HUSBANDS AND WIVES
"First, the love of wedded souls; next, neighbor loves and civic,
All reddened, sweetened from the central heart."
--E.B. BROWNING.
"Two shall be born the whole wide world apart
And speak in different tongues, and have no thought
Each of the other's being and no heed;
And those o'er unknown seas to unknown lands
Shall come, escaping wreck, defying death,
And all unconsciously shape every act
And bend each wandering step to this one end--That
one day, out of darkness, they shall stand
And read life's meaning in each other's eyes."
--SUSAN MARR SPAULDING.
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light."
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
--ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
"A home is not an accidental or natural coming together of human
souls under the same roof in certain definite relationships; it is
a work of art, to be builded upon fixed principles of life and
action."--HENRY WARE, in _Home Life_.
"True love is but a humble, low-born thing,
And hath its food served up in earthenware;
It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand,
Through the every-dayness of this work-day world,
Baring its tender feet to every roughness,
Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray
From Beauty's law of plainness and content;
A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile
Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home."
--LOWELL.
=Not Fancied but Genuine Happiness in Marriage Now Demanded.=--The
fairy tales ended with the wedding and "they lived happily forever
after." The dramas and novels of to-day are often devoted to telling
how they did not live happily ever after and what or who caused the
unhappiness. Although no one need be alarmed that some people get
divorced when marital unhappiness becomes acute, every right-minded
person wishes that every marriage should turn out happily. We now,
however, demand that it shall be genuine, not make-believe happiness,
and that places a heavier strain upon all concerned. We have grown
wise enough to see that holding people together who should never have
been brought into close relationship does not really conduce to high
family morality or social well-being. That, however, only makes it
seem the more important that we should somehow learn how to prevent
the marriage of those who cannot make their union a success. The part
that social control can play in preventing the attempt to marry by the
wholly unfit in body, mind, or work-capacity has been already
suggested, and that pressure of the community upon the individual
choice will, without doubt, largely increase as the bad results of too
great individualism in the family relation are more clearly perceived.
=Social Restrictions on Marriage Choices.=--There will, in time, be a
narrowing of the circle within which personal choices can be made, so
that the markedly defective in mind, the victims of disease inimical
to family well-being, and the pauper strains of inheritance will be
ruled out before young people have a chance to marry according to
their own inclination.
With such helpful narrowing of choices there would still remain many
dangers to be avoided if the divorce statistics are to be held within
bounds of social safety.
The part that the family elders once played in settling vital
questions of adjustment within the marriage bond has now, for the most
part, to be undertaken for consideration and decision by the young
people themselves. To name these most important questions of
adjustment and discuss them in the light of modern ideals and desires
is to get a better impression of the difficulties they indicate.
=Shall the Wife Take the Husband's Name?=--In the first place, the
matter of the name for the married couple must be now considered.
Shall it be one or two? Shall the new sense of personal dignity, so
common to the modern woman, increase the already spreading fashion of
retention of the maiden name, her inherited family name, as
permanently her own, untouched by the fact of marriage union? No one
can be cognizant of the conviction and practice of many feminists
without understanding that this is a real problem to be settled surely
before the marriage ceremony. There is already in the field a "Lucy
Stone League" to give the support of the practice of a great and
beloved woman to the fashion of keeping one's own name. The question
of the desirability of having children bear the same name as both
parents is left for the most part in abeyance by those who thus
advocate two names for the married couple. It may be that each child
is expected to bear as a second name his mother's and as a last name
his father's family name, as, for example, John Jones Jackson, Jones
being the mother's and Jackson the father's personal signature; but
when the child marries, by what name shall the family line be carried
on?
To most of us who see in the family name adopted by both husband and
wife at marriage a sign of family unity not to be lost without serious
embarrassment to offspring, and some danger of easy drifting apart
without the knowledge of others, the name seems not to be of vital
importance. Why, then, it is asked, should the woman always give up
her family connection as indicated by inherited name, and the man
retain his? The fact that the custom has grown up by reason of the
legal absorption of the wife's life in that of the husband is obvious,
and gives much color to the claim that now, when a woman is a
recognized personality in the law whether married or single, she
should keep the name by which her personality has become known. That
is easily seen to be advantageous in the case of professional women of
wide influence. The great singer, the great writer, any creative
genius or artist, continues, as a rule, to be known by the name under
which greatness has been achieved. In such cases, however, women often
bear two names, the professional name either of family inheritance or
a chosen _nom de plume_, and the social name, which is their husband's
and engraved on calling cards. The tendency now is increasing to keep
the one designation to which one is born and make no concessions to
conventional nomenclature. It must be remembered that in such cases it
is the father's name by which the married daughter is called and the
mother's maiden name is lost with all the rest of the silent majority
of her sex. The fact that men have given the wedded name for ages, and
that men are most often senior partners in the marriage firm, and the
fact that any other suggested plan gives two names for one family
instead of one seems to make that a part of the old inheritance that
may not cause great uneasiness if one accepts it without revolt. There
is a compromise method which long has been a custom among Friends and
is growing even more rapidly than that of holding permanently to the
full maiden name. That is the plan of keeping the father's name, or
the "maiden name," as a middle one, and adding the husband's name; so
that Miss Mary Jane Wood shall, on marrying John Hartley Stone,
become, not Mrs. John Hartley Stone, but Mrs. Mary Wood Stone. That
keeps in memory her family designation and yet gives her children a
chance to call themselves by the one name which is a sign of the
family unity. However the settlement may be made, the point is that
such a vital question, entering into the legal signature for business
purposes as well as into all social relationship, shall reach
conclusion before the two enter upon the marriage bond.
