of marriage as tow, is kindled from a spark, the veriest trifle in
itself, some unkind or careless word or look, perhaps unnoticed even
by the offender. This spark, through our own innate perversity, for
I contend that here as elsewhere, in sexual relations, the fault
lies generally with the man, or through the malicious or ill-judged
meddling of third parties, is fanned into flame, and then the work
is done: a separation, with or without the formality of a legal
divorce, becomes but too often inevitable, or if not carrying matters
to this extent, perhaps for the sake of the children, the parties
still live together, united in semblance, but in reality living the
most dreary of prison lives, each virtually changed to a foe.
For these sad experiences is there no remedy? Some would find it in
legislation, and would so extend the legal grounds for divorce that
it might become a relief or a luxury within the reach of every one.
To this, however, there are many grave objections of such importance
that they must everywhere be acknowledged; enumerating some of them,
I shall not attempt to present them all, for my remarks upon this
subject are not intended to be exhaustive, but are only collateral to
the general inquiry we have been pursuing.
First. Were divorces made more common, there would be far more
children and invalid women thrown upon other persons than their
legitimate owners for support, that is to say, upon the community.
The long and bitter trials that take place between parents for
the custody of their children, do not always rest upon parental
affection; they are sometimes based upon spite or revenge.
Secondly. The weaknesses and evil passions of mankind are only
controlled, to a great degree, by the existence of law, to thwart
which is attended by personal detriment. Remove or relax the
statutes, and an inducement, as it were, is held out to baseness
and to crime. “The saints,” said the wise observer I have already
quoted, “are all in heaven.” We are all of us mortal, and prone to
selfishness, to retort when irritated, to fly into passion when
retorted to. There is too much reason to believe that were divorces
possible wherever, at one time or another, they have been longed for,
scarce a house on earth would stand. The test would be too much for
poor human nature. If he would challenge this assertion, let every
man first ask himself “Is it I?”, and then he may look into the
mysteries of the circle of neighbors surrounding him.
It has very truly been said that every person in this world bears his
cross, and that in every house there is a skeleton. The closet may
be adroitly concealed, and its door may be kept closed, but though
the dry bones never rattle, though indeed they drop into dust, yet
the knowledge that they are surely there, robs home life to many
of half or of all its charm. In the little chafes and ills, the
disappointments and sorrows of married life, the rule of safety is
to bear and forbear, recollecting that every really chivalrous or
whole-hearted man should, seek, as the stronger, to bear more than an
even half of the natural burden.
Thirdly. Were divorces more common, or more readily obtained,
the very foundation of all society and civil government would be
uprooted. The stability of the state rests upon that of the elements
of which it is composed. When these return to chaos, or dissolve
themselves into the thinnest air, the commonwealth itself must prove
a bubble, collapsing as soon as pricked by circumstance.
And, fourthly. To seek peace and mental quiet through a divorce is,
as a general thing, but cowardice. To encourage them is, therefore,
to offer a premium for pusillanimity. Were marriages, or rather
engagements, contracted less hastily, and never, as is sometimes
confessed, from curiosity, coquetry, or for fun, much, very much evil
and suffering would be prevented. Men and women are often but the
silliest of children, playing with each other’s hearts as though they
were toys, and sowing for themselves and for each other a harvest of
life-long misery. I am writing no homily. I am stating what every man
who reads this knows to be the fact, and there is not a single one of
us, however happy his present relation, who has not some careless,
or rude, or positively unkind word or act to regret, possibly
to bitterly repent himself of. We may well excuse women for the
witching, though sometimes galling, arts they practise on us, for it
is but a part of their charm. Let us, however, never excuse ourselves
for inflicting hurt upon them, or disaster. If carelessly done, it
should be sincerely regretted. No gentleman could commit such an act
with malice aforethought.
