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Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 988
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
The Art of Courtship
Clement Wood
HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
GIRARD, KANSAS
Copyright, 1926,
Haldeman-Julius Company.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS.
Page
1. Why One Must Woo 5
The Origin of Wooing 5
Reasons Against Wooing 8
Wooing by Women 12
What Wooing Consists of 13
2. Whom to Woo 15
Physical Mates 15
Mental Mates 19
Social Mates 20
Special Problems 22
3. How a Man Woos 25
Whom to Woo 25
Object and Method of Wooing 27
Problems of Wooing 32
The Proposal, and After 33
Courtship After Marriage 35
4. How a Woman Woos 37
Fancy Flirtations 37
Judging Men 39
“Nice” Girl or Human Being 43
5. Conduct During the Engagement 47
Conduct in Public 47
In Private 50
Termination of Engagements 53
6. Famous Courtships 57
Courting by Poetry 57
Great Lovers 59
THE ART OF COURTSHIP
WHY ONE MUST WOO
_The Origin of Wooing._--The normal man must woo the woman who attracts
him, because of an instinct planted deep in his nature, which had
its origin far down in the scale of life. The modern civilized woman
must woo, because this obligation has been laid upon her by man’s
rearrangement of society, dating from the savage hour when he ended the
era of woman-rule, the matriarchate, and took the leadership himself.
The first separate male appears at about the stage of the barnacle
in the scale of animal life. The female barnacle, a shellfish
attached permanently to a rock, pier, or the hull of a ship, gives
birth to from two to seven little male consorts, or husbands, whom
she keeps in little openings in her shell, like pockets. From among
these pocket-husbands she picks out the one she pleases to mate with
her; usually selecting the largest (for all are much smaller than
herself), and, where sizes are equal, the one that she feels drawn to
emotionally. From this emotion gradually emerges the esthetic sense,
or sense of the beautiful. Thus the first male did not have to do any
wooing: he was picked, like the apple that one day made Eden vanish
away.
As we rise higher in the scale of animal life, say among the spiders
and insects like the grotesquely horrible praying mantis, the male
has to woo: and a bloody and savage mate he must go after! The female,
still larger than her male, sits back and waits for the audacious mate
to approach. He feels one impelling biological purpose: to mate with
her, and make sure that offspring will come. Nature has implanted
this overpowering instinct in him. In the female, are two appetites;
a fainter desire to mate, and ordinary hunger. Her male must satisfy
both, in his wooing. As he approaches her, the Theda Bara among insects
grasps the male and eats, first his head, then a leg or two, and a part
of his body. When the edge has been taken off her appetite, she rests.
At this time what is left of the male completes the mating. When her
hunger returns again, the female finishes her devouring of the male.
The male bee, who outflies the other males in the lofty nuptial flight
of the queen bee, mates with her in thin high air far above the
earth; and dies at the moment of mating, his husk of a body falling,
like Lucifer out of heaven, to the earth far below. There are other
cases where mating spells death for the male: but Nature is kinder
in most matings, and the male survives. When we reach the birds and
the mammals, the wooing is a gorgeous thing. For the male bird or
beast, as a slow result of female selection based upon her esthetic or
beauty-loving sense, has developed into a far more gorgeous creature
than his mate. The bright glitter of the peacock, the gorgeous flame
of the male tanager and cardinal bird, the glow of gay tropical bird
males, the lion’s mane, the rooster’s comb and feather display, the
stag’s branching antlers, the humble billygoat’s beard, the man’s
beard, all have developed to stimulate the jaded eye of the female.
The mating songs, from the bird carols to the whooping crane’s strange
howls, with bill opened to the sky, neck stiff as a ramrod, and wings
pumping out the weird noises, and from the tomcat’s caterwauling to
the corner quartette’s strange agonies over “Sweet Adeline”--all have
developed to stimulate the bored ear of the female. At mating time,
the male is often a ridiculous sight, with his stiff formal dances and
prancings before the female, even among the animals. He must woo: that
is what he was made for. The female was not made primarily to woo: her
task is to live, and to transmit life to the generations after her. The
male, originally, was merely an incident in her life.
Thus the normal boy and young man came to the wooing period with a
tremendous inward urge, that gives them no release until they have
wooed and won. The female matures earlier in the human race; and girls
pass through a year or two of excessive curiosity and interest in
the male sex, when their boy friends of the same age are ordinarily
entirely cold to all female charms. The hidden hour comes when boy
alters to man. His voice changes and lowers, in that ridiculous
kaleidoscope of sound that is humorously called “the goslings.” A tiny
fuzz appears on male lips, cheeks, and chin: the young man is as proud
of the first hair of his incipient mustache as if he were entitled to
credit for it. His body alters, and the mating impulse sweeps over him.
No matter how much he has scoffed at mere girls before, they suddenly
fill the whole horizon. Just as the animals strut to attract attention,
so boys and young men during this transition and shortly afterwards
will do anything to gain the gaze of even a passing girl. They talk
in loud tones on the street, they jostle a passing girl, they cut up
absurd capers--all to gain the first look from a woman’s eyes. Then
this bubbling simmers down, and they set out on the long chase of the
female, which may occupy much of their lives thereafter.