=Shall the Wife Take the Husband's Nationality?=--In the second place,
there is now a question of nationality to be settled, a most important
one in all its political and legal bearings. The old law made a wife
the subject of her husband's national law and took her automatically
away from her own country if her husband was born and was citizen of
another country. The national allegiance of her birth and her family
was thus automatically transferred to that of the man she had married.
The suffering of many a woman in the late war when her husband's
national allegiance made her legally an "enemy alien" to her own
beloved land has sharpened the claim that now, when women have the
franchise, they should have complete choice of the body politic to
which they owe allegiance. If they wish to marry men of another
country they shall have the determination of whether or not they shall
become naturalized by his government or whether they shall keep
political relation with their own native country. The League of Women
Voters is now hard at work to make the national allegiance of women,
as of men, a personal matter whether women are married or single. The
Federal Bill that is called for by this body would make it incumbent
upon all women of foreign birth desiring to use the franchise in the
United States to become naturalized, and would protect any woman on
marrying from the loss of her own national allegiance, whatever her
husband's might be.[7] Surely such a protection of individual
citizenship is best for both men and women, whatever their marital
state. It is, however, a matter that often comes up for adjustment in
international marriages. It is matter of importance that women of
foreign birth as well as men coming to this country from other lands
should personally seek for full citizenship and not have it handed to
them with a marriage certificate. It is equally of importance that no
person should lose allegiance to the country of his or her birth and
affection simply by reason of marriage. This question of what country
shall one continue to belong to after marriage is one for settlement
on high grounds of patriotism and civic duty before the marriage is
consummated.
=Who Shall Choose the Domicile?=--In the third place, the matter of
chosen domicile is now up for discussion or may be in the near future.
The law from time immemorial has given the choice of residence of the
family, wife as well as children, into the complete control of the
husband and father. A woman may be "posted" in the public press as
"leaving her husband's bed and board," and thereby the husband may be
released from any responsibility for her debts or support. The
inference is that married women have no rights in marriage that can
survive independent choice on her part of a residence apart from the
husband. Now we have a movement that if successful would place the law
behind an equal choice by married men and married women, of domicile,
and of all that goes with that possible separation of residence. There
are those who declare that separate residence for husbands and wives
might keep the flame of romantic love burning longer and more
ardently, since "familiarity often breeds contempt" and the absence of
the loved one often kindles desire. This is not, however, the general
feeling, and the demand for independent choice of domicile has many
side-issues not at present fully met, if at all understood, by those
who make the demand noted above. The legal right of choice of domicile
goes consistently with the legal obligation to "support," The law
still makes it incumbent upon a husband to give financial support to
his wife commensurate with his earnings or income and still more
demands of the father the full support of minor children. Naturally,
if he has these obligations to meet, a man must go where he can earn
sufficient to meet them. He may be unwise or mistaken in his choice,
but, having the responsibility, he must try to meet it as best he can,
and among the necessary elements in that trial are free movement to
the place or places in which he can find work.
If, therefore, the family are all to be kept in one residence, father,
mother and children, this economic aspect of the father's
responsibility must be considered. If the father and mother each "gang
their ain gait," and decide for business reasons or from personal
preference to live in separate places, perhaps far apart from each
other, then which one is to have the child or children? The old idea
that men should have the power to hold women in wholly unsuitable
surroundings, and that no matter what home was offered her a wife must
submit and accept, is long outgrown in all the States of this Union.
The wife has now the right to help choose domicile, and in point of
fact, at least among the older Americans, has often more than an equal
share in such determination; but to pass a "blanket law" that at once
gave the suggestion of two choices for the family domicile without any
qualifying statement of release of men from "support" clauses in the
family legislation as those clauses relate to wives might be neither
just nor wise. The one in the family upon whom is placed the heavier
economic burden for support of children must have much freedom of
choice of residence. To restrict that freedom might be to add to
present family difficulties without really giving women better chances
in marriage. Now, any woman who feels herself oppressed in the matter
of domicile has the remedy in her own hands. She can make complaint to
a court or she can leave her husband and no one can prevent her, and
she can establish a separate establishment if she has the means and
make herself eligible thereby to a practical if not a legal divorce.
