“Marriage is not an institution of nature. The family in the east is
entirely different from the family in the west. Man is the servant of
nature, and the institutions of society are grafts, not spontaneous
growths of nature. Laws are made to suit manners, and manners vary.
“Marriage must therefore undergo the gradual development towards
perfection to which all human affairs submit.”
These words, pronounced in the presence of the Conseil d’Etat by
Napoleon during the discussion of the civil code, produced a profound
impression upon the author of this book; and perhaps unconsciously he
received the suggestion of this work, which he now presents to the
public. And indeed at the period during which, while still in his
youth, he studied French law, the word ADULTERY made a singular
impression upon him. Taking, as it did, a prominent place in the code,
this word never occurred to his mind without conjuring up its mournful
train of consequences. Tears, shame, hatred, terror, secret crime,
bloody wars, families without a head, and social misery rose like a
sudden line of phantoms before him when he read the solemn word
ADULTERY! Later on, when he became acquainted with the most cultivated
circles of society, the author perceived that the rigor of marriage
laws was very generally modified by adultery. He found that the number
of unhappy homes was larger than that of happy marriages. In fact, he
was the first to notice that of all human sciences that which relates
to marriage was the least progressive. But this was the observation of
a young man; and with him, as with so many others, this thought, like a
pebble flung into the bosom of a lake, was lost in the abyss of his
tumultuous thoughts. Nevertheless, in spite of himself the author was
compelled to investigate, and eventually there was gathered within his
mind, little by little, a swarm of conclusions, more or less just, on
the subject of married life. Works like the present one are formed in
the mind of the author with as much mystery as that with which truffles
grow on the scented plains of Perigord. Out of the primitive and holy
horror which adultery caused him and the investigation which he had
thoughtlessly made, there was born one morning a trifling thought in
which his ideas were formulated. This thought was really a satire upon
marriage. It was as follows: A husband and wife found themselves in
love with each other for the first time after twenty-seven years of
marriage.
He amused himself with this little axiom and passed a whole week in
delight, grouping around this harmless epigram the crowd of ideas which
came to him unconsciously and which he was astonished to find that he
possessed. His humorous mood yielded at last to the claims of serious
investigation. Willing as he was to take a hint, the author returned to
his habitual idleness. Nevertheless, this slight germ of science and of
joke grew to perfection, unfostered, in the fields of thought. Each
phase of the work which had been condemned by others took root and
gathered strength, surviving like the slight branch of a tree which,
flung upon the sand by a winter’s storm, finds itself covered at
morning with white and fantastic icicles, produced by the caprices of
nightly frosts. So the sketch lived on and became the starting point of
myriad branching moralizations. It was like a polypus which multiplies
itself by generation. The feelings of youth, the observations which a
favorable opportunity led him to make, were verified in the most
trifling events of his after life. Soon this mass of ideas became
harmonized, took life, seemed, as it were, to become a living
individual and moved in the midst of those domains of fancy, where the
soul loves to give full rein to its wild creations. Amid all the
distractions of the world and of life, the author always heard a voice
ringing in his ears and mockingly revealing the secrets of things at
the very moment he was watching a woman as she danced, smiled, or
talked. Just as Mephistopheles pointed out to Faust in that terrific
assemblage at the Brocken, faces full of frightful augury, so the
author was conscious in the midst of the ball of a demon who would
strike him on the shoulder with a familiar air and say to him: “Do you
notice that enchanting smile? It is a grin of hatred.” And then the
demon would strut about like one of the captains in the old comedies of
Hardy. He would twitch the folds of a lace mantle and endeavor to make
new the fretted tinsel and spangles of its former glory. And then like
Rabelais he would burst into loud and unrestrainable laughter, and
would trace on the street-wall a word which might serve as a pendant to
the “Drink!” which was the only oracle obtainable from the heavenly
bottle. This literary Trilby would often appear seated on piles of
books, and with hooked fingers would point out with a grin of malice
two yellow volumes whose title dazzled the eyes. Then when he saw he
had attracted the author’s attention he spelt out, in a voice alluring
as the tones of an harmonica, _Physiology of Marriage_! But, almost
always he appeared at night during my dreams, gentle as some fairy
guardian; he tried by words of sweetness to subdue the soul which he
would appropriate to himself. While he attracted, he also scoffed at
me; supple as a woman’s mind, cruel as a tiger, his friendliness was
more formidable than his hatred, for he never yielded a caress without
also inflicting a wound. One night in particular he exhausted the
resources of his sorceries, and crowned all by a last effort. He came,
he sat on the edge of the bed like a young maiden full of love, who at
first keeps silence but whose eyes sparkle, until at last her secret
escapes her.
