SUGGESTED ALTERNATIVES
'For me the only remedy to the mortal injustices, to the endless
miseries, to the often incurable passions which disturb the union of
the sexes, is the liberty of breaking up conjugal ties and forming
them again.' --GEORGE SAND.
'Until the marriage tie is made more flexible, marriage will always
be a risk, which men particularly will undertake with misgiving.'
--H. B. MARRIOTT-WATSON.
I
LEASEHOLD MARRIAGE À LA MEREDITH
'Twenty years of Romance make a woman look like a wreck; twenty
years of Marriage make her look like a public building.'
--OSCAR WILDE.
Leasehold marriage was one of the customs of early Roman society.
Nowadays it has a revolutionary savour, and is so apparently
impracticable that it would be hardly necessary to do more than touch
upon it here, but for the fact that its most recent and most
distinguished advocate in modern times is Mr George Meredith. Any
suggestion from such a source must necessarily receive careful
consideration. It was also advanced by the great philosopher Locke,
and was considered by Milton.
It is scarcely three years since our veteran novelist cast this
bombshell into a delighted, albeit disapproving Press; but as memories
are so short nowadays, perhaps a brief recapitulation of the
circumstances might not be amiss.
The beginning of the business was a letter to _The Times_ by Mr
Cloudesly Brereton complaining of the 'growing handicap of marriage'
and, according to invariable custom, attacking women as the cause of it.
He stated that in the middle classes 'the exigences of modern wives are
steadily undermining the attractions of matrimony; in her ever-growing
demands on her husband's time, energy, and money the modern married
woman constitutes a very serious drag, and in the lower classes of
society, marriage even seriously militates against a man's finding
work.' How women can be held responsible for this last injustice was
wisely not stated. It would have been difficult to prove the indictment,
I think.
This document's chief claim to interest was the discussion in _The Daily
Mail_ that followed it, and the curious fact that the writer was married
a few weeks after its publication! The usual abuse on marriage in
general and women in particular followed, until the late Mrs Craigie
joined the discussion, and brought to bear on it that peculiar quality
of tender understanding, that wonderful insight into women's hearts,
which were among the most striking characteristics of her brilliant
work. It would be a pity to quote from such a letter, so I reproduce it
in full.
'Women, where their feelings are in question, are not selfish enough:
they appraise themselves not too dearly, but too cheaply: it is the
suicidal unselfishness of modern women which makes the selfishness of
modern bachelors possible. Bachelors are not all misogynists, and the
fact that a man remains unmarried is no proof that he is insensible to
the charm of woman's companionship, or that he does not have such
companionship, on irresponsible terms, to a most considerable degree.
Why should the average vain young man, egoistic by organism and
education, work hard or make sacrifices for the sake of any particular
woman, while so many are too willing to share his life without joining
it, and so many more wait eagerly on his steps to destroy any chivalry
or tenderness he may have been born with? Modern women give bachelors no
time to miss them and no opportunity to need them. Their devotion is
undisciplined and it becomes a curse rather than a blessing to its
object. Why? Because women have this strange power of concentration and
self-abnegation in their love; they cannot do enough to prove their
kindness; and when they have done all and been at no pains to secure
their own position, they realise they have erred through excess of
generosity and the desire to please. This is the unselfishness shown
towards bachelors.'
In answer to this letter, another woman novelist, Miss Florence Warden,
challenged Mrs Craigie as to the existence of such women, but elicited
no further reply. _The Daily Mail_ commented on it thus: 'Hundreds of
thousands of our readers can give an answer to this remarkable statement
out of their own experience, and we have little doubt as to what the
tenor of that answer will be.' One can imagine that this was written
with a view to being read at the breakfast-tables of Villadom; but men
and women of the world, whose experience is not confined to Villadom,
nor their opinions of life coloured by the requirements of the Young
Person, will recognise the undoubted truth of Mrs Craigie's statements.
Whilst agreeing that the state of things between the sexes which she
describes is a true one, I venture respectfully to differ as to women's
motive for this 'excess of generosity.' There is an enormous amount of
wonderful unselfishness among women, but it does not expend itself in
this direction, in my opinion. Rather is the motive a passionate desire
for their own enjoyment, the gratification of their own vanity by
pleasing the opposite sex, often at the cost of their own self-respect.
H. B. Marriott-Watson takes the same view in a subsequent letter, where
he says: 'Women's unselfishness does not extend to the region of love.
The sex attraction is practically inconsistent with altruism, and the
measure of renunciation is inversely the measure of affection. This is
the order which Nature has established, and it is no use trying to expel
her. A woman may lay down her life for the man she loves, but she will
not surrender him to a rival.'
Another letter of interest came from Miss Helen Mathers, who stated that
'all women should marry, but no men!'--the advantages of the conjugal
state being, in her opinion, entirely on the woman's side.
At this point appeared Mr Meredith's contribution to the discussion in
the less authoritative form of an interview--not a letter or article,
as, after this lapse of time, so many people seem to imagine. On
re-reading this interview recently, I was struck with Mr Meredith's
peculiarly old-fashioned ideas about women. Where the woman question
was concerned the clock of his observation seems to have stopped many
decades ago.
'The fault at the bottom of the business,' he affirms, 'is that women
are so uneducated, so unready. Men too often want a slave, and
frequently think they have got one, not because the woman has not often
got more sense than her husband, but because she is so inarticulate, not
educated enough to give expression to her real ideas and feelings.'
This was before the vogue of the suffragettes, but it is a sufficiently
surprising statement for 1904. He continues: 'It is a question to my
mind whether a young girl, married, say, at eighteen, utterly ignorant
of life, knowing little of the man she is marrying, or of any other man
in the world at all, should be condemned to live with him for the rest
of her life. She falls out of sympathy with him, say, has no common
taste with him, nothing to share with him, no real communion except a
physical one. The life is nearly intolerable, yet many women go on with
it from habit, or because the world terrorises them.'
This is true enough, but Mr Meredith speaks as if it were still the
rule, as in our grandmothers' day, for a girl to marry in the teens,
whereas it is now quite the exception. Every year the marrying age seems
to advance, and blushing brides decked in orange blossoms are led to the
altar at an age when, fifty years ago, they would be resigned old maids
in cap and mittens. If a girl is foolish enough to marry immediately she
is out of the schoolroom, she must be prepared to take the enormous risk
which the choice of a husband at such an immature age must entail.
