The multiplication of life in human society involves certain burdens and responsibilities. A normal, positive young man could easily fertilize a hundred women a year, without departing even for one instant from his usual habits of industry and useful productivity. Could he, however, undertake to provide for, protect, and rear a hundred children in the ensuing year? He might if he were a millionaire; but all men are not millionaires.
Although, therefore, the mere carnal union of two young positive people is the normal and natural consummation of their desire, it is bound to be interfered with by the State, or by the community, in order that the burdens and responsibilities resulting from Life’s multiplication may be delimited, defined, fairly apportioned and allotted as far as possible to those who ought properly to bear them. And since a man cannot procreate a hundred children a year without in the vast majority of cases imposing grave burdens and responsibilities upon his fellows, the State or the community officially refuses to recognize, or to offer legal status, to any offspring that are the outcome of multiplication that takes place outside the monogamic union. Thus although marriage and its forms and limitations—particularly the monogamic limitation—may frequently have a religious ceremonial, it is society, or the community, that ultimately favours it, because society as a whole cannot undertake to pay for the promiscuous indulgence of every man’s lust.
Hence, despite the fact that the carnal union of our positive couple is all that the multiplication of Life requires, and all that the conscious or unconscious desire of the two young people demands, the State interposes its jurisdiction and declares that the multiplication of life that will follow the union, in fact the union itself, will only be legally recognized provided that it take place along certain specified lines.
Thus marriage is not a natural state, nor is it even the logical outcome of the “love” of a positive couple; it is an artificially imposed condition devised for the purpose of safeguarding the community. And, being unnatural and gratuitously imposed upon the simple relationship that Nature requires, it complicates that relationship, and necessarily possesses all the disadvantages that any unnatural[50] solution of a natural problem must involve.
It might be thought that if it is so very unnatural the positive couple would instinctively rebel against it?—Not so! How many of them are aware even that it is not a natural law? Custom deceives the young positive couple in the same way as it deceives us all. We are accustomed to innumerable constraints which to a man unfamiliar with them would be intolerably irksome. When, therefore, the young positive couple stand at the altar and hear the priest say to the man: “Wilt thou love her, comfort her, and keep her in sickness and in health, and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?” and the young positive man answers innocently “I will,” neither of them suspects the cloven hoof of social fear or social constraint behind the words. They imagine not only that the question is a perfectly normal one, implying a normal condition, but they also imagine that this implied condition itself—that of lifelong love—is a possible and generally acceptable proposition. They are not even led to suppose that it is an ideal difficult to realize, otherwise the man would not be invited to take such an enormously difficult vow with so little preparation and warning. To answer the priest’s question honestly—that is to say, with a full knowledge of the terms of the vow and with a perfect conviction that he is ready to fulfil them—a young positive man would require to be in possession of knowledge regarding himself and the future which he can hardly be expected to possess. For a man to say on March 20, 1922, that, if he live so long, he will entertain the same æsthetic or moral or political sentiments on March 20, 1952, as those he holds on the day he makes the vow, would be daring—or to say the least, presumptuous—as implying a claim to a gift of prophecy. But for a man to say of a sentiment in which passion enters as an important factor, that he will hold it thirty years hence, he must either be quite ignorant of what he is being asked to declare, or a prophet capable of accurately reading the future; or else he must be the most unprincipled blackguard that ever lived, and prepared to take any vow in order to obtain his immediate needs. Now, since it would be unfair to assume that the majority of the young men who answer “I will” to that question are blackguards; since, moreover, it would be unscientific to suppose that any of them are gifted with the superhuman power of prophecy, we can only conclude that they are completely ignorant of what it means. They are completely ignorant of the whole significance of the marriage rite, and it is their ignorance, coupled with the fact of the force of custom, that enables them to accept the unnatural imposition of the State-ordered marriage as if it were a natural condition. Besides, the young positive couple are, as a rule, not very analytical. The only thing they insist upon with all the impatience of what is called “love,” is union; and since their elders and society seem to offer them the chance of union without black looks and moral indignation, only in legalized “marriage,” they seize society’s offer without thinking much about the question of natural or unnatural solutions of natural problems. Thousands, it is true, do not wait for the unnatural solution.[51] They simply unite and consummate their desire without taking any public vow. Then, however, they find the social machinery for discouraging such simple behaviour so formidable and unrelenting that they are frequently unable to face it, and resort to crime in order to attempt to wipe out the consequences of their action. Unmarried motherhood, with all the moral indignation it provokes; prosecutions for affiliation, and the weekly payments in which they result—are some of the unpleasant menaces that face those who refuse to wait for the State’s conditions before consummating their desire; and, in the end, the great majority, preferring the more peaceable and more generally accepted course, resolve on marriage the moment they feel they must consummate their desire.
The desire that makes the two young positive people wish to unite is called “love.” It is mutual attraction culminating in a condition of mutual irresistibility. It is the power which, in the course of evolution, each has acquired to draw the other into that condition which best serves the purpose of Life and its multiplication.
Now, as we have already pointed out, this power of attraction serves its purpose—multiplication—whether they unite legitimately or illegitimately. Since, however, the purposes of society are best served by their uniting according to certain rules, and since these rules are chiefly designed to secure each party to the union against the evil consequences (to society) of promiscuous mating, it is expedient that the two should be bound together for life; and the marriage tie is made a permanent tie: “Till death us do part,”—that is the ideal aimed at. But in this way a lie is tacitly smuggled by society into the marriage of two young people. Since society’s purposes are best served by a permanent match between the young positive couple, they are led to believe that the desire which the moment before union has drawn them together, and which is called “love,” is also permanent; in fact that it is really the best reason for making the match permanent!
Having once been perpetrated by the social organism, this lie is repeated in all the moral prejudices and saws, all the fairy-tales, the popular novels, the poetry and the songs, of a whole nation—of a whole continent—and soon acquires the sanctity of truth; and he who dares to nail it to the counter as a piece of counterfeit psychology or physiology, is dubbed a cynic, an anarchist, and a misogynist.
We call the emotion “love” which convinces two young people that they had better, on grounds of expediency, accept the State regulations concerning their prospective union, but we have no business to imply by actual words or by suggestion that the desirable permanence of that union, from society’s point of view, will find one of its principal causes in the persistence of the emotion that led to its being consummated. Unfortunately, the advantage to society and to the family of a permanent legal contract, has led to so complete a distortion of the truth, that the majority of young people are led to believe, quite blindly, that it is the enduring power of the emotion itself which justifies the nature of the contract. And everything is done to confirm them in this belief. It is only when they are married that they find how utterly untrue it is.