If the boy or young man continues uninterested in girls, this is a bad
sign. It may be bashfulness: we will take up that symptom and its cure
later. It may indicate some inner twist, which makes him prefer his own
company, or that of members of his own sex, to female company. This is,
spiritually at least, a sort of perversion; it is a sterile attitude,
contrary to the wide purposes of nature. In normal cases, he can no
more avoid wooing than he can avoid feeling hungry and going after
food. For that is what he is on earth for, from a physical point of
view.
_Reasons Against Wooing._--Lord Bacon, that prosy old cynic whom
misguided persons have sought to identify as the author of the plays
attributed to Shakespeare, says in his Essays: “A wife and children are
impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.” There
is the smoke of truth here, but it points to a fire very different
from the one the sardonic old politician intended. Great enterprises
gain much of their impetus, from the male’s desire to stand well
in the female’s eyes. Another angle on the matter might be worded,
that the energy which is implanted in man for wooing purposes may be
deflected into enterprises, such as piratical and military careers,
adventure trips and explorations. But more often than not, the spur
that sends the man into building a house, or tilling a field, into
slicing mountains apart to wed great oceans, discovering a pole or a
hidden hinterland civilization, into achievement of any distinguished
kind, is the desire to gain merit in the eyes of some specific woman,
or of women in general. A great thinker has said that civilization is
a sublimation, or expression in another form, of the primitive love
desire. A man, because of his short height, or some physical diseases
or disability, is rebuffed in youth by a woman: to provide against a
repetition of the rebuff, he becomes a financial figure in Wall Street,
or a conqueror of the world; or, at least, he tries to achieve this.
Thus the spur of feminine approval is what goads the horse, man, to
enterprises of virtue and mischief.
Of course, wooing does not necessarily involve marriage, or the man’s
assumption of responsibility for the children. Many men remain closer
to the primitive, and are satisfied to enjoy the woman, often at great
cost to her, and thereafter to abandon her with what children she
may have as a result of the union. Such men lose the finer fruits of
mating, the long comradeship of a compatible woman that makes life a
complete enjoyment, rather than a fragmentary one. The fact that a man
has accepted a wife and children may tone down his spirit of adventure:
from absurd masculine displays, “playing to the galleries” of mankind,
his energy is altered to proper continuing courtship of his wife, and
the making of a home for her and the children. To that extent Bacon is
right: “great,” in the sense of flashy and foolhardy, enterprises “of
virtue or mischief” are replaced by ordinary sensible human living. But
there is no loss to the man, rather a gain.
Again, the fact of acquiring a wife and children, if the man is well
mated, acts as his chief spur to steady achievement in whatever is
his role in human life. The unmated man is a wild, reckless creature,
taking any kind of absurd risk, sinking a year’s earnings in one
night’s play at the gambling table, going on roaring drinking parties,
regarding women as his prey rather than as possible companions. The
well-mated man is a social unit, or a part of one, at least. The
wanderlust is drained away in the humbler yet loftier task of building
his own world toward his dreams, rather than skylarking over the world
in the vain hope that somewhere he will find the world of his dreams
already built for him.
There are dangers in mating, grave dangers: the divorce records of the
country indicate many of them. The chief one is where the man, at an
early age, contracts a marriage with a woman who is a fit mate for him
then, but lacks the capacity for growth along with him. This applies in
many cases where the man makes a success thereafter in any line. When
he was a ten-dollar-a-week man, he married a ten-dollar-a-week woman;
when he became a ten thousand dollar a year man, the woman remained
a ten-dollar-a-week woman, and became a distinct and draining load
upon his back, and a deterrent to his continued success and happiness.
Boswell, Johnson’s biographer, may have had this type in mind when he
wrote:
Whilst courting, and in honeymoon,
With Kate’s allurements smitten,
I loved her late, I loved her soon,
And called her dearest kitten.
But now my kitten’s grown a cat,
And cross, like other wives.
Alas! alas! my honest Matt,
I fear she has nine lives.
In “How to Love” (Little Blue Book No. 98), problems of this nature
were taken up and discussed: the only remedy being, where a marriage
becomes loveless, to terminate the marriage, for the benefit of
the man, the woman, and the children concerned. From the woman’s
standpoint, the chief danger in mating is that she will get a man
lacking her sensitiveness, and unable to grow into an appreciation
of it. She finds herself mated for life to a cruder, coarser, and
incompatible male; and, when love dies, and cruelty and infidelity take
its place, only the remedy indicated above will serve. There are all
these dangers: but they call rather for a wiser courtship, than for an
abolition of wooing and mating.
Lastly, a man or woman is incomplete without courtship and mating.