Elsewhere Mr Meredith says: 'Marriage is so difficult, its modern
conditions are so difficult, that when two educated people want it,
nothing should be put in their way. . . . Certainly one day the present
conditions of marriage will be changed. It will be allowed for a certain
period, say ten years, or--well, I do not want to specify any particular
period. The State will see sufficient money is put by to provide for and
educate the children. Perhaps the State will take charge of this fund.
There will be a devil of an uproar before such a change can be made. It
will be a great shock, but look back and see what shocks there have been
and what changes have nevertheless taken place in this marriage business
in the past.'
'The difficulty,' he continues, 'is to make English people face such a
problem. They want to live under discipline more than any other nation
in the world. They won't look ahead, especially the governing people.
And you must have philosophy, though it is more than you can hope to get
English people to admit the bare name of philosophy into their
discussion of such a question. Again and again, notably in their
criticism of America, you see how English people will persist in
regarding any new trait as a sign of disease. Yet it is a sign of
health.'
It will be seen that Mr Meredith puts forward the ten-year limit merely
as a suggestion. I recall in one of Stevenson's essays an allusion to a
lady who said: 'After ten years one's husband is at least an old
friend,' and her answer was: 'Yes, and one would like him to be that and
nothing more.' The decade seems to have a special significance in
marriage. After the trying first year is over, most couples settle down
comfortably enough until nearing the tenth year. The president of the
Divorce Court has called this the danger zone of married life. One of
the subsequent letters in _The Daily Mail_, approving Mr Meredith's
suggestion, alluded to the present form of marriage as 'the
life-sentence,' and suggested a still shorter time limit, five years for
choice, since during that time a couple would have found happiness or
the reverse, and in the latter case ten years was too long to wait for
freedom.
A writer in another paper cited America as an example of terminable
marriage in full working order. 'It appears from the statement of an
American bishop that the people of the United States are actually living
under Mr Meredith's conditions already. Last year (1903) as many as
600,000 American marriages were dissolved. This means that there was one
divorce to every four marriages. In some districts the proportion was
more like one to two. And the most frequent cause of divorce was a
desire for change!'
It seems to me that the establishment of a leasehold marriage system
would only result in wholesale wretchedness and confusion, beside which
the present sum of marital misery would be but a drop in the ocean. If
our marriage laws must be modified, let us trust it will not be in this
direction, though it is obvious enough that such a change would come as
a boon to thousands of men and women, who from one cause or another have
come to loathe the tie that binds them. Whether it would not also
disturb the prosaic content that passes for happiness with millions more
is too big a question to be more than mentioned here.
The fate of those who are tied for life to lunatics, criminals, and
drunkards is pitiable indeed, but an extension of the laws of divorce
would meet their exceptional case, without disturbing the marriage bond
of normal people. I have endeavoured to indicate some of the many
difficulties of leasehold marriage in the following dialogue.
II
LEASEHOLD MARRIAGE IN PRACTICE
A DIALOGUE IN 1999
'There is one thing that women dread more than celibacy--it is
repudiation.' --MARCEL PRÉVOST.
_Katharine and Margaret, both attractive women on the borderland of
forty, are lunching together. They are old friends and have not met for
years._
_Margaret._ 'How nice it is to be together again, but I'm sorry to find
you so changed; you don't look happy, what is the trouble?'
_Katharine._ 'I ought to look happy, I've had wonderful luck, but the
truth is, I'm utterly tired. The conditions of marriage nowadays are
horribly wearing, don't you think?'
_M._ 'Well, of course, we miss that feeling of peace and security that
our mothers talked of, but then we also miss that ghastly monotony.
Think of living year after year, thirty, forty, fifty years, with the
same man! How tired one would get of his tempers.'
_K._ 'I'm not so sure of that. Monotony of tempers is better than
variety. All people have them, anyway. Besides, I've a notion that our
fathers were nothing like so difficult to live with as our husbands are.
You see, in the old days they knew they were fixed up for life, and that
acted as a curb. We seem to miss that curb nowadays.'
_M._ 'Yes, there's something in that. I remember my grandmother, who was
married at the end of the last century, used to say that her husband was
her Sheet Anchor, and he called her his Haven of Rest.'
_K._ 'Oh, I envy them! That's what I want so badly--a haven, an anchor!
How peaceful life must have been then before this horrible new system
came in.'
_M._ 'People evidently didn't seem to think so, or why should they have
altered it? But what's your quarrel with the system? You've had four
husbands and changed the first two almost as quickly as the law
allowed.'
_K._ 'Yes, and I'm only forty-one. I began too young--at eighteen--but
one naturally takes marriage lightly when one knows it's only for five
years. One enters upon it as thoughtlessly as our happy mothers used to
start their flirtations.'
_M._ 'The consequences are rather more serious though; we are
disillusioned women at the age when they were still light-hearted
girls.'
_K._ 'It's the families that make it so difficult. Fatherhood is quite a
cult nowadays. All my husbands have been of a philoprogenitive turn, and
I have eight children.'
_M._ 'Eight children! No wonder you look worried.'
_K._ 'Exactly! my mother would have been horrified. Two or three was the
correct number in her days, four at the utmost, and five a fatality and
very rare.'
_M._ 'Well, my dear, you needn't have had so many; you should have
curbed that cult of Fatherhood. No woman is compelled to bear children
nowadays, as our unfortunate grandmothers were. Have you got all eight
with you?'
_K._ 'No, that's just the trouble. I didn't want to have so many, but of
course now I've got them I want them with me, and of course their
fathers want them too.'
_M._ 'Oh dear! how tiresome; that's the worst of having children in
these times. I'm sometimes glad I have none.'
_K._ 'Then perhaps you don't know the law about the children of our
present marriage system? A sum of money has to be invested annually for
each child, in the great State Infant Trust; when the marriage is
dissolved the mother has the sole custody of them, unless the father
wishes to share it; in the latter case they spend half the year with
each parent.'
_M._ 'It's fair.'