It is readily admitted that in every generation of human beings there is a percentage, an ever-dwindling percentage in degenerate days, of men and women who are capable of deep and lasting emotions. These rare creatures of profound and enduring passion, to whom change of any sort is distasteful, and who cling faithfully and stubbornly to their hobbies, their pursuits, their ancestral faiths, and their particular taste in literature, music, the graphic arts and food, may and do sometimes evince a steadiness and a stability in their love which makes their monogamic unions exceptionally harmonious and affectionate to the last. But for the average modern couple to claim that they belong to this very small percentage of human beings, is the most contemptible impudence. Even positive couples cannot all be said to belong to this class, and as for the negative couples, whose unions are chiefly an idle pursuit of sensation or else a gratification of vanity, they are as different from these slow-moving, deeply passionate people as if they belonged to a race utterly strange to them. It is therefore essential that, for the vast majority of people, a more sensible, less dramatic, and more realistic colour should be lent to their unions, so that they may enter them with a clearer understanding of the enormous difficulties with which permanent marriage is beset, and with other considerations to support and fortify them, than a trust in a possibility so utterly fantastic as the endurance of their emotions.
When once they are married, it is perfectly true that expediency, economic considerations, and the presence of children frequently convince them that it is better that their union should be permanent; but to call by the name of “love” the reasons which cause them to arrive at this conclusion, is a colossal hoax, the prodigiousness of which would be amusing did it not lead to such untold misery.
But, it may be objected, even if we admit that the legal union, marriage, is as a rule incompatible with lasting “love,” where is the harm, provided that the two objects of the contract, the obtaining of a union between two positive people and the propagation of children on regular and well-ordered lines, be secured? Is it not after all the best solution of the sex problem?
The question whether it is the best solution of the sex problem we must leave undecided for a moment. But to the first part of the question we may now answer definitely that there is harm in any contract based upon a lie, when that lie is one which, connected as it is with the psychological and physiological conditions of a certain common human relationship, is bound to be discovered as a lie by the parties to that relationship.
To allow, however tacitly or implicitly, that society’s unnatural solution of the sex problem is even favourable to the endurance of the emotion which first led the couple to desire union, is harmful in the first place:—
(1) Because it makes the idea and pursuit of marriage too hedonistic. Young people know that the state of mutual desire in which they find themselves before the union, is one of exquisite pleasure. As we have pointed out in Chapter V, it is probably the richest experience, as spirito-physiological sensations go, that anyone can have. They also know that the happy and masterly consummation of this desire is a source of enormous spiritual and physical well-being and delight. The parties to be united, therefore, can easily be persuaded, both immediately before consummation and for a brief period afterwards, that this exquisite pleasure and delight will be secured them permanently by a permanent contract, and marriage is pursued as a source of happiness. People are even in the habit of asking of a married couple, not “Are they successful?” not, “Are they breasting their difficulties satisfactorily?”; but always, “Are they happy?”—as if for all the world one were necessarily happy in fulfilling a difficult and vastly complicated contract.
It is necessary for the positive young girl to find her physical adaptation. Only the negative girl can be content without it. It is also necessary for the positive young man to find his. But surely it is not necessary to lead either of them to suppose that in doing this by means of legal marriage they will find anything more in the long run than the most moderate well-being, disturbed by the most tremendous responsibilities and difficulties.
The way in which girls and young men are led to look forward to the married state as if it were a kind of fairy transformation, summed up in the formula “and they were happy ever afterwards,” vitiates the whole value of the contract; for while it lays all emphasis on the contentment that naturally comes with proper physical adaptation, it passes over the enormous difficulties which any such permanent contract between sensitive and intelligent beings must entail.
(2) It is harmful, secondly, because by leading both young people to expect too much from marriage, it expedites the period of disillusionment, which is bound ultimately to supervene in the great majority of such unions. If the State solution of the sex problem, known as monogamic marriage, be really a good institution, then surely everything should be done to make it tolerable for as long as possible to those who are parties to it. Since disillusionment must come, it is obviously the duty of teachers and elders to endeavour to postpone it as long as possible. And the way to do this is certainly not by emphasizing the “happiness” of marriage to the exclusion of all thought about its enormous and almost insuperable difficulties. A salutary reform in this respect would consist in leading young people to accept the State’s solution of the sex problem in a more sober mood, with a more grave concern about the future, with a greater insight into the utility of marriage, and with less precipitancy than is shown at present. They would realize that while union was what they desired, legal marriage was the least unsatisfactory way for all concerned of meeting that desire for union; but that it was only a clumsy way of securing their sexual adaptation, and held no necessary promise of any greater happiness than they could expect from any other system of constraints.
It might be objected that, in this case, young people would not marry. The reply to this objection is that they would if their desire for normal adult adaptation were strong enough, but that they would be likely to fulfil the contract all the more satisfactorily by realizing from the start its utility, its limitations, its very doubtful promise, and its artificial nature.
(3) It is harmful, thirdly, because, by confusing marriage with the pursuit of happiness, grave considerations are likely to be overlooked. Let me give a concrete instance:—
It may be in the best interests of a farmer’s son, who intends to adopt his parent’s calling, to marry a rural maiden, accustomed to the problems of a farm, and familiar with all the valuable traditions of the countryside. In fact, from the standpoint of the State also, it may be best for him to select his bride from among the female population of his village or locality; for by so doing, in addition to acquiring a useful mate, his children will inherit rural virtues from both sides, and are more likely to become good and efficient farmers in their turn. But if, by a false association of happiness with marriage, he fancies that he will have what is known as a “better time” with an urban typist of smart appearance, with small bird’s-claw hands and expensive tastes, he is likely to overlook the gravity of the purpose of marriage in order to gratify his hedonistic lust. This accounts also for the destruction of many of our aristocratic houses by mésalliances with chorus-girls and American and Jewish heiresses. If the utterly hedonistic bias were only removed from marriage, such stupid and wanton outrages against good blood might be prevented. For since the alleged “happiness” of a permanent association like legal marriage is in nine cases out of ten pure illusion, it should not be allowed to override a man’s duty to himself and to his children. One of the principal rewards of the legal marriage is the means it gives a man of preserving his family virtues and tradition, and since this is best achieved by choosing a girl from his own kind and set, the supposed pursuit of happiness can only act as a disturbing element, which could be condoned only if it were not so entirely illusory.
