It is in the United States of America that Plato’s ideal—so completely
ignored by his countrymen—that young men and women should have ample
opportunity to meet and get acquainted with one another before marriage,
is most perfectly realised; as well as Addison’s supplementary advice
that marriage should be preceded by a long courtship.
As boys and girls in America are commonly educated in the same schools,
they are initiated at an early age into the sweets and sorrows of
Calf-love Courtship, which has such a refining influence on the boys,
and renders the girls more easy and natural in society when they get
older; destroying among other puerilities that spring-chicken Coyness
which makes many of their European sisters appear so silly. In the
Western country-schools each girl has her “beau”—a boy of fourteen to
seventeen—who brings her flowers, apples, or other presents, accompanies
her home, and performs various other gallant services; nor has any harm
ever been known to result from this juvenile Courtship—except an
occasional elopement, in case of a prematurely frivolous couple, whom it
was just as well to get rid of in that way as any other.
When they get a little older, the young folks go to picnics without a
chaperon, or they enjoy a drive or sleigh-ride, or go a-skating
together; and after a party, dance, church fair, or other social
gathering, where the elders commonly keep out of the way considerately,
each young man accompanies a young lady home. Were you to insinuate to
him the advisability of having a chaperon for the young lady, he would
inform you pointedly that the young lady needed no protection inasmuch
as he was a _gentleman_ and not a tramp. It is this high sense of
gentlemanly honour that protects women in America—a hundred times better
than all the barred windows of the Orient and the dragons of Europe.
Thanks to this feeling of modern chivalry, a young lady may travel all
alone from New York to Chicago, or even to San Francisco, and, if her
manners are modest and refined, she will not once be insulted by word or
look, not even in passing through the roughest mining regions.
It is the consciousness of this chivalrous code of honour among the men
that gives an American girl the frank and natural gaze which is one of
her greatest charms, and that allows her to talk to a man just
introduced as if they were old acquaintances. It is a knowledge of this
gentlemanly code that makes parents feel perfectly at ease in leaving
their daughter alone in the parlour all the evening with a visitor. In a
word, American customs prove that if you treat a man as a gentleman he
will behave like a gentleman.
Unquestionably there are girls who abuse the liberty allowed them, and
encourage the men to encourage them in their freedom. Mr. Henry James
has done a most valuable service in holding up the mirror to one of
these girls, to serve as a warning to all Daisy Millers and semi-Daisy
Millers. There are not a few of the latter kind, and I have myself met
three full-fledged specimens of the real “Daisy” in Europe—girls who
would not have hesitated to go out rowing on a lake at eleven o’clock in
the evening with a man known to them only a few hours, or to go next day
with him to visit an old tower, or to say that mamma “always makes a
fuss if I introduce a gentleman. But I _do_ introduce them—almost
always. If I didn’t introduce my gentlemen friends to mother, I
shouldn’t think I was natural.” It is this class of American tourists
that have, unfortunately, given foreigners a caricatured notion of the
American girl’s deportment.
Etiquette differs somewhat in various American cities and among the
different classes. For instance, a young lady of the “upper circles,”
who in Chicago is permitted to drive to the theatre in a carriage with a
young man, is not allowed the same privilege in New York.
The New York _Sun_, an excellent authority in social matters, gives the
whole philosophy of American Courtship and Love in answering a young
man’s question as to whether, in asking a young lady of the highest
circles to accompany him to a place of amusement, it is necessary to
invite a chaperon at the same time. He is told that he must,—in those
circles:—
"But these people are only a few among the many. What is called society
more exclusively in New York comprises, all told, no more than a hundred
or two hundred families. Outside of them, of course, there are larger
circles, to which they give the law to a greater or less extent, but the
whole number of men and women in this great town of a million and a half
of inhabitants who pay obedience to that law is not over a few thousand.
"Nine girls out of ten in New York, with the full consent of their
parents and as a matter of course, accompany young men to amusements
without taking a chaperon along. They feel, and they are, entirely able
to look out for themselves, and they would regard the whole fun as
spoiled if a third person was on hand to watch over them. A large part
of the audience at every theatre is always made up of young men and
young women who have come out in pairs, and who have no thought of
violating any rule of propriety. Very many of these girls would never be
invited to the theatre by their male acquaintances if they were under
the dominion of such a usage, for the men want them to themselves, else
they would not ask their company, and besides do not feel able to pay
for an extra ticket for an obnoxious third person; or, if they have a
little more money to spare, they prefer to expend it at an ice-cream
saloon after the play.
"Nor can it be said that the morals of these less formal young people
are any worse than those of the more exacting society. Probably they are
better on the average, and if the laws of Murray Hill prevailed
throughout this city, the marriage-rate of New York would be likely to
decline, for nothing discourages the passion of the average young man so
much as his inability to meet the charmer except in the presence of a
third person, who acts as a buffer between him and her. He feels that he
has no show, and cannot appear to good advantage under the eyes of a
cool critic, whereas if he could walk with the girl alone in the shades
of the balmy evening, the courage to declare his affection would come to
him.