Were these the rules of life generally followed, and were they all
embodied in the single line, “To err is human, to forgive divine,”
divorces would no more be thought of, and we should taste even in
this world that best of refreshments, the sweet sleep of the just.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] The reader will find this subject fully discussed in a late
publication upon Marriage in the United States by Mons. A. Carlier,
of Paris, and Dr. B. J. Jeffries, of Boston.
VIII.—A PLEA FOR WOMAN.
In bringing this essay, which I hope has not wholly been a tedious
one to my readers, to a close, I cannot do better than recapitulate
my reasons for writing it, the main argument that I have advanced,
and the end or effect I have labored to accomplish, the latter being
to cure, as a physician, the great and festering sore on our body
politic, corrupting its life-blood and threatening its very existence.
I have endeavored to discuss the relations of the sexes to each
other in their social bearings and from a professional standpoint,
and have been moved so to do from a belief, resting upon my own
careful investigations into the subject as a medical man, and upon
the confessions of many men and the allegations of many women, that
these relations are very frequently unlike what they should be in the
better, the more respectable walks of life. Lest I be said to judge
of others by myself, I will frankly state that I make no pretence to
be, naturally, more effeminate or more apathetic than the average
of men, and I hold that to most of us refinement, purification,
godliness, come less by grace than by fire. Assailed by temptations
from without and within, all of which are so freely acknowledged by
Dr. Ware, and other candid writers upon the subject, the boy runs a
gantlet which is not ended with manhood. We dig pitfalls for women;
they, deceived, if surviving their disappointment, in turn lay snares
for us. Happy those of either sex who have never suffered themselves,
nor caused others to suffer!
Starting with the premises that for much the greater part of the
domestic woes in this world our own sex is to blame, and for much
of the wrong and wickedness committed by women we ourselves are
accountable, I proceeded to show that by natural instinct, divinely
implanted for the furtherance of the Infinite Plan, we are forced
from our earliest childhood to perceive that it is not good to be
alone, and that both sexes are impelled, the male by far the more
strongly, towards bodily union.
Conscious or unconscious of the desires awakened within him, the man
instinctively seeks their gratification. Sometimes, and very often
it is, in the middle aged as in the young, he endeavors to find
pleasure or relief in an unnatural and wholly selfish abasement of
himself; sometimes, and very often this is also, he consorts with
abandoned women, and thus degrades himself to their level; sometimes,
though this is comparatively seldom, until by impure thought or
improper deed he has bestained himself (for if a man lusteth after a
woman hath he not already committed adultery?) he seeks legitimate
happiness in honorable marriage, blending the physical with the
spiritual union, the earthly with that which we hope may survive all
time.
By remarks such as these, it will be probably said by those whose
professions have been of a higher character than their lives, I but
lower the standard, and nature, and objects of marriage. I would not
intentionally or willingly do so. But that it may be seen that I have
reasoned only in accordance with the fact, I shall draw once more
from that unchallenged authority, who was to myself, while a student,
the same teacher I would fain make him to be for my fellow-men. His
voice now comes to us from the grave; it is none the less earnest or
impressive for this. “It is easier,” says Dr. Ware, “to show that a
remedy is needed than to discover and apply it. In this case, indeed,
we encounter the most difficult question presented to us in the moral
education of our race. At the early age at which the evil begins to
exist, when it is gradually creeping into the thoughts and habits of
the child, how are we to detect and counteract it? In the present
state of the relations between the old and the young, between parents
and children, this is a task of extreme delicacy. It can only be done
by the judicious observation and management of the associations, the
conversation, the intercourse, the amusements, and the habits of
children from their earliest days, both in families and in schools.
But alas! how few parents, how few instructors, have the knowledge,
the discretion, the tact, the judgment, to qualify them for such an
office! How often must those who are fully aware of their duty shrink
from its performance, from the apprehension that they may suggest,
instead of preventing, the evil they fear!
