Chapter 4

A woman must face the fact that man is a totally different creature from herself, governed by other instincts, which can be best explained by realising them in animals in their boldest nature aspect, _i.e._ a male dog at times will tear down any barrier that is within his personal strength to enable him to get to his mate, and a female dog will fight through unheard-of obstacles to reach her puppies. Here is a plain illustration of the different ruling original instincts in animals, and human beings are only the highest form of animal, given by God a more developed soul and a choice of action, but still influenced by fundamental nature instincts, which, beneath all the training of civilisation, unconsciously still direct their actions and affect their point of view. Civilisation, on its good side, teaches man to overcome his bodily desires and to keep them in check, but not to eliminate them, to do which would militate against the Creator's scheme of things. Civilisation on its evil side has frequently perverted woman's natural instinct, so that in numbers of cases the wonderful devotion of the animal to her young has become numb in her, or dead. If only all women would bravely face these facts of nature instincts in themselves and in men, they would approach marriage with much broader-minded views, and would have a much greater chance of happiness, because they would realise that they must be lenient to man in the matter of his fidelity to them; and if man realised these instincts, he would enter marriage knowing he must make a fight with nature to keep the vows he has sworn, and so he would be on his guard against the first inclination to stray, instead of an easy prey to it. For, as it is, there is a recognised unwritten law among most men that honour must always be kept with "the other woman," but that it is not necessary with a wife. A man's honour towards a woman is only certain of holding with his inclinations--that is: A married to B will be unfaithful to her with C--which is technically dishonour. He will not consider that, but will tell any lie to protect C and stick to her, because his sense of honour has gone with his inclination. He feels he must "never give away C to B," although he experiences no qualm in having already tacitly "given away" B to C, by his very part of taking C for his mistress. B is also a woman, but only his wife! He has not been the least aware of it, but his sense of honour has followed his inclination, in a way it would never do over a business arrangement with another man. To give a parallel case in a business arrangement: A makes a bargain with B that he will deal with him alone; he then finds he likes the goods of C better than those of B--but no honest tradesman would think of breaking his contract even secretly with B and dealing with C, for, if he did, he would know himself that he was dishonest, and that all his fellows who knew he had done this thing would despise and ostracise him. But a man when deceiving his wife not only generally feels no shame himself, but knows his male friends will probably not think the worse of him for it. There is not the slightest use in arguing about these facts, any more than, as I said in my first paper upon marriage, there is in arguing about fundamental instincts, and it would be well for women to realise this elastic, unwritten law of honour in men towards them, and so not expect, at the present state of man's evolution, that they will receive anything different. They must never forget that this adjustable sense of honour springs from the same fundamental male instinct we spoke of--and therefore cannot be turned round by women and applied to their own cases, because the same instincts do not come into force with them. Woman must always remember that _man is conquering primitive nature in being faithful to her at all_, and therefore she ought, if she desires that he shall be so, to look to her own every point of attraction to make it possible (if not easy!) for him to fulfil her desire. I must reiterate again that it is wiser to remember that it is civilisation alone (civilisation embracing development of moral sense, and religious sense, and the force of custom) which keeps him from straying whenever he feels inclined, and that all she can do to prevent it is to redouble her own attractions, and to help the women of the future by instilling into her own sons' minds the idea that, as marriage is _an ideal and not a natural state_, the man who enters into it must be prepared to school himself to live up to an ideal, and control his vagrant emotions. To teach the boys a new and higher sense of honour is the only possible way to alter matters, as a grown man is seldom changed. In marriage, both partners must understand that they are undertaking to do a most difficult thing in vowing to live together and love for ever! Whichever cares the most will have to use _intelligence_ to keep the other--and if it is the woman who is unfortunate enough to occupy this position, she generally absolutely sacrifices herself to gratify the man's smallest wish, and so makes herself cheap. She should use her wits and keep a firm hand over herself so as not to let herself become in his eyes of no importance.

Selfishness is another basic instinct of man, caused because he was originally and unquestionably Lord of Creation, and only in the countries where men are in the majority are the greater number of them unselfish even now to woman. In England, where women are in the majority, selfishness in every male child is fostered from his cradle. So women must not indiscriminately condemn every man as being selfish, as though it was his personal fault; they must look to the cause, and condemn that if they want to, or, better still, try to eradicate it in the future by influencing their own sons to desire to be chivalrous and unselfish to the woman of the next generation. In this way they would help to raise the standard of honour and responsibility in humanity in general.

