The number of parents who believe that their infallible wisdom is a
better guide matrimonial than their daughters’ choice inspired by Love,
is still so large that it is worth while to add a few words in the hope
of removing this obstacle to the universal rule of Cupid. Let Mrs.
Lynn-Linton be their spokeswoman. “If it seems a horrible thing,” she
says, in _The Girl of the Period_, “to marry a young girl without her
consent, or without any more knowledge of the man with whom she is to
pass her life than can be got by seeing him once or twice in formal
family conclave, it seems quite as bad to let our women roam about the
world at the age when their instincts are strongest and their reason
weakest—open to the flatteries of fools and fops—the prey of professed
lady-killers—objects of loverlike attentions by men who mean absolutely
nothing but the amusement of making love—the subjects for erotic
anatomists to study at their pleasure. Who among our girls after twenty
carries an absolutely untouched heart to the man she marries?”
No doubt there is force in these remarks: but they do not apply to the
Girl of the Period. They apply only to the girl brought up on the old
system of being left in complete ignorance regarding man and his wicked
ways of heartless and meaningless flattery. But modern girls are not
such fools as some people would think them. _Tell them_ that men are
only amusing themselves; a hint will suffice: and the man who imagines
himself a “lady-killer” will suddenly find himself a victim of
counter-flirtation and a butt of feminine sarcasm.
Tell girls, furthermore, not that every man loves his wife, but that
many hate and maltreat their unfortunate spouse. This will make them
cautious. Tell them that Love is not an absolute but a _tentative_
passion, and that they must not yield to the first apparent symptoms and
throw their hearts away frivolously. Tell them, above all, that men who
are extremely gallant and complimentary, _without being in the least
embarrassed_, are always insincere and sometimes dangerous: because a
man who is truly in Love is always embarrassed. Tell them a few more
such pessimistic truths about men, instead of allowing them to perish
through optimistic ignorance, and the objections against free choice
urged by Mrs. Lynn-Linton will vanish like vapour in sunlight. English
and American girls are quite able to take care of themselves, because
they are allowed to read all sorts of books, and therefore to know the
world as it is. And if any one says that such knowledge has rendered
English and American girls less delicate, less sweet and pure, than
French and German hothouse buds, he utters an unmitigated falsehood.
Advocates of so-called “wisdom” marriages are fond of pointing out cases
of unhappy married life, based originally on free Choice. But free
Choice by no means always implies Love. Its motives are often pecuniary,
or social; and in these cases the marriage actually comes under the head
of “wisdom marriages,” whose champions are thus boxing their own ears.
Besides, we must remember Byron’s words, that “many a man thinks he
marries by choice who only marries by accident.” If a man marries his
Rosaline before he has met his Juliet, he has only himself or his bad
luck to blame, not Love.
The frequency with which runaway “love-matches” end unhappily, is
adduced as another argument in favour of wisdom marriages. Two things
are here forgotten: that in nineteen runaway matches out of twenty, the
predominant passion is frivolity, not Love; and that quite a
considerable proportion of unions not preceded by an elopement end
unhappily; but being less romantic they are not so much talked about.
“Wisdom” marriages based on parental choice are those which have
prevailed in the past: and we have seen how beautifully they coincided
with woman’s degradation, ignorance, and social debasement.
Wisdom marriages are incompatible with Courtship, which becomes a
superfluous preliminary to marriage. Modern methods of Courtship and
engagement ordinarily prolong this period to about a year or two. This
is the honeymoon, not of marriage, but of life itself, the time when
earth is a paradise. During these two years the soul makes more progress
in refinement, maturity, and insight than during any other _decade_ of
life. Shall all this happiness, all this refining influence, be thrown
away with Love?
Compatibility of temper is the most important of all prerequisites to a
happy marriage. Should Love be allowed to find out during Courtship if
there is such a compatibility, before it is too late, or shall the
inadequate judgment of parents unite two souls with as much mutual
affinity as oil and water?
Self-sacrifice for their children is considered the noblest of parental
traits. Were Schopenhauer right in claiming that in Love-matches the
parents sacrifice their individual happiness to the wellbeing of their
children—would not this be an additional motive for abhorring wisdom
marriages, in which the interests of the parents alone are consulted?