Of course the mésalliance as a social evil has a Puritanical root as well, which ought perhaps to be mentioned here. The Puritans were not so utterly and incurably stupid as to deny the existence of bodily pleasure. They knew perfectly well that the joys of sex were very real joys. By insisting, however, upon these joys being sought only in fast wedlock, they threw a burden upon marriage which it was hardly designed to bear. They converted it by one stroke into a source of joy—that is to say, into the unique source for a certain kind of joy, into a symbol of pleasure and happiness of a certain kind. By so doing, however, a false association grew up in the minds of men regarding marriage, which has resulted in the scions of some of our best houses seeking happiness and pleasure in matrimony by marrying women whose blood necessarily diluted or destroyed their stock qualities. Had the stupid Puritan prejudice not existed, they might have found pleasure with these inferior females without marrying them, and thereby saved their family line with some one who, though perhaps less garish and less vulgarly amusing, was at least capable of giving them children true to their traditional stock quality.
The advantages of the legal monogamic match are chiefly social. They have very little to do with happiness, and most of them redound to the benefit of law and order. They are:—
(a) The creation of a compact unit known and recognized as the family, in which responsibility for the fruits of the union fall on the two parents, and in which the financial responsibility in the great majority of families falls upon the more free (physically) of the two parents—the male. The State is by this means secured against the obligation of having to rear the innumerable host of children that would result from promiscuous parenthood where the father could not be traced.
(b) The creation of a unit with which it is easy for the law to deal, because in it human duties are simplified down to the three relations, spouse, parent, child, each of which has its status in the law, all converging towards the head of the unit, who can be made answerable to the law for his unit.
(c) The creation of a definite and stable environment for the early and tenderest years of the nation’s youngest inhabitants, where, in the majority of cases at least, they may be assured the care and the supervision and the schooling of those who are by nature best equipped for discharging the duties of protectors and tutors with love and tenderness, with natural pride in their work, and above all without demanding payment for their services.
(d) The creation of a natural centre of interest for the female and the male, but particularly for the former, after the first bloom of youth and attractiveness has fled, so that each may claim, as by right, a place in a home, in which their presence is earnestly desired, at least by the majority—the children.
(e) The creation of a microcosm—a part and counterpart of the nation as a whole, reduced to its smallest compass, in which the traditional character of a people becomes imparted to its children, in which the virtues and aspirations of a nation are inculcated by precept and example upon its youngest members, and in which these form the first strong attachments which, increasing with age, ultimately identify them, and act as the first moral check upon their conduct.
(f) The creation of a centre in which the child has a chance to develop family or stock qualities quietly, slowly, and unhindered; because it is sheltered, or partly so, from the influence of antagonistic or competing mob or universal characteristics.
(g) The creation of relationships—that of spouse to spouse, parent to child, child to child, and child to parent, in which the growth of many virtues useful to society are fostered and cultivated: a sense of responsibility, self-respect, fidelity, early associations of devotion and gratitude, the sense of traditional continuity which gives rise to the feeling of dignity, honour, obligation, and individual rights, claims and duties.
(h) The creation of a community on the smallest scale, in which the children may, by constant association with their parents, acquire their stock of general and specialized knowledge, learn the business by which they may ultimately earn their living, and cultivate efficiency in it quietly and gradually from infancy upwards. (This is an advantage which, except in rare cases, has hardly survived in family life in England.)
Now, attractive as these advantages may appear to the legislator, or legislators of a people, and cogent as they may make the argument for monogamic marriage, it will be seen, that they contain little that will necessarily secure the conjugal “happiness” of the two young people whose actions and movements they are designed to limit and to constrain. They consist chiefly of duties which, while not necessarily unpleasant, give rise to no small amount of anxiety and misgiving, and certainly lend a graver accent to matrimony than is usually imparted to it by that promise of light-hearted enjoyment upon which most stress is laid by the traditional literature, poetry and public sentiment of all Anglo-Saxon people. On the other hand, it would be idle to deny that if the aspects of monogamous marriage that they represent were more frequently emphasized and brought to the attention of both young and old, the number of “happy” marriages might certainly be very much increased. For as I have shown, it is the hedonistic view of marriage, or that picture of it that dwells immoderately upon its supposed unfailing gift of happiness, that has done most in modern civilised societies to undermine its value as a working and workable institution. Its plain utility is smothered under too much sentiment and false doctrine. This result has been brought about largely by Christianity, which has persistently endeavoured to teach the high-falutin’ nonsense of matrimony as principally “a union of souls”[52]; but added to Christian influence in Anglo-Saxon countries, at least, there has also been the detrimental overlay of romantic obsessions,[53] which has made a realistic view of primitive and natural needs almost impossible.
The general tendency in Puritanical and Anglo-Saxon countries, at least, is to keep as far as possible in the background the subject of offspring and the fruits of marriage when discussing it or arranging for it in the presence of any two young people who have stated their desire to be joined together. It is not considered decent to refer to this, its most important side. As we have seen, the advantages of the legal monogamic marriage chiefly concern the children that may result from the match. Scarcely any other advantage exists. It is folly, therefore, not to make the subject of offspring one of the most important in all deliberations relating to matrimony. It is true that in the Book of Common Prayer the first reason given for the joining of a man and woman together in holy matrimony, is “for the procreation of children”; but there are many people who dislike this passage in the marriage service, and all those who have attended marriage ceremonies often will be able to testify to the frequency with which it is rapidly slurred over in order to give the least possible offence.
Now this is the most pernicious nonsense that could ever have been devised for destroying the value of the legal monogamic marriage. For if proper stress were laid upon the consequences of the union, the children, it would not only check the hedonistic attitude towards marriage as an institution, but would also make young people more serious in the matter of choosing their mates and more critical of themselves in regard to their readiness for marriage.
“Am I one who can grant myself the privilege of contributing fresh people to the world? Am I sufficiently desirable? Is it at all desirable that I should reproduce myself in a second, third or fourth edition?”
But how can these questions be asked in an atmosphere where the offspring of a marriage is the last consideration to be thought of? How can they be expected to be asked in an atmosphere where “Luvv” is supposed to justify any match, however horrible?
In regard to the mate, too—who nowadays selects her with that serious criticism which gazes through the optics of the next generation and envisages their best interests? How can the average man assume this attitude, when all the stress in matrimony is laid upon the love match, upon the union of two souls? As far as possible, everyone tries to forget the other matter in contemplating a girl and her betrothed. People shrug their shoulders and say, “If children come, they come—and there’s an end of it.” They prefer to regard the couple from that standpoint. Christianity has so far succeeded in establishing a false atmosphere of a union of souls around this most fundamental of all relationships (that of the betrothed couple) that it is possible now to meet people who entertain the most solemn determination to marry, and yet who have hardly one single feature in their minds or bodies that would render their repetition or recurrence on earth in any way desirable.