The most selfish man is not often selfish to the woman whom he is in love with. While she excites these emotions, however he shows his cloven hoof to the rest of the household, he will not show it to her. And even when he ceases to be in love, if his wife has filled him with respect and admiration for her, he will hardly dare to exhibit his bad qualities. You will see a man with the most odious character showing only the nicest ways to some particular person, when he wishes to stand well with that person. Therefore, to deal successfully with a selfish man, it ought to be obvious to a woman that the only effectual method to employ is to seek to create in his mind _the desire to please her_. If only men could understand that to be kind and courteous to their wives in the home would give them much greater liberty abroad, they would greatly add to the happiness of most marriages. It is her daily life which matters to a woman, because, as a rule, her brain is not developed enough to be looking ahead to the great questions of the day; and to have joy in her home is her earthly paradise.

Nearly all love marriages begin with too much emotion and too little self-control, and so become shipwrecked upon the rocks of satiety and indifference. Young people undertake the most risky experiment in the world as lightly and unpreparedly as they would go on a summer holiday!

It must be understood that all these arguments are used from the standpoint of supposing the married pair start with love. When they do not, but are entering into a marriage simply from expediency, their minds are generally calm, they have no illusions, and are therefore free to use that judgment which they would employ over any business affair of their lives, and often, therefore, they get along very well. But these cannot be considered as ideal marriages, or likely to produce highly endowed children. And in England, at least, such unions are the exception and not the rule.

Broadly speaking, to make any marriage happy each partner ought deliberately to use every atom of his or her intelligence to think out the best method to live in sympathy with the mate, and should not simply be set upon expressing his or her own personality, regardless of the other. Chain any two animals together and watch the result! Nothing will teach what marriage means more effectually. It is only when the two poor beasts are of one mind that their chains do not gall. But human beings are above animals in this, that they have wills and talents and aspirations, and can judge of good and evil, so that their happiness or misery is practically in their own hands, and to quote an immortal remark of a French writer--"If as much thought were put into the making a success of marriage as is put into the mixing of a salad, there would be no unhappy unions!"

V

SHOULD DIVORCE BE MADE EASIER?

However much some of us may feel that divorce can never touch our personal lives, at least the question of it in regard to the nation must always be interesting; and now, with the Majority and Minority report of the Royal Commission still ringing in every one's ears, it seems a moment to suggest some points of view upon the matter. To those people entirely influenced by religion as it is expounded from the laws laid down by the Church, there can be nothing to say, because, in the first place, their belief in the infallibility of these laws and the influence of their pastors ought certainly to keep them from sinning at all; and if sinned against, ought to enable them to bear the pain without murmur. But there are a vast number of our countrymen and women who do not consider the dogmas of religion and are not entirely imbued with respect for the laws of the Church, while nevertheless being good and honest citizens. It depends upon each person's point of view.

In this paper, as in my former ones upon Marriage, I want only to take the subject from the standpoint of common sense, while with reverence I admit that if the moral conscience could be awakened by any religious convictions whatever, so that it would keep each individual from sinning, that would be the true solution of the problem. But, while seeking to enforce its laws in opposition to the laws of the State, the teaching of the Church seems somehow not to have been able to retain much hold over the general conscience which, ever since the first secular law came into being, has availed itself of the relief so afforded to free itself from galling shackles. The point, then, to look at sensibly is not whether divorce is right or wrong in itself, but what sort of effect the making of it easier or less easy would have upon the nation. There does not seem to be the slightest use in applying any arguments to the subject which do not take into consideration the immeasurable upheaval in ideas, manner of living, relaxation of personal discipline, and loss of religious control which have taken place since the last reform was made. The luxury of existence, the rapid movement from place to place permitted by motor-cars, the emancipation of women, the general supposed necessity of indulging in amusements, have so altered all the notions of life, and so excited and encouraged interest in sex relationships, that the old idea of stability and loyalty in marriage is shaken to its foundations. The temptations for people to err are now a thousand-fold greater than they were fifty years ago, and very few young people are brought up with ideas of stern self-control at all. This being the case, it would seem that the only rational standpoint to view the question of divorce reform or divorce restriction from is the one which gives the vastest outlook over each side's eventuality, realising present conditions and tendencies to be as they are, and not as they were, or ought to be. The forces which produced these conditions are not on the decline, but, if anything, on the increase, and must therefore be reckoned with and not ignored. What are they likely to bring in the future? Still greater intolerance of all restraint, still more desire for change? And if this is so, will it have been wiser to have made the law harder or more lenient? That is the question we shall soon, as a people, have to try to decide.