Those who say that a man or woman can become a perfected, rounded human
being without human love, are deceivers, spreading a mental poison. The
man or woman who goes too long without the practice of love contracts a
case of ingrowing love, as painful and morbid as an ingrowing toenail.
All the immense love energy stagnates and fouls into a diseased nature,
hateful, spiteful, gossipy, perverted and warped from real humanness.
There can be no ultimate reason against mating. The task is to woo well
and mate wisely.
_Wooing by Women._--Today, contrary to the custom in the sub-human
world and among the earliest savage men, woman must woo as well as
man. The reason lies in man’s alteration of the standards of society.
The female animal is not as competent as her mate in the hunt and the
kill, and in coping with life. Men have rendered women incompetent by
thousands of years of hothouse sheltering and by servile toil for many
more. The woman today realizes,--we speak of the less intelligent woman
now--that her task in life is to obtain a husband, as a permanent meal
ticket, and as provider of home, clothing, and all the rest of the
tremendous trifles of civilization. Such a mistaught girl goes after a
man as a fisherman goes after a brook trout, and more frequently than
is good for the man lands the poor fish, and has him hooked thoroughly
thereafter. Such a woman has been taught that marriage should be based,
not upon love, but upon a man’s ability to care financially for the
woman. Life’s highest crown is a satisfying human love. This she has
not aimed for, and this she does not get. When she aims low, she scores
low: and, if the man is wise, he will dump her and leave her high and
dry, when it is too late for her to go after the finer goal.
But even the wise woman today realizes that the whole social
arrangement of mating between the sexes is overcast with absurd taboos
and restrictions; and that, if she is to mate happily, she must regain
part of woman’s lost privilege of choice. There is nothing “unladylike”
in her doing the choosing, in her unostentatious wooing, and, if
necessary, in her proposing marriage herself. We will take up woman as
a wooer later.
_What Wooing Consists Of._--From the standpoint of either sex, wooing
superficially consists of only one thing: conquest of the woman or man
pursued, the gaining of the ultimate favor, if the woman be pursued,
with or without marriage, and the gaining of marriage, if the man
is the pursued. If wooing is regarded in this light, it is possible
that the pursuit is always limited, if not erroneous. For the matter
of conquest is not the ultimate one in wooing and mating. The proper
purpose of wooing is to choose and win the right mate.
The matter of choosing brings up the second and far more important
element of wooing, which might be described as education in the
opposite sex. Society today makes no adequate provision for practical
laboratory education in the characteristics of the opposite sex: a
wiser civilization will supply ample facilities for this indispensable
part of human education. The man comes to adolescence without any
knowledge of woman, beyond his slight information concerning his mother
and his sisters, if he has any, and casual contacts with other girls
and women. The girl comes to adolescence as ill-informed. Yet soon
thereafter man and girl are called upon to enter, without preliminary
training, the game or gamble of securing a life mate, who will lift
them up or drag them down thereafter, in all of their efforts. Socially
this is a crime. The only thing that can partially supply the lack of
information, today, is the wooing period. For, after marriage, it is
difficult to end the relationship; and, before marriage, if the parties
learn they are ill-suited, intelligent men and women still have a
dignified chance to break off the unwise mating before it solidifies
into the chains of marriage. Keep in mind, then, that the wooing period
is primarily a time for learning about the other sex, and its traits
and eccentricities. The young man or woman in love should study the
subject, from books and from living teachers, as amply as possible: and
should observe other men and women, unmarried and married, with eyes
as clear as he or she can make them. If the wooing is regarded as an
education in love, and especially in the person wooed, its value will
be doubled.
II
WHOM TO WOO
_Physical Mates._--The lowest form of mating is that on the exclusively
physical plane. Yet this is perhaps the most important aspect of all.
If lovers are not physically pleasing and satisfactory to each other,
all the financial and other inducements are worthless.
The first problem concerns the respective ages of the parties. Should
they be of the same ages? If not, which should be older? On this point,
Shakespeare says:
Let still the woman take
An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
So sways she level in her husband’s heart.
For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and inform,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,
Than woman’s are.
The woman matures earlier; so the younger woman is the normal
equivalent, especially physically, of the man a few years older.
This is all right for the time of the mating: but thereafter the man
overcomes the woman’s lead, and soon surpasses her; and when, at her
change of life, she has largely finished her physical function of
love-making, the man is still equipped as a wooer and lover. On the
other side of the same question, the same poet wrote:
Crabbed Age and Youth
Cannot live together:
Youth is full or pleasance,
Age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather,
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare:
Youth is full of sport,
Age’s breath is short,
Youth is nimble, Age is lame;
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold,
Youth is wild, and Age is tame:--
Age, I do abhor thee,
Youth, I do adore thee;
O! my Love, my Love is young!
Age, I do defy thee--
O sweet shepherd, hie thee,
For methinks thou stay’st too long.
This is worth quoting in full to drive home, in the concentrated
phrasing of a master, the extreme differences between youth and age.
When an elderly well-to-do man marries a young and lovely girl, as
often happens, this may apply; and when a young man marries a woman old
enough to be his mother, this may also apply.
