Читать книгу Modern marriage and how to bear it - Maud Churton Braby - Страница 6

‘If you wish the pick of mankind, take a good bachelor and a good wife.’

‘There is probably no other act in a man’s life so hot-headed and foolish as this of marriage.’ —R. L. Stevenson.

‘Whatever may be said against marriage, it is certainly an experience.’ —Oscar Wilde.

‘All the men are getting married and none of the girls,’ a volatile lady is once reported to have said, and one understands what she meant to convey. In a newspaper correspondence on marriage I once noted the following significant passage: ‘But in these days it is different from what it was when I was a girl. Then every boy had his sweetheart and every girl her chap. Now it seems to me the boys don’t want sweethearts and the girls can’t get chaps. For one youth who means honestly to marry a girl, you will find twenty whose game is mere flirtation, regardless of how the girl may be injured. The times are ungallant and they want mending.’

This letter is signed ‘A Workman’s Wife,’ but it bears ample evidence of having been written by a member of the staff, who seemed to consider sufficient vraisemblance had been given to the signature by the inclusion of an occasional vulgarism, such as ‘chap.’ But in spite of being penned to order, the statements expressed appear to be only too true. The times are ungallant indeed and growing more so every year.

Not long ago I was at a cheery social gathering where the non-marrying tendency of modern men was being discussed. Someone put all the men into a good humour with the reminder that ‘by persistently remaining single, a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation,’ and as there were fifteen bachelors present, the conversation naturally became personal.

One whom I will call Vivian, gallantly remarked that all the nice women were married, so he perforce remained single. I happen to know that he is deeply in love with a married woman. Another, Lucian, a very handsome and popular man of thirty, said he fully meant to marry some day, but wanted a few more years’ freedom first. Dorian gravely asserted that he was waiting for my daughter (aged eighteen months), but being in his confidence, I know that his case is similar to Vivian’s. Hadrian’s health would make his marriage a crime; we are all aware of that fortunately, so no one asked him. The same discretion was observed with regard to Julien of whom it is well known that he has formed an ‘unfortunate’ attachment and has practically not the right to marry. Florian was jilted years ago, and is shy and distrustful of the sex, which is a great pity, as he is the kind of man born for fireside and nursery joys, and would make a wife very happy.

Of Augustin and Fabian it may be truly said that ‘the more they have known of the others, the less they will settle to one;’ and indeed I fear they have spoilt themselves for matrimony, unless there is truth in the old saying that a reformed rake makes the best husband. Endymion is altogether too ineligible, his blue eyes and broad shoulders being his only fortune; he makes plenty of capital out of these adjuncts: they bring him in a rich return of feminine favour, but are nevertheless hardly sufficient to support a wife.

Claudian is really anxious to marry, but suffers from a fatal faithlessness and, as he engagingly explains, can’t love a girl long enough to get the preliminaries settled. One day he is sure to be caught by some determined and probably very unsuitable woman and led reluctant to the altar. Galahad won’t marry until he has found ‘the one woman,’ and I fear he will prove a husband wasted, for poor Galahad already wears spectacles and a bald spot; his devotion to an unrealisable ideal bids fair to spoil his life.

When I put the question to Aurelian, he smiled his evil smile, which makes him more like an embittered vulture than ever, and remarked that he was thinking over his offers and hadn’t yet decided which was the best. As the fact that he has been refused by seven women is well-known, we really rather admire the persistence of his pose as a lady-killer. He has even been known to write passionate letters to himself, in an assumed hand, and drop cleverly-manufactured tears here and there upon them, to give an air of greater realism to these amorous masterpieces, which he uses as a proof of his wild stories of conquest. When dry, the tears look most life-like; of course it is a dodge that every schoolgirl knows, but I have never known a man have recourse to it before, and hope never to again!

Both Cyprian and Valerian gave as the reason for their continued bachelorhood, the fact that they were too comfortable as bachelors and had never felt the need of a wife. The latter added that if he could find just the girl, he would think it over, but as matters stood he preferred certainty to chance and was taking no risks. Between ourselves, both these two are very self-satisfied and egotistical persons, and I don’t think any woman has lost much by their resolve.

The fourteenth man was Bayard, who belongs to a very exasperating type of philanderer. Most women of the world have met and been bored by him to their sorrow. It is his grievous habit to go about professing a yearning for matrimony of the most ideal kind, and confiding at great length to safely attached young matrons how he longs to find a home in one good woman’s heart, and what a great, pure, passionate, wild love he is capable of. There is something rather engaging about him, and his pose is naturally very attractive to unsuspecting spinsters. He is always getting desperately entangled, but makes a great parade of his poverty when the affaire reaches the critical point, and wriggles out successfully—generally without any too unpleasant explanation. If, however, things have gone too far for this, he can always make good his escape under cover of the ‘I love you too much, darling, to drag you down to poverty’ plea. How many girls, wounded to the heart’s core, have listened to this hoary lie when they are more than willing to be poor, if but with him, willing to economise and save, and forego for his sake.

