If some good and thoughtful woman who died fifty years ago could
return to this world, what in our present life would most astonish
her? Would it be the wonders of steam, electricity, and science; the
tyranny of the working classes, or the autocracy of servants? No! It
would be the amazing development of her own sex,--the preaching,
lecturing, political women; the women who are doctors and lawyers; who
lose and win money on horses, or in stocks and real estate; the women
who talk slang, and think it an accomplishment; who imitate men's
attire and manners; who do their athletic exercises in public; and,
perhaps more astonishing than all, the women who make marriage the
cloak for much profitable post-nuptial flirtation.
For her own sex engaged in business, she might find excuses or even
admiration; and even for the unfeminine girls of the era, she might
plead Mrs. Poyser's opinion, that "the women are made to suit the
men." But for young wives notorious for their flirting and their
"followers," she could have nothing but unqualified scorn and
condemnation. For the sentiment demanding absolute fidelity in a wife
may be said to have the force of a human instinct; in all ages it has
exacted from her an avoidance of the very appearance of evil.
Therefore a good woman in the presence of a frivolous flirting wife
feels as if a law of nature were being broken before her eyes; since
behind the wife stands the possible mother, and the claims of family,
race, and caste, as well as of conjugal honor, are all in her
keeping.
Without any exaggeration it may be said that wife-errantry is now as
common as knight-errantry once was. The young men of to-day have
discovered the personal advantage and safety there is in the society
of another man's wife. They transpose an old proverb, and practically
say: "Fools marry, and wise men follow their wives." For, if the
husband be only complacent, it is such a safe thing to flirt with a
pretty wife. Young girls are dangerous and might lure them into
matrimony; but they have no fear of bigamy. They can whisper sweet
words to a gay, married flirt; they can walk, and talk, and dance, and
ride with her; they can lounge in her dusky drawing-room or in her
opera box, and no one will ask them the reason why, or make any
suggestion about their "intentions."
How far this custom affects the morals of the woman is not at first
obvious; but we must insist on this recognized premise: "Society has
laid down positive rules regarding the modesty of women, and apart
from these rules it is hard to believe modesty can exist. For all
conventional social laws are founded on principles of good morals and
good sense; and to violate them without a sufficient reason destroys
nicety of feeling, sweetness of mind, and self-respect." It is no
excuse to say that propriety is old-maidish, and that men like smart
women, or that no harm is intended by their flirtations. The question
is: Can married women preserve their delicacy of thought and their
nobleness of manner; can they be truly loyal to their husbands and to
themselves throughout the different phases of a recognized flirtation?
It is an impossible thing.
Suppose a beautiful girl to be wooed and won by a man in every way
suitable to her desires. She has accepted his love and his name, and
vowed to cleave to him, and to him only, till death parts them. The
wooing has been mainly done in full dress, at balls and operas, or in
hours tingling with the expectancy of such conditions. The aroma of
roses, the rustle of silks and laces, the notes of music, the taste of
bon-bons and sparkling wines, were the atmosphere; and the days and
weeks went by to the sense of flying feet in a ballroom, or to
enchanted loiterings in greenhouses, and behind palms and flowers on
decorated stairways.
The young wife is unwilling to believe that marriage has other and
graver duties. She has been taught to live in the present only, and
she is, therefore, cynical and apathetic concerning all things but
dress and amusements. The husband has to return to business, which
has been somewhat neglected; arrears of duty are to be met. He feels
it necessary to attend to the question of supplies; he is, likely, a
little embarrassed by the long holiday of wooing and honeymooning, and
he would be grateful for some retrenchment and retirement, for the
purpose of home-making.
The young wife has no such intentions; she resents and contradicts
them on every occasion; and after the first pang of disappointment is
over, he finds it the most prudent and comfortable plan to be
indifferent to her continued frivolity. He is perhaps even flattered
to find her so much admired; perhaps, in his heart, rather thankful to
be relieved from the trouble of admiring her. As for any graver
thoughts, he concludes that his wife is no worse than A's and B's and
C's wives; that she is quite able to take care of herself, and that in
a multitude of adorers there is safety.
Thus, in a majority of cases, begins the career of the married flirt.
But the character is not a corollary of marriage, if the proper
conditions were present when the wife was a young woman. There is no
salvation in the Order of Matrimony; no miracles are wrought at the
altar of Grace Church, or at St. Thomas's. She that is frivolous,
giddy, and selfish is likely to continue frivolous, giddy, and
selfish; and marriage merely supplies her with a wider field and
greater opportunities for the indulgence of her vanity and greed.
She re-enters society with every advantage of youth, beauty, wealth,
and liberty; released from the disabilities under which unmarried
girls lie; armed with new powers to dazzle and to conquer. No longer a
competitor for a matrimonial prize, she is a rival ten times more
dangerous than she was. Setting aside the wrong done to the sacredness
of the connubial relation, she now becomes the most subtle enemy to
the prospects of all the unmarried girls in her set. What is the bud
to the perfect rose? The timid, blushing maiden pales and subsides
before the married siren who has the audacity and charm of a conscious
intelligence. It is not without good reason that special balls and
parties have come into fashion for social buds; they are the
necessary sequence to the predominance of married sirens, with whom in
a mixed society no young girl can cope. They have the floor and the
partners; they monopolize all the attention, and their pleasure is of
the greatest importance. And their pleasure is to flirt--to flirt in
all places and at all hours.