The whole attitude of Christianity towards the joining of male and female together, however, is so unrealistic on the one hand, and so base on the other, that it is not astonishing that after 2,000 years of Christian teaching we have wellnigh reached matrimonial chaos in Europe, and all countries like Europe.
Marriage should be regarded as the sacred garden of the next generation. All the exalted emotions that possess an artist at his work, all the solemn misgivings that beset a responsible man when he feels he is determining the future of Man, ought to surge in the breast of him who contemplates matrimony. To feel that emotion which the modern world calls “love” may excuse a man for forming an illicit union, but, alone, it does not justify him in concluding so grave a contract as marriage.
The disadvantages of the monogamic marriage are chiefly confined to its effects upon the individual, and are of a nature that the State can, as a rule, afford to ignore and to waive. I shall only point to one disadvantage that deeply concerns the State (see objection H), and that is so serious that it should be examined and removed instantly.
The disadvantages are the following:—
(A) Monogamic marriage presupposes a possibility which is the very reverse of natural and human, one in fact which, through the optics of life, does not even amount to a probability—and that is that two people of different sexes can be united for life without needing or craving for that same variety and respite which in all other departments of their lives they regard as the most essential factor of well-being. This is the great lie underlying the State’s tacit assurance that its solution of the sex problem is for the benefit of the individual.
Every child suspects, every adult knows, how difficult friendship is, how hard it becomes to keep up that enthusiasm and eager interest in the relationship of friends, which alone makes companionship a refreshment and a pleasure. And everyone feels that there is a natural prudence in sound friendship which, founded on good taste, points distinctly to a moderate frequentation of a friend at all times when that enthusiasm and eager interest show signs of declining too seriously. So that it might truthfully be said in a paradox, that friendship can be maintained only by judicious separations, and that the duration of these separations is determined by the barometric level, so to speak, of the friendship felt at certain periods.
No one who has attained to adult years can fail to have realized the value of change to the body. Variations in diet, occupation and environment act as a stimulus not only to the senses but also to the tissues; they brace and invigorate the system. Life, like beauty, has even been defined as “repetition with a certain modicum of variation.”[54]
Moreover, every human being, child, adult, savage or sage knows the fatal consequences of complete and exhaustive exploration: how it cloys, how it surfeits, how it nauseates! The very constitution of man as a sentient being necessitates such consequences. The repetition of a stimulus reduces the force of its appeal owing to the very tendency to habituation to which all of us as adaptable creatures are prone. We react eagerly and quickly at first; the thousandth time we hardly lift an eyelid.
Now, in the face of all these facts of common and everyday experience, it would seem both absurd and indefensible to claim that any two people, whether of the same or of different sexes, could hope to spend many years together—not to mention a lifetime—without ultimately falling the prey to indifference, if not dislike; and where the circumstances of their first coming together have been attended by any excessive warmth of feeling, the ultimate revulsion of that feeling, by constituting at once a disillusionment and, among unwise people, a surprise, must lead to an indifference proportionately more acute.
Unlike the mere association of friends, in which two people may work together, share the same interests, enjoy the same games, or suffer the same hardships, pleasures and difficulties, the married couple are united chiefly by a physical bond which has its basis in an act of passion, an act of desire, an act of power.
But passion is largely a matter of surplus strength, violent stimulation and the lust of possession, all of which are steadily worn down by (a) a steady drain on surplus strength, (b) the supervention of gradual callousness through the repetition of similar stimuli, and (c) the consciousness of holding definitely, or rather indefinitely, the object originally coveted.
Desire also, by being gratified, is stilled. The best cure, in fact, for desire is precisely gratification. But a cure is hardly what is anticipated by the usual love-match.[55]
With regard to the act of power, which, despite civilization, still accounts for more than half the savour of the sexual relationship, that is surely seriously impaired by the law itself which enjoins cohabitation as a duty upon the parties to a marriage contract.
Thus the indefinite continuance of the emotion which first led a couple to unite, and the protraction sine die of the delights of the early consummation of their desire, are bound, as it were, with mathematical certainty to become impossible. But this makes the relationship exceedingly difficult, and one which, far from constituting a promise of happiness, is very much more likely to develop into an absolute guarantee of incessant and most tiresome differences.
To reply to these objections that there is a “love” that transcends all these difficulties, may sound pleasant and charming and good-natured, but it is hardly candid. For as I have pointed out above, the possibility of the existence of this rare kind of love does not justify us in making marriage a lie for the bulk of mankind.
(B) Furthermore, monogamic marriage makes no allowance for the fact that human courtship and the subsequent union of the sexes to which it leads, partakes essentially of the nature of an adventure. In fact, to a large number of people in these dull and ordered days it is the only adventure of their lives. In many of its aspects it is reminiscent of the qualities of the chase, and it would be unscientific not to allow for this smack of venery in the preliminaries which precede venery. That mutual attraction which ultimately leads to mutual capitulation is full of the excitement, the doubt, the anxiety and the final triumph of the huntsman. When the quarry is a positive virgin and her pursuer a positive man, even the fascination of fear is added—fear of the intensity of the passion awakened—to complete the similitude of the experience to the circumstances of the chase.
Beside this, however, the steady hum-drum routine of married life can at best only be a flat parody—particularly married life in modern civilization, witnessed, as it is, by innumerable stuffy relatives, marred by imperfect health, supported by tired and irascible nerves, and depressed by the consciousness that it must last a lifetime.
Nor can it be said that the divine gifts of imagination and artistic creativeness tend to mitigate the solemn boredom and exasperation that overtake the parties to such a legal union; on the contrary, they but enhance its horrors: behold the unhappy married lives of most men of genius, Dickens, Carlyle, Byron, and the philosophic Socrates!
(C) The monogamic marriage based on the modern idea of “love” (which should, by the by, be spelt “Luvv” to differentiate it from the nobler idea called by the same name), in addition to leading to bitter disillusionment, has in its very first condition—this sentiment “Luvv”—the seeds of its most potent corrosive. For it is impossible nowadays to conceive of love without contempt. Indeed, an innuendo of contempt is essential before love can be possible. This is easily seen if we reflect upon what love is. It is, in its present acceptation, a very wild, a very torrential sentiment. From the man who says he loves her, the girl exacts little less than single-minded adoration. She expects him to say she is the best girl in the world for him, and she insists on his believing it. She might, at a pinch, forgive his not regarding her as the best girl in the whole world, in the sense of supreme above all other girls in fact. But to him, relative to his taste alone, she expects to be that. And he expects the same. But what does this mean? What can it not help meaning? Both parties in a courtship are fully aware of what sorry figures they cut before the critical and fully informed eye of their own inner consciousness. Each knows his shortcomings, his pitiful and helpless foibles, his ugly traits, his despicable features, his nauseating, revolting side!