But if the twain stay together, and mean to do so, there are mutual
considerations that require an adjustment, and there is now little
danger of women having to submit to injustice in the matter of choice
of domicile, except in cases where no home together would seem
desirable to either or to both.
The matter of choice of domicile is now in the United States so much a
mutual question and to be decided upon economic grounds, that it is
one of the things that it is well to discuss from the bottom up if two
people wish to marry, provided there are any reasons why the relative
merits of two or more places of residence are involved in the issue.
The reasonableness and generosity of the average American man quite
equals the like qualities in the average American woman; hence the
domicile question may well be left in abeyance in any struggle for
"equality of rights between the sexes" and confined to personal debate
and decision; but in that personal debate and decision it should have
recognized place.
=Shall the Married Woman Earn Outside the Home?=--The fourth question,
now sometimes a burning one, and one most intimately related to that
of choice of domicile, is that concerning the continuance of
professional or business connection by the woman after marriage. Shall
I keep on with my work or not? This is the problem that besets many a
woman when the question of marriage with the chosen one is imminent.
For the woman who is a teacher, and already established in the
educational field in the city or town where both the man and the woman
concerned find it easy to choose to live after marriage, there is a
probability that she can continue her work after marriage with
comparative ease. The laws that used to penalize the woman teacher who
married are rapidly ceasing to operate, and although the common legal
requirement for a two years' vacation from public school employment
when a child is to be born may exert a strong influence upon the
birth-rate (either for or against) the fact that marriage does not
disqualify for teaching and that teaching is so near the home interest
may lead to much continuance of that type of professional work after
marriage. The question, however, is not one for the woman alone to
solve. Many women find that the ideal of "taking care of his wife,"
which long ages of law and custom have ingrained in man's nature, may
stand in the way of her earning outside the home after marriage. To be
settled right this question must be settled by full consent of both
parties and that consent may be hard to get from the man who fears
that he will be considered incapable if he "lets his wife earn." What
is to be done in such a case? That must be determined by the
possibility of compromise on both sides.
If the woman has attained a high position in some profession, law, or
medicine, as preacher, teacher, or nurse, as business manager or
welfare worker, the chances are that she feels she can best help in
the family life by hiring things done in the household, which she has
little skill, perhaps, to do herself, and keeping on with the vocation
for which she has been trained and in which she has already gained a
place. But she may have attained her vocational opportunity and to
keep it must continue to live in a locality remote from the man's home
and work. What then? To be near each other and to live together is the
chief desire of genuine lovers. That would be no home which had two
centres of vocational activity miles apart. Circumstances may compel
such separation for economic reasons long after marriage has bound two
lives together so closely that distance even cannot really separate
them. But at the outset, if two people are to belong to each other,
they must be able to combine their home life if that is to be a help
and not a hindrance to the joint affection that alone makes the two
one. The question of domicile, bound up with that of whether or not
the woman shall continue her vocational connection after marriage,
sometimes becomes acute in this manner:--the woman earns more than the
man and her place of earning is in a far-away location from his and
the transplanting of his life has no promise of economic readjustment.
Shall she give up her larger salary and go with him to a place in
which she is less likely than if single to gain a professional
foothold and they both make the smaller income do? Or shall she
insist, if he is willing, that the economic advantage of the married
firm requires his removal to the seat of her labors at any risk of his
getting another hold upon vocational opportunity?
Those who ask such a question should remember that the facts of life,
social and economic, all make the upsetting of the man in his work
seldom a safe or a happy solution. In the first place, the position of
a man who even temporarily depends upon his wife's vocational success
and relinquishes his own economic position, is far more difficult than
that of a woman who sacrifices her own professional standing to go
with her husband to a new centre. Any woman asks more of a man in the
way of sacrifice, both of his standing as a man and his chances as a
worker, if she demands that he take her income as the basic economic
element in the joint family treasury (when such demand entails a
change of residence and a giving up of assured income on his part)
than any man asks of a woman when the conditions proposed are the
reverse. No woman loses "caste" who depends upon her husband in an
economic sense. Perhaps the time will come when it will cost a woman
the loss of social prestige and of the best chance for work outside
the home (as it now does a man) when the choice is made to follow the
larger income from one locality to another. Now, however, it means
that a woman can adjust herself to such change far better than a man,
and hence that equal right to demand sacrifice and equal duty to
mutually help each other demand that where such acute problems arise
the woman shall give the man's relation to his work right of way.
Moreover, even those who, like Doctor Patten, believe that women
should continue vocational work after marriage place the chief
economic burden of the family permanently upon the husband and father.
