Perhaps the main reason why no one has anticipated me in writing a book
showing that Love is an exclusively modern sentiment, and tracing its
gradual development, is because no distinction has been commonly made
between Romantic Love and Conjugal Affection, though they differ as
widely as maternal love and friendship. The occurrence of noble examples
of conjugal attachment as far back as Homer has obscured the fact that
pre-nuptial or Romantic Love is almost as modern as the telegraph, the
railway, and the electric light.
Two thousand and four hundred years ago the Greek philosopher Empedokles
taught that there are four elements—fire, air, water, earth—which remain
unchanged amid all combinations. Chemistry has long since shown that
these supposed elements are compounds, and that the number of real
elements is much larger.
In a similar way the tender or family emotions have been gradually
distinguished from one another. Among the ancient Greeks φιλότης meant
both friendship and sexual love, which, as we have seen, they strangely
confounded, both in theory and in practice. To-day we distinguish not
only between friendship and sexual love, but between the two phases of
sexual love—Romantic and Conjugal Affection—the former of which was
unknown to the Greeks. We do this not only because, as in the case of
the chemical elements, our knowledge has become more precise and subtle,
but because these emotions have been gradually developed, and have
assumed different characteristics, so that it would be difficult at
present to mistake one for the other.
As regards the difference between Conjugal and Romantic Love, however,
the current conceptions are not yet so clear and definite; many good
folks being, in fact, inclined to frown upon the suggestion that there
is any such difference. Yet it is useless for them to endeavour, with
well-meant hypocrisy, to impress upon the young the notion that Love is
unchangeable, since no one who keeps his eyes open can help noticing how
differently married couples behave from lovers. In marriage the dazzling
blue flame of Romantic Love gradually grows smaller and dies away. But
the coals may retain their glow and perchance keep the heart warmer than
the former flickering flames of Love.
There is, indeed, a great moral advantage to be gained by frankly
acknowledging that Love undergoes a metamorphosis in wedlock. It _breaks
the sting of cynicism_. For if we are told that “marriage is the sunset
of love,” or that “the only sure cure for love is marriage,” we may
calmly retort, “What of it?” When the romantic passion subsides, its
place is taken by another group of emotions, equally noble and conducive
to the welfare of society. It is not an annihilation of anything, but
simply a change: losing some pleasures, but gaining others in their
place; getting rid of some pains to be burdened with others. Love’s
metamorphosis into conjugal affection is like that of a wild rose into
its red berry. Though less fragrant and lovely than the rose, the berry
is almost as warm in colour, endures longer, and brings forth fresh
plants to adorn future seasons.
Similes, however, are not arguments; and it behoves us therefore, for
the benefit of bachelors and old maids, and of married folks who never
were in love, to point out definitely wherein conjugal differs from
Romantic Love; which at the same time will explain why conjugal
affection was able to exist so many centuries before Romantic Love.
In preceding pages a fragmentary attempt has been made to characterise
Love, and to show how its growth was impeded through the inferior social
and intellectual status of women and the absolute chaperonage of the
young. Maidens and youths had no opportunity to meet and become
acquainted. Barter, and considerations of rank and expediency, took the
place of affection, and parental authority that of individual choice.
There was no prolonged courtship, hence no jealousy of rivals, no female
coyness and coquetry, no alternating hopes and doubts, no monopoly of
mutual admiration, no ecstatic adoration, sympathetic sharing of lovers’
joys and griefs, or pride of conquest and possession.
Conjugal affection, on the other hand, was much less retarded in its
growth by such artificial arrangements, the outcome of strong man’s
brutal selfishness. Polygamy was the chief impediment; but as soon as
woman became sufficiently “emancipated” to claim a husband of her own,
the soil was ready for the growth of conjugal affection. In its early
stages this form of affection must have been much more crude and simple
than it is in modern society. In most instances it was probably little
more than a mere superficial attachment, growing out of the habit of
living together for some time; the husband being attached to his wife on
account of the domestic comforts and ease she provided for him, and the
wife to the husband very much as a dog is to his master, who, though
cruel, yet takes care of and feeds him.
How crudely utilitarian the conjugal bond is among primitive men may be
inferred from Mr. Wallace’s remarks already quoted as to the motives
which guide the maidens of certain Amazon-valley tribes in choosing
their husbands. There is, he says, “a trial of skill at shooting with
the bow and arrow, and if the young man does not show himself a good
marksman, the girl refuses him, on the ground that he will not be able
to shoot fish and game enough for the family.”