And what? Some one has been found who calls this the best? who raves about it? who is visibly frantic about it?
Deep down in her heart, therefore, where the girl secretes her contempt for herself, she now begins secreting the first drops of contempt for the one who can appear so wildly enthusiastic over something she knows to be so defective. Her man feels exactly the same, and though he may be exalted, for a while, by the girl’s having mistaken him for a hero, he would not be human if he did not feel a little contempt for one who could appear so enthralled by such humble attainments as he knows his to be.
When once, however, the first blush of passion has died away, this seed of contempt has to be reckoned with, and then, watered by disillusionment and nourished by indifference, it soon germinates and grows into the fungus which helps to blight the last green leaves that may still be left on the spare frail tree of conjugal affection. Because, the moment it shows its true colour and nature, it is recognized by either party in the other, and interpreted as a flat and wilful recantation of their former protestations, and consequently as an insulting and heartless volte-face which cannot be forgiven.
(D) In addition to the element of contempt in all love of the ordinary sort, there is another factor which, when once the moment of disenchantment comes in monogamic marriage, adds seriously to its force and hastens the end; and that is the unpardonable arrogance which is implicit in all these “love” matches.
When a young man A so far misunderstands his condition as to say he loves a young girl B with undying affection, although the psychologist may smile, he does not necessarily expostulate; for, after all, the attitude, though ridiculous, is not necessarily provokingly impudent. It is true that it is assuming that he is capable of an enduring passion, and therefore, that he is arrogating to himself a depth and a permanence which nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand do not possess; nevertheless, it is allowed to pass, because a certain modicum of exaggeration is allowed to lovers.
When, however, the young girl B believes A’s declaration of undying love, and accepts it as a fact, the psychologist is naturally annoyed; for here a degree of self-deception comes into play which cannot possibly arise out of anything else than the most stupendous arrogance. In order that B may believe A, she must first have convinced herself of the following:—
(α) That she is capable of inspiring an undying passion.
(β) That she is capable of keeping it alive when once it has been kindled.
(γ) That there is nothing at all unlikely or preposterous in her being the object of such a passion.
But to convince herself of any one of these propositions she must possess the most prodigious conceit, the most unbounded impudence.
And the same applies to A, to whom B has declared her undying love.
In addition to contempt, therefore, there is in every love-match in which the parties propose to adopt a permanent monogamic union as their destiny, a degree of arrogance and self-esteem on either side which is wholly and unspeakably distasteful both to the sane psychologist and to the man of balanced mind.
But let that pass! What does it matter that the psychologist should be offended when he hears that A has declared his undying love to B and that B has believed him?
Yes, but unfortunately the arrogance that B shows in listening with patience and even credulity to such a declaration as A’s, does not end merely in giving offence to the psychologist. It ultimately recoils upon herself in the cruellest possible manner; just as A’s arrogant acceptance of B’s declaration recoils upon him. When the moment of disillusionment and indifference supervenes, as it must in all ordinary “love” matches, A finds it somewhat difficult to forgive B for having ever dreamt, even in her wildest nightmare, that she could keep their love alive all through their married life, and B finds it equally difficult to forgive A for having fancied, even in the wildest flights of his imagination, that he could ever provoke a life passion. And thus, in addition to the contempt that has already been analysed in the preceding section, there now arises a rankling feeling of indignation of each towards the other for ever having been guilty of such stupendous arrogance.
And we must confess that in the majority of cases this indignation is well deserved.
The only excuse that may be pleaded in mitigation of A’s and B’s lack of modesty is that probably no one had ever told them, nor had they ever read, that to accept a declaration of undying love necessitates a degree of self-esteem that is positively indecent.
(E) There are many modern people who will protest that I have not considered the monogamic marriage on its “higher” or more “spiritual” aspect as companionship, and that unless its possibilities in this respect be viewed fairly and impartially, its general desirability cannot possibly be estimated. But before we assume too hastily that this is one of the brighter aspects of the monogamic marriage, let us make quite certain that we are not confronted by yet another of its grave disadvantages.
Companionship is a matter of the spirit. The pleasure of it might be likened to the refreshment that a parched body obtains from a fresh drink. It is the bliss peculiar to friendship. The friend refreshes one by his companionship. Provided we have not spent too many of our years with him, he opens before us a new aspect of things. Provided that we have not frequented him too much, his mind, however simple it may be, always offers us some sentiment or point of view which we have not yet thoroughly explored. And this communion with the friend is a joy, because it is a recreation. It makes the old world seem new again. Even familiar landscapes, viewed again with a friend whom one has seen at discreet intervals, acquire a freshness they did not possess before. The very essence of companionship, therefore, if it is to be a joy, consists in the freshness, the novelty, the change that it introduces into our life.
But where is the freshness, where, therefore, the joy of companionship with some one whose mind one has thoroughly explored, whose every word, comment, or exclamation one anticipates five or six seconds ahead? Where is the exquisite quality of the companion in one whom one knows as well as oneself, whom one has had endless days, weeks, months and years to study, to listen to and to understand? The most gifted brain can be circumnavigated if it be lived with daily. The richest storehouse of spirituality can hardly hold out against daily depredation.
Companionship, however, offers something else that is priceless in the mortal monotony of our lives. It draws us away from excessive communion with ourselves, from the surfeit of self. Thus the friend comes as a welcome disturber of the interminable meditation that proceeds at all hours of the day between a man and himself.
But the mate who is always with you is so much a part of yourself, so intimately known to you, that nothing she can say is sufficiently arresting to disturb any meditation; and unless she actually overturns the lamp, or accidentally chops one of her fingers off, or falls downstairs, she is hardly noticed.
And what is true of the husband here is equally true of the wife. She gets to know her husband’s every word, every mood, every gesture by heart. To call his presence companionship, or the boon that comes with friendship, would be to cast a slur on all companionship and friendship for ever.
Companionship between husband and wife is therefore impossible. It is impossible because the very source of the chief quality of companionship—refreshment—is cut off at the root by too much association, too much and too incessant exploration of each other’s minds, by the two spouses.