The wife may earn outside the home if both agree and the opportunity
offers in the place where the man's work already is; but the
maintenance of the economic standing and the improvement of social
condition remain, as of old, with the man. And for the obvious reason
that if the woman has children they may take a large portion of her
interest and of her strength and energy and, in any case, the married
woman, if she really makes a home, must mix her vocational work with a
more or less extended devotion to that home-making. Also, although a
woman at marriage may be in receipt of a larger income from vocational
service than is the man she wishes to marry, he will be more likely,
if worth-while, to gain steadily toward a much larger compensation.
The positions which women fill are for the most part self-limited.
They are fast developing high qualities for routine work in the
professions, like school doctor and hospital clinician and workers for
legal aid and other like salaried employments. These are not highly
paid, but have manifest advantages for women in that they give a fixed
income, if small, and in that they allow for regulation of hours of
service that may easily be made half-time work in case of divided
effort. Hence, although at a given point in earlier life (when the
usual greater precocity of women give some women the advantage in
salary and position), a woman may have a higher salary at marriage, a
far greater rise in both income and leadership may be on the husband's
side as the years go on.
=Economic Considerations Involved.=--At any rate, the question of
whether or not the woman shall earn outside the home after her
marriage must wait upon the deeper question, shall she do anything
which will disturb or render more difficult the man's economic
adjustment? There are exceptions, a growing number of exceptions, but
as a general thing the question of domicile and the question of which
one shall give way when there is difficulty of both being well
situated in individual work in one place, must be settled on the basis
of the man's longer, larger, and more continuous responsibility for
the economic standing of the family.
The exceptions make their own excuse and shape their own defense. The
average married woman carries on two vocations if she keeps on with
her own work, one inside and one outside the home. The one in which
she earns outside the home must in the long run and the large way be
subordinated to the joint partnership of the household in which she
bears a larger share of the internal management and he the heavier
burden of the outside support.
Any thorough-going discussion of the questions involved in the
wage-earning of married women and mothers outside the home must
include study of actual expense of alternate plans. The fundamental
question may be one concerning the social value of the woman's
vocational work. The next must certainly be what would the family
treasury gain or lose by the housemother's continued vocational
service outside the home. In the suggestive and encouraging book by
Mrs. Mary Hinman Abel, entitled _Successful Family Life on the
Moderate Income_, this economic aspect of the problem is treated with
definiteness. In addition to the general conclusion reached by many
that a family income of from $2,500 to $3,000 must be reached before
continual hired help can be economically justified, Mrs. Abel shows by
tables at pre-war prices that unless a married woman has a high-grade
profession with a good independent income the duties performed by the
average housemother within the home cannot be hired without a distinct
economic loss to the family treasury. For example, reckoning
conservatively the cost of the full-time hired girl or working
housekeeper at $600 to $1,000 per year, and estimating the economic
value of the woman who does all her own housework except washing and
heavy cleaning at only fifteen cents an hour, the saving by the
average married woman who is competent and well and does all her own
work is a large one. There are the best of reasons, therefore, why,
for the woman who is in ordinary circumstances and not so averse to
household care and work as to insure her failure in it, the answer to
the question, Shall I keep on with my outside earning after
marriage?--should be in the negative. The old notion that all women
were domestic and would enjoy housework if only they could do it in
their own homes is indeed exploded. The natural differences among
women are now allowed. The advantages, social, economic, and in
matters of health and control of work-time and of leisure, which the
average housemother enjoys over the average woman who works at manual
labor under the factory system of industry, were, however, never
better known or more justly evaluated. The proof of this is in the
inclusion of training in household arts by the Smith-Hughes Bill,
under which the Federal Government makes large appropriations for
vocational training directly aimed at improving the efficiency of
women whose labor is confined to the private home.
It is a sign, among other things, of desired and needed flexibility in
domestic arrangements that there were listed in 1910 as married
twenty-five per cent. of the women at work in "gainful occupations."
Not all the conditions indicated by this count were socially helpful;
since in the textile industries, in which many married women are
employed, there are fewer children born and more die before the end of
the second year than in the average population. It does, however,
indicate that among those of higher opportunity in life there is a
growing disposition to treat the question of women's continuance in
vocational service outside the home after marriage as a real problem
and one to be settled in freedom, and with social approval of that
freedom, by the two persons most deeply concerned. Only, it must be
insisted, that all a married woman gains in salary or wages cannot be
reckoned as increase of the family income. The economic value of the
average housemother's contribution is now definitely computed and must
be reckoned hereafter as so much actually contributed to the family
income. And so far, if a woman is physically able, temperamentally
adjustable, and adequately trained for household tasks, she can in the
vast majority of cases serve her day and generation in no better
fashion than by assuming and carrying the multiple duties of the
private home.