“This,” said he, “is a prospectus of a new life-buoy, by means of which
one can pass over the Seine dry-footed. This other pamphlet is the
report of the Institute on a garment by wearing which we can pass
through flames without being burnt. Have you no scheme which can
preserve marriage from the miseries of excessive cold and excessive
heat? Listen to me! Here we have a book on the _Art_ of preserving
foods; on the _Art_ of curing smoky chimneys; on the _Art_ of making
good mortar; on the _Art_ of tying a cravat; on the _Art_ of carving
meat.”
In a moment he had named such a prodigious number of books that the
author felt his head go round.
“These myriads of books,” says he, “have been devoured by readers; and
while everybody does not build a house, and some grow hungry, and
others have no cravat, or no fire to warm themselves at, yet everybody
to some degree is married. But come look yonder.”
He waved his hand, and appeared to bring before me a distant ocean
where all the books of the world were tossing up and down like agitated
waves. The octodecimos bounded over the surface of the water. The
octavos as they were flung on their way uttered a solemn sound, sank to
the bottom, and only rose up again with great difficulty, hindered as
they were by duodecimos and works of smaller bulk which floated on the
top and melted into light foam. The furious billows were crowded with
journalists, proof-readers, paper-makers, apprentices, printers’
agents, whose hands alone were seen mingled in the confusion among the
books. Millions of voices rang in the air, like those of schoolboys
bathing. Certain men were seen moving hither and thither in canoes,
engaged in fishing out the books, and landing them on the shore in the
presence of a tall man, of a disdainful air, dressed in black, and of a
cold, unsympathetic expression. The whole scene represented the
libraries and the public. The demon pointed out with his finger a skiff
freshly decked out with all sails set and instead of a flag bearing a
placard. Then with a peal of sardonic laughter, he read with a
thundering voice: _Physiology of Marriage_.
The author fell in love, the devil left him in peace, for he would have
undertaken more than he could handle if he had entered an apartment
occupied by a woman. Several years passed without bringing other
torments than those of love, and the author was inclined to believe
that he had been healed of one infirmity by means of another which took
its place. But one evening he found himself in a Parisian drawing-room
where one of the men among the circle who stood round the fireplace
began the conversation by relating in a sepulchral voice the following
anecdote:
A peculiar thing took place at Ghent while I was staying there. A lady
ten years a widow lay on her bed attacked by mortal sickness. The three
heirs of collateral lineage were waiting for her last sigh. They did
not leave her side for fear that she would make a will in favor of the
convent of Beguins belonging to the town. The sick woman kept silent,
she seemed dozing and death appeared to overspread very gradually her
mute and livid face. Can’t you imagine those three relations seated in
silence through that winter midnight beside her bed? An old nurse is
with them and she shakes her head, and the doctor sees with anxiety
that the sickness has reached its last stage, and holds his hat in one
hand and with the other makes a sign to the relations, as if to say to
them: “I have no more visits to make here.” Amid the solemn silence of
the room is heard the dull rustling of a snow-storm which beats upon
the shutters. For fear that the eyes of the dying woman might be
dazzled by the light, the youngest of the heirs had fitted a shade to
the candle which stood near that bed so that the circle of light
scarcely reached the pillow of the deathbed, from which the sallow
countenance of the sick woman stood out like a figure of Christ
imperfectly gilded and fixed upon a cross of tarnished silver. The
flickering rays shed by the blue flames of a crackling fire were
therefore the sole light of this sombre chamber, where the denouement
of a drama was just ending. A log suddenly rolled from the fire onto
the floor, as if presaging some catastrophe. At the sound of it the
sick woman quickly rose to a sitting posture. She opened two eyes,
clear as those of a cat, and all present eyed her in astonishment. She
saw the log advance, and before any one could check an unexpected
movement which seemed prompted by a kind of delirium, she bounded from
her bed, seized the tongs and threw the coal back into the fireplace.