And yet, each one’s problems of the choice of a mate is an individual
problem: no general rules may be laid down. The man’s first vague
ideal of the woman he wishes to love is made to imitate largely, in
normal cases, his mother; the girl’s, her father. If this first ideal
impression persists with great strength thereafter, youth will be
happy only with age. If, in the more normal case, youth desires youth
finally, then the invaluable courtship period should have taught this
lesson: the young man or woman turns from the intended older mate,
and the evil is corrected before it is too late. The person fully
experienced in love will have experimented in courtship with people of
various ages, to find where the ideal lies. Too much experimentation,
of course, rubs off something of the bloom, but if enlightenment
follows this rubbing off of the bloom, the thing is worthwhile.
As to dispositions, again no general rule can be laid down. Biological
science says those are most happily mated whose dispositions are
opposite. Similarly, biological science says that blonde should
mate with brunette, and tall with short: it making no difference to
science whether the man is the tall or short one, or the woman the
short or tall one. Biological science is true in generalities, and
does not pretend to solve individual cases and preferences. The only
recommendation is, try the one you are first attracted to; and, if
the period of courtship indicates a mistake has been made, and that
incompatibility comes from opposite temperaments, or from the same
temperaments, try elsewhere.
When should one woo and marry? Are early or late marriages advisable?
Here society’s present financial arrangement comes in. Unless the
man or woman is wealthy already--and few are--the man cannot afford
to support a wife, in professional or white-collared business life,
until he is from 25 to 30. Marriage on a very small income may work
out successfully; in the majority of cases, it does not. The girl who
marries at eighteen has hardly had time to know her own mind yet:
there are arguments for waiting until she is 22 to 25, or even older.
If the man or woman matures slowly, this is reason for later mating.
The danger in late matings is that the man and woman have grown more
fixed and rigid in minor matters: more crotchety, more old-maidish or
old-mannish. The young are more adaptable. All of these things must be
weighed. In general, courtship should begin soon after adolescence, and
the mating should be entered upon as soon as the young man and young
woman feel that they are completely unhappy unless living together.
Health is an important matter. Some states require a health certificate
from both man and woman; and this is a wise precaution. The man or
woman venereally infected should not be permitted to marry, until
medical science gives a clean bill of health. If a man marries a sickly
and ailing woman, who will become an invalid, he is bound down to an
excessive and unpleasing load for life. On the other hand, marriage may
end the woman’s invalidism, which may have been assumed subconsciously
as a protection against being overworked at home, or which may be a
case of physical warping caused by non-expression of the love energy.
If the woman marries an invalid man, unless she wishes to support him
for life, more unhappiness will follow. Samuel Butler, in _Erewhon_,
calls disease a crime; and crime, a mere disease, to be cured by
doctors. For ill health, punishment should follow. This attitude,
revolutionary in a high degree, is in the main sound. Except in rare
cases, only the physically sound should mate. During the courtship,
this should be gone into carefully.
From the physical standpoint, a man should woo that woman or those
women who attract him physically. The wooing period will indicate
whether any one woman is congenial and increasingly desirable. No
one but a congenial woman who is increasingly desirable should be
permanently mated with. The girl should be guided by the same principle
of choice.
_Mental Mates._--The former conception was that the man was supposed
to be the intellectual one, by training, and by contact with the
broadening influences of his work, and of the world of men; and
that the woman should be an intellectual weakling, tending toward
imbecility. In the Oriental world, with its harems and harem favorites,
this is at times the situation achieved. Such a method deprives love
and mating of its chief glory: the intellectual companionship of
congenial spirits.
Woman is no longer forbidden an education. Elementary education is
generally hers, required by law; she may have a college training, or
its equivalent; and, in general, in life thereafter, if left with time
on her hands at home, she is more literate, in the world of books and
ideas, than the man; although she may have had less personal contact
with large groups of minds, such as a man encounters in his business
and social connections. The balance, for the ideal mating, should swing
closer. A woman is the gainer by practical experience at working, so
that she may realize from the standpoint of the earner the value of a
dollar, and not measure it merely from the standpoint of the spender.
A man once locked his business cares up when he left the office, and
never brought them home; or, if he brought them home, brought them
merely as complaints, unintelligible to his wife. The ideal mating
is where the man and woman are equally interested and intelligent
in the business welfare, and are, in effect, partners, as they must
be in results. This state can rarely be entirely reached. But if,
during the courtship, the girl turns out to be a chatter-tongued and
scatter-brained little fool, this is a danger signal to the man, to
get out while the getting is good. The girl who raves over the movies,
dances like a feather, and thinks like one, is not likely to be a fit
mate or mother to the man’s children. The man who turns out to be
merely a would-be sheik, with no ideas above professional baseball or
spending all he has made in a week in one night, is hardly to be chosen
as a permanent mate. Unless such a pair woo and win each other: which
makes two other people happy, who might have won these lemons and been
unhappy thereafter. Courtship is the great testing time, to see whether
the two concerned are congenial mentally, and whether they apparently
have similar capacities of mental growth.