_K._ 'I suppose so, but oh! so terribly hard on a mother! My two elder
girls are almost grown up, they've been at a boarding school for some
time, and it was easy and natural enough for George and I to share them
in the holidays, but now, I can't keep them at the school any longer,
and they will have to spend half the year with him. Thank heaven, he
hasn't been married for some time, and isn't likely to again, so I
haven't the horror of a strange woman influencing them, but how can I
guide them? how have any real control or influence over them in such
circumstances?'
_M._ 'Yes, that must be very sad for you.'
_K._ 'It's awful, but there's much worse than that. My second husband,
Gordon, the father of Arthur and Maggie, is married again, and his wife
is jealous of his eldest children, and hates the time when they come to
stay. And my little Arthur is so delicate, he requires ceaseless care
and studying--I never have a happy moment when he is with them; he
doesn't get on well with the other children either, and always returns
from the visits looking ill and wretched. I couldn't tell you all I have
suffered on account of Arthur! Oh! when I think of him, I could curse
this infamous marriage system--it is a sin against nature!'
_M._ 'But, my dear, it's no use abusing the laws. Why didn't you stay
with Gordon, or in the first instance with George? It's often done, even
now.'
_K._ 'I know, I know, but George and I were utterly unsuited--we married
as boy and girl. Under the old system prudent parents generally
intervened, and the young couple were obliged to wait until they were
sure of their own minds. But you know how things are now; in one's first
young infatuation, one is sure of five years ahead at least, and one
doesn't need to look beyond that.'
_M._ 'Well, you were twenty-four when you married Gordon; why didn't you
choose him more carefully?'
_K._ 'That was largely "a matter of economics" as I read in an old play
called _Votes for Women_, not long ago--so quaint their ideas were in
those days!--and there was something in it too about "twenty-four used
not to be so young, but it's become so!" Still, I was old enough to know
better, but I was light-hearted and luxury-loving, and I couldn't live
on that pittance, which was all the law compelled George to allow me.
I don't blame him, it was all he could do to save the necessary tax for
the children. So I married Gordon for a home, and of course it was
hateful!'
_M._ 'And your third husband died?'
_K._ 'Yes; the one who should have lived generally dies. I lost him
after two years only, but I can't talk of him, dear; he was just my Man
of Men.'
_M._ 'Ah! I'm glad you have had that.'
_K._ 'Oh! I have been lucky with all my troubles, as I told you. I was
alone for four years after I lost my Best, and I should like to have
been faithful to him for ever. But I wasn't strong enough; in spite of
the dear children I was very lonely, as the elder ones were always at
school.'
_M._ 'Yes, and one wants a man, somehow, to fuss round one.'
_K._ 'True, it's a fatal weakness. So at last I married my good little
Duncan, just for companionship. I chose _him_ carefully enough.
Experience has taught me a lot, and I didn't mean to be left in the
lurch at forty as so many are.'
_M._ 'I'm glad he's good to you. Yes; it's fearful how many women get
left alone just when they need care and love most, when their looks and
freshness are gone, and their energy weakened. But, as you haven't got
that to fear, why should you be so worried now?'
_K._ 'It isn't exactly that I'm worried--I'm used up! Twenty years of
uncertain domestic arrangements is enough to wear out anyone. I've never
been able to feel settled in any house, or let myself get attached to a
place, or plant out a garden even. One's set of friends is always
breaking up; people never seem to buy houses and estates now, or to get
rooted anywhere. In the novels of fifty years ago, how they used to
complain about being in a groove! They little knew how miserable life
could be for want of a permanent groove.'
_M._ 'I dislike monotony, but it certainly has its advantages. You
remember my first husband, Dick?--such a good-looking boy--he was crazy
about golf and outdoor games. I got quite into his way of living, and it
was a great trial when I married Cecil Innes, who hated the open air,
and cared only for books and grubbing about in museums.'
_K._ 'Why did you leave Dick?'
_M._ 'I didn't really want to, we were very comfy together, but he fell
in love with another woman. He was mad about her, and asked me to
release him. As I had no children, I thought it only fair to agree.
Cecil interested me very much at first, and he adored me, but I had a
very dreary time with him. You know I'm not a bit literary, and he was
so "precious" and bookish, he bored me to death. I was glad to leave him
for Jack, my present husband, but Cecil's grief at parting was so
frightful I shall never forget it, and when he died soon after I felt
like a murderess.'
_K._ 'It must have been a painful experience, but one gets accustomed to
these tragedies, one hears of so many. There is always one who wants to
be free, and one to remain bound.'
_M._ 'Yes; and the unwritten tradition that it is a matter of honour
never to seek to hold an unwilling partner quite negatives the law that
a marriage can only terminate when both parties desire it.'
_K._ 'I'm sure the tragedies of parting one hears of nowadays are far
worse than the occasional tragedies in the old days, caused by being
bound, and ever so much more frequent.'
_M._ 'It wouldn't be such an irony if _anyone_ were benefited, but as
far as I can see the men suffer nearly as much as the women, especially
when they are old. According to our early century newspapers, an old
bachelor or widower could always get a young and charming wife, but now
nobody will marry an elderly man, except the old ladies, and the men
don't want them.'
_K._ 'It's a pity they don't, that would solve a lot of the unhappiness
one sees around. It must be awful to be deserted in one's old age.'
_M._ 'Talking about the old newspapers, it's very amusing to read them
in the British Museum, and see what wonderful things were expected of
the leasehold marriage system when it was first legalised. All the
abuses of the old system were to disappear: divorce, adultery,
prostitution, and seduction--all the social evils were to go in one
clean sweep.'
_K._ 'How absurdly shortsighted people were then. Divorce is abolished,
it's true, but the scandals and misery, broken hearts and broken homes
that it caused are now multiplied a thousand times. Infidelity may be
less frequent, but if people have the wish and the opportunity for it
they're not likely to wait for a certain number of years, until it
ceases to be technically a sin. The same with the other evils. There
will always be a large number of men who postpone marriage for financial
or other reasons, and a large number of women who can only earn a living
in one way--the oldest profession in the world will always be kept
going! Seduction, too, is not likely to cease as long as the law is so
lenient to it. There will always be ignorant, silly, unprotected girls
and always men to take advantage of them.'