With the ancient “classical” nations there were, unless the poets have
strongly idealised their characters, examples of conjugal affection
hardly differing from the most refined modern instances. Owing to the
then prevalent contempt for the female mind, however, such cases cannot
be accepted as fair samples of the “general article”; and they only
allow us to infer that, as with Love and with genius, so with conjugal
affection, there were some early perfect instances anticipating by many
centuries the general course of emotional evolution.
In the dark and warlike mediæval ages Conjugal Love, on the woman’s
side, was apparently little more, as a rule, than a sense of devotion to
her husband based on her need of protection against barbarous enemies;
and what it was on the husband’s side may be inferred from his stern and
often tyrannic rule in his own house, which was calculated to breed in
his wife and children fear but neither conjugal nor filial affection.
In modern Conjugal Affection the elements are as diverse and as
variously intermingled as in Love, if not more so; and it would be as
difficult to find two cases of conjugal love exactly alike as two human
faces, or two leaves in a forest. One man cherishes his wife chiefly on
account of the home comfort she provides—the neat and tasteful domestic
interior, the well-cooked dinners, the economic attention to household
affairs, etc. Another man’s pride in his spouse is based on her
conversational skill, her diplomatic art of asserting her place among
the upper ten in society, and of adorning her drawing-rooms with the
presence of prominent people of the day. A third husband loves his wife
for her artistic accomplishments or her personal charms. Still another,
an author, is devoted to his spouse because she cleverly assists his
labours by criticism and suggestion, and still more because she takes
such a sympathetic interest in his creations, and _really_ thinks that
no one since Shakspere has written like her own dear Adolphus.
These and a thousand like circumstances, with their attendant feelings,
enter into the highly complex group of emotions subsumed under the name
of Conjugal Love. Yet, since any one of these feelings may be absent
without extinguishing Conjugal Affection, they cannot be regarded as its
essentials or framework, but only as colouring material.
Nor is that which is commonly regarded as the strongest of all cements
between husband and wife—the common love of their children—to be
accepted as the essence of conjugal love. For childless couples present
many of the most remarkable cases of devotion, while in many other cases
the children not only fail to rekindle the torch of love, but even
arouse jealousies and ill-feeling between their parents by showing a
special preference for one or the other. Nevertheless, though not
absolutely essential to conjugal love, the common parental feeling is
one of its most important and constant ingredients; and there is none of
its tributaries which adds more to the deep current of connubial bliss.
It enables the parents to enjoy once more the simple pleasures of life,
to which they had grown callous; it brings back the peculiarly delicious
memories of their own childhood and youth; enables the father to
discover his former sweetheart renewed in his daughter, and the mother
her former lover in her son; while their common pride in the beauty or
accomplishments of the children supplies them with a never-failing topic
of conversation and source of sympathy.
And this suggests what must be regarded as the real kernel of conjugal
attachment—a perennial mutual sympathy regarding not only the affairs of
their children but every other domestic affair—in other words, a
complete and _necessary_ harmony of feelings and interests. The accent
rests on the word _necessary_; for it is this feeling of necessary
communion of interests that distinguishes conjugal affection from Love
and from friendship, in both of which there is a mutual sympathy, but
not so far-reaching and inevitable. A lover’s fame or disgrace may be
keenly felt by his sweetheart or his friend, yet society does not
associate them with the other’s reputation or disgrace; and if the
infamy is too great, they can easily sever their bond, without leaving a
spot on their own good name. Not so with husband and wife. His promotion
is her honour, and his fall her humiliation; for they are inseparably
associated in the public mind, and cannot be parted except through
divorce, which is equivalent to social suicide. Therefore theirs is “one
glory an’ one shame,” and their destiny to “share each other’s gladness
and weep each other’s tears.”
To make this matrimonial harmony complete, it is necessary that there
should be a real sense of companionship, _i.e._ common tastes and topics
of conversation. “Unlikeness may attract,” says Mill, “but it is
likeness which retains; and in proportion to the likeness is the
suitability of the individuals to give each other a happy life.” The
opposite qualities by which lovers are often attracted are chiefly of a
physical nature. Where the mental differences are great—where he, for
instance, is fond of books and music, while she wishes his books and his
piano in Siberia; or she fond of parties, pictures, and theatres, and he
bored to death by them: in such cases genuine Romantic Love cannot
survive a few weeks of constant companionship, and hopes of nuptial
bliss must end in disappointment.