_Social Mates._--Should a girl marry only a man well able to support
her? Should a man marry only a girl who is well off financially? These
questions would be absurd, if current standards of society did not let
them largely dictate many of the most unhappy marriages among us. One
should marry for love, primarily and almost entirely. The purpose of
mating is to increase one’s happiness: love cannot be bought, and the
thing called bought love cannot increase happiness. Love in poverty
has a harder row to hoe than love in comparative opulence: but love
in poverty is immeasurably better than sham love in opulence, which
grows soon enough to hatred in opulence. Let physical attractiveness,
plus mental congeniality, be the touchstones during the wooing period.
The money will somehow come to those who are not utterly spiritual
weaklings, and who present a loving and united front to the world. They
may never be well off: but they will win more of the goal of mating and
life, which is happiness, than well-to-do haters of their mates.
The matter of social position is similar. The chance of happiness in
marriage today is not great when all advantages are in favor of the
mating parties. When to this is added a distinct difference in social
standing, this makes the problem harder of solution. Let this fact,
when ascertained, put you on your guard. But, at the same time, it is
only one fact among many to be weighed; and, if the physical and mental
attractions are strong enough, they should overweigh any inequality in
rearing and background.
Of all errors achieved in mating, perhaps marrying to reform a man is
the worst. If a man cannot overcome his pet vices during the courting
period, when he is free to fight the battle out within himself, it
is almost a sure bet he will not alter after marriage. Even if he
temporarily ends the faults or vices during the courting, he may slump
later. Reforming a man (or a girl either) is a tremendous gamble. If
you choose to gamble with your life, and enjoy the risk, that is an
excellent reason for going ahead with it. But the more normal human
beings will leave reformation to the person concerned, and marry for
other and sounder reasons.
_Special Problems._--Should a man be married who has sowed his wild
oats? Or should a girl insist upon the man’s coming to the mating pure?
Should a girl be married who has sowed her wild oats? Or should a man
insist upon her coming to the mating pure?
The average answer is that the man is the gainer by the sowing of
wild oats; and that the girl is ruined by the practice. Needless to
say, this angle of judgment is all wrong. If the sowing of wild oats
consists in mere amorous experience with other women, or in this
coupled with drinking, even to the point of moderate drunkenness, and
gambling on a scale not too large, the man is not injured for marriage
by these. Nor is the girl injured in the slightest. The object of
life is to achieve happiness. The chief method of gaining this is by
experiencing the world. Love experience is no more harmful (unless
pregnancy results) than experience in sampling different food menus.
If disease has come, that is a matter for the doctors to pass upon,
and the discussion of health above covers it. If the girl has had an
illegitimate child, society’s ban is so strong that the case is altered
somewhat. This is a factor to be weighed by both parties: it does not
of necessity make the girl any the less fit as a mate, than the man
would be if he had had an illegitimate child by another woman.
In general, the man is better off for having sowed some wild oats
before marriage: he is less liable to plow a field of post-marital wild
oats. The same is true, although in a slightly less degree, of the
girl. The only difference is caused by the weight of social standards
upon the two sexes today.
Should a bashful man or woman woo or be wooed? Bashfulness is in no
wise discreditable; it is in general a nervous trait which may be
remedied. It comes in general from a want of self-confidence. In
general, the bashful continue plugging away in humble self-effacement;
and, at times, suddenly burst forth with an achievement far ahead of
that of the brassiest individual, self-confident from birth. The cure
for bashfulness is contact with crowds, which brings sooner or later
the realization that you are not inferior in the slightest to the run
of humanity, and are superior to many of your associates. Something of
the Coué method--repeating to yourself, without intentional compulsion,
“I am important, I believe in myself,” might help. Luckily for the
bashful, they ordinarily attract the opposite temperament. If the
husband of the bashful woman does not make fun of her peculiarity, but
sympathetically brings her out, and if the wife of the bashful man does
the same, the effort becomes more than twice as successful. In general,
the bashful make mates as satisfactory, or more satisfactory, than the
self-confident.
Is love at first sight a possibility? Of course, and a frequent one.
The normal man falls in love, at first sight, with every attractive
woman he sees. If this is an error, take it as a confession. Many a
woman falls in love at first sight with a man who satisfies her ideal,
hitherto unrealized. If both feel the emotion simultaneously, we have
the perfect case. The subsequent wooing will indicate whether this is
enduring love, or an illusion.
Should a man or woman woo several persons at once? In general,
especially in the earlier stages of the wooing, this is an advantage.
If you wish to buy a jewel, you are wise if you examine several, before
making your final choice. The same applies to wooing for a mate. We say
at once, because successive wooing permits choice really only of some
subsequent love object; whereas the first may be, after all, the most
suited. Wooing should be done in honesty; so the element of deception
of the parties concerned should not ordinarily be used. This is not
because it is ethically wrong, but because, if found out, unpleasant
consequences may ensue. But, in general, the wider the choice, the more
satisfactory the mating that follows. People who marry the first woman
or man they are infatuated with are seldom well mated. Since trial
wooings are socially accepted, they should be taken advantage of.