“At a later period of life, the attempt to counteract the tendency
to sensual indulgence is also encompassed with great difficulties,
though there is less embarrassment as to the exact means which are
to be put in force to accomplish the object. At this age, we are
to depend not so much upon the watchful care of others as upon the
establishment in the mind of the young man himself of a principle of
resistance founded upon reason and conscience. We can often succeed
in doing this, and although, where the mind and body have both been
debauched by early training, the mind filled with impure images,
and the body stimulated by unnatural gratification, the struggle is
painful and often protracted, yet it is frequently effectual.
“The young man who becomes sensible of the dangers to which he is
exposed, should fortify himself by every motive that can aid him in
his endeavor to escape them. A regard to reputation, the fear of
disease, may do much to restrain, and these are considerations not
unworthy of regard; but the surest safeguard is to be found in the
cultivation of an internal principle of resistance to evil because
it is evil. Much may be done by those who sincerely aim to save
themselves from these early temptations by a sedulous discipline of
the thoughts, and a corresponding carefulness of words. Thoughts
lead to words, and words lead to thoughts; both are liable to be
consummated in actions. Purity of language in the intercourse of
society should be regarded as an essential quality of the gentleman,
and the want of it exclude him from good company as much as any other
vulgar habit.
“Another safeguard is to be found in the cultivation of a just
perception of the true relation of the sexes. Let the young man
cherish a high estimate of, and a reverence for, the character of the
true and pure woman, and a corresponding detestation and horror of
her who abuses and prostitutes the privileges of her sex. Such a view
of this relation as has been inculcated, if it be fully appreciated
and heartily received, will lead him to regard a legitimate and
permanent union with one of the other sex as the most desirable
object in life, and will fill him with a loathing for any other than
such a union. The young man who looks forward with honorable feelings
to such a connection with a congenial and virtuous woman, will find
in the hopes and prospects which it opens to him in life the surest
defence against the temptations which continually assail him.”[40]
Reasoning from the above, I endeavored to show that while very early
marriages were probably contracted at the expense of the vigor
of their offspring, it was yet well to begin to found one’s home
while young, and pointed out that a house was never a home till it
contained one’s children. The rights of the husband, alleged and
actual, were then discussed; and it was proved to a demonstration
that so far from being absolute, these rights are all of them
reciprocal with duties, and that in their assertion and realization
reason rather than mere instinct must govern us. From this point,
glancing at its relations to divorce, as affording arguments and
counter arguments, I have come to the recapitulation, which, rightly
weighed, of itself affords one of the strongest of pleas for woman.
She pleads for what? For undue power in public life, for undue
control in domestic affairs, for privileges not justly her own? The
true wife desires none of these. Suffering through the centuries, and
the varying phases of social civilization, she has been consecutively
man’s slave, his idol for the moment, his toy. If recognized at
all as in equality of rights, it has been in the right to suffer,
and lest by nature she should not possess enough of this, woes
unnecessary, unmentionable, innumerable, have been heaped upon her.
Every one knows this, whether man or woman, and if woman’s voice has
till now been nearly silent, she will none the less value these words
of grateful appreciation, of sympathy, and of appeal to my fellows.
We owe kindness to her for her kindness to us; we owe it, that we may
still possess her to comfort and to cheer us; we owe it, for the sake
of our children, that they may be healthy and well cared for, that
indeed they may be born. The terrible fashion now so prevalent, of
slaughtering the innocents while still in nature’s lap, is, in great
measure, attributable to our own apathy, our own neglect, our own
teachings, our own cruelty, and it behooves every one of us to make
such amends as he best can. By his own life and his own example every
man can show his detestation of that depravity of spirit which would
turn a woman’s purity into an offence, and would nail to the block of
sensuality and licentiousness the wings of angels,—so much chaster
are women than ourselves. Woe unto those of us by whom such offences
come.