In setting out to look calmly at the subject of divorce, no good can be arrived at by studying isolated cases, inasmuch as surely there can be no divided opinion upon the fact of the cruelty of some of them, and the certainty of their betterment by divorce. The one and only aim to keep in view is what will be best for the whole people, and no other aspect should ever influence the true citizen in making up his mind upon so vital a question. Thus surely we ought each one of us to ask himself or herself to look ahead, and try to imagine what would be the result to our nation of relaxing the severity of the present divorce law--or of increasing it. Of the effects of its present administration we can judge, so it ought to be no impossible task to work from that backwards or forwards.

But to look at any subject dispassionately, without the prejudice of religion or personal feeling, is one of the hardest things to accomplish. These two forces always make people take views as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, regardless of totally altered conditions and requirements of mankind. I hold a brief for neither side, and in this paper I only want to suggest some points of view so as to help, perhaps, some others to look at the matter with justice, as I have tried to look at it myself. It would seem to me that divorce as a means of ridding oneself of one partner merely to be happier with another must surely always be wrong, because it must entail the degradation of conscious personal motive, in the knowledge that one had taken advantage of a law to gain an end, and to help one to break a vow solely for one's own gratification. The enormous responsibility of so taking fate into their own hands would frighten most people, if they gave themselves time to think--but they do not. Nine-tenths of them have no compunction in breaking vows, because they do not realise that by making them they have connected themselves with currents and assumed responsibilities the consequences of which to themselves they cannot possibly eventually avoid, no matter how they may try temporarily to evade them.

It would seem to me that divorce for the rich and educated should be made as difficult as possible, and the pleas investigated mercilessly, to discover if any advantage has been taken of legal quibbles for ulterior ends; but that the judge should grant decrees instantly when habitual drunkenness, madness, or anything which degrades and lowers a household or community is proved against the defendant. It would seem to me that divorces for the poor should be facilitated in every way, if this difference to those of the rich could possibly be accomplished, so that the hideous cruelty and encouragement of vice (cases of which are so admirably set forth in the pamphlets issued by the Divorce Law Reform Union) could be summarily dealt with, and relief and peace conferred upon the innocent party. Because the lives of the poor are too filled with work to be as easily influenced by personal emotion as the lives of the rich, and the lower level of their education and standard of manners admits of such far greater unkindness and brutality in their actions than in a higher class; and thus they are the more entitled by justice to relief and protection than the highly endowed and developed section of society who can better take care of themselves. It seems to me to be a crying injustice that the law of divorce can only be administered by paying exorbitant fees for it; and that if the separation of two human beings who are admittedly bound together by law can be accomplished by law and that the breaking of the marriage vow is a sin against the law, then the poorest in the land have an absolute right that this law should be put into execution for them without special payment, just as they have now a right to the Law's working for them to catch offenders who steal their goods, or who break business contracts with them. It would seem that this is a frightful case of there being one law for the rich and one for the poor, and that it is a blot upon the boasted equity and fairness of English justice. How glorious it would be if all lawyers could be remunerated equally by the State! It would do away with a thriving industry perhaps, but it might be a great aid to real justice being arrived at, and not as things now are, when whoever can pay the cleverest pleader has the best chance of winning the case. But to get back to the views of divorce!

It would seem to me that the vital and essential question all persons wishing for divorce ought to ask themselves is, "What is my motive in desiring this freedom?" They should search their very souls for the truth. If it is because the position has not only become intolerable to themselves, but is a menace to their children or society, then they should know that they are acting rightly in trying their utmost to be free; but if the real reason is that they may legally indulge in a new passion, then they may be certain that if they take advantage of a law designed for the benefit of a race, and use it to their own baser ends, they are invoking most dangerous forces to militate against their own eventual unhappiness. No one who is in a position where his or her good or bad example will be followed has any right to indulge in any personal feelings to the influencing in a harmful way of his or her public actions. This is the true meaning of that finest of all old sayings, "_Noblesse oblige_." To me it would seem to be a frightful sin for a man or woman for personal motives to degrade an order or a community.

So this is the standpoint I would suggest every one looking at divorce from: "Will the thing bring good or harm?--not to me who am only a unit, but to that wider circle of my family and my country?" And if common sense assures him or her that no good can come of it, then the true citizen should not hesitate to bear the pain of refraining.