(F) The monogamic marriage is as a rule more satisfying to the female than to the male; but only, as we shall see in the chapter on Divorce, if children are born regularly, and the circumstances of their birth and their infancy run a normal course. The reason of this is that since the positive healthy woman finds her complete sexual experience only by means of the coitus, plus the period of gestation, plus parturition, and plus the months of lactation, she finds, as a rule, in the course of a married life in which she brings forth children regularly and in normal circumstances, all that her body can possibly expect from an adapted sexual life.[56] The act of fertilization, which, as we have already seen in a former chapter, is only the sparking-plug that starts the huge cycle that culminates in the weaning, is such a trifling incident in her sexual experience that very soon her husband begins to assume in her eyes the importance which, as a matter of fact, he enjoys relative to the huge cycle itself. And if she happens no longer to feel that enthusiasm for him which she felt as a fiancée, she can endure the disillusionment with equanimity and sweetness because she is now aware that, after all said and done, he does not really matter to her nearly as much as she once rather foolishly imagined. Promoting and expediting the drop in a woman’s affection for her husband must also be reckoned not only the natural surfeit and indifference that comes with excessive familiarity, but also the presence of the children themselves. For while they act as a consolation to the woman for the declining affection of the pair, they also operate as a powerful reducer of that affection in herself. The unconscious longing for fertilization that has long been drawing her to her husband and forcing her to transfigure his very common and ordinary personality into something exceptional, naturally abates as fast as children are born, because, as an unconscious longing, it gets gratified and therefore stifled. And thus children, far from being the alleged bonds uniting couples, may become the most potent wedges driving them asunder. The extraordinary number of loving childless couples in which the woman’s devotion remains unabated may be accounted for in this way.[57] Policy, as a rule, bids her treat him with consideration and the outward signs of devotion as the breadwinner, as the father of her children, and as a person who, since he is destined to be her constant companion, it is merely ordinary good sense to humour and to please; but provided that she have children from him at regular intervals, she is not much troubled by the pronounced drop in her affection and regard for him.
To the man, on the other hand, to whom, as we have seen, the sparking-plug incident constitutes a complete sexual experience, and whose sexual life therefore begins and ends with this spasmodic desire for woman and the brief relation with her to which it leads, this falling off in affection and desire is a matter of very grave concern, because he has no bodily consolation. He may love his children, he may delight in their company, and he may be wholly interested in his home; but the bearing and nursing of his children constitutes no bodily experience to him; and in life it is the demands of the body that are most important and most importunate when they are not obeyed.
For his body to enjoy its necessary, satisfactory experience, slight and brief as it is, it is essential that some desire, some passion, in fact some of the feeling he felt for his wife as a fiancée, should remain. It is necessary that he should still look upon the act as one of passion, desire and power. But as we have seen, the act has been deprived of most of its passion, desire and power by the inevitable consequences of the State monogamic marriage. Its beauties have literally been worn away. It has lost its savour and its strength by having been systematized, time-tabled, protected, ordered, and above all, repeated too often, without that “certain modicum of variety” which is the essential element in all life.
Generally speaking, then, it may be argued with justice that, where conditions are normal and children are born regularly, monogamic marriage can be tolerated quite well by women, but not by men. For when once the elements constituting the joy of cohabitation have been robbed from the man’s share—as in nine hundred and ninety-nine marriages out of a thousand they must—the relationship, though still endurable to the positive healthy female, to whom the act of fertilization, and raison de plus her husband, is of such minor importance, becomes intolerable to the healthy positive male; and unless he is prepared to face a life in which every week is a long-drawn-out torture to his body, he cannot remain faithful to his spouse.
In its general attitude towards and understanding of monogamic marriage, therefore, this Age, in addition to smuggling the lie of happiness into the contract, also completely distorts the true relation to the union of the woman on the one hand, and the man on the other. By a false and entirely gratuitous analogy, it supposes that the man’s position can be and is as tolerable as that of the child-bearing female.
It is useless to object that thousands of married men to-day remain faithful to their wives, and yet cannot be said to be among those rare geniuses in love for whom alone the monogamic marriage is suitable. In the first place it may be asked, how many of those thousands are really healthy positive men, sexually exuberant and virile? It is simple enough to be a Puritan if one is below par. But how many faithful husbands are truly normal, in the sense of their body’s insisting upon leading a satisfactory sexual life?
(G) It would be unfair to omit to mention among these objections to the modern monogamic marriage, those that arise more particularly from the woman’s standpoint in a match with a man who is both positive and healthy.
At the risk of repeating statements already made, the reader must be reminded here that when either party to a matrimonial match is negative or unhealthy, the union ceases from being one to which mere objections can be raised; it then becomes actually impossible. And by positiveness and health in the woman, I mean that condition in which the bearing of children is accompanied throughout by an easy pleasure-giving functioning of the body.
Because I am not attempting to discuss all the sordid complications of the sort of match in which either one or both of the parties are unhealthy or negative, it does not follow that I fail to recognize the enormous percentage of unhappy marriages, to which such unions lead. But this is not a book on the pathological aspects of sex. I take only the best possible conditions—the mating of a healthy and positive woman with a man of the same stamp, and show the objections that may be raised to their monogamic match. Naturally, if the unfavourable circumstances with which the start is made be increased, the objections to the match necessarily increase proportionately.
Now, despite the best initial circumstances, there are objections to monogamy from the woman’s standpoint which will be seen to be both serious and insuperable. But these objections, let it be well understood, only arise in thoroughly modern conditions. I have hinted at one of them in a former chapter (see Chapter VI, section 3).
(G1) A woman may marry a man who is wholly positive, healthy, and therefore quite savoury (such men get ever more rare, but they are still to be found). Very early in her married life, however, she discovers that, through some cause which she of course cannot fathom, her husband is a person utterly unfit to make her his wife in the only way in which her instincts and senses easily accept the rôle—that is to say, as the yielding partner to an impetuous, masterful, and at the same time skilful initiator. Although he is not negative by nature, he has been brought up negatively. He fears and shuns what he should be most eager to experience. His timidity and awkwardness are infectious. He proves himself not only unmasterly; he convinces her that he is a bungler—often a bungler more terrified than she is herself.
A relationship which should have been but a means of raising their courting happiness to ecstasy becomes instead either frigid and frightened post-marital virginity for weeks after marriage,[58] which proves disastrous to their love and ruinous to their nerves; or else, a consummation which is so hopelessly clumsy, hurried and nervous, and so distasteful to either party, that it is repeated as seldom as possible, and is always followed by the most bewildering disenchantment.