_M._ 'There seem to be just as many elderly spinsters, too, as before;
the women who don't attract men remain the same under any system, and
often they are the best women.'
_K._ 'How strange it must be _never to have had a husband!_'
_M._ 'It must be peaceful, at anyrate; but spinsters don't look any
happier than married women.'
_K._ 'I can only see one good result of the leasehold system--that women
are as anxious for motherhood now as in the early century they were
anxious to avoid it. We grow old with the fear of almost certain
desertion and loneliness before us, and the one hope for our old age is
our children----Oh! I am sorry, I forgot you had none.'
_M._ 'Never mind, I often think of it, and whenever Jack admires or pays
attention to another woman, I am in terror for fear he has found a fresh
attraction and may want to leave me. What stuff they used to write
formerly about the necessity for love being free. As if freedom were
such a glorious thing! Why, we are all slaves to some convention or
passion or theory; none of us are free, really free, and we wouldn't
like it if we were. It may be all very well for the fantastic love of
novels to be free, but that strange _need of each other_, which we call
"love" in real life, for want of a better term--_that_ must be forged
into a bond, or what help is it to us poor vacillating mortals? Love
must be an Anchor in real life--nothing else is any use!'
III
THE FIASCO OF FREE LOVE
'The ultimate standards by which all men judge of behaviour is the
resulting happiness or misery.'
'Conduct whose total results, immediate and remote, are injurious
is bad conduct.' --HERBERT SPENCER.
Free love has been called the most dangerous and delusive of all
marriage schemes. It is based on a wholly impossible standard of ethics.
Theoretically, it is the ideal union between the sexes, but it will only
become practical when men and women have morally advanced out of all
recognition. When people are all faithful, constant, pure-minded, and
utterly unselfish, free marriage may be worth considering. Even then,
there would be no chance for the ill-favoured and unattractive.
Under present conditions no couple living _openly_ in free love is known
to have made a success of it--a solid, permanent success, that is.
I believe there are couples who live happily together without any more
durable bond than their mutual affection, but they wisely assume the
respectable shelter of the wedding ring, and call themselves Mr and Mrs.
Thus their little fledgling of free love is not required to battle
against the overwhelming force of social ostracism. And moreover one has
no means of knowing how long these unions stand the supreme test of
time. The two notable modern instances of free love that naturally rise
to the mind are George Eliot and Mary Godwin. But both the men with whom
they mated were already married. As soon as Harriet was dead, Mary
Godwin married Shelley, and when George Lewes had passed away, George
Eliot married another man--an act which most people consider far less
pardonable in the circumstances than her irregular union with Lewes.
Even the famous Perfectionists of Oneida relapsed into ordinary marriage
on the death of their leader, Noyes, and by his own wish.
As an institution, free love seems widely practised in the East End of
London, but judging by the evidence of the police courts its results are
certainly not encouraging. I am told that the practice is common among
the cotton operatives of Lancashire. The _collage_ system is also very
prevalent in France among the working classes, and seems to answer well
enough. But only when women have the ability and the opportunity to
support themselves is free marriage at all feasible from the economic
standpoint, and even then there remains the serious question of
illegitimacy. All right-minded persons must acknowledge that the
attitude of society towards the illegitimate is unjust and cruel in the
extreme, resulting as it does in punishing the perfectly innocent. But
every grown man and woman is aware of this attitude, and those who act
in defiance of it, to please themselves or to satisfy some whim of
experiment, do so in the full knowledge that on their child will fall a
certain burden of lifelong disadvantage. Many perhaps are deterred from
breaking the moral law by this knowledge, but the number of
illegitimates born in England and Wales in 1905 was 37,300; and, in the
interests of these unfortunate victims of others' selfishness, I think
it is high time a more kindly and broad-minded attitude towards their
social disability was adopted.
I remember as a young girl going to see a play called _A Bunch of
Violets_. The heroine discovers that her husband's previous wife is
alive and that her child is therefore illegitimate. She tells her
daughter to choose between the parents, explaining the worldly
advantages of staying with her rich, influential father. The harangue
concludes with words to the effect: 'With me you will be poor and
shamed, and _you can never marry_.' Doubtless this ridiculous point of
view was adopted solely for the benefit of the young girls in the
audience, but its unreasonableness disgusted me for one. Even to the
limited intelligence of seventeen it is obvious that, since a name is of
so much importance in life, an illegitimate girl had better marry as
quickly as she possibly can, in order to obtain one!
Free love has recently been much discussed in connection with socialism,
and, thanks no doubt to the misrepresentations of certain newspapers,
the idea seems to have gained ground that the abolition of marriage and
the substitution of free love was part of the socialist programme.
No more untrue charge could possibly be made, as inquiries at the
headquarters of the various socialist bodies will quickly prove.
The people who advocate free love are very fond of arguing that so
personal a matter only concerns themselves. All who think thus should
have had a grave warning in a recent _cause célèbre_, in which murder,
attempted suicide, permanent maiming, and a tangle of misery involving
innocent children down to the third generation, were proved to have
resulted from a 'free' union entered on nearly thirty years before. This
and the many other tragedies of free love, which appear in the
newspapers from time to time, seem to prove the mistake of imagining
that we are accountable to none for our actions. A relationship which
affects the future generation can never be a private and personal
matter. E. R. Chapman in a very interesting essay on marriage published
some years ago says: 'To exchange legal marriage for mere voluntary
unions, mere temporary partnerships, would be not to set love free,
but to give love its death blow by divorcing it from that higher human
element which is the note of marriage, rightly understood, and which
places regard for order, regard for the common weal above personal
interest and the mere self-gratification of the moment.'
IV
POLYGAMY AT THE POLITE DINNER-TABLE
'Last and hardest of all to eradicate in our midst, comes the
monopoly of the human heart which is known as marriage . . . this
ugly and barbaric form of serfdom has come in our own time by some
strange caprice to be regarded as of positively divine origin.'
--GRANT ALLEN.