We can now proceed to the technique of wooing.
III
HOW A MAN WOOS
_Whom to Woo._--The first thing to emphasize is that you are wooing
the girl, and not her father, her mother, her aunts, or her family in
general. Since the objects of the wooing are (1) to learn whether the
girl is congenial, and (2) to persuade her that you are congenial, and
should be accepted, you will find that the second object is achieved
best by making yourself attractive to her. In cases where she cares
for the opinion of her mother, or father, or family, it is the part of
wisdom to court, within reason, the family as well. But the main thing
is to woo the girl.
The girl must be willing to be wooed, sooner or later, or you had best
cease your efforts. In normal cases, she will not object from the
start. If she objects, because she is interested in someone else, or
thinks she does not care to be made love to or to marry, or because
she thinks there is some personal reason why you are distasteful,
your first task is to continue courteously in your suit, until you
test out whether or not you can remove this preliminary bar. If she
is interested in some one else, this becomes the old conflict between
males for the female’s favor: and you will use the methods indicated
hereafter. If she professes to be entirely uninterested in love and
mating, unless she is abnormal fundamentally this is easy to overcome.
Lay aside your obvious wooing, interest yourself in whatever she is
interested in, and qualify as a friend and companion in her own
interests. She will soon, if she is normal, recognize the great value
of your companionship, and from this love should speedily grow.
If the objection is that she finds some trait in the man that is
distasteful to her, this dislike must be overcome. Perhaps the
objection is to some mannerism of the man’s, some error of speech, or
some habit which may be altered by him. In such cases, if he desires to
win the girl’s favor, he must either change the trait, or convince her
that she does not really object to it. Of course, her very objection
may be an education to the young man, both as to her nature, and as to
how others look upon his actions. If, for objection, she objects to his
friendship with a certain man, or to his going to baseball games, he
may, after studying out the matter, decide that the girl is too narrow
in her ideas to be his desired mate. He should, of course, first try
to educate her attitude toward an acceptance of his trait; but, if he
fails, the world is full of girls, and he may find much more happiness
elsewhere. Suppose her objection is to some error of speech that the
man constantly commits. In this case, his task is to correct it, not
only to please the girl, but because her objection has given him an
insight into how other people regard the mistake which he may have
always heard made and made himself, without exciting comment.
Six months ago, a girl whom I know met a young man, of good family,
fairly well-to-do, fairly educated (a couple of college degrees, I
think), and a man who had traveled rather extensively in Europe and
South America. He played a good hand of bridge, was interested in the
same artistic things that the girl was, and was smitten with her from
the first. After playing around with him for a couple of months, she
refused to see him thereafter, except in a large party; and absolutely
refused to let him court her further. The reason can be gathered
from this typical specimen of his conversation. “I was at the club,
see? A lot of the fellows were there, see? And we decided to shoot a
little bridge, see? On the very first hand, see? I had four honors in
diamonds, and I bid two diamonds, see?” Tactfully the girl had pointed
out that the constantly reiterated “see” just was not done by literate
people. The man could not or would not change it: and yet that small
irksome trait was what cost him the girl he wanted.
In more usual cases, however, the girl is willing to be wooed from the
start. Then your task is easier.
_Object and Methods of Wooing._--The object of wooing, in addition to
its value as education in the opposite sex, is to win the regard of the
other person, if you continue to desire her, and to win her consent
to the mating. What is the practical method of doing this? The easy
and only wholly satisfactory way is to make yourself attractive to the
girl, so that you become indispensable to her happiness, her enjoyment
of any experience, and her contented living.
Let it be repeated, that the man must stand high in the girl’s eyes,
to give the mating a chance for success. If the girl takes a man as
a last chance, because she fears she can get no other suitor, the
chance for happiness is lessened: if at any time later she meets a more
attractive man who persuades her that he would have proposed, if she
had waited, regret and dissatisfaction may set in, and the whole love
and marriage relationship may be curdled. When a man singles out a girl
for his attention, he cannot avoid transplanting the situation back
to the old savage days, when the male preened and strutted before the
female, anxious for her approval. What are some of the obvious ways to
win her approval, which at times are neglected so disastrously that the
man’s chances end at once?
Notice the man’s difficult task: to look at himself with the girl’s
eyes, and furnish her with an increasingly attractive picture of
himself. Some genius uttered the brilliant half truth that love is
blind. Luckily for all of us, this is largely true. But a girl’s
parents and relatives, friends, and rival suitors, will obligingly
lend their eyes as glasses to her: and the man may expect to find what
faults he has magnified almost out of recognition. What, then, from the
girls’ standpoint, will she look for in the man?