Hence, although freedom means new choice, prudence and affection alike
oftenest point to the old paths of family service for the average
woman. As Mrs. Abel well says of the competent housemother who chooses
full and personal service to the home and the family, "At her best she
represents individual effort fully utilized. She fits her tasks
together; she utilizes bits of time; she invents short cuts in her
work," Of such it may be truly declared, in the new time as in the
old, that she translates every dollar of the family income into many
dollars' worth of comfort, of health, and of happiness.
=Is It Bad Form to Earn After Marriage?=--One more consideration,
quite new in its full significance, should be given place in any
discussion of the wife's relation to work outside the home. That
consideration is concerned with the use of her time not needed in
household tasks. The modern aids to those tasks, of which mention has
been made, give many women who assume full responsibility for the
housemother's work a considerable amount of strength and time which
may be used in some chosen way outside the strictly family service.
The general idea is that such time should be given in gratuitous
"social welfare work" or in some form of activity divorced from
regular vocations. An able President of the Federation of Women's
Clubs, the body most distinctly representing the interest and service
of women in volunteer social service in this country, has said, in
addressing her large constituency, "Sport is work we do without
pay--we are all sports." The sentiment was applauded and with evident
sense of superiority to the "paid worker." The feeling, so general in
many circles of society, that women lose "caste" if they work for
wages or salary, reaches its maximum of prejudice in the case of
married women. It is thought highly honorable to sell things in a
"Fair" for a good cause and come in contact with a crowd of strangers
in the process among people who would consider "keeping a shop,"
unless from dire necessity, a very questionable proceeding. It is
thought most virtuous and wifely for a woman married to a minister of
the church to give her time and strength gratuitously in multitudinous
religious helps to the organization which usually counts on getting
the service of two first-class people for a second-or third-class
salary for one. But for the wife of such a minister, realizing that
the income is generally insufficient for proper living, to work
outside her home, even for a few hours each day, for pay, is to lay
herself and her husband also open to harsh criticism; even if her
house is kept well and her children properly cared for. It is also
thought by many people that the only really justifiable use of time
that can be spared from household duties is in furthering the
husband's work, if he is struggling up; or, if he has "arrived," in
these miscellaneous gratuitous social services in which the club-women
so abound.
There is great need that this judgment be revised. Not only is this
true in the interest of women whose devotion to a chosen vocation has
right of way in justice when the debate is on as to the use of any
left-over time she may save from domestic duties. It is also true that
we can not have the democratic feeling and influence from women of
social position which our political life so sadly needs unless it is
understood that it is as honorable for a woman, married or unmarried,
to earn money for her work as it is for a man with or without an
inherited fortune. The class feeling that makes all married women
range themselves with those of their sex who have inherited fortunes,
and leads them to place those who serve the community in salaried
positions as less unselfish and less honorable social workers than
themselves, is one to outgrow. An interest divorced from professional
standards or professional compensation is not necessarily nobler or
more useful. This fact makes the choice of women before marriage as to
the use of time that may justly be spared, even when the home makes
its heaviest demands upon them, a choice of social as well as of
personal significance.
Every year social effort once strictly of private provision and
support becomes a public service, with organized supervision and
standardized compensation. When such volunteer social effort becomes a
public service it is highly desirable that the trained women it
demands for its staff should (some of them, at least) be married
women. Otherwise, the same loss of efficiency that the rapid turn-over
of the women teaching staff of our schools occasions will be
discovered in our social work as it changes its centre of gravity from
the private to the public organization.
There is a far greater need from this point of view for reorganization
of hours and details of work so as to give more half-time or
quarter-time employment to women of proved ability, than for any
wholesale condemnation of the woman who works outside her home for
pay, even when her husband is able and willing to "take care of her."
It is for society to say, indeed, that women marrying and having
children owe first duty to the home. It is for women themselves to say
whether they shall use any time at their disposal after that duty is
met in continuing such relation to their vocation as is now possible,
or in being "sports."
The fact that men are trying to see both sides of this vexed question
and that women, as a rule, are trying to make adjustment that will
hold an equitable and happy balance between the personal and the
family well-being means that this problem will work itself to a
democratic result without social loss.
=Shall Parenthood be Chosen?=--The fifth question that should come up
for serious discussion and some measure of agreement in advance of the
wedding ceremony is that of children. Shall there be any? If so, how
many, if we can afford them? If so, how soon shall we try to call
about us the new life? If not, why not, and how shall we live together
without hope of offspring? These are vital questions. For want of
agreement, or at least of understanding of disagreement before
marriage, many unions are shipwrecked.
In the old days there were no questions of this nature. Every woman
must have as many children as nature allowed, and when she could bear
no more must give way to a new wife and a step-mother to carry on the
family life; and if there were more children in a family than the
father and family friends could support, they had to be cared for by
the community. The modern condition is the same in the case of those
below a certain grade of intelligence and self-control. But as human
beings become more rational in other respects, they apply reason,
common sense, and prudence to the great function of parenthood.
