HARMONY OF THOUGHTS.
Ought we to marry a silly, an intelligent, or a literary woman?
If this question were to be answered by public vote we should probably
have the following ratio:
For the silly woman, 10 votes.
For the literary woman, 0 vote.
For the intelligent woman (that is, of normal ability), 90 votes.
In this century, in which the voice of the majority takes the place of
right and reason, the problem would be solved by that meeting of which
I have guaranteed the result.
In all cases, however, this verdict ought to be preceded by many and
varied comments if it is to be converted into practical counsels to
those about to take a wife.
The ten who have voted for the silly woman would say that they did
not desire an idiot, but, on the contrary, a woman slightly foolish,
but not too much so. But together with this defect they would wish
to have her handsome, young, and very good-tempered. They seek above
all a companion who helps them to keep healthy and merry. There is
nothing more charming, more sympathetic, more irresistible, than a
little absurdity from a pretty mouth. It makes one laugh; and when our
laugh provokes that of the one who has uttered it, and she shows her
beautiful teeth in rows like pearls, oh! bless the folly and her who
spoke it.
The ninety who have given no vote to the literary woman wish us to
understand that they like an educated woman, but detest pedantry, and
that nothing in the world could make them desire a _bas-bleu_; much
less a _choupette-bleue_, a variety of the first, so named by Balzac.
Having heard these comments, let us now make ours. It is only too
true that in our Italian society the general culture is much below
that which one meets with in France, Germany, England, and the United
States. We have the courage to confess this in our own home if for no
other reason than with the hope that the shame which mounts to our
faces may induce us to remove this national blot from our children.
Men of little culture desire even less in their wives, in order that
at least in their family circle their credit may be unimpugned. From
this arises a general repugnance to teach our girls too many things,
from this comes the antipathy to the higher girls’ schools and to all
that tends to elevate the intellectual level of our companions. Up to
the present time the hasty and ill-digested attempts have not helped
to modify public opinion for the better; the only people who dedicate
themselves to higher learning in one way or another are the ugly,
hysterical, or very poor.
We all open our eyes very widely before a lady doctor or a literary
woman as before some wonderful phenomenon which perhaps may change our
“Ah!” of astonishment to an “Oh!” of admiration; but the woman will
always be a phenomenon to us.
And she is really a phenomenon, an idol to put on altars amidst the
incense of our adoration; she is a woman who thinks as much as a man,
has the learning of a professor, writes books that are read, or paints
pictures and makes statues to which are awarded prizes; an idol to
be admired if beauty be added to this virtue and if grace accompany
it; a half goddess or a goddess if the talent does not go arm in arm
with pride, and if genius is surrounded by a fragrant and flowering
womanliness. But who finds these phenomena, and who, having found
them, marries them? Then if the literary woman is ugly, and impolite,
if her body and voice proclaim the certificate of her baptism, which
makes her more man than woman, oh! then we are all agreed in not
wishing to have her for a wife. It is a new species, a psycho-physico
hermaphrodite, whose books, pictures, and statues we admire, but whom
we have no desire to share a room with.
⁂
In sexual union the harmonies of relation ought to show themselves,
in thought as well as act, in order that there may be happiness.
Therefore it is that man was made by nature more intelligent than
woman. Perfect harmony is only to be found with a man who thinks
vigorously, does what he wishes with energy; who rules and guides the
woman in the paths of life and the glories of conquest. The inversion
of these relations means to be out of tune and in discord; it is an
humiliation on the part of the man, and (let us admit it) on the part
of the woman also, who in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred wishes
to be loved, caressed, and also adored, but who likes to feel herself
ruled.
Woe to those women of intellect superior to the husband, whom they
must pity, correct when in error, and too often pardon for his folly
and absurdities!
Love is a chemical affinity; and its composition is proportionately
stronger the more widely different are the elements in the
combination. The ideal of perfect marriage is the combination of a man
thoroughly a man, _exceedingly so_, and a woman thoroughly a woman,
_exceedingly so_. Whenever a man acquires a feminine tendency of
character and a woman a virile one the chemical affinity diminishes in
intensity, the combination alters at the least touch or first contact
of a third body which comes near and has a greater affinity for one or
the other of the two elements.