I have previously explained that to the decent girl the act of consummation seems acceptable and right only if purified by fire. She does not need to be in the least influenced by Puritanical prejudices in order to hold this attitude. It is the natural outcome of her instincts, as they have been formed throughout the ages. The bulk of the ancestors in her line, for millions of years, on the female side, having encountered the proper impetuosity and fire in the male, which carries all before it—that prehensile and initiatory masterfulness that belongs by nature to the male’s share in the act of consummation—this is what her racial memory leads her to expect, this alone is what gives her that clean joy in sex, that light-hearted innocence in sex, without which her married life is but a torment.
Yet now she finds herself with a creature who far from showing any mastery or abandon, actually increases, if you please, her own natural timidity about the whole affair, and even carries it one stage further until it is brought perilously near to disgust and moral indignation.
Beginnings tell most poignantly, particularly when they consist of first experiences in fundamental matters. And this kind of beginning, if it is not quickly corrected, is almost always fatal. It destroys that trust, that confidence, that humble and willing subservience, which are at once a young woman’s instinct and her joy. It poisons the first hours of her maturity, of her self-realization, of her taste of life’s deeper waters; but, above all, it revives in her precisely those emotions and prejudices which ought to have been stifled for ever—her high-school doubts and qualms regarding the general desirability of her Maker’s scheme for mammalian fertilization.
She may forgive this first tragic disenchantment. It is doubtful whether she ever forgets it. And if her husband, as is often the case, continues inept, clumsy and uneasy about the whole relationship, it matters not even if they have children, that disillusionment which, in any case, is bound to come, is unduly expedited, and the union gets prematurely blighted. If there are no children—then there is either open revolt or infidelity, or both.
In this way very many eminently desirable women suffer untold hardships through monogamy[59]; and though they are frequently too proud and too dignified to reveal to anyone the smallest hint of their suffering, this may be read in a hundred signs about their homes and their persons. The bitter contempt that many women display towards their husbands, their tendency to contradict, offend and insult them before strangers, and their aptitude to appeal to outsiders rather than to their husbands for advice and help, are all probably the outcome of experiences that have occurred quite early in their married life, all of which were disenchanting, unpleasant, and destructive of confidence.
For the healthy, positive young man, in this case, all that can be pleaded is that it is not entirely his fault. In England, as a rule, he is bred in an atmosphere so perfectly sex-tight, that no intelligent or enlightening word ever reaches him on the subject. On the contrary, all is clammy, frightened, guilty silence. On reaching maturity, if he be sensitive, the ordinary means of acquiring practical experience in the matter will probably strike him as too sordid, too commercial, too completely lifted out of the atmosphere of romance and adventure in which his mind has always pictured ideal sexual experiences; and the consequence is that frequently he not only practises abstinence for too long, but also develops inhibitions and fantasies which hardly conduce, when the time comes, to a happy consummation of his first love-match.
And yet the world has grown so stupid in regard to all these matters, and foolish romantic women’s voices have become so clamorous, that there is an ever-increasing body of idiots who insist on the desirability of men being virgins when they marry!
(G2) Another deep objection, from the standpoint of woman, to the monogamic marriage, arises out of what is known as “maleness” in women. According to Weininger this varies in degree with each individual, and modern authorities on psychology have more or less confirmed Weininger’s view.
For the reader unacquainted with the present knowledge on this point, perhaps it would be as well to state plainly what results have been obtained.
In the first place it has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of most people that no one male or female is wholly masculine or feminine. The stage of hermaphroditism through which all human beings are supposed to pass in their early fœtal development, is never apparently quite overcome, and the fully developed fœtus, as also the perfectly developed child, retains in its constitution vestiges of a sex to which its outward and primary sexual characteristics do not belong. These vestiges of the other sex which survive are both physical and mental, and according to their proportion in the individual body, determine the character of their host. Thus a child who is to all outward appearance a boy may yet possess elements according to which he is actually 25 or 30 or only 10 per cent female. A female child may likewise possess vestiges of the other sex which constitute her 10, 20, 30 or even 40 per cent male.
Although, therefore, all men have a preponderancy of male elements, and all women a preponderancy of female elements, each may possess a more or less heavy percentage of the elements of the other.
In extreme cases these elements of the opposite sex cause trouble by leading those who possess them to form desires and to lead lives so conspicuously out of keeping with their primary sexual characteristics as to make them obnoxious to society; but it should be remembered that this degree of morbidity is rare, and that as a general rule the modicum of maleness in the female and femaleness in the male has no such disturbing results if the other elements proper to the sex of the primary reproductive organs in each individual find their normal adaptation.
Thus the maleness in the female has a tendency to manifest itself, more especially when her sexuality is not fully developed or not actively engaged. Little girls, for instance, are notoriously sadistic—sadism being a derivative of the male reproductive instinct—as are also many spinsters and some old women.
Femaleness in the male, on the other hand, tends to manifest itself particularly in cases where the male reproductive instinct has been stifled, or unhinged, or when his spirit has been ruthlessly broken.
Now it may be as well for the reader to know that the attitude of the modern world is to fall down in a state of acquiescence before this important fact of sex, without attempting to inquire whether the importance with which it looms on the horizon of our lives is not precisely due to the attitude of prostrate acceptance with which it is met.
Particularly in England is the phenomenon of mixed elements noticeable—so much so that foreigners call attention to it as something exceptional.[60] But it is only noticeable in this marked degree in England because, like all other manifestations of sex in this country, it is ill-adapted. A well-adapted sexual proclivity does not cry aloud and call attention to itself in this way.
Humbly as they may acquiesce in it, however, it is customary for people in this country to speak disparagingly of the “male woman,” of her who flaunts manly attire, affects a walking-stick, hunts like a man, and is always the last to be drawn away from a drain or other refuge in which some unfortunate fox or other hunted animal has run for safety. I know of a case where such a woman constantly waits until long after dark in order to catch or kill the fox that has thus hoped to save its life. (Unconscious Sadism.)
Now it is all very well to inveigh against the existence of such viragos, and to describe as morbid their manifestation of male sexual characteristics, but, as a matter of fact, there is as a rule nothing really morbid in their constitutions. And in any case, an attitude of humble acquiescence before them, as if they were an imposition from Providence, which must be suffered willy-nilly, is hardly the best way of modifying either the disagreeable character of their proclivities or tastes, or the evil to which these proclivities and tastes undoubtedly lead.
I realize that in making this statement I am at variance with practically every authority on the subject; but it is because in no authority on the subject have I found a suggestion of what I am about to say, that I venture to trust my own judgment, and provisionally to adhere to it until such time as the authority who opposes it makes allowances for all I am going to advance in defence of these so-called “male” women.