Indeed, so much is this the case that the social danger of breeding
only from below the higher levels is felt to be an increasing one.
There are not wanting those who believe that rationalism in parenthood
is wrong and should be prevented, if possible, but those are the
people who decry the use of reason in all other matters, except it may
be in the strictly economic field. The fact is that whatever may be
said on the side of ancient religious sanction and inherited
sentiment, the tendency on all sides is irresistibly toward the
personal choice in parenthood as in marriage.
=Some People Have a Right to Marry and Remain Childless.=--There are
many, however, who believe that no one should marry unless wishing and
expecting to have children. That is a belief which will doubtless be
more and more outgrown. There are young people, children of dependent
parents and near relatives, who see no way of starting a family of
their own, who yet should not be denied the comfort and help of
married life. The tragedies of sons and daughters made to drag out a
lonely existence and either condemning the one they love to like
denial or else giving up the hope of union and seeing their chosen one
wedded to another--the sort of tragedy that forms the subject of many
novels--is a tragedy to be outgrown. It may be that social burdens in
behalf of parents or other dependents can not be lifted to the extent
of making a completed family life possible to some young people. All
the more, two people who truly love each other and are bound to one
great sacrifice, namely, that of children of their own, should be able
to escape another, that of denial of marriage.
There are other cases in which marriage is right and childbearing may
be wrong. There are tendencies to disease, in which, although there
may be a long and useful life for the one bearing a family taint, it
may be socially wrong to risk carrying on that taint. If all who need
to know are agreed, and there is a chance of living many years of real
union together, no law should step in to prevent, and no inherited
view of the limitation of marriage to those seeking parental relation
should refuse assent to the union. There are many conceivable
limitations to parental functioning, even for those who are keenly
aware of the social significance of parenthood, which do not apply to
marriage of those truly mated in thought and purpose. It is, however,
the height of irrationality, and will more and more be seen to be
such, for men and women to enter a relation the natural result of
which, in the vast majority of cases, is the bearing of children, with
no idea on either side as to what is the ideal and the wish and the
purpose of the other party in the marriage union.
The question, again, for those who are agreed that they want to start
a family as well as begin a mating is definitely to be considered,
namely, that of the right time to begin the family they wish to have.
It may be, as many believe, that too hasty adding of the strenuous
discipline of parenthood to the often difficult task of adjustment of
two mature and forceful natures, such as marriage so often brings
together, is likely to give an unnecessarily hard start in the new
life. Two people who have just got used to themselves, perhaps, have
at marriage to get used to each other. It may be that they could
succeed better in this great task if they had not so often to adjust
themselves during the first year to the needs and masterful claims of
a baby. There is no form of tyranny equal to that of the infant, who,
assured of his right to unlimited service from all in sight, makes his
demands at all times and in all ways. He pays for his subjection of
parents and grandparents and they are all usually willing slaves. But
it is often a great advantage if the parents, at least, have had a
chance to make full acquaintance with each other's pet weaknesses and
each other's best qualities before "the baldheaded tyrant from No
Man's Land" makes his appearance. It is, therefore, clearly a matter
of frank and full discussion and settlement before marriage not only
as to the fundamental question of whether or not there shall be
children, but also if, as is the case in the overwhelming majority of
cases, the young people hope for offspring, when they shall begin to
call them to the home.
The thing of all others to be avoided is the outgrown idea that
heavenly magic attends completely to these matters. It is earthly
wisdom and unselfishness and good intent that are needed in this as in
all the great decisions of life. Hence, there can be nothing more
absurdly out of drawing with a rationalized civilization than any law
which forbids the serious discussion of this most vital of social
questions or one that forbids the full dissemination of scientific
knowledge needed by those who would do the right thing in the parental
as in all other relations of life.
=What Is the Just Financial Basis of the Household?=--The sixth
question that has right of debate before the marriage ceremony is that
of the financial support of the household and of the distribution of
the joint income. The use of the words joint income prejudges the case
on this point. The old idea was of one purse, of right that of the
"head of the family," and whatever it held was his to disburse. He it
was who determined how the wife should be fed and clothed and
sheltered. If he were generous and kind she fared well; if the
opposite she fared ill. Her legal right was only the same as that of
her minor child. Now the case is wholly different. In spite of some
inconsistent left-over laws that can make a showing of belated tyranny
when culled from old statute books, the financial right of the wife in
the household is generally recognized. It is, however, still true that
no logical system of financial sharing has been worked out so clearly
as to be accepted by the common mind. We still have talk of a wife
being "supported" when, as housemother, she works harder and more
hours than her husband. We still have listing of those housemothers,
who are the majority of the women of every country, as "without
occupation." It is possible for men to speak of "giving" their wives
what they think is needed for the household and without reference to
any personal preference of the wives in expenditure, as if it were an
act of charity and not a debt owed the family life.