As very pertinent to this especial point, I shall here present
portions of a private letter, written to me by a lady of great
intellectual and moral worth, well known indeed throughout the
country.[41] Her remarks are of a kind to rivet attention, plain
spoken and yet delicate as they are. “I have just laid down,” she
says, “your ‘Book for Every Woman,’ and I want to thank you with
all my heart for having written it. I was very slow to be convinced
that any woman of decent character would consciously perpetrate
an abortion; still slower to see how any woman calling herself
pure minded could so degrade the sanctities of marriage as to make
steady and persistent attempts to prevent impregnation,—and yet I
had for many years felt sure that a great many so-called ‘female
diseases’ were incited and developed by the luxurious and indolent
habits of our women, which permit them, when neither cultivated nor
philanthropic, to become conscious of every phase of gestative action
or sexual excitement. To live straight on is the only wholesome way
to live, and I could see that women were not doing this, but watching
themselves in a morbid fashion sure to make mischief.
“When my friend, Dr. E. H. C., had opened my eyes to the actual fact,
I felt so disgusted that I could have prayed to die. Since I could
not do that, I did not hesitate to speak with unction to the large
class of women who privately appealed to me, and to whose plain
language I had not before known how to return any adequate answer.
“Will you believe me, when I say that I usually find it easier to
induce the victim of seduction to take the consequences of her
weakness than to persuade the fashionable woman to refrain from
crime? The nether millstone is not so hard as the heart of a worldly
woman. You will hardly concede to me the right to speak to you upon
the matter in a physiological way, but will you overlook the seeming
want of modesty which permits me to say that there is one argument
which has weight with this class of women that has not been appealed
to? From the moment that I understood the frequency of the attempts
made to prevent impregnation and induce abortion, I felt that I had
a key to the loss of beauty, of expression, and the sweet maternal
charm, which every one who thinks must miss in this generation of
women.
“You speak feelingly of the large families which used to make
the homestead charming and attractive, but you say nothing of
that element of motherliness, which I have missed for years, and
especially of that genial, loving, thoughtful grandmother who used to
be the beneficent fairy of childhood.
“I despised myself for it, but I did look in women’s faces to see
what marks their lives had left, and I tell you that it is a simple
fact, that women who habitually prevent impregnation grow cold,
debased, unlovely in their expression, and that those who resort to
abortion become sharp, irritable, and ungenial, everything, in short,
that we mean by unmotherly.
“Now we may predict disease and death to these fashionable women
forever in vain. They will not believe; they are sure they shall
escape whoever else is lost; but if you tell them that they are
destroying all sweetness, grace, and charm, and that this innermost
secret of their lives is written plain on lip and brow for him who
runs to read, the mirror itself will bear witness to them. And if to
their startled consciousness you go on to urge the loveliness which
wraps that woman round who gives herself gracefully to this, the
highest function of her life, not merely loving him who gives her
children to her, but loving them so much that she would rather live
on the simplest food, and wear the plainest dress, draped and crowned
with this maternal honor, than have all luxury and all power, about
an unlovely and lonely way,—I think one often may, through woman’s
very weakness, appeal to and touch the most sacred impulses of her
nature.
“But the book needs a counterpart addressed to _men_. Till _they_ are
willing to spend as freely for wife and children as for the mistress,
hidden but a few doors off, women will hardly be free agents in this
matter. No woman dreads her travail, as she dreads the loss of what
she calls, in her unhappy ignorance and blindness, her husband’s
love. O, that we could restore the happy simplicity of thirty years
ago, when there were homes where we now have houses, mothers and
housekeepers in the place of lady patronesses, fathers and husbands
instead of loungers at the club! But the world moves onward, never
backward, and you must ring the bugle call again and again, till it
brings conscience and harmony into the irregular and ‘purposeless’
march.”
Before this, however, can be done, men must have a higher respect
for women. They must be taught that in childhood the female mind is
far oftener stainless than that of the male, and that, saving only
those exceptional cases where unchastity, like other family diseases,
seems to descend from parent to child, the vice, really such, has
been engendered, fostered, developed in woman by man. So truly is
this the case, that I have never hesitated to consider the victims
of seduction as generally sinned against rather than sinning, and to
teach that even in the mire may be found many pearls of great price
well worth the saving.