We call it the polite dinner-table, because we never hesitate to be
extremely rude to each other, when necessary for the purposes of
argument. On this particular occasion, the inevitable marriage
discussion, which is always to be found in one or other of the
newspapers, was the subject of conversation, and the Good Stockbroker
(unmarried) was vigorously defending the Holy Estate. His moral attitude
is certainly somewhat boring, but nevertheless the Good Stockbroker is
one of those people to whom one really is polite. Although obvious
irritation was visible on the face of the Family Egotist we listened
respectfully, with the exception of the Wicked Stockbroker, whose dinner
was far too important in his scheme of life to be trifled with by moral
conversations.
Whatever the Good Stockbroker says the Weary Roué is of course bound to
contradict as a matter of honour. I may mention that the Weary Roué is a
man of the highest virtue and a model husband and father. His pose of
evil experience has gained him his sarcastic nickname, but in no way has
he earned it by his conduct. 'You forget,' he interposed languidly, when
the Good Stockbroker paused, 'that no less a philosopher than
Schopenhauer said that the natural tendency of man is towards polygamy,
and of woman towards monogamy.'
'I deny the first statement,' said the Good Stockbroker heatedly. He was
always heated where questions of morality were concerned, and was
proceeding to give chapter and verse for what promised to become a
somewhat dull discussion when the Bluestocking firmly interposed in her
small staccato pipe:
'To hear you, one would suppose monogamic marriage was a divine
institution.'
'Absurd, isn't it?' grinned the Weary Roué. The Good Stockbroker looked
pained and cleared his throat. At this formidable signal, the Family
Egotist--whose irritation had been increasing like the alleged
circulation of a newspaper--showed every sign of hurling the boomerang
of his opinion into the fray. This would have meant the death of all
liveliness for some hours to come, and a general sigh had begun to
heave, when once more our brave Bluestocking stemmed the tide.
'You make rather a cult of the Bible,' she quacked scornfully, directing
her remarks principally at the Good Stockbroker; 'but you don't seem
very conversant with the Old Testament. You will find there ample proof
that monogamic marriage is no more divine than--than polygamy or free
love. Nor has it any celestial origin, since it varies with race and
climate. It is simply an indispensable social safeguard.'
'I'll have a shilling each way on it,' murmured the Ass (an incorrigible
youth, quite the Winston Churchill of our family cabinet), using his
customary formula. Unheeding, the Bluestocking chirruped on severely:
'You must know, if you have ever studied sociology, that marriage is
essentially a _social contract_, primarily based on selfishness. At
present it still retains its semi-barbarous form, and those who preach
without reason of its alleged sacredness would be better employed in
suggesting how the savage code now in vogue can be modified to meet the
necessities of modern civilisation.'
She paused for breath. The Good Stockbroker was pale, but faced her
manfully. 'Well done, Bluestocking!' said the Weary Roué. 'Wonderful
woman, our Quacker,' said the Ass, 'I'll have a shilling each way on
her.' The Wicked Stockbroker took a second helping of salad, and ate on
unheeding, whilst the Gentle Lady at the head of the table anxiously
watched the Family Egotist, who looked apoplectic and was toying
truculently with a wineglass with evident danger of shortening its
career of usefulness.
'I was taught,' said the Good Stockbroker slowly, 'to regard marriage as
a sacred institution--a holy mystery.'
'Then you were taught rot,' snapped the Bluestocking, thus living up to
the worst traditions of the polite dinner-table, and quivering with
intellectual fury.
'Recrimination--' began the Good Stockbroker.
('Good word that, I'll have a shilling each way on it,' murmured the
Ass.)
'--is not argument,' continued the Good Stockbroker.
'It may not be, but what you said was _rot_,' replied the Bluestocking,
'"a holy mystery, instituted in the time of man's innocency"--I
recognise the quotation! And when was that time, pray? Are you referring
to the Garden of Eden, or to what part of the Bible? The chosen people,
the Hebrews, were polygamists from the time of Lamech, evidently with
the approval of the Deity. Even the immaculate David had thirteen wives,
and the saintly Solomon a clear thousand. Not much of a holy mystery in
those days, eh?'
'Dear Bluestocking, you really _are_--' murmured the Gentle Lady.
'Not at all; she's perfectly sound,' interposed the Weary Roué, gloating
with ghoulish joy over the Good Stockbroker's apparent discomfort.
'I give in,' said the latter, and a yell of joy burst from the Ass and
the Weary Roué. 'I really cannot argue against a lady of such
overwhelming eloquence,' he continued, bowing in his delightful courtly
way. 'All the same, I shall always believe that marriage is a holy
institution.'
'My dear old chap,' said the Weary Roué, hastily, with one eye on the
Family Egotist, who was certainly being treated badly that evening:
'your high-mindedness is admirable, quite admirable, but it won't work;
it doesn't fit into modern conditions. Theoretically, Marriage is a Holy
Mystery no doubt--in practice it's apt to be an Unholy Muddle, sometimes
a Mess. Personally I believe in polygamy.'
Roars of laughter were stifled in their birth, as we thought of the
Weary Roué's circumspect spouse, and his several circumspect children,
discreet from birth upwards.
'So do I--a shilling each way,' said the Ass, inevitably.
'Not for myself, of course,' continued the Weary Roué, without a trace
of a smile, 'that is to say, not--er--not now, but speaking for the
majority and--er, in the abstract, polygamy would be a sensible
institution. Just think how it would simplify all our modern
complications, how it would mend our two worst social evils.'
'Yes, _think_, please--thinking will do,' interposed the Gentle Lady,
hastily.
'How it would solve the superfluous woman question,' continued the Weary
Roué, enthusiastically. 'Think of the enormous number of miserable
spinsters who would be happily provided for.' An indignant quack came
from the Bluestocking.
'Think of the expense,' remarked the Good Stockbroker, dryly, and the
Weary Roué collapsed like a pricked gas-bag.
'Herbert Spencer says,' continued the Good Stockbroker, 'that the
tendency to monogamy is innate, and all the other forms of marriage have
been temporary deviations, each bringing their own retributive evils.
After all, monogamous marriage was instituted for the protection of
women, and has been held sacred in the great and noble ages of the
world. Quite apart from the moral point of view, however, polygamy could
only be possible in a tropical climate, where the necessities of life
were reduced to a minimum, and one could live on dates and rice, but as
the average man in our glorious Free Trade country can't afford to keep
one wife, in decent comfort, let alone several--I ask, how in the name
of the bank rate--?'