On the other hand, some women, having achieved partial or entire
financial independence of the husband and earning handsome sums in
work outside the home, look upon all that the man earns as "belonging
to the family," and all that they earn as wholly belonging to
themselves. "What's John's belongs to us all; what is mine belongs to
me," said one wife, without any idea of the absurd injustice of taking
all the advantage that new conditions had made possible for women and
at the same time hanging on to all that old-time privilege gave to
wives. There is need of the strictest and most balanced thinking along
the line of the economics of the household.
If, as seems in the vast majority of cases the best plan, the husband
and father can be and is depended upon for the entire financial
support of the family in the matter of earning and the housemother
gives an actual service of great economic value in saving and service
(as the competent housewife assuredly does give), then what is earned
and what is produced by housework and management makes in justice one
family treasury. If to that is added some special earning outside the
home which the housemother is able to mix in with her family service,
then that also is a part of the family treasury. After the marriage
there should be a real partnership. There may be a separate account on
either side of the gifts of inheritance or savings preceding the
marriage, but after the twain are one in home-building they may justly
be one in a common treasury. Two bank-books they may have, it is true,
and perhaps better so, although many find one in the name of both
husband and wife sufficiently convenient. The main thing is to get
firmly in mind on both sides before any actual adjustments are
necessary what, on the financial side, is the right attitude and plan
of married life. The best way seems to be, for some people, at least,
the division of the family treasury into three distinct parts. The
first, and alas, in most families the much larger share, to be
dedicated to common household expenses. The excellent work of
specialists in family budgets shows us how this fund should be
distributed in details of rent or dwelling, cost of food, clothing,
reading, church, recreation, etc. Any one can now make up with
prudence and wisdom such an estimate in proportion to the known income
and the ascertained cost of living in any given locality. After this
common expense is provided for, with due regard for the duty of saving
for future needs, the remaining portion, be it much or little, should
be equally divided as the personal fund of the husband and the wife.
Some of those who have written on the family budget think that the
contribution of the housewife in work, for which wages would have to
be paid if she did not give this personal labor in the home, should be
estimated in wages value, and should go into her part of a separate
fund, after the common household expenses are deducted. That, it
seems, would not be fair, for if the man puts in his labor value the
woman should put in hers for the first and indispensable expense of
the common life together. What is to be made right is the old custom
of reckoning the savings and common property acquired after marriage
as "his" estate. It is the estate of both, and should be so
considered, even if he has earned outside and she saved and earned and
helped him earn from within the household only.
=What Shall be the Accepted Standard of Living?=--The final question
that must be considered by the two who are to marry and set up
housekeeping is the scale of living they shall aim to attain. It has
been well said that "the standard of living is what we desire; the
scale of living what we can achieve." What is desired often, and what
seems to the young only reasonable for all to have, is the scale of
living the parents' households have attained after a life of hard
work. It is a matter for profound ethical thinking to decide what
measure of increase in expense of home upkeep should follow upon
increase of income where there are children to be affected by changes.
It may sometime be seen to be a social duty to keep much farther
within bounds the natural desire to expand expense as income
increases; both for the reason that income may decrease with advancing
years for the parents and retrenchment be necessary when it is
hardest, and also for the more important reason that children
naturally make standards at the height of parental expenditure and may
find it thereby the more difficult to "begin at the bottom" when they
marry. At any rate, the young couple starting out must keep within
their means or suffer from the worst of fortunes, the dread of
arriving bills and the shame of inability to pay them. That means some
agreement before housekeeping begins as to what is involved in that
adventure.
A witty woman said, "I love to travel with my friend Mary, for her
economies and mine are the same." Some uniformity of temperamental
reaction both to regular economies and to occasional extravagances is,
if not an essential, a valuable basis for happy marriage. That means
that the engaged couple might well start a game of "Must Haves" and
"Would Like to Haves" in the moments that can be spared from other
pursuits, a game in which without the other's knowledge each should
write the secret wishes and requirements to be later compared for
mutual enlightenment. The woman who would gladly go with two meals a
day for a fortnight in order to get a ticket for the opera or
symphony, and the man who would sacrifice a needed new suit of clothes
with pleasure for a fishing trip, may be able to compromise on
essentials, but will find it difficult in the matter of extras unless
warned beforehand. Affection bridges many chasms, and sensible people
learn that even in the best regulated families father, mother, and the
children may all get some of their best times apart. A basis of mutual
understanding is, however, essential. The necessity to get at a common
plan for the economic standards of the household is a vital one. How
many men have run in debt for what they believed essential to the
wife's happiness because she had such things in her father's house,
without letting the wife know that economy was necessary, only to find
out that if full confidence had been given a mutual effort would have
secured better results. How many women have gone without things they
might have had for want of knowledge of their husband's income and
suffered fears that need not have been in the mind. How many also,
alas, both of men and women, have lived beyond their means from
selfish demand one upon the other, a demand which might have been
chastened, at least, if full knowledge of economic resources had been
attained before the scale of living was fixed.