It is not generally known, though most men have had individual
experience of the fact, that a large majority of married women,
whatever their natural temperament, become considerably or entirely
apathetic after a few years of conjugal life; that many married
women never become sexually awakened at all, so far as sensations of
pleasure or physical yearning are concerned, and that, despite all
the evil in the world, and all the spread of knowledge, advisable
and unadvisable, there still exist many unmarried women, not only
entirely innocent of improper act or thought, but foolishly,
inexcusably ignorant concerning matters which every mother who would
save her daughters from the chance of great risk, and possibly still
greater mental and bodily suffering, should teach them beforehand, as
is done to so much greater extent in England than in this country.
These are the facts, and it is an insult to the sex when men treat
women, whether single or even their own wives, as though they were
as sensually minded as themselves. Says Acton, “We offer, I think,
no apology for light conduct when we admit that there are some few
women, who, like men, in consequence of hereditary predisposition
or ill-directed moral education, find it difficult to restrain
their passions, while their more fortunate sisters have never
been tempted, and have, therefore, never fallen. This, however,
does not alter the fact which I would venture again to impress on
the reader, that in general women do not feel any great sexual
tendencies. The unfortunately large numbers whose lives would seem to
prove the contrary, are to be accounted for on much more mercenary
motives—vanity, giddiness, greediness, love of dress, distress,
hunger, make women prostitutes, but not generally sensuality.”[42]
I know that there are none so prone to plunge a fallen woman deeper
into the mire, alike by their acts and their tongues, as women
themselves. Thoughtless, forgetting that if exposed to the same
dangers or the same temptations they also might have erred, women
too often give to us men the impression that they are themselves but
hypocrites and whited sepulchres; too often the first step towards a
woman’s ruin has been from mere curiosity to see if she were really
the immaculate and unapproachable creature her words would proclaim
her. A woman’s hasty and uncharitable condemnation of an erring
sister may well serve as a challenge to the tester of souls. As for
us, he that is without sin let him cast the first stone.
Men often complain of the apathy in their wives, to which I have
just referred, and improperly attribute it to want of affection. It
is in no small number of cases the result of physical suffering,
often extreme, and sometimes endured without a word of complaint even
to the end. The spirit prompting this great patience is one of the
truest and most self-sacrificing heroism. I do not, however, hesitate
to pronounce it wrong, and to declare the silence of one woman,
under such circumstances, is a positive harm to her whole sex. It
is often through a mistaken sense of duty—an opinion encouraged of
course by the husband, and sometimes even by the medical attendant,
to whom the simplest principles of his science should teach a more
reasonable view. Thus one eminent writer remarks: “In some instances,
indeed, feeling has been sacrificed to duty, and the wife has
endured, with all the self-martyrdom of womanhood, what was almost
worse than death.”[43] Even in these later days, since it has been
discovered that there almost always exists a physical cause for
all the many peculiar woes that women suffer, there are still many
husbands, there are still physicians, who see in a wife’s languor,
a wife’s disability, a wife’s complaints, but the vain imaginings
of a distempered mind, or the restless chafing of a soured and
impatient disposition, and think that by according even but trifling
sympathy, they are encouraging a groundless whim, or exciting to
ennui, hysteria, or rebellion. Hard, indeed, the lives of these
poor sufferers,—who, if half confessing their secret distress, are
thought to exaggerate a trifling ailment, or to fabricate one for the
occasion. And yet it is upon just these troubles, actual and very
real, upon just these sufferings, harassing and often very intense,
that half the woes of a woman’s life are based. They cause her to
reject her husband, to destroy her unborn offspring; they make her
moody and despondent, and to look forward without hope; they often
send her to the insane asylum, and not unfrequently cause her to
take her life; just these simple troubles, so easily detected when
searched for, and many of them so easily cured.