There is another way, and it has many doors. It is religion. Many of
these women “take to religion” as they take to the suffrage movement,
and find the same emotional excitement and adventure in it. They are
caught up in it as by a burning flame. It satisfies something of their
yearnings and desires. And it is a curious and lamentable thing that
although it has been proved conclusively by all masters of philosophy
and by all great thinkers, that some form of religion, is an essential
need in the heart of women, the whole tendency of the time is to rob
them of this spiritual guidance and comfort. Religion is not a part of
the social scheme of things in “intellectual mansions” and in the small
suburban houses of the professional classes. It is not entirely wiped
off the slate, but it is regarded with indifference and as of no vital
account in the sum of daily life. Occasionally a certain homage is paid
to it, as to a pleasant, old-fashioned ritual which belongs to the code
of “good form.” In their courting days the young man and woman went to
church now and then on a Sunday morning or a Sunday evening and held
the same hymn-book, and enjoyed a little spiritual sentiment. They
were married in church to the music of the Wedding March played by the
organist. Sometimes as the years pass they drop into a service
where there is good singing, a popular preacher, and a fashionable
congregation. They regard themselves as Christians, and condescend to
acknowledge the existence of God, in a vague, tolerant kind of way. But
they do not enter into any intimate relations with God. He is not down
on their visiting list. Many of them do not even go as far as those
people I have described who regard God as part of the social code of
“good form.” They become frankly agnostic and smile at their neighbors
who put on top-hats and silk dresses and stroll to church on a Sunday
morning. It seems to them absurdly “Early Victorian.” For they have read
a great number of little books by the latest writers, who publish their
philosophy in sevenpenny editions, and they have reached an intellectual
position when they have a smattering of knowledge on the subject of
evolution, anthropology, the origins of religion, literature and dogma,
and the higher criticism. They have also read extracts from the works of
Nietzsche, Kant, and the great free-thinkers, or reviews of their works
in the halfpenny newspapers. The ideas of the great thinkers and
great rebels have filtered down to them through the writings of little
thinkers and little rebels. They have been amused by the audacities of
Bernard Shaw and other intellectuals of their own age. They have read
the novels of H. G. Wells, which seem to put God in His right place.
They have imbibed unconsciously the atmosphere of free-thought and
religious indifference which comes through the open windows, through the
keyholes, through every nook and cranny. Occasionally the husband lays
down the law on the subject with dogmatic agnosticism, or dismisses the
whole business of religion with a laugh as a matter of no importance
either way, certainly as a problem not worth bothering about.
So the wife’s spiritual nature is starved. She is not even conscious of
it, except just now and then when she is aware of a kind of spiritual
hunger, or when she has little thoughts of terror at the idea of death,
or when she is in low spirits. She has no firm and certain faith to
which she can cling in moments of perplexity. She has no belief in any
divine authority from which she can seek guidance for her actions.
There is no supernatural influence about her from which she can draw any
sweetness of consolation, when the drudgery and monotony of life begins
to pall on her. When temptations come she has no anchor holding her fast
to duty and honor. She has no tremendous ideals giving a large meaning
to the little things of life. She has no spiritual vision to explain the
mysteries of her own heart, or any spiritual balm to ease its pain
and restlessness. She must rely always on her common sense, on her own
experience, on her own poor little principles of what is right or wrong,
or expedient, or “the proper thing.” When those fail her, all fails; she
is helpless, like a ship without a rudder, like a straw in the eddy of a
mill race.
It is just at this time, when all has failed her, and when she seems to
be drifting helplessly, that she is ready for religion, a bundle of dry
straw which will burst into flame at the touch of a spark, a spiritual
appetite hungry for food. In hundreds of cases these women take to the
queerest kinds of spiritual food, some of it very poisonous stuff. Any
impostor with a new creed may get hold of them. Any false prophet may
dupe them into allegiance. They get into the hands of peculiar people.
They are tempted to go to a spiritualistic séance and listen to the
jargon of spiritualism. It frightens them at first, but after their
first fears, and a little shrinking horror, they go forward into these
“mysteries,” and are obsessed by them. It appears they are “psychical.”
Undoubtedly after a little practice they could get into touch with the
spirit-world. With planchette and table-rapping, and with mediumistic
guidance, they may learn the secrets of the ghost-world, and invoke the
aid of spirits in their little household. It becomes a mania with them.
It becomes, in many cases, sheer madness.
There are other women who seek their spiritual salvation among the
clairvoyants and crystal-gazers and palmists of the West End.
