes she really is!) a reasonable and balanced creature, with strong individuality--and personal tastes and likes and dislikes. She is now ill-fitted to keep them all in subservience to man, unless he is her intellectual master. She may have wedded only because the emotion of sex (not understood as such, and called by a number of other names such as "love," "devotion," "attraction") forced her at one of its powerful moments to take a physical mate--totally unsuited to her moral calibre. But she has knelt at the altar and sworn vows before God--and perhaps has fulfilled woman's original mission in the world, and become the mother of children--so what is to be done to rectify her mistake and its unhappy consequences?

She must look the whole circumstances of it in the face and ask herself whether she herself threw dust in her own eyes as regards the character of her husband, whether he deceived her in this, or whether they just drifted together, each to blame as much as the other, through the attraction of sex and the cruelty of ignorance. She may regret it a thousandfold--but she has done the thing of her own free will, no one forced her to wed the man; she may have done so unwillingly in some cases--and for ulterior motives, but at all events she was consenting and not dragged to church resisting, and so if she is sensible she will use the whole of her intelligence to make the best of it. She will look to the end of her every action and her every thought. Will brooding over her "rights," and the wrongs he has inflicted, mend them? Will it do anything but give her vanity--the satisfaction of self-pity? Certainly not.

If she has really evolved enough to wish to impose her opinions and individuality upon her household or the community, she will have realised that the welfare of the home for which she is responsible, and the community to which she belongs, are, or ought to be, of far more consequence to her than her own personal emotions. Therefore she must ask herself whether she has any right to upset the happiness of the one, and the conception of good of the other, by indulging in personal quarrels and bickerings, or open scandal with her mate. A really noble and unselfish woman would never consider her personal emotion before her duty to God and to her neighbour. It is because the outlook of woman is as a rule so pitifully narrow and self-centred that she often makes a useless and unhappy wife, and shipwrecks her own and others' futures.

Man has gone on with his brute force, and his physical and mental attraction, and his tastes and beliefs and aspirations very much the same for thousands of years. Numbers of them were brutes then, and numbers are brutes still and will remain so. It is only woman who has so incredibly changed, and after staying immeasurably behind in importance and in intellectuality for countless centuries, now seeks to equal if not outstep man in all things. It would be well for man to wake up to the fact that he is now wedding a woman with every sense and nerve and conception of life far in advance of what his mother believed herself to be capable of--and so his methods towards her in return must not be as his father's were. If man wishes to have the good, domestic, obedient wife his father--perhaps one should go farther back and say grandfather!--expected--and got--he must either choose a timid weakling who becomes just his echo, or he must learn to treat the modern woman as a comrade, a being who mentally can understand and follow his aspirations and even assist him in his desires, a creature to respect and consult, and whom he cannot rule just because he is a man and she is a woman--but can only do so, and bring her to obedience, when he has shown her his intellectual superiority and his wisdom.

Woman is as willing to be ruled as ever she was--she always adores a master; but she has grown too intelligent to bow her head just because a man is a _man_--he must be _the man_. Man is naturally fighting for his old omnipotence, which he possessed regardless of his personal endowment, simply because he was a male creature--and the foolish section of woman is fighting man, with bombs and tricks and frantic words, instead of _convincing_ him by her wisdom and attainments, by her demonstrations of knowledge of life and its duties and responsibilities, that she has grown at last indeed fitted to be treated as an equal and a comrade, not as a plaything and a slave.

Who does not respect a woman who fulfils all her obligations with grace and charm, whose house is well ordered, whose friends are well entertained by her fine mind, and whose children are well brought up and full of understanding? She is indeed more precious than rubies and far more full of influence for the good of her community than she who shouts of rights and wrongs and votes and such-like. The first woman could control a hundred votes, and help a government, but the second can only clog the wheels of the sex's advancement.

Now we get back to marriage!

And the first and foremost thing to be understood is that it is a frightful responsibility to undertake, and that all those who enter into this bond lightly and for frivolous motives, or from just drifting, will be made by fate to pay the price.

Think of it! Two people stand up and swear before God to continue to love one another until death do them part. They solemnly stand there and make vows about an emotion over which they have no more control than they have over the keeping of the wind in the south. They have only control, if they have strong wills, over its demonstration. And then in nine cases out of ten neither thinks for a moment afterwards, of his or her responsibility _of trying to make possible_ the observance of these vows, by keeping alight the flame of love in the other's heart. A man utterly disillusions a woman and then blames her, not himself, for her ceasing to care for him, and being eventually attracted by some one else! A woman disgusts or bores a man, and then bewails her sad lot, and calls the man a brute for being indifferent, and a shameful creature for looking elsewhere for consolation! In all marriages there is no one to blame or praise for unhappiness or happiness but the two individuals themselves. It is his fault--or misfortune--if she no longer cares, and likewise hers in the parallel case--and it is owing to the weakness of either if outside circumstances have been able to interfere. Thus to ensure happiness there must be a tremendous sense of personal responsibility, and there should be understanding of life and understanding of nature instincts and understanding of sex instincts; and a ruthless tearing away of the false values which a Victorian age grafted upon religion, narrowing the mind of woman as to man's needs--and narrowing man's conception of woman's mental capacity.