In the first place, then, it may be pointed out that it would be absurd to complain that a race is breeding women with manly traits in their character, if the desideratum of that race is avowedly to breed people of highly virile propensities. The mating of highly virile males with women devoid of all trace of virility would surely only lead to a depreciation of the stock. For the males, by having their seed diluted by elements utterly unlike them, could not hope to be the fathers of boys in any way worthy of them.
The rearing of women with strong male characteristics is, in fact, always an advantage to a race that wishes to produce a fine virile manhood;[61] for the dangerous diluent “effeminine”—to coin a new word for a new notion—is thus reduced to a minimum.
Among the ancients Celts, Teutons and Slavs, than which few races have been more virile, women, when necessary, used to fight side by side with their men. It is said of the virile Similkameen Indians, that “the women were nearly as good hunters as the men.”[62] The whole race survived only by means of hunting. It was therefore an advantage for the females to approximate to the men in their skill. By this means a double strain of hunting virtues descended to the offspring, thus leading to ever greater and greater refinement and specialization of instinct and judgment.
From the reading of the biographies of great men also we are in a position to determine to what extent the quality which to-day is opprobriously referred to as female “masculinity” was present in their mothers. Think of Schopenhauer, Byron, and, above all, of King Alfred the Great, to whose mother history declares the monarch owed everything! She could hardly have reared so manly a king, had she not herself possessed some innate knowledge of manliness and masculine virtue.
This manliness of women, therefore, far from being a disaster, is rather a desirable trait, if a particularly virile race of men is required. And since the existence of women with pronounced male characteristics cannot possibly be a novelty in this world, it is far more likely that the outcry against them, which is modern, is due to modern conditions, than that they are truly and intrinsically undesirable.
“But,” argue the man and woman of taste, “the masculine woman in our society is surely disagreeable!”
I agree. But while I shall now endeavour to explain why she is, or has become, disagreeable, I should like to repeat that she is by no means the only example of a disagreeable sex-phenomenon in our midst; that there are other phenomena just as obnoxious, and that all take their root not necessarily in abnormality of an incurable kind, but in the condition of ill-adaptation into which sex has fallen in this country—a condition that sex-psychologists do not sufficiently reckon with when they regard as pathological the unfortunate modern female who is either sadistic, hostile to man, unnatural in her love and pursuit of women, or blatantly and ostentatiously masculine in her tastes, her kit and her interests.
The maleness of women, considered from the standpoint of marriage—which is the only standpoint relevant to this chapter[63]—can be deprecated only when it renders impossible, or more than usually difficult, the cohesion of that valuable unit in society known as the family.
As this is not a work on the pathology of sex, I cannot deal with cases of genuine physical and mental aberration in which a woman is so intensely masculine that motherhood is quite out of the question. I can only deal with those cases where male elements are present in sufficient quantities in the female to avert serious dilution of virile qualities in a stock.
Now in such cases marriage is not only possible, but can be quite successful—or at least as successful as any marriage can be from the standpoint of the individual—provided that the female elements in the woman find complete and happy adaptation, and the male elements in her are prevented from guiding her conduct and her judgment at the cost of the female elements.
If the male elements in her are not prevented from guiding her conduct and her judgment, the evil result will be twofold: (1) she will develop her masculine proclivities at the cost of her female or maternal side; and (2) she will come into early and bitter conflict with her husband. Either one of these evil results is sufficient to upset the balance of the unit known as the family.
What kind of man, then, is likely to be the best mate of the woman with pronounced masculine elements in her constitution?
The problem is to make her masculine elements recessive in favour of her female elements. It amounts to this, then—in what circumstances is a woman likely to abandon her masculine elements as a weapon in the struggle of life? In what circumstances is she likely to realize their uselessness to her?
—Only, it may be said, when she has found them utterly useless; only when she has learned to despise them. But when does this occur?—It always occurs where the masculine elements belonging to the woman have in a sharp conflict, or by gradual experience covering innumerable small incidents, discovered superior, overwhelmingly superior, masculine elements in the mate. It may never come to a conflict. The superiority of the male elements in the husband may become impressed upon her by repeated lessons, by small daily occurrences, that teach her in spite of herself to trust his masculinity more than hers. When this point is achieved, her masculine elements rapidly become recessive, and thenceforward give no further trouble—nay, they may cease to manifest themselves altogether.
For this end to be attained, however, the male—the husband—must be a creature of overwhelming masculinity, against whom no masculine elements belonging to any female could possibly measure themselves without the certainty of absolute rout.[64]
In the same way it might be pointed out that the womanly man finds his happiest and best adaptation with the female—the wife—of overwhelming femininity; for then his female elements finding it impossible to measure themselves against those of his spouse, quickly become recessive and cease to give any further trouble.
But what actually happens to-day?
Our great past as a virile race has certainly left us an inheritance of thousands of virile women, some of whom excel anything that any other European country can produce; but alas! owing to the degeneracy of man, caused by his bad health, his Puritanism, his bemeaning occupations, and his absurd obsessions about chivalry, there are not the males to hand with whom to mate these women.
When one of these women marries nowadays she must perforce unite with a man who is utterly incapable of making her male elements recessive; who, on the contrary, is himself so exiguously endowed with masculinity that his wife not only has every temptation, but also every opportunity, to express, assert, and impose her masculine elements upon the family and himself.
But the continuous expression and assertion of male elements in a woman, and of female elements in a man, at the cost of those elements proper to their primary sexual organs, far from leading to happiness, result in nothing but misery both mental and physical, while the ultimate effect on the nerves is always disastrous.
If, however, there is nothing in her immediate environment to make her despise her male elements, or to convince her that they can safely lie quiescent, a woman’s very self-preservative instinct will not allow her to abandon them to the process of recession, and the consequence is that in thousands of marriages at the present day the wives are utterly and deeply miserable on this account alone. Masculine men are lacking. The great past of the race has produced generation after generation of fine, stout-hearted women with a large percentage of virile elements. But the mates for these remaining memorials of our whilom greatness are no more, and thus these unfortunate women either wander the world unmated, or if mated, suffer an ill-adaptation that is sometimes even more cruel than spinsterhood itself.
To point to these wretched, unadapted virile women—whether married or unmarried—as the legitimate butts for our scorn or our contempt, however, is the acme of ignorance and stupidity. It is the degeneration of man, the low ebb of his former greatness, that has left them standing high and dry in conspicuous isolation; and if England’s “trousered women” now strike the foreigner as one of the regrettable features of our civilization, it is regrettable only in the sense that it proves positively that this country once enjoyed a racial greatness of which she can no longer boast, and of which these women are the belated reminder.