'You stockbroking chaps are so devilish sordid,' returned the Weary
Roué. 'Didn't I say _in the abstract_? Of course I know it wouldn't do
practically, not yet anyway, but honestly I believe it would go far to
solve the whole sex problem.'
'You neither of you seem to take the woman into consideration at all,'
piped the Bluestocking. 'Do you suppose we modern women with our
resources and our education would consider such an idea for a moment?'
'Well, what do you think?' asked the Weary Roué, with diplomatic
deference.
To our surprise the Bluestocking began to blush, and her blush is not
the coy, irresponsible flushing of an ordinary girl, but a painful rush
of blood to the face under stress of deep earnestness, the kind of blush
which forces one to look away.
'Well,' she said, with a gulp, 'I think, perhaps--they might.' It was
obvious the admission had cost her something. We were all dumfounded.
The Family Egotist forgot his burning desire for speech and ceased to
threaten his wineglass; the Gentle Lady was quite excited; the Weary
Roué became almost alert, and the Good Stockbroker looked as if he were
about to burst into tears.
'I think women might not be averse from polygamy--as a choice of evils,'
continued the little Bluestocking bravely, 'for the present waste of
womanhood in this country is a very serious evil. Of course the
financial conditions make it impossible, as the Good Stockbroker says,
but if it _were_ possible, if it were instituted for highest motives,
and in an entirely honourable, open manner authorised and sanctioned by
the--er--the proper people--I think women could concur in it without any
loss of self-respect, especially if the first ardent love of youth were
over. After that, and when a woman forgets herself, having truly found
herself, in the love and care of her children and a larger view of life
and its duties--then I think most women could be happy in such
circumstances. I think a great deal of utterly untrue stuff is talked
about the agony of sexual jealousy, and women's jealousy especially.
Men may suffer thus, I can't say, but I'm sure women don't. It's the
humiliation, the unkindness, the _being deceived_ and supplanted that
hurts so when a man is unfaithful. But if it were all fair and
above-board, if it were grasped that polygamy is more suited to men's
nature, and more likely to make for the happiness of the greatest number
of women--their numerical strength being so far in advance of men that
they couldn't possibly expect to have a mate each--then I really think,
after women had had time to readjust their ideas to this new
condition--it may take a generation or more--I think they would accept
it gladly, and find peace and contentment in it.'
The Bluestocking paused and looked round the circle of interested faces.
Even the Ass was intent on her words, but the Good Stockbroker's eyes
were averted and the Bluestocking was quite pale as she continued:
'Of course the word at once recalls the harem, the zenana, but nothing
of that kind would do. The wives would have to live separately, as the
Mormons do, each in her own home, with her own circle of interests and
duties, her own lifework. No one ought to live in idleness, which is the
cause of all sorts of discord and trouble. Every woman should work at
something, and to help someone. I'm not thinking now, of course, of
happily married and contented women, but of the thousands leading
miserable, dull, and lonely lives, who would be infinitely happier if
they had a certain week to look forward to, at regular recurring
intervals, when their husbands would be living with them. It would bring
love and human interest and, what is most important of all, a _motive_
into their existence. I know it sounds dreadfully immoral,' she went on,
blushing again painfully, 'but, oh! I don't mean it like _that_. After
all, the chief reason why people marry is for companionship, and it is
companionship that unmarried women, past the gaiety of first youth,
chiefly lack. The natural companion of woman is man; therefore, as there
aren't enough husbands to go round, it follows that one might do worse
than share them. I don't say it would be as satisfactory as having a
devoted husband all to oneself, but it might be for the greatest good of
the greatest number, and it would surely solve to a certain extent
the--the social evils.'
They all clapped when she had finished somewhat breathlessly. It was
obvious that the brave Bluestocking so far lacked the courage of her
opinions as to be agonisingly embarrassed at this public expression of
them. The Gentle Lady, who is the most tactful creature in existence,
accordingly rose before anyone had time to speak, and the two women left
the room together.
A babble of talk arose from the men, under cover of which the Good
Stockbroker also slipped quietly away.
'Pass the port,' said the Wicked Stockbroker, briskly. 'She's a deuced
bright little woman, but how even the brainy ones can be so ignorant of
life beats me, and how you chaps can be such hypocrites. . . . !'
'Hypocrites! what d'you mean?' blustered the Family Egotist, who was by
now almost bursting with suppressed talk.
'Not you, old chap, but the Weary Roué and the Good Stockbroker, jawing
away as if they really thought monogamy was in the majority in this
country, and polygamy was something new! Of course one expects it from
the G. S., but you, W. R., really ought to know better--by the way,
where is the G. S?'
'I think he must have gone to propose to the Bluestocking--to save her
from polygamy and her own opinions,' drawled the Weary Roué, lighting
his cigarette.
'Stout fella! I believe he has!' cried the Ass, excitedly. 'I'll have a
shilling each way on it with any of you--I mean it, really!'
'Oh! what if he has?' said the Family Egotist, irritably. 'What does one
fool more in the world matter? Do stop rotting, you fellows, and pass
the port.'
V
IS LEGALISED POLYANDRY THE SOLUTION?
In Mr W. Somerset Maugham's very interesting psychological study, _Mrs
Craddock_, he makes one of his characters say: 'The fact is that few
women can be happy with only one husband. I believe that the only
solution of the marriage question is legalised polyandry.'
This is the kind of statement which it is only respectable to receive
with horror, but if the secrets of feminine hearts could be known it
might prove that a goodly amount of this horror is assumed. I decline to
commit my sex either way. Mr Maugham is evidently a gentleman very
deeply experienced in feminine hearts, and I daresay he knows what he is
talking of. He is, moreover, safely unmarried, but even he entrenches
himself behind one of the characters in his novel, and who am I that a
greater courage should be expected of me?