The nurse, the doctor, the relations rushed to her assistance; they
took the dying woman in their arms. They put her back in bed; she laid
her head upon her pillow and after a few minutes died, keeping her eyes
fixed even after her death upon that plank in the floor which the
burning brand had touched. Scarcely had the Countess Van Ostroem
expired when the three co-heirs exchanged looks of suspicion, and
thinking no more about their aunt, began to examine the mysterious
floor. As they were Belgians their calculations were as rapid as their
glances. An agreement was made by three words uttered in a low voice
that none of them should leave the chamber. A servant was sent to fetch
a carpenter. Their collateral hearts beat excitedly as they gathered
round the treasured flooring, and watched their young apprentice giving
the first blow with his chisel. The plank was cut through.
“My aunt made a sign,” said the youngest of the heirs.
“No; it was merely the quivering light that made it appear so,” replied
the eldest, who kept one eye on the treasure and the other on the
corpse.
The afflicted relations discovered exactly on the spot where the brand
had fallen a certain object artistically enveloped in a mass of
plaster.
“Proceed,” said the eldest of the heirs.
The chisel of the apprentice then brought to light a human head and
some odds and ends of clothing, from which they recognized the count
whom all the town believed to have died at Java, and whose loss had
been bitterly deplored by his wife.
The narrator of this old story was a tall spare man, with light eyes
and brown hair, and the author thought he saw in him a vague
resemblance to the demon who had before this tormented him; but the
stranger did not show the cloven foot. Suddenly the word ADULTERY
sounded in the ears of the author; and this word woke up in his
imagination the most mournful countenances of that procession which
before this had streamed by on the utterance of the magic syllables.
From that evening he was haunted and persecuted by dreams of a work
which did not yet exist; and at no period of his life was the author
assailed with such delusive notions about the fatal subject of this
book. But he bravely resisted the fiend, although the latter referred
the most unimportant incidents of life to this unknown work, and like a
customhouse officer set his stamp of mockery upon every occurrence.
Some days afterwards the author found himself in the company of two
ladies. The first of them had been one of the most refined and the most
intellectual women of Napoleon’s court. In his day she occupied a lofty
position, but the sudden appearance of the Restoration caused her
downfall; she became a recluse. The second, who was young and
beautiful, was at that time living at Paris the life of a fashionable
woman. They were friends, because, the one being forty and the other
twenty-two years old, they were seldom rivals on the same field. The
author was considered quite insignificant by the first of the two
ladies, and since the other soon discovered this, they carried on in
his presence the conversation which they had begun in a frank
discussion of a woman’s lot.
“Have you noticed, dear, that women in general bestow their love only
upon a fool?”
“What do you mean by that, duchess? And how can you make your remark
fit in with the fact that they have an aversion for their husbands?”
“These women are absolute tyrants!” said the author to himself. “Has
the devil again turned up in a mob cap?”
“No, dear, I am not joking,” replied the duchess, “and I shudder with
fear for myself when I coolly consider people whom I have known in
other times. Wit always has a sparkle which wounds us, and the man who
has much of it makes us fear him perhaps, and if he is a proud man he
will be capable of jealousy, and is not therefore to our taste. In
fact, we prefer to raise a man to our own height rather than to have to
climb up to his. Talent has great successes for us to share in, but the
fool affords enjoyment to us; and we would sooner hear said ‘that is a
very handsome man’ than to see our lover elected to the Institute.”
“That’s enough, duchess! You have absolutely startled me.”
And the young coquette began to describe the lovers about whom all the
women of her acquaintance raved; there was not a single man of
intellect among them.
“But I swear by my virtue,” she said, “their husbands are worth more.”
“But these are the sort of people they choose for husbands,” the
duchess answered gravely.
“Tell me,” asked the author, “is the disaster which threatens the
husband in France quite inevitable?”
“It is,” replied the duchess, with a smile; “and the rage which certain
women breathe out against those of their sex, whose unfortunate
happiness it is to entertain a passion, proves what a burden to them is
their chastity. If it were not for fear of the devil, one would be
Lais; another owes her virtue to the dryness of her selfish heart; a
third to the silly behaviour of her first lover; another still—”
The author checked this outpour of revelation by confiding to the two
ladies his design for the work with which he had been haunted; they
smiled and promised him their assistance. The youngest, with an air of
gaiety suggested one of the first chapters of the undertaking, by
saying that she would take upon herself to prove mathematically that
women who are entirely virtuous were creatures of reason.