They become devotees of the Black Art, and dupes of those who prey
upon the Eternal Gullible. There are others who join the Christian
Scientists, and find the key to the riddle of life in the writings
of Mrs. Eddy. They experiment in will-power--upon their unfortunate
husbands. They adopt the simple life, and bring themselves into a low
state of health by fruit diet. They learn a new language full of strange
technical terms, which they but dimly understand, yet find comforting,
like the old woman and her Mesopotamia, which was a blessèd word to
her. But in spite of all its falsity and folly, it does give them a
new interest in life, and lift them right out of the ruck of suburban
dulness. So far at least it is helpful to them. It is some kind of
spiritual satisfaction, though afterwards, perhaps, they may fall into a
spiritual excitement and hysteria worse than their old restlessness, and
become a nuisance to their family and friends, women with _idées fixes_.
It is better for them if they can grope their way back to the old
Christian faith, with its sweetness and serenity and divine ideals. Here
at last the woman may find authority, not to be argued about, not to be
dodged, but to be obeyed. Here at last she may find tremendous ideals
giving a significance to the little things of life, which seemed so
trivial, so futile, and so purposeless. Here is wholesome food for her
spiritual hunger, giving her new strength and courage, patience and
resignation. Here are great moral lessons from which she may draw wisdom
and guidance for her own poor perplexities. Then when temptations come,
she may cling to an anchor of faith which will not slip in shifting
sands, but is chained to a great rock. The wisdom of the Church, the
accumulated experience stored up in the Church, the sweetness of all
great Christian lives, the splendid serenity of the Christian laws, so
stern and yet so tolerant, so hard and yet so easy, give to this woman’s
soul the peace she has desired, not to be found among the ghosts of
modern spiritualism, nor in the pseudo-scientific jargon of Mrs. Eddy’s
works, nor in the glass-crystals of the clairvoyants. For the Christian
faith has no use for hysteria; it exacts a healthy discipline of mind.
It demands obedience to the laws of life, by which no woman may shirk
the duties of her nature, or pander to her selfishness, or dodge the
responsibilities of her state as a wife, or forget her marriage-vows and
all that they involve.
There would be no fatal significance about the Eighth Year if the old
religion were still of vital influence in the home. For after all,
in spite of all our cleverness, we have not yet discovered any new
intellectual formula or philosophy which will force men and women to do
those things which are unpleasant but necessary to insure the future of
the race; to deny themselves so that the future generation may gain; to
suffer willingly in this world for the sake of an advantage in a future
life. If people do not believe in a future life, and in such rewards as
are offered by the Christian dogma, they prefer to have their advantages
here and now. But as we know, if we face the facts of life clearly, the
advantages, here and now, are not easy to get. Life, at its best, is
a disappointing business. There is a lot of rough with the smooth,
especially for women, especially for those women of the middle-classes
in small suburban homes, over-intel-lectualized, with highly strung
nerves, in a narrow environment, without many interests, and without
much work. It is just because many of them are entirely without religion
to give some great purpose to their inevitable trivialities that their
moral perspective becomes hopelessly inverted, as though they were
gazing through the wrong end of the telescope. Having no banking account
in the next life, they spend themselves in this life, and live “on
tick,” as it were. Religion is the gospel of unselfishness. Lacking
religion, they are utterly selfish. They do not worry about the future
of the race. Why should they? All they are worrying about is to
save themselves pain, expense, drudgery. Children are a great
nuisance--therefore they will not have children. They want to put in a
good time, to enjoy youth and beauty as long as possible, to get as much
fun as they can here and now. But, as we have seen, the fun begins
to peter out somewhere about the Eighth Year, and “the good time” has
disappeared like a mirage when one gets close to it, and even youth
and beauty are drooping and faded like yesterday’s flowers. What is the
woman to do then? She is the victim of shattered illusions, of broken
hopes. Before her is nothing but a gray vista of years. She has nothing
to reconcile her with the boredom of her days, nothing to compensate
her for domestic drudgery, no cure for the restlessness and feverishness
which consume her, no laws by which she may keep straight. She sees
crookedly, her spirit rushes about hither and thither. She is like a
hunted thing, hunted by her desires, and she can find no sanctuary; no
sanctuary unless she finds religion, and the right religion. There are
not many women nowadays who find this way of escape, for religion has
gone out of fashion, like last year’s hats, and it wants a lot of pluck
to wear a last year’s hat.