A very intelligent woman and a man of less than mediocre intellect
are combinations of bodies which can only have an exceedingly weak
affinity between them. The first has a mode of thought which is
virile, and the second has a feminine one. And only too often the
third element comes to correct the elective affinity, and the literary
woman takes a man of genius, who rules her, for a lover, or a robust
man, who calms her; and the husband of small intellect comforts
himself in making love to an illiterate peasant woman, or a maid
without grammar, with whom he can show his intellectual pre-eminence
and revenge himself on the superiority of his wife.
⁂
I ask pardon (on my knees if necessary, for I know that my sin is
great) for treating of a more and a less in the measure of thought.
This is really an infantile or Australasian psychology; but the _much_
or the _little_ are always the first approximations to the solution of
every problem, and the _how much_ always goes before the _when_ and
the _how_.
I admit, then, that in the harmony of thought between the man and
woman the amount must always be greater on the man’s side. The culture
of the man is always progressing, and with it inevitably that of
the woman also, but this ought always to remain a step below ours,
not because we do not wish to lose the pre-eminence of potency, but
because the labour of the brain is more difficult and perilous in the
woman’s case than in the man’s, and her energy naturally less.
Look around without leaving Italy and tell me how many _normal_ women,
how many healthy and perfect women, there are in our literary circle.
I will not continue on this theme lest I draw upon myself a shower of
poisoned darts. Several are my venerated and admired friends, and I
wish to keep their friendship until my last breath. But if I should
say that many of them are sterile, and many very nervous, ought they
to feel themselves offended? I esteem them too much to believe it!
Man is so accustomed to consider himself superior to the woman in the
world of thought that if he finds an error in the orthography of a
lady’s letter he is as pleased as if he had found a diamond in the
sand of a river. That little error, which was made in the hysterical
haste of a moment of love’s expansion, is really a diamond, because
it confirms and assures us of our intellectual superiority, and shows
us all at once the feminine and seductive grace of the being we love.
An error of orthography or even of grammar in a feminine handwriting
is a wayward little foot, which peeps out from under the skirt of
the dress, and hints to us the glories of the sex, the inexhaustible
delights of voluptuousness. It is a coquettish curve which in spite of
the thick clothing whispers in the ear palpitating with desire: Eve
lies underneath, Eve who is awaiting Adam—and desires him.
⁂
Harmony of thought between the sexes ought to spring from the
agreement of the unlike, and in such a way that no pride should
be offended, and each one be satisfied to make a sum instead of a
subtraction.
A scientific man and a female artist can form a delightful harmony
upon two notes; a naturalist also and a woman who adores music;
a psychologist, an inexorable analyst, and a woman who sees the
comic side of things at once; and thus there are a hundred other
combinations of different intellectual values, which, summed up,
leave each one contented with his own. Besides special fitness,
there is a sexual character which impresses itself upon the thought
of the man and woman. Man discovers, finds, creates; woman divines,
distinguishes, analyses. Man reaps, woman gleans. Man with too great
haste, often with too great pride, grasps too much and lets it fall
from its hands; woman walks behind and gathers up what he has lost.
Man has less tact in judging his surroundings, and often gives a
cuff when he means a caress; woman, on the contrary, like a delicate
galvanometer, feels the slightest electric or magnetic oscillation
in the air which surrounds her, and for this reason she is a most
valuable instrument to a politician, a writer, or an artist who
attempts new roads to beauty, and must conquer the resistance of the
majority. Unhappy the man who before printing a book, exhibiting a
picture, or making a speech in parliament has no loved woman from
whom to draw life and warmth. If a sailor never leaves port without
consulting the barometer, so man never ought to prepare himself for
any undertaking without having first consulted that barometer of all
barometers, the woman who loves him. How many ships have been wrecked
from want of this precaution, neglecting to take it, through pride or
inattention!
You may be the greatest man of genius and your work the fruit of long
and profound meditation; and yet you may rest assured that in the
great polyhedron of truth some plane has escaped your sight which will
be seen by the woman who loves you, because she is a woman, and sees
many little things a man does not see; and because she loves you she
has a magnifying lens before the eyes of her heart which makes all
that may injure or benefit you appear gigantic.
⁂
It is very rare when a woman has conquered our moral and physical
sympathies that we love her less for some discord of thought; but
if we want ideal perfection we must marry bodies, hearts, and
intellects. In this case we must seek in our companion a discreet
culture, an exquisite taste for the beautiful, a delicate spirit of
observation, a divination of human character. If you find all this in
one woman, and if she is beautiful and good, you may deem yourself
the most fortunate man in the world, and may declare to the whole
earth that you have not one but three wives, having married intellect,
heart, and thought.