First of all, girls are by nature neater than men. Girls will allow
much latitude to a man for carelessness in attire. But the man who
neglects such simple toilet matters as the care of his nails, and
presents himself with a black rim under them; who lets his shirts
and collars remain in service till they are sooty; whose shoes are
unnecessarily unpolished, on occasions when she may expect to be
judged by other eyes from the standpoint of her escort,--such a
neglectful man may as well know that any one of these things may damn
him more in the eyes of the girl than if he had committed murder.
Secondly, a girl will judge the man by how she thinks he will look
in the eyes of her friends and associates. If the man is slightly
ungrammatical, and so are she and her friends, this makes no
difference. But, if she has more booklearning than he, and if her
friends are critical in this regard, and regard themselves as at
all highbrowish, the man must make it his job to grow up to her
literate standards. “I don’t like that there show,” “them sort of
pictures,” “moving pitchers,” “I ought to of went,” and all the rest
of the verbal atrocities that the ungrammatical blunder into, must be
corrected. Winning and keeping a girl’s regard must be regarded as
seriously as getting ahead in business. Wooing thus includes a course
in self-improvement, along every line. It will do no harm to obtain a
book of handy helps in grammar, in etiquette, and the like. Don’t eat
peas with your knife, or wear a red tie with a dinner jacket: unless
the girl prefers it. In that case, the advice is the reverse: study
the proper mistakes to make. Later on, you can gradually lead the girl
toward improving herself. Make yourself attractive in every way in the
eyes of the girl, and of the relatives or friends on whose judgment she
relies.
The moral qualities go along with this. The normal girl will prefer a
man who stands well in men’s eyes: that is, who has the reputation of
a he-man, equipped with at least an average amount of human courage. As
a matter of fact, if the last sentence were truer, it would be better
for girls. A large number of them, unfortunately, prefer instead the
man whom women like, and men dislike: the parlor lizard type, the
afternoon tea snake specimen, the namby-pamby woman-pleaser who never
makes a success of anything in life except wooing women. There is a
thrill, beyond doubt, in being wooed and kissed by such a man: there is
much unhappiness in a continuing relationship with him.
Having made yourself attractive, the next thing is to make yourself
important and indispensable in the girl’s eyes. If the girl is
sensible, a display of sensible ideas on matters of life will aid; if
she is frivolous minded, a display of a frivolous, spendthrift nature
is more shrewd. Do the things she expects of you: date her up as often
as she desires--it may take all of your shrewdness to ascertain the
fact, too. Take her, not essentially where you want to, but where she
wants to go. If you adore boxing matches, and she prefers Coney Island
and art museums, postpone the boxing matches and take in the others. If
you like good music, and she cares only for the movies and baseball,
first make up your mind whether you want to continue to woo her; and,
if you do, especially at first, take her where she wants to go, and
only slowly and tactfully sprinkle in with the cinema thrills and the
paid athletics a small dose of Brahms and Beethoven. Do what she
expects of you: and always do a little more. That is, do the unexpected
thoughtful little things. Find out her favorite foods, chewing gums,
cigarettes, people, amusements; and go out of your way to provide
her with these. If you like chewy chocolates, and she detests candy
and adores pickles, do not provide her with an elegant two pound box
of chewy chocolates. Don’t be like the married man who presents his
timid old-fashioned wife with a box of cigars for Christmas, and then
smokes them himself. Be more courteous and thoughtful to her in public
that she has a right to expect. This advice is sound, unless the girl
is of the rare clinging vine type who wants a man to bang her around
in alleged he-man style. If that is what she wants, give her all the
banging she can stand. Make your motto, “We Strive to Please”--and do
more than strive.
You will want, and she will expect, some physical love from the start.
Among different strata of society, customs as to kissing and caressing
differ. Never give the girl less than she expects. After you have found
out that she likes to be kissed, you will disappoint her permanently
if you give her the sort of kiss you would give dear old Aunt Tabbie,
aged ninety-eight in the shade. Yet remember to think of her wishes
primarily: don’t give her the sort of kisses you want first, but the
kind that she wants. Your artistry will come in subtly leading her to
want things that you want. And, once a woman is generally satisfied
with a wooer, and wants his approval, she moves swiftly to the place
where she wants to please her lover in every way. Then the desires
coincide: and the man can read his own wishes, and know them for the
girl’s as well.
_Problems of Wooing._--The man should find out what he wants from the
girl--whether a mere flirtation, a temporary mating, or a permanent
one--and adapt his technique to gaining his goal. For instance, in the
question of letters. He should do his best to satisfy a girl’s craving
for love letters, if separations occur. In all probability, he cannot
satisfy her desires here: what she really wants is his presence, and
a thousand-page letter does not give the thrill of that. Ordinarily
it is not the best tactics to spill over endlessly in a love letter:
a chatty, companionable letter, with artistically worded love phrases
that hint a vast withheld reservoir of love, is better as a rule than
pages of sugary sentimentality. Except at the very first, when all
rules of sanity are laid aside. And yet, recall that, if you desire
subsequently to retire from the courtship, love letters may be very
embarrassing. Try to phrase your letters so that they mean everything
to the girl, and nothing to the outside world, which may have the
pleasure of reading them in newspaper columns featuring a breach of
promise case. It is well to keep this possibility in mind from the
start. Don’t store up trouble for yourself in this fashion. Be cryptic
and allusive, leaving more than half for the girl to read between the
lines. It may save you trouble in the long run.