There is, of course, a marvellous virtue in the word 'legalised.' The
most unholy and horrible marriages between fair young girls and rich or
titled dotards, drunkards, or _cretins_ are considered perfectly proper
and respectable because 'legalised.' Yet the people who countenance
these abominations would probably be unutterably shocked by the very
whisper of polyandry--an infinitely more decent relation, because
regulated by honest sex attraction, and free presumably from mercenary
considerations. But whether legalised polyandry is THE solution to the
marriage question or not, it is clearly an impossible one for
women-ridden England, and though of late years women have made startling
strides, and shown themselves possessed of unsuspected vitality, it
seems unlikely that their superfluous energies will be expended in this
direction.
VI
A WORD FOR DUOGAMY
'God made you, but you marry yourself.' --R. L. STEVENSON.
The day after the polite dinner-party, Isolda, Miranda, and Amoret came
in to tea, and I retailed to them the discussion of the previous evening
on polygamy.
'I see the Bluestocking's point,' said Isolda, thoughtfully: 'polygamy
might be acceptable to the superfluous woman who can't marry under
present conditions--the discontented spinster to whom the single state
is so detestable that even polygamy would be preferable--but it would
never be acceptable to the woman who can and does marry.'
'Yet how many married women put up with it nowadays?' said Miranda;
'aren't there ever so many wives who condone their husband's infidelity,
and endure it as best they can, for the sake of the children, or for
social reasons, or because they're sufficiently attached to the man to
prefer a share of him to life alone without him? And what is that but
countenancing polygyny?'
'Ah! but then the other women are only mistresses,' exclaimed Isolda.
'One might tolerate that unwillingly, but another legal wife, with
rights equal to one's own or, worse, with children to compete with one's
own--never!'
'Well, perhaps not,' agreed Miranda; 'I suppose a legal and permanent
rival would be somewhat different, but, after all, it's only the middle
class in England who can be termed strictly monogamous--the upper and
lowest are as polygynous as can be. It's only our British hypocrisy that
makes us pretend monogamy is our rule!'
'Don't quarrel with British hypocrisy,' said Amoret, lazily, 'it's our
most valuable national asset. Hypocrisy simply holds the fabric of
society together.'
'Agreed,' said Isolda, 'we must pretend to believe monogamy is the rule,
for peace sake, and for the ideal's sake. Of course everybody knows
there are plenty of polygynous husbands about, and, for the matter of
that, polyandrous wives, but hypocrisy is a great aid to decency, and a
nation must have decency of _theory_ at least, if not of practice, or we
should--er--h'm--decline like the Romans.'
'I was waiting for one of you to mention the Romans,' interposed Amoret,
who for all her frivolity has a certain humorous shrewdness of her own.
'It's an invariable feature of all discussions on marriage. Directly one
so much as breathes a suggestion that the marriage tie should be made
more flexible to suit modern conditions, everyone present, except the
unhappily married, pulls a long face and quotes the awful example of the
Romans. Now I've got a gorgeous idea for solving the marriage problem.'
'Tell us,' cried three voices in unison.
'Not yet, let's get rid of the Romans first. I confided my idea to a man
the other day, and when he had floored me with the Romans as usual,
I went and looked up Gibbon.'
Laughter interrupted her: the idea of our butterfly Amoret poring over
Gibbon.
'Yes, I did,' she continued, 'and, as far as I could make out, it wasn't
their easy ideas about marriage that caused their decline, but
their--what shall I say?--their general moral slackness. . . .'
'I know,' said Isolda, coming to the rescue. 'I was reading a
frightfully interesting book about it the other day, _Imperial Purple_.
It was the relaxing of all ideals, the giving way entirely to carnal
appetites, the utter lack of moral backbone consequent on excess of
luxury and prosperity that smashed up the Romans. But if a strenuous,
cold-blooded nation like ourselves chose to relax the stringent
conditions of marriage, and kept strictly to the innovation, well, it's
absurd to say all our ideals would deteriorate and the Empire collapse
in consequence!'
'Hear, hear! Worthy of the Bluestocking herself!'
'Very well,' said Miranda. 'I'll give in about the Romans if you like,
just so as to get on with the conversation. Now let's have your gorgeous
idea, Amoret.'
'It's just this,' said Amoret. '_Duogamy._'
'_Duo_--two?'
'Exactly--two partners apiece. We're all so complex nowadays that one
can't possibly satisfy us. Two would just do it. Two would serve to
relax the tension of married life, and yet would not lead to what the
newspapers call licence. Everyone would have another chance, and what
the first partner lacked would be supplied by the second.'
'It's not such a bad idea,' said Isolda, musingly. 'Launcelot could
choose a good walker and bridge player for his alternative wife, and I'd
try to find a man who hated cards and never walked a step when he could
possibly ride.'
'I think it's a grand idea,' cried Miranda, enthusiastically. 'Lysander
could find a woman who'd play his accompaniments and love musical
comedies, and I'd look out for a man who made a cult of the higher drama
and had two permanent stalls at the Vedrenne-Barker Theatre.'
'It would simply solve everything,' cried Amoret, ecstatically.
'Whenever Theodore was disagreeable, off I'd go to my other one--and yet
without feeling I was neglecting him, as he could go to _his_ other one.
She would probably be a worthy, stolid, stayless lady with none of my
faults, and when he was fed up with her stolid staylessness he could
come back to me, and my very faults, you see, would be pleasing to him
by reason of their contrast to hers, and _vice versa_.'
'It's really a wonderful idea,' said Isolda, thoughtfully, 'I wonder no
one thought of it before. There would be fewer old maids, as men
wouldn't be so terribly shy of matrimony when they knew there would
always be that second chance. They wouldn't expect so much from one wife
as they do now. And think what a good effect it would have on our
manners, too--how kind and polite and self-controlled we would be, under
fear of being compared unfavourably with the other one.'
'Yes, it would certainly keep us all up to the mark,' reflected Miranda,
'slovenly wives would make an effort to be smart, and shrewish ones
would put a curb on their tongues. Husbands would be quite loverlike and
attentive, in their anxiety to outdo the other fellow.'