In vain will some young aspirant to marriage display in the presence
of the married flirt her pretty accomplishments. She may sing her
songs, and play her mandolin never so sweetly, but the young men slip
away with some one or other of the piquant brides of the past year.
And in the privacy of the smoking-room it is the brides, and not the
young girls, who are talked about--what dresses they wear or are
likely to wear, how their hair is done, the history of the jewels
which adorn them, and the clever things they have said or implied.
Before we condemn too much the society girls of the time, we ought to
consider the new enemy who stands in the way of their advancement to
marriage. Is it not quite natural that the most courageous girls
should refuse the secondary place to which married flirts assign
them, and endeavor to meet these invaders with their own weapons? If
so, much of the forwardness of the present young girl is traceable to
the necessity forced upon her by these married competitors. For it is
a fact that young men go to the latter for advice and sympathy. They
tell them about the girls they like, and their fancies are nipped in
the bud. For the married flirt's first instinct is to divest all other
women of that air of romance with which the nobility and chivalry of
men have invested womanhood for centuries. So she points out with a
pitiless exactness all the small arts which other women use; and is
not only a rival to some young girl, but a traitor to her whole sex.
And yet she is not only tolerated but indulged. People giving
entertainments know that their success will be in a large measure
dependent upon the number of beautiful young wives present. They know
the situation is all wrong, but they are sure they cannot either fight
the wrong, or put it right; and in the meantime their particular ball
will not increase the evil very much. Not fifty years ago it was the
young beauties that were considered and looked after, and the
gentlemen asked to an entertainment were asked with reference to the
unmarried girls; for it was understood that any married women present
would, of course, be wrapped up in their own husbands. Then a wife
accepting attentions from one young man after another would have
aroused the contempt and disapproval of every man and woman present.
Vanity in the first place leads young wives to flirting, but grosser
motives soon follow. For whatever other experiences matrimony brings,
it generally stimulates a woman's love of money; and the married siren
soon makes her "followers" understand that she is "a very practical
little woman, and does not care for a sonnet, or a serenade, or a
bouquet of fresh flowers." A summer's cruise in a fine yacht, a seat
on a coach, an opera box, a jewel, dinners, drives, and luncheons, are
the blackmail which the married flirt expects, in return for her
sighs, sentiment, and advice.
It is indeed curious to note the change of fashion in this respect.
Let any one turn over the novels of half a century ago, and he will
see that the favorite plan for compromising a woman's honor was to
induce her to accept the loan of money, or the gift of jewels. If the
unfortunate heroine did so, no novelist would have dared to offer an
apology for her. But this age of luxury and laxity has exploded the
scrupulous delicacy of the Evelinas and Cecilias of the old tales, and
the splendidly free feminine Uhlans of our modern society laugh to
scorn the prim modesty of the Richardsonian standard. They assert, if
not in words yet by their actions, the right of a woman to make her
fascinations serviceable to her.
Some married women contend that their flirtations are absolutely
innocent friendships. But in all stations of society it is a dangerous
thing for two people of the opposite sex to chant together the litany
of the church of Plato. The two who could do it safely would be the
very two who would never dream of such an imprudence. Those who enter
into "friendships" of this kind, with what they think are the most
innocent intentions, should sharply arrest themselves as soon as they
are "talked about." For in social judgments, the dictum that "people
talked about generally get what they deserve" is true, however unjust
it may appear to be.
Another class of married flirts scorn to make any apology, or any
pretence of mere friendship. They stand upon the emancipation of
women, and the right of one sex to as much liberty as the other.
This kind of siren boldly says, "she does not intend to be a slave
like her mother, and her grand-mother. She does not propose to tie
herself, either to a house or a cradle." She travels, she lives in
yachts and hotels, and she does not include a nursery in her
plans. She talks of elective affinities, natural emotions of the
heart, and contrasts the opportunities of such conditions with the
limitations and the monotony of domestic relations. She makes
herself valueless for the very highest natural duties of womanhood,
and then talks of her enfranchisement! Yes, she has her freedom, and
what does it mean? More dresses and jewelry, more visits and
journeys; while the whole world of parental duties and domestic
tendernesses lies in ruins at her feet.
The relegation of the married flirt to her proper sphere and duties is
beyond the power of any single individual. Society could make the
necessary protest, but it does not; for if Society is anything, it is
non-interfering. It looks well to it that the outside, the general
public appearance of its members is respectable; with faults not found
out it does not trouble itself. A charge must be definitely made
before it feels any necessity to take cognizance of it. And Society
knows well that these married sirens draw like magnets. Besides, each
entertainer declares: "I am not my sister's keeper, nor am I her
Inquisitor or Confessor. If her husband tolerates the pretty woman's
vagaries, what right have I, what right has any one, to say a word
about her?"
But it is a fact that, if Society frowned on wives who arrogate to
themselves the privileges both of young girls and of wives, the
custom would become stale and offensive. If it would cease to
recognize young married women who are on the terms with their husbands
described by Millamant in "The Way of the World,"--"as strange as if
they had been married a long time, and as well bred as if they had
never been married at all,"--young married women would behave
themselves better. It is generally thought that Mr. Congreve wrote his
plays for a very dissolute age; in reality, they seem to have been
written for a decorous, rather strait-laced generation, if we compare
it with our own.