As for wooing and proposing by proxy, even the most bashful person had
just as well learn that it is suicidal. The proxy brings a message
to the girl that should come from the beloved man: insensibly her
emotion goes out to the bearer of the message. Captain Miles Standish
sent John Alden to woo Priscilla for him, and the maiden wisely said,
“Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?” King Edgar’s trusted courier
wrote the king that the maiden he desired to wed was ugly and wholly
unattractive, and then proceeded to marry her himself for her beauty,
for which the king later lopped off the man’s head. Wooing by proxy is
much worse than not wooing at all.
As for quarrels, the more experienced wooer will have few or none of
them. Beginners in love will insensibly drift into them. Now quarrels
have no place in most real loves: they are a sign of some concealed
dislike or aversion, which may take a more virulent and costly form
after the wooing has been made irrevocable, or comparatively so, by
marriage. If the quarrel can be easily patched up, well and good; but
if quarrels constantly come, it is a bad omen. The only exception is
where both man and girl enjoy a quarrel more than peace, and mate in
order to have a mate to quarrel with for life. This is abnormal; and,
if you are a normal man or girl, understand that quarrels, especially
if they are usually over trifles, are a good warning to break off the
courtship and look elsewhere.
_The Proposal, and After._--No sensible girl today wants the man to
propose to her father, or her parents, before he proposes to her. After
all, he is not marrying the father, or the parents; he is marrying the
girl. The father or parents are consulted after the plans are made, for
ratification and aid: the goal is the mutual consent of the lovers.
Again, customs as to the seriousness with which proposals are regarded
differ strikingly in certain localities and at certain seasons. In the
South, from which I came, a girl is proposed to almost as easily as she
is asked for a dance; she becomes engaged as casually as she accepts a
drink of water, and breaks it off whenever the mood strikes her. During
college days and the girl’s early debutante days, she may be “engaged”
to several or half a dozen men at a time. In the North, the custom
is ordinarily different. Again, there are seasonal variations: young
couples who meet at a summering place may become engaged for their
mutual pleasure during the summer, with no intention of ever seeing
each other when they return to their regular homes in the autumn. All
of these things must be taken into account.
Don’t study a book of etiquette as to how to propose. The more stilted
and formal a proposal is, the easier it is for the girl to laugh at the
ridiculousness of the situation. Real lovers know, without the words
having been said, that their equivalent in deeds has been achieved.
Even a slang proposal, “Well, honey, shall we hit it off together?”
may be far more effective than “May I have the honor of making you
my wife?” Be natural in this, unless you have ascertained that the
girl desires the frills. In that case, give her what she desires. The
acceptance may be given with a kiss, or with mere words. More usually,
the girl will ask for time to consider the matter. If she means yes by
this, proceed to make that clear to her. If not, keep after her until
you win the acceptance, or her friendly refusal.
It is not hard to read from a girl’s refusal whether she means a real
objection, or merely a delay. If you really desire her, she will be
flattered by your continuing to woo her, and to make yourself more and
more attractive in her eyes. In any case, if she is worthy at all, she
will word her rejection so as never to wound the man unnecessarily. If
the parties are suitable as mates, a rejection alters soon enough to an
acceptance.
_Courtship After Marriage._--_How to Love_ (Little Blue Book No. 98)
takes up the problem of how to act after the mate has been won. It
may be briefly summarized here thus: the real lover, man or woman,
continues the courtship as long as the mating lasts. All that has been
said about making oneself attractive in the eyes of the other, applies
with especial force to this wooing after marriage. Do your best to make
a success of the mating; if your efforts fail, and a separation or
divorce is necessary, you can never reproach yourself afterwards with
the accusation that you did not try your best.
As for courtship of other women after marriage, or a woman’s courtship
of other men after marriage, both of these are known; and, in our
present organization of society, are natural. The man who is by nature
promiscuous, or the woman who has the same nature, for his or her
happiness will be as faithful as possible. If love comes toward another
woman or man, the lover will come to it with more artistry and more
experience than in the earlier attempts; and the technique of wooing
should be correspondingly improved.
IV
HOW A WOMAN WOOS
_Fancy Flirtations._--Most textbooks on wooing and courtship devote
their space allotted to woman’s wooing to such absurd devices as
flirtation by parasol, fan, glove, handkerchief, dining table signals,
window flirtation, and flower flirtation. The number of people who read
such silly books is limited; the number among these who remember what
they have read is far smaller; and perhaps no men are included in the
latter number. Thus no man will understand what your signals mean. A
few of the choice instructions given are as follows:
_Parasol Flirtations_
Carrying it elevated in left hand--Desiring acquaintance.