All these items of suggested conference and decision given above are
counsels of prudence and wisdom. Many, perhaps most, however, of the
young couples starting out in life "go it blind" in all or some of
these particulars. The wonder is that these who start on the most
serious of compacts and the one leading to the greatest extremes of
both happiness and unhappiness with so little knowledge of each
other's condition, capacity, or deepest wishes, get along, on the
whole, so well. We see them on every side starting on the sea of
married life with gaiety of heart because the chosen one is obtained
for company and with no conception of the difficulties that may make
the voyage tempestuous. But they often make safe harbor of comfortable
comradeship for middle life and old age, and if they have had a harder
time than they need have had at least prove that "love is the greatest
thing in the world."
=The Need for Full and Mutual Understanding Before Marriage.=--The
rising tide of divorce, however, gives point to the plea of this
chapter for a more careful charting of the sailing course in advance.
The fact that so many get their discipline of knowledge and direction
as they go along and do not make shipwreck even if matrimonial storms
grow frequent or heavy, is a very good testimony to the native
goodness of men and women and to their ability to make good their
mistakes and work out success even from failure provided the
indispensable north star of unselfish affection leads them on. It
would be well, however, to lessen the failures if that can be done.
When men and women show what marriage can become for the wise, the
idealistic, and the loving, it gives a picture of satisfaction and
mutual service that makes most other human associations seem trivial
and short-lived. Only parenthood is equal or superior to marriage in
its possibilities of moral discipline and personal development. To
make it successful is worth striving for.
Literature, science, and art have many great marriages to their
credit--men and women brought together by identical tastes and similar
capacities, working together in high pursuits through a long life of
achievement. They illumine the way of life with a peculiar glow.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning sang:
"Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing."
but her union with Robert Browning showed that they were nearer alike
than in her sad humility she had fancied. Jonas Lie, the Norwegian
novelist, and his gifted wife, it is said, "knew the felicity of a
perfect union," and he himself has testified, "If I have ever written
anything of merit, my wife has as great a share in it as myself, and
her name should appear on the title-page as collaborator." The joint
discoveries of the Curies are well known, linking husband and wife
together in a great gift to humanity. In humbler circles of the gifted
and the talented the married couples are becoming more numerous each
decade whose work as well as whose affection binds them together.
=The Supreme Satisfactions of Successful Marriage.=--Take it all in
all, although no particular marriage may be "made in heaven," the sort
of union that monogamic marriage has worked out at its highest reaches
is without a rival in depth of feeling, in satisfaction of
association, in wealth of comradeship, and in social value as a
foundation for family life and for initial training toward social
serviceableness. No wise person can do aught to lessen its opportunity
for ethical drill, or for that due mingling of attraction and duty
which make all the vital associations of human beings helps toward the
higher life. No wise person will continue in the ancient error of
mistaking show for substance in these weighty matters.
All who believe that the family is an institution whose gift to the
social order is not yet outgrown and whose possibilities of social
value are not yet fully developed, must work to make the right
marriages easier to secure, and the wrong ones less easy to be
consummated, and to purge the ideals of home of selfishness and of
superficiality by constant portrayal of the best in the married life.
The stage and the moving picture should more often portray the world's
marriage successes rather than perpetual reproductions of the marriage
failures. The novel should more often show how many people save, so as
by fire, the dreams of youth in rescue of their married life from
threatening ills. Such portrayal would not be against a realistic
ideal of art, but a more perfect and balanced use of realism. The rise
of people on "stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things"
is quite as dramatic as the succession of falls that land them in the
pit of despair. The struggles that succeed are quite as capable of
exciting emotional response as are those that fail.
Real life shows a larger measure of successful achievement than of
bitter failure, else would life not go on. Marriage at its highest is
yet to be used in any adequate measure as the theme of the artist and
the stimulant of response to art.
The day will come when "Main Street" will reveal its best and not its
worst; its richest, and not its poorest products, for the satisfaction
of universal sentiment.
QUESTIONS ON HUSBANDS AND WIVES
1. Are there any subjects upon which husbands and wives must be
in substantial agreement in order to secure a successful
marriage? If so, what are some of them?
2. Are there any radical differences in belief, respecting
religion, politics, education of children, ways of living,
business relationship, etc., which marriage may successfully
bridge, provided there is genuine and faithful affection? If
so, name some of them.
3. How can "engaged" couples make sure that essentials of
agreement, and non-essentials of agreement to differ, are well
understood in advance?
4. Are there any new spiritual relationships of men and women in
marriage made possible by the modern tendency toward the
democratization of the family? If so, what are some of them?
FOOTNOTES:
[7] This bill, the so-called "Cable Act," was passed September 22,
1922.