My old co-ed college chum, Winifred Black, has recently propounded this
question, “Why are husbands lobsters?” So I’ll explain to Winifred the
cause of this sad state which devolutes a lover into a lobster. It’s like
this: the rule is that the male of the genus homo is never any better
than he has to be. Having said this much, let me further add that this
truth also applies to the female of the genus homo. ¶ A marriage that
is practically indissoluble gives the man security in his position. He
is not obliged to win favors—he merely exercises his rights. As for the
woman, she has him, and when she reminds him of the fact, hell is to
pay. The man who stands on his rights, thinks about his rights, talks
of his rights, belongs to the Lobsteria. He has ceased to be either
loving or lovable. The only right any man should have is the right
to be decent—that is, to be agreeable and useful ❦ One of Nature’s
chief intents in sex is to bring about beauty, grace and harmony. The
flowing mane and proud step of the horse, the flamboyant tail of the
peacock, the song of the bird, the perfume and color of the flowers, are
all sex manifestations, put forth with intent to attract, please and
fascinate. Charm of manner is a sex attribute which has become a habit.
The creative principle in all art is a secondary sex manifestation.
The average married man feels that he is immune from the necessity of
winning, pleasing, charming—he owns property. He’s a Turk! And from
the Turk and the Comet, good Lord, deliver us! ¶ Public Opinion is the
great natural restraining force. We are ruled by Public Opinion, not by
statute law. If statute law expresses the Zeitgeist it is well, but often
law hampers and restrains Public Opinion ❦ Divorce laws are obsolete
in their character, and should die the death. A marriage that can not
be dissolved tends to tyranny. There is a rudimentary something in man
that makes him a tyrant—that divides humanity into master and slave—and
to these barbaric instincts we are heir. The business of civilization
is to make men free. And freedom means responsibility. ¶ The curse of
marriage is that it makes the parties immune from very much of that
gentle consideration which freedom bestows. Freedom in divorce is the one
thing that will transform the marital boor into a gentleman. ¶ Freedom
in divorce is the one thing that will abolish the domestic steam-roller.
Freedom in divorce is the one thing that will correct the propensity to
nag, in both male and female. We gain freedom by giving it. We hold love
by giving it away. To enslave another is to enslave yourself. Constancy,
unswerving and eternal, is only possible where men and women are free.
¶ Marriage was first a property-right. The woman was owned by the man.
She was a chattel. He had the right of taking her life if she attempted
to escape, or was otherwise unruly ❦ Then the priests came in and
declared marriage a sacred rite. They brazenly declared that the marriage
where they did not officiate was no marriage at all—that it was a base
and unholy alliance, and that the children were illegitimate. ¶ The
relationship of man and woman was to them a sin and a shame, but by their
approval it was redeemed and made proper and right. To grant a divorce
was to admit that the rite did not “take.” Hence, divorce was tabu. The
Church isn’t interested in divorce—all the church is fighting for is
to hold its position. Then comes civil marriage, which is a contract
between the man and the woman from which neither party can withdraw
without laying the whole matter before the courts—and the newspapers.
And the sacredness of contract takes the place of the sacredness of the
rite. “I would hold my friend by no stronger tie than the virtue that is
in my soul,” said the gentle Emerson. ¶ Easy divorce would make divorce
unnecessary in a vast number of cases, because it would put men and women
on their good behavior, and thus do away with incompatibility. That which
tends to increase charm of manner can not be bad; that which tends to
conform a lover into a lobster is not wholly good. ¶ All over the United
States there is a general demand for a uniform divorce law. This is right
and well. And the way to bring about this uniformity is to do away with
all divorce laws. ¶ If divorce were free, it would probably be no more
frequent than it is now. Marriage should be difficult, and divorce easy.
As it is now, any preacher will marry anything to anybody for fifty
cents ❦ Nightly, clergymen are aroused from sleep to marry couples out
of the second-story window. Marriages occur in circus-rings, balloons,
show-windows, and yesterday I heard of a wedding in an automobile going
on the high clutch at speed-limit, with Papa’s car opening up the cut-off
close behind in hot pursuit ❦ Bum, lum, de-dum! Marriage is so serious
a matter that it should not be entered upon lightly. The old plan of
publishing the bans was founded on commonsense. The couple about to
embark should be compelled to take a full month to think about it, and
persons absolutely unfit should be debarred. But once entered upon,
just two people know whether the venture is a success—and they are the
man and the woman. In the name of freedom, let the only parties who are
vitally interested decide the issue. ¶ Divorce is a heroic remedy for an
awful condition. It is the culmination of a fearful tragedy ❦ I know of
nothing worse than incompatibility. There is no hell equal to the hell
of having to live with a person who is not your own. Either party who
wants a divorce should have it. And the proof that it is desired should
be reason sufficient for granting it ❦ Make way for liberty! It isn’t the
law that brings a man and a woman together, and no law should be invoked
to hold them together. ¶ The police should keep their heavy hands off.