When the author got home he said at once to his demon:
“Come! I am ready; let us sign the compact.”
But the demon never returned.
If the author has written here the biography of his book he has not
acted on the prompting of fatuity. He relates facts which may furnish
material for the history of human thought, and will without doubt
explain the work itself. It may perhaps be important to certain
anatomists of thought to be told that the soul is feminine. Thus
although the author made a resolution not to think about the book which
he was forced to write, the book, nevertheless, was completed. One page
of it was found on the bed of a sick man, another on the sofa of a
boudoir. The glances of women when they turned in the mazes of a waltz
flung to him some thoughts; a gesture or a word filled his disdainful
brain with others. On the day when he said to himself, “This work,
which haunts me, shall be achieved,” everything vanished; and like the
three Belgians, he drew forth a skeleton from the place over which he
had bent to seize a treasure.
A mild, pale countenance took the place of the demon who had tempted
me; it wore an engaging expression of kindliness; there were no sharp
pointed arrows of criticism in its lineaments. It seemed to deal more
with words than with ideas, and shrank from noise and clamor. It was
perhaps the household genius of the honorable deputies who sit in the
centre of the Chamber.
“Wouldn’t it be better,” it said, “to let things be as they are? Are
things so bad? We ought to believe in marriage as we believe in the
immortality of the soul; and you are certainly not making a book to
advertise the happiness of marriage. You will surely conclude that
among a million of Parisian homes happiness is the exception. You will
find perhaps that there are many husbands disposed to abandon their
wives to you; but there is not a single son who will abandon his
mother. Certain people who are hit by the views which you put forth
will suspect your morals and will misrepresent your intentions. In a
word, in order to handle social sores, one ought to be a king, or a
first consul at least.”
Reason, although it appeared under a form most pleasing to the author,
was not listened to; for in the distance Folly tossed the coxcomb of
Panurge, and the author wished to seize it; but, when he tried to catch
it, he found that it was as heavy as the club of Hercules. Moreover,
the cure of Meudon adorned it in such fashion that a young man who was
less pleased with producing a good work than with wearing fine gloves
could not even touch it.
“Is our work completed?” asked the younger of the two feminine
assistants of the author.
“Alas! madame,” I said, “will you ever requite me for all the hatreds
which that work will array against me?”
She waved her hand, and then the author replied to her doubt by a look
of indifference.
“What do you mean? Would you hesitate? You must publish it without
fear. In the present day we accept a book more because it is in fashion
than because it has anything in it.”
Although the author does not here represent himself as anything more
than the secretary of two ladies, he has in compiling their
observations accomplished a double task. With regard to marriage he has
here arranged matters which represent what everybody thinks but no one
dares to say; but has he not also exposed himself to public displeasure
by expressing the mind of the public? Perhaps, however, the eclecticism
of the present essay will save it from condemnation. All the while that
he indulges in banter the author has attempted to popularize certain
ideas which are particularly consoling. He has almost always endeavored
to lay bare the hidden springs which move the human soul. While
undertaking to defend the most material interests of man, judging them
or condemning them, he will perhaps bring to light many sources of
intellectual delight. But the author does not foolishly claim always to
put forth his pleasantries in the best of taste; he has merely counted
upon the diversity of intellectual pursuits in expectation of receiving
as much blame as approbation. The subject of his work was so serious
that he is constantly launched into anecdote; because at the present
day anecdotes are the vehicle of all moral teaching, and the
anti-narcotic of every work of literature. In literature, analysis and
investigation prevail, and the wearying of the reader increases in
proportion with the egotism of the writer. This is one of the greatest
misfortunes that can befall a book, and the present author has been
quite aware of it. He has therefore so arranged the topics of this long
essay as to afford resting places for the reader. This method has been
successfully adopted by a writer, who produced on the subject of Taste
a work somewhat parallel to that which is here put forth on the subject
of Marriage. From the former the present writer may be permitted to
borrow a few words in order to express a thought which he shares with
the author of them. This quotation will serve as an expression of
homage to his predecessor, whose success has been so swiftly followed
by his death:
“When I write and speak of myself in the singular, this implies a
confidential talk with the reader; he can examine the statement,
discuss it, doubt and even ridicule it; but when I arm myself with the
formidable WE, I become the professor and demand submission.”—
Brillat-Savarin, Preface to the _Physiology of Taste_.