'It would smooth out the tangles all round,' declared Amoret; 'now just
take the cases known to us personally. The Fred Smiths, for instance,
haven't spoken to each other for three years, just because Fred fell in
love with Miss Brown and spends nearly all his time with her. Mrs Smith
is broken-hearted, Fred looks miserable enough--a home where no one
speaks to you must be simply Hades--and the Brown girl is always
threatening to commit suicide. The affair has quite spoilt her life, and
it must be very hard luck on the Smith children, growing up in such an
atmosphere. My plan would have done away with all this misery: Fred
could have married Miss Brown, and gone on living happily at intervals
with Mrs Smith.'
'But what would Mrs Smith do in the intervals? She happens to have found
no counter attraction.'
'Well, perhaps if duogamy had been the custom, she would have looked out
for one,' said Amoret, 'most married women could find one alternative,
I'm sure. But, any way, no plan is perfect, and there are lots of wives
who wouldn't want a second husband at all, and who would be only too
glad of a restful period, when no dinners need be ordered. Then take the
case of the Robinsons: Dick Jones adores Mrs Robinson and is utterly
wretched because he can only be a friend to her. She is very fond of
him, and fond of her husband too; she could make them both very happy if
they would share her.'
'I have often felt I could make two men happy,' said Isolda. 'Some of my
best points are wasted on Launcelot. Then, too, he never tires of the
country and his beloved golf, but I do, and when one of my fits of
London-longing were to come over me I'd just run up to town and have a
ripping time with my London husband.'
'Without feeling you were doing anything wrong,' supplemented Amoret,
whose apparent experience of the qualms of conscience struck me as being
rather suspicious.
'It's no good, girls,' said Miranda, suddenly. 'It's no good--duogamy's
off! Think of the servants!'
'Horrors, the servants!' said Isolda, blankly.
'Yes, I was afraid you would soon find out the one weak spot,' said
Amoret, regretfully. 'Of course it would be awful having to cope with
two lots of servants. One husband could afford to keep four or five,
say, and the other only one or two, and each lot would get out of hand
during the wife's absence.'
'So instead of having a perfectly deevy time with two husbands vying
with each other in pleasing one, one would have a fearsome existence
constantly breaking-in minions. Directly one had got A.'s servants into
order, it would be time to go back to B. and do the same there.'
'No; thank you,' said Isolda, firmly, 'one lot is enough for me. I've
said dozens of times, for the servant reason alone, that I wish I had
never married. It would be madness to actually double one's burden.
You can strike me off the list of duogamists, Amoret, until the Servant
Question is solved by some new invention of machinery, or the
importation of Chinese.'
'Perhaps,' Amoret suggested hopefully, 'your alternative might consent
to live in a hotel.'
'No such luck,' said Isolda, mournfully, 'when a man marries it's mostly
for a home--why else should he marry unless it's for the children? Good
gracious! I'd forgotten all about the children. Of course that
settles it.'
'The _cul-de-sac_ of all reforms!' said Amoret, tragically. 'It's
impossible to suggest any revision in the marriage system that isn't
instantly quashed by the children complication.'
We all sat silent, busy with our thoughts, and then Isolda shuddered.
'Duogamy's no good,' she said emphatically, 'and I _am_ so
disappointed!'
VII
THE ADVANTAGES OF THE PRELIMINARY CANTER
'Marriage is terrifying, but so is a cold and forlorn old age.'
--R. L. STEVENSON.
Of all the revolutionary suggestions for improving the present marriage
system, the most sensible and feasible seems to me marriage 'on
approval'--in other words, a 'preliminary canter.' The procedure would
be somewhat as follows: a couple on deciding to marry would go through a
legal form of contract, agreeing to take each other as husband and wife
for a limited term of years--say three. This period would allow two
years for a fair trial, after the abnormal and exceptionally trying
first year was over. Any shorter time would be insufficient. At the
conclusion of the three years, the contracting parties would have the
option of dissolving the marriage--the dissolution not to become
absolute for another six months, so as to allow every opportunity of
testing the genuineness of the desire to part. If no dissolution were
desired, the marriage would then be ratified by a religious or final
legal ceremony, and become permanently binding.
In the case of a marriage dissolved, each party would be free to wed
again; but the second essay must be final and permanent from the start.
This restriction would be absolutely necessary if the preliminary canter
plan is not to degenerate into a species of legalised free love, as
there are many men, and some women, who would 'always go on cantering,'
as Amoret expressed it once--and the upshot would be nothing less than
leasehold marriage for the short term of three years.
It might be urged against this plan that many couples who come to grief
in the danger zone of married life--_i.e._ nearing the tenth year--are
perfectly happy in the early years. But human love being as mutable as
it is, and people and conditions being so liable to change, it is
impossible to arrive at any permanent marriage system which allows for
this. It must, however, be remembered that, in the majority of unhappy
unions, it is not the system, but the individuals who are to blame. The
institution of the conjugal novitiate would, however, reduce the number
of divorces considerably, by making less possible the miserable misfits
in temperament now so prevalent. It would give a second chance to those
who had made a mistake, yet without resulting in that promiscuity of
intercourse which is a danger to society and fatal to the best interests
of the race. Of what other scheme can the same be said?
For married women in the novitiate period a new prefix would have to be
invented, which they would retain if the union were dissolved. _Mrs_
would be the distinguishing prefix of women who had entered on the final
and permanent state of matrimony. Whether the wife would take the
husband's surname during the probationary term would be another question
for decision by the majority; I should incline to her retaining her
maiden name with the aforesaid prefix, and only assuming that of the
husband with the Mrs of finality. But these are mere details.
As regards the important question of the children, the issue of a
probationary union would, of course, be legitimate, but I think wise
people would see to it that no children were born to them until the
marriage had been finally ratified. Certainly children would be the
exception rather than the rule, but the question of their custody in the
case of dissolved marriages would be one requiring the most thoughtful
legislation. To divide the child's time between the parents is an
undesirable expedient, and one that must to a certain extent be harmful,
since a settled existence and routine is so essential for children's
well-being. Yet to deprive the father of them altogether is equally
undesirable.
The conjugal novitiate is not a new scheme. It was practised prior to
the Reformation in Scotland under the name of 'hand-fasting.' The
parties met at the annual fairs, and by the ceremony of joining hands
declared themselves man and wife for a year. On the anniversary of this
function they were legally married by a priest--if all had gone well
with them. If they had found the union a failure they parted.