No woman must ever forget in her relation to man that "he who pays the piper calls the tune," and in this I am not only speaking literally of shekels of gold and silver, but of the power incorporated in certain personalities; and man, if he chose to exert it, has always _force majeure_ at his command in the last extremity, although in these days of Herculean young women he may lose even this in time!

Before undertaking to play that most difficult part of wife, every girl ought to ask herself, Does she really care for the man enough to make her use her intelligence to understand him, and to try to keep him loving her? Or if she does not personally care enough for him to trouble about this--will the situation of her husband in the world satisfy her, and make the bondage, unleavened by love, of the care of house, servants, and possible children, worth while?

Before undertaking the situation she ought to look at every aspect of the case, and question herself searchingly upon her own aims and ends, and if the actual facts will or will not fit in with them. Having made up her mind that for one reason or another it is for her happiness to take a certain man for her mate, she ought then sedulously to cultivate all the aspects of the condition which can conduce to peace and to the attainment and enjoyment of that end. She must not forget that the man has paid her the highest honour a man can pay a woman. He has selected her to be his life's companion. He proposes in nine cases out of ten, to provide her with a home and a position in life, and to take upon himself the responsibility of her maintenance (when the woman has money of her own this question is different naturally). But in all cases the man in asking her to marry him has shown that something in her--or in her possessions--makes her appear worth the giving up of his liberty. So she owes him just as much as the thing he took her for. If for her money, and she knows it is for that, and she has been sufficiently humble to accept him on those terms--she owes him money. If for love--she owes him at least the outside observances of love. If he has pretended love and it is for some other motive, his Nemesis will fall upon himself in the disillusion and contempt he will inspire. But in all cases the woman, through want of intelligence or pure misfortune, has crossed the Rubicon with him; she has allowed him to teach her the meaning of dual life--she has put it into his power with her to create future lives. She cannot, for any price or any prayers, recross that fatal stream. So for all reasons of common sense--and above all, sense of responsibility to the community--she had better make the best of her bargain.

Likewise, man should pause and think, Is it merely because I cannot obtain this woman upon any other terms that I am offering her marriage? Have I respect for her? Do I think she will bring happiness into my house as well as pleasure to my body? Is she suited to my brain capacity when I am not exalted by physical emotion? Am I going to curb my selfishness and behave decently towards her?

If he cannot answer these questions satisfactorily he may know that he is undertaking a hundred-to-one chance of peace and happiness. But if the physical desire is stronger than all these considerations, then he must _know and realise_ that whatever happens _he must never blame the woman_. He has succumbed to the most material and alas! the most hideously strong force in nature--not because the woman tempted him, as it has been the fashion for man to say since the days of Adam--but because there is something in himself which is so weak that it cannot listen to the promptings of the spirit when the body calls.

In each and every case it is a man's duty to be kind and courteous to a woman who is his wife. He has made her so by his free vows before God (because no one can be forced to the altar against his absolute will in these days), or he has made her so by vows and business agreement, according to the laws of his country, before the Registrar. In either case he has made her his legal wife and the possible mother of his children--units unborn who can affect the welfare of his country. He has, then, his great duties towards her. If she was a girl, he has taken from her that which nothing on earth can restore; he has made her into another being. He has been instrumental in making her--this other human soul--accept responsibilities, and he is bound as an honourable man to school himself so as to be able to help the mutual happiness and peace of their dual existence. And if he wishes to be obeyed, loved, and respected, he has to look to himself that he inspires obedience, love, and respect in his mate. She will not experience these feelings to order; and fear alone, or some other and lower motive, would make her simulate them. Man must not forget that nothing simulated can last. Truth alone remains at the end of the year.

No marriage can be certain of continuing happy which has been entered into in the spirit of taking a lottery ticket. But most marriages could be fairly happy if both man and woman looked the thing squarely in the face and made up their minds that they would run together in harness as two well-trained carriage horses, both knowing of the pole, both pulling at the collar and not over-straining the traces, both taking pride in their high stepping and their unity of movement. How much more dignified than to make a pitiful exhibition of incompatibility like two wild creatures kicking and plunging, and finally upsetting the vehicle they had agreed to draw?

I would like to discuss now the problem of whether or not marriage could be made happy no matter how it starts, by using common sense, but the deep interest of the whole subject has made my pen already cover too much space and I must refrain in this chapter.