“Therefore it is that engagements, even in the most fashionable society,
are commonly made in the country during the summer, where the young
people come together more freely and more constantly than in the town.”
The attempt made in certain corners of New York “Society” to introduce
the foreign system of chaperonage is one of the most absurd and
incongruous efforts at aping foreign fashions (which are on the decline
even in Europe) ever witnessed in our midst. In Europe Chaperonage is in
so far excusable, as it is a modified survival from barbarous times when
men were mostly brutes, being drunk half the time and on military
expeditions the other half. To treat American men, who are brought up as
gentlemen, and commonly behave as such, as mediæval ruffians, is a
gratuitous insult, which they ought to resent by avoiding those houses
where Oriental experiments are being tried with the daughters. That
would bring the “mammas” to reason very soon.
Yet it would seem as if New York “Society” had already had enough of the
Oriental experiment; for the same high authority just quoted asserted
last autumn that “A regular stampede in favour of the liberty of the
young unmarried female is to be undertaken this winter by a number of
‘three-years-in-society’ veterans, supported and encouraged by nearly
all this seasons _débutantes_. The first step is to be the establishment
of a right on the part of young girls to form parties for theatre
_matinées_ and afternoon concerts, untrammelled by the presence of even
a matron of their own age, and to which all ‘reliable and well-behaved
young men are to be eligible.’... Rule No. 2 establishes beyond all
dispute the often-mooted question whether the presence of a brother and
sister in a party of young people going to any place of evening
amusement throws a shield of respectability over the others of the
party. Society long ago frowned upon this mongrel kind of chaperonage;
but upon the principle that no young man would permit indiscretions or
improprieties in a party of which his sister made one, the ‘veterans’
have voted in favour of it. The young man with a sister is therefore to
enact the part of dragon on these occasions, and will be largely in
demand. Failing a convenient sister, he may get a cousin, perhaps, to
take her place.”
When it comes to the cousin, the reversion to Americanism, pure and
simple, will be complete.
The gentlemanliness and Gallantry of Americans have at all times been
acknowledged by observers of all nationalities; and it is indeed hardly
too much to say that the average American is disposed to treat the whole
female sex with a studied Gallantry, which in most European countries is
reserved by men for the one girl with whom they happen to be in love.
Even the irate and vituperative Anthony Trollope in his book on North
America was obliged to admit that “It must be borne in mind that in that
country material wellbeing and education are more extended than with us,
and that therefore men there have learned to be chivalrous who with us
have hardly progressed so far. The conduct of the men to the women
throughout the states is always gracious.... But it seems to me that the
women have not advanced as far as the men have done.... In America the
spirit of chivalry has sunk deeper among men than it has among women.”
Anthony Trollope is by no means the only writer who has put his finger
on the greatest foible of American women. No doubt they have, as a
class, been spoiled by excessive masculine Gallantry. They do not, like
the women of the Troubadour period, who were similarly spoilt, go quite
so far as to send their knights on crusades and among lepers, but they
often shroud themselves in an atmosphere of selfishness which is very
unfeminine—to choose a complimentary adjective.
In the East, where there is already a large excess of women over men,
this evil is less marked than in the West, where women are still in a
minority. Thus the Denver _Tribune_, in an article on “The Impoliteness
of Women,” remarks: “If there is any characteristic of Americans of
which they are more proud than any other, it is the courtesy which the
men who are natives of this country exhibit towards women, and the
respect which the gentler sex receives in public. This is a trait of the
American character of which Americans are justly proud, and in which
they doubtless excel the people of any other country. But while this is
true of the men, it is a matter to be deeply regretted that as much
cannot be said of the women of this country.” After praising American
women for their beauty, vivacity, high moral character, and other
charms, the _Tribune_ adds that they “seem very generally to be prompted
in their conduct in public by a spirit of selfishness which very often
finds expression in acts of positive rudeness.” They are ungrateful, it
continues, to the men who give up their seats in street-cars; they
compel men to step into a muddy street, instead of walking one behind
the other at a crossing; and at such places as the stamp-window of the
post-office they do not wait for their turn, but force the men to stand
aside.
Another Western paper, the Chicago _Tribune_, complains that in that
city there are 10,000 homes in which the daughters are ignorant of the
simplest kind of household duties. It adds “That they do not desire to
learn; that, having been brought up to do nothing except appear
gracefully in society, their object in life is to marry husbands who can
support them in idle luxury; that this state of things has substituted
for marriages founded on love and respect a market in which the men have
quoted money-values, and where a young man, however great his talents,
has no chance of winning a wife from the charmed circle.”
So that the pendulum has apparently swung to the other extreme. In
mediæval times the women were married for their money by the lazy,
selfish men; now the women are lazy and selfish, while the men toil and
are married for their money.
Yet there is much exaggeration in this view, which applies to only a
small portion of the American people. We are far from the times when
Miss Martineau complained of the feeble health of American women, and
attributed it to the vacuity of their minds. Their health is still, on
the average, inferior to that of English and German damsels, from whom
they could also learn useful lessons in domestic matters; but
intellectually the American woman has no equal in the world; while her
sweetness, grace, and proverbial beauty combine into an ensemble which
makes Cupid chuckle whenever he looks at a susceptible young man.