Not, of course, that Bayard and his like inspire such devotion; I mean that the essentials of this particular excuse are given by very many unmarried men nowadays as the reason of their single state. Generally speaking, there are two main reasons why men do not marry: 1. Because they have not yet met a woman they care for sufficiently; 2.—and these constitute a large majority—because they are too selfish. Of course men don’t spell it that way. Like Bayard, they say they ‘can’t afford it.’ They think of all the things they would have to give up—how difficult it is to get enough for their pleasure now, how impossible it would be then, with the support of a wife and potential family added; how they would hate having to knock off poker, find a cheaper tailor, and economise in golf balls. They shudder at the prospect, and decide in the expressively vulgar parlance of the day that it’s ‘not good enough.’ The things that are beyond price are weighed against the things that are bought with money—and found wanting!

It would, however, be the last word of foolishness to encourage improvident marriages, already a source of so much misery, and of course my remarks do not apply to the genuine poverty of the man who really cannot afford to wed. For him I have a very real sympathy, since he is missing the best things of life probably through no fault of his own. The above strictures are intended solely for the man of moderate means, who could afford to marry if he loved himself less and some woman more. Five hundred a year, for instance, is a comfortable income for a bachelor not in the inner circle of Society. On this sum a middle-class man can do himself well, provided he has no particularly expensive vices or hobbies—but it certainly means self-denial when stretched to provide for a wife and two or three children. It means a small house in one of the cheaper suburbs, instead of a bachelor flat in town, ’buses instead of cabs, upper boxes instead of stalls, a fortnight en famille at Broadstairs instead of a month’s fishing en garçon in Norway. It means no more suppers at the Savoy, no more week-ends in Paris, no more ‘running’ over to Monte Carlo; but it can be done, and done happily, provided a man puts love above luxuries. Almost every man can afford to marry—the right woman!

Of course, if a man has still to meet the woman of his fancy, all is well, but it is the despicable plea of Bayard that so incenses me. If men would own the truth, it would not be so bad, but, Adam-like, as usual, they lay the blame on women and say: ‘Girls expect so much nowadays, it is impossible to make enough money to satisfy them.’ This is one of the many lies men tell about women, or perhaps they are under a delusion and really believe the statement to be true. Let them be undeceived, girls don’t expect so much; they are perfectly willing to be poor, as I have said before, if only they care for the man enough. At anyrate, once they have reached that stage of wanting the real things of life they would sooner have wifehood and comparative poverty than ease and empty hearts in their parents’ home. They would sooner, in short, be ‘tired wives than restful spinsters.’

Another delusion men spread about women is that they’re too fond of pleasure to settle down. How often one hears statements such as ‘Juno Jones wouldn’t make a good wife, she’s out all day playing golf;’ or ‘I couldn’t afford to marry Sappho Smith, she’s too fond of dress and theatre-going.’ God bless the man! What else have the poor girls to do? Sappho has a taste for dainty clothes and a love for the theatre; she fills her empty existence with these things as far as she can; Juno has nothing in the wide world to do all day long, but she loves the open air, and so concentrates her magnificent energies on a game with a stick and ball, because any active part in the great game of life is denied her. Marry her—if she will have you—and see what a grand comrade she will make, and what splendid children she will bear you. Or marry Sappho, and you will find she will never want any but simple pleasures within your means, as long as you are kind to her and adore her as she requires to be adored. She will cheerfully make her own clothes, and find her greatest joy in planning out your income and adorning your home.

Everyone can recall having known frivolous and pleasure-loving girls settle down into admirable wives whose nurseries are models and whose households are beyond reproach. Doubtless their friends all predicted disaster when these butterflies were led to the altar. I honestly believe women only want extravagant pleasures when they are miserable. It is generally the wretched wives, the unhappy, restless spinsters who run up bills and fling away money. They feel that life is cheating them and they must have some compensations.

But to return to my fifteen bachelors. There only remains Florizel, whose attitude towards wedlock is a blend of that of Bayard and Claudian. He is genuinely eager to marry, ardent, affectionate, anxious to do right, but lacking in moral courage and egotistical to the point of disease. I would much like to see him happily wedded, as he then would doubtless quickly lose that intense self-centredness, but I question if any attractive woman exists who would be unselfish enough to cope with him in his present state of egomania. His mind is always inflamed with some woman or other, and he hovers about on the edge of desperate amours, anxious to fall head over ears into the sea of love and cast out an anchor of matrimony to hold him fast where he can swerve no more. Unfortunately he cannot forget himself enough to take the fatal plunge. With all his faults there is something very lovable about Florizel, and I should like to see him knocked into shape, though it would be a brave and patient woman who would take the task in hand.

When all the fifteen bachelors had ceased to talk about themselves and settled down to bridge with the rest of the company, an old lady who, like myself, preferred to be a looker-on, came and sat beside me. ‘How they do talk,’ she said! ‘But I can tell you why they don’t marry, in six words, my dear: because they don’t fall in love! And why don’t they fall in love? Because the girls are too eager; because the girls meet them all the way—that’s why! I’ve seven sons, all unmarried, and I know!’

Note.—It is interesting to note that Westermarck in his History of Human Marriage quotes a number of authorities to prove that among many ancient nations marriage was a religious duty incumbent upon all. Among Mohammedan people generally it is still considered a duty. Hebrew celibacy was unheard of, and they have a proverb, ‘He who has no wife is no man.’ In Egypt it is improper and even disreputable for a man to abstain from marriage when there is no just impediment. For an adult to die unmarried is regarded as a deplorable misfortune by the Chinese, and among the Hindus of the present day a man who remains single is considered to be almost a useless member of society, and is looked upon as beyond the pale of nature.