It would seem to me to be wrong to allow any personal feeling at all to influence one to divorce, no matter what the cruelty of the circumstances or the justice of the grievance one had, _if by so doing the children of the marriage were injured in any way, or that the prestige of an order or the honour of a family were lowered by one's action_; but that were the husband or wife a shame and degradation to the children or the family, the individual would be entirely justified in divorcing, and would be helping the good of the State by preventing the guilty and debased partner from committing further harm. Common sense is always the truest wisdom, but it has often unhappily had to be cloaked and hampered either by spiritual superstition, prejudice, or ignorance. So that when a flagrant case which corrupts a whole neighbourhood cries aloud to common sense to remove it by divorce, there are found hundreds of good and worthy people to oppose this on the ground that the Church does not sanction such proceeding! If the State religion administered by the Church cannot inculcate higher principles in its members, so as to prevent them from sinning, it would obviously seem to be more fair to allow the statesmen and sociologists to have a free hand in their attempt to better the morality of England than for the Church to use the vast influence it still possesses to the stultifying of these plans. The homely proverb of the proof of the pudding being in the eating seems to be plainly shown here. The religious teaching has failed to influence the people to refrain from sin and to discountenance divorce, proving that its method of imparting knowledge and obtaining influence over the modern mind is no longer effectual, and common sense would suggest changing the method to ensure the desired end. There is a story told of a French regiment in the early days of conscription. A certain size of boots had been decided upon for recruits, and this decision had worked very well when the young men were drawn from the town, where the feet were comparatively small, but when countryside youths became the majority, the boots they were given were an agony to them, and constant complaints were the result, with, however, no redress. Omnipotent head-quarters had decided the size! And that was the end of it! And it was not until nearly the whole regiment was in hospital with sore feet that it entered the brain of the officials that it might be wiser for France to regulate the size of the boots of the regiment to the feet of the wearers. Why, then, cannot the Church devote all its brain and force to evolving some new form of teaching which will, so to speak, "fit the feet of the wearers"? Then all questions of divorce could be settled by noble and exalted feeling and desire to do right and elevate the nation. But meanwhile, with the growth and encouragement of individualism, every little unit is giving forth his personal view (as I am doing in this paper!), perhaps many of them without the slightest faculty for looking ahead, or knowledge of how to make deductions from past events, or other countries' experiences; and the Church is preaching one thing, and the State another, the Majority report taking a certain view, and the Minority a different one--and we are all at sea, and the supreme issue of it all seems to be fogged.

An enormous section of the public, and almost all women it would seem, are of opinion that divorce should be granted for the same reason to women as it is now to men. But surely those who hold this view cannot understand that fundamental difference in the instincts of the sexes which I tried to show as forcibly as I could in my former articles upon Marriage. Infidelity in man cannot be nearly such a degradation to his own soul as infidelity in woman must be to hers, because he is following natural impulses and she is following grafted ones. A woman must feel degraded in her body and soul when she gives herself to _two men_ at the same time, a husband and a lover; but a man, when he strays, if it has any moral effect upon him at all, probably merely feels some twinges on account of breaking his word, and the fear of being found out. The actual infidelity cannot degrade him as much as it generally degrades a woman, and may be only the yielding to strong temptation at a given moment, and have no bearing upon the kind home treatment he accords his wife and children, or the tenor of his domestic life. The eventuality of what this law would bring should be looked at squarely. And it is rather a pitiful picture to think of the entire happiness of a home being upset because a wife, without judgment or the faculty of making deductions, discovering a single instance of illicit behaviour in her husband, sees fit to, and is enabled by law, to divorce him. It may be argued that the fear of this would make him mend his ways; but did fear ever curb strong natural instincts for long?--instincts as strong as hunger, or thirst, or desire to sleep? Fear could only curb such for a time, and then intelligence would suggest some new and cunning method of deceit, so as to obtain the desired end. The only possible way to ensure fidelity in a man is by influencing him to _wish_ to remain faithful, either by fond love for the woman or deep religious conviction or moral opinion that not to do so would degrade his soul. The accomplishment of this end would seem to be either in the hands of the woman or in the teaching of the Church--and cannot be brought about by law. Law can only punish offenders; it cannot force them to keep from sin. When a man is unfaithful habitually, it amounts to cruelty, and even with the present law the woman can obtain relief on that ground.