Only, men and women who read this, do not pass it by, but stop and _think_ before you plunge, through the giving and the taking of a wedding ring, into happiness or misery.

IV

AFTER MARRIAGE

Considering the instability of all our tastes and desires and the almost total want of personal discipline which prevails in the present day, it is really remarkable that the legal marriage goes on even as well as it does!--but that the state could be much happier is patent to any understanding, and it may be interesting to look at one or two aspects of it, and see from whence comes the discord. A woman enters into matrimony for various reasons, but, in the majority of cases in England and America at least, it is because she is, or fancies she is, in love with the man at the time. He, therefore, if this is so, starts with an enormous power over her, which, if he chooses to keep it, will enable him to turn their future life in any way he will, because the greatest desire even of the most strong-minded and domineering woman when in love is to please the man. A woman only becomes indifferent as to whether or no she is doing this when she no longer cares. Therefore, it is the man's business to keep her in this state if he wants his home to be happy. The first thing for him to realise is that she cannot remain in love with him by her own will, any more than she can cease to love him by her own will--these states are produced in her by something in himself. And if he discontinues using the arts and attractions which awakened her love, he cannot expect it to continue its demonstration, any more than a kettle will go on boiling if the heat beneath is removed from it. This argument, of course, applies to both sexes. Unfortunately, in a great many cases of marriage, the simple attraction of sex has been the unconscious motive which has caused the man to enter the bond, and naturally, when he has gained his wishes he ceases to endeavour consciously to attract the woman. And then one of two things happens; either she grows to love him more for a time, because of that contrariness in human beings which always puts abnormal value upon the thing which is slipping out of reach--or she herself becomes indifferent; and then it is a mere chance if they both, or either of them, possess character and a sense of duty as to how the marriage goes along. We will take the case of a union when both parties are in love when they start, and really desire that their marriage should remain happy. Each ought to decide that he or she will do his or her uttermost to continue to put forth those charms which enchanted the mate before the ceremony. No one would expect the bloom to remain upon grapes if he carelessly rubbed it off, but both man and woman are extraordinarily surprised and disgusted when they find their partners are no longer in love with them, and at once blame them for fickleness, instead of examining themselves to see what caused this ceasing to care--what they did--or omitted to do--which made themselves no longer able to call forth love from their mates. And until it can be grasped that all emotion of love is produced by something consciously or unconsciously possessed by the other person--and that it is not in the power of the individual to order himself to feel it, or not to feel it, but that only the demonstration of the state is in his power--unions will go on with mutual recriminations and the hitting of the heads against a stone wall.

Some natures are naturally fickle and unstable--and no matter how good and sweet the partner may be, they break away. These cases are misfortunes, but in analysing the facts the actual responsibility cannot be laid at the doors of such people, since they could not _by will_ have kept the sensation of love for their partners, any more than by will they could have ceased to care for them. They could only _by will_ have been able to control the expression of their feelings. I seem to be reiterating this point to the verge of tiresomeness, but it is so vitally important to understand, because its non-comprehension produces such injustice. If John _by his will_ were able to make himself remain in love with Mary, and failed to do so, then she might have a right to blame him because he had sworn that he would at the altar. But as he cannot command his actual emotion, she can only blame him for infidelity of the body, since of that, at least, it is possible he could be master. But, alas! Mary very seldom realises this, and reproaches John for ceasing _to feel loving_ towards her! which is as sensible on her part as to reproach him for the skies pouring rain. John, on his side, in like case does the same thing, because he also has not understood the truth. A valuable point for both to keep in remembrance is that the attraction of sex is the basis of all "being in love." However ennobled the emotion may become afterwards, it always starts with that. (This fact is explained and elaborated in the conversation between the Russian and the Clergyman in my story, "The Point of View.") If common sense is used in thinking about this matter, it will be seen that if this was not the foundation of "being in love" the emotion would be calm, and like that of brother and sister. So, admitting that this is the foundation, it can be understood how important a part it plays in the happiness of two people bound together by law for life, and how important it is to the woman to endeavor to continue to make herself lovable in the eyes of the man--and _vice versa_--_it is of supreme importance to whichever of them cares the most_. When the thing starts equally, the man nearly always cools the soonest, because of his fundamental instincts, and the force of satiation. He then probably goes on liking his wife--perhaps he admires and respects her intellect, but the thrill which used to come when her hand even touched his hand is no longer there, and he only feels emotion towards her _when he is in the mood, which would make him feel it towards any woman_ who happened to be there at the moment. And just in the measure that he was passionate towards his wife, so he will be the easy or difficult prey of a new emotion. And if this aspect of the case distresses the woman, she must look to her guns--so to speak--and use the whole of her intelligence to regain her hold over his affection. She will not improve matters by lamenting or reproaching the man. If it does not distress her, then she can congratulate herself that a time of peace has come!