What can an outside party know of this most subtle and delicate of all
human relations! The love of man for woman and of woman for man is the
most powerful and persistent force in the universe. And man in his greed
has seized upon it and attempted to regulate it from Harrisburg, Hartford
and Helena. Now there are many folks who think it should be looked after
from the District of Columbia. God help us all—just lift off the roofs
and take a look at Social Washington some night at four A. M.! ¶ The
lawyer here steps in and becomes as insistent and as dogmatic as the
priest. Once you could marry only through the ministrations of a priest;
now you can secure a divorce only through the services of a lawyer—often
a dozen are employed, counting both sides. ¶ “Why make life difficult,
complex and heavy?” cries Emerson. And well does he ask the question
❦ This supreme thing in life, our love, can not be regulated by man’s
law ❦ The Supreme Power that made, fashioned and gave it to us provided
for its automatic regulation. ¶ When love, honor and respect die, it is
time in the name of purity to part. No priest can consecrate the holy
relationship of a man and a woman, but God can and does. Love is the
only consecration—and love is enough ❦ To imagine that God should endow
us with this mighty passion, and then leave its regulation to those who
govern us for a consideration, is an insult to the Divine Intelligence
of which we are a part ❦ The mating of a man and a woman is the one
sacred thing in life. And left alone it is lovely and true in all its
attributes. In law, they will tell you that “the plaintiff has all the
rights his contract gives him and no more.” In Nature, a man should have
all the rights which love bestows, and no more. And when I speak of man
I mean woman, too, for there is the male man and the female man ❦ I
believe in equality—the equality of Nature, or, if you please, of God. I
do not believe in the law interposing and giving a man rights and a woman
privileges. Neither do I understand why the money a woman earns should
belong to a man, unless we first grant the righteousness of master and
slave, and frankly admit that the man owning the woman, also owns _per
se_ all that she produces, including her children ❦ God has decided who
the children belong to—they belong to the woman who bore them and whose
body nourished them. But man steps in and makes laws about a mother’s
instincts. ¶ Men and women mate, and being mated cleave together until
death do them part—and longer. They whom God has joined together no man
can put asunder. The mischievous meddling of man leads to a condition
where the parties think they own each other. This is slavery. Many
married men treat any other woman with more respect than they treat their
wives. ¶ The gallantry that holds through gentle treatment and just is
gone when the man thinks he holds a warranty-deed for the property. To be
free you must be on your good behavior. And do not for a moment imagine
that a man would leave his mate if law did not manacle him to her. He is
held by an unseen silken cord as strong as Fate, as constant as Life,
as persistent as Death. “Whither thou goest, I will go: and thy people
shall be my people.” ¶ The divine attraction which brings the right man
and the right woman together must be trusted as strong and sufficient
enough to hold them. When you treat them as rats baited into a trap,
from which escape is impossible, you dissolve the main idea and interpose
the thought of escape. ¶ And this is what makes so many married men and
women stray in their sleep and tread the border-land of folly. I would
hold my mate by the supreme integrity of my love for her, and by no other
bond. And this once fixed in the minds of men and women would make for
constancy. ¶ Nothing is more terrible in life than to break and sunder
human relations ❦ To be true to your own is the natural thing, because
it is the right thing. It is the only policy that pays. Happiness lies
in loyalty. This applies to any field of human endeavor. The race knows
it now for the first time in history. Truth is the new virtue, and Truth
is a virtue because it reduces the perplexities of life and brings
good results. ¶ The love of man for woman and of woman for man, and of
both for their children, is a divine instinct ❦ When you bolster and
brace it by political blacksmiths and shuddering shysters, you doubt
its constancy, and, what is worse, you suggest the doubt to the very
people you seek to fetter ❦ The greatest line ever written by Humboldt
was this: “The Universe is governed by Law.” But he did not refer to the
laws of man ❦ He referred to the laws of Nature, or, if you please, the
laws of God, although Humboldt in his latter years never used the word
“God.” I believe in the blessed trinity of Man, Woman and Child. These
to me express Divinity. Left alone the woman would be the companion,
friend and helpmeet of the man, not his slave, pet, plaything, drudge,
doormat and scullion. ¶ Happiness lies in equality. The effort you put
forth to win the woman, you should be compelled to exercise through life
in order to hold her. And you will hold her by so long as Love kisses
the lips of Death, and the dimpled hands of the babe encircle the neck
of its father ❦ The house of the harlot exists because love is gyved,
fettered, blindfolded and sold in the marketplaces. There is nothing
so pulls on the heartstrings of the normal, healthy man as the love
for wife and child ❦ Always and forever he wears them in his heart of
hearts. To imagine that he would forsake them for the husks of license,
unless looked after by Jaggers and Jaggers, is to doubt the Wisdom of
the Creator. In our hearts Divine Wisdom implanted the seeds of loyalty
and right. These are a part of the great plan of self-preservation. We
do not walk off the cliff, because we realize that to do so would mean
death. ¶ Make men and women free, and they will travel by the Eternal
Guiding Stars. That which makes for self-respect in men and women,
putting each on his good behavior, increasing the sum of good-will and
lessening hate, will have a most potent influence on future generations.
I can not imagine a worse handicap than to be tumbled into life by
incompatible parents and be brought up in an atmosphere of strife. “We
have bred from the worst in the worst possible way, and the result is a
race of scrubs,” says Alfred Russel Wallace. ¶ All that tends to tyranny
in parents manifests itself in slavish traits in the children. Freedom is
a condition of mind, and the best way to secure it is to breed it. So I
say, make marriage difficult by demanding notification and a pause; then
make divorce free on application of either party ❦ Do you remember the
woman who wanted a divorce if she couldn’t get it, and if she could, did
not want it? No one wants a divorce from his own ❦ This would be the one
horrible and appalling thing in life. Let life be automatic. Make room
for the Divine. And in this article I have only stated what all thinking
men and women know and believe, but which they—wisely—decline to say or
even admit. Therefore, I have said it for them. We will now listen to the
Anvil Chorus.
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