Goldsmith says somewhere that “the English love with violence, and
expect violent love in return.” Certainly this holds true no less of the
Americans. There are indeed several favourable circumstances which
combine to make Romantic Love more ardent and more prevalent in the
United States than in any other part of the world.
(1) The first is the intellectual culture of women just referred to,
which they owe partly to the leisure they enjoy, partly to the fact that
America has the best elementary schools in the world, so that their
minds are aroused early from their dormant state. As Bishop Spalding
remarks: “Woman here in the United States is more religious, more moral,
and more intelligent than man; more intelligent in the sense of greater
openness to ideas, greater flexibility of mind, and a wider acquaintance
with literature.” Now the whole argument of this book tends to show that
the capacity for feeling Romantic Love is dependent on intellectual
culture, and increases with it; hence we might infer that there is more
Love among the women of America than among those of any other country,
even if this were not so patent from the greater number of Love-matches
and various subtle signs known to international observers.
And as the sweetest pleasure and goad of Love lies in the conviction
that it is really returned, man’s Love is thus doubled in ardour through
woman’s responsive sympathy.
(2) That Courtship proper is longer than in England, and engagement
shorter, is a circumstance in favour of America. For nothing adds so
much to the ardour of Love as the uncertainty which prevails during
Courtship; whereas, after engagement, all these alternate hopes and
doubts, confidences and jealousies, are quieted, and the ship approaches
the still waters of the harbour of matrimony, which may be quite as deep
but are less sublime and romantic than mid-ocean, with its possibilities
of storm and shipwreck.
Moreover, the longer the time of tentative Courtship, the fewer are the
chances of a mistake being made in selecting a sympathetic spouse.
In Germany an engagement is so conclusive an affair that it is announced
in the papers, and cards are sent out as at a wedding. In America we
meet with the other extreme, for it is not very unusual for a couple to
be engaged some time before even the parents know it. Though there is
such a thing as breach of promise suits against fickle young men, such
engagements, if unsatisfactory to either side, are commonly broken off
amicably. And, as one of Mr. Howells’s characters remarks in _Indian
Summer_: “A broken engagement _may_ be a bad thing in some cases, but I
am inclined to think it is the very best thing that could happen in most
cases where it happens. The evil is done long before; the broken
engagement is merely sanative, and so far beneficent.”
Were engagements less readily dissolved, divorces would be more frequent
even than they are now.
(3) Parental dictation is almost unknown in America; nowhere else have
young men and women such absolute freedom to choose their own soul-mate.
Hence Individual Preference, on which the ardour of Love depends in the
highest degree, has full sway. The comparative absence of barriers of
rank and social grade also makes it easier for a man to find and claim
his real _Juliet_.
(4) This dependence of Love on Individualisation gives it another
advantage in America. For nowhere is there so great a mixture of
nationalities as here; and, _away from home_, a national peculiarity of
feature or manners has a sort of individualising effect. Till we get
used to such national peculiarities through their constant recurrence we
are apt to judge almost every woman in a new city attractive. From this
point of view Love may be defined as an instinctive longing to absorb
national traits, and blend them all in the one cosmopolitan type of
perfect Personal Beauty.
(5) There are beautiful women in all countries of the world, but no
country has so many pretty girls as America. Money and rank find it hard
to compete with such loveliness, hence Love has its own way. Here alone
is it possible to find heiresses who have failed to get married through
lack of Beauty. Personal Beauty is the great matchmaker in America; and
thus it comes that Beauty is ever inherited and multiplied. For Love is
the cause of Beauty as Beauty is the cause of Love.
One more characteristic of American Love remains to be noted—the most
unique of all. American women are of all women in the world the most
self-conscious, and have the keenest sense of humour. To these
quick-witted damsels the sentimental sublimities of amorous Hyperbole,
which may touch the heart of a naïve German or Italian girl, are apt to
appear dangerously near the ludicrous; hence an American lover, if he is
clever enough, deliberately covers the step which separates the sublime
from the ridiculous. He gilds the gold of his compliments by using the
form of playful exaggeration, which is the more easy to him because
exaggeration is a national form of American humour. Mr. Howells’s heroes
often make love in this fashion. The lover in _The Lady of the
Aroostook_ spices his flatteries with open burlesque, and succeeds
admirably with this new _Ars Amoris_; and Colville in _Indian Summer_
says to Imogene: “Come, I’ll go, of course, Imogene. A fancy-ball to
please you is a very different thing from a fancy-ball in the abstract.”
“Oh, what nice things you say! Do you know, I always admired your
compliments? I think they’re the most charming compliments in the
world.”
“I don’t think they’re half so pretty as yours; but they’re more
sincere.”
“No, honestly. They flatter, and at the same time they make fun of the
flattery a little; they make a person feel that you like them even while
you laugh at them.”
Perfect success in this form of flattery requires a talent for epigram.
Not many, unfortunately, even in America, are poets and wits at the same
time, like Mr. Howells; but there is an abundance of clever compliments
nevertheless, and they are apt to assume the form of playful
exaggeration.