A mistake made by a great many married couples is to avoid speaking of money matters. But the most loving couples cannot altogether live on love and the air of the atmosphere; it is not given to all of them—in fact, it is given to only very few of them—to spend without having to count. A man and a wife are two friends, two partners, who should constantly hold pleasant little committee meetings of two in order to discuss all matters of pecuniary interest and balance their budget of receipts and expenditure. Once a week at least, they should employ an hour in this way, hand in hand, like the best of friends. Thus it is that by mutual confidence each will encourage the other to think of the future, and little by little both will soon find themselves possessing the nucleus of a small fortune, in which they will take more and more interest, and which one day, to their surprise, will be found quite snug and bearing an interest that will add considerably to their annual revenue.
A married woman should never consent to receive so much a week for household expenses, so much a month for her dress, and to be treated, so to speak, as a dependent person. It should be left to her to decide whether, considering what the financial situation is, she can afford two new hats or one only. The suggestion, much less the order, should not come from her husband, but from herself.
I like the French system, where a man consults his wife in all important matters of financial interest, such as the investment of savings, etc.; but from the day she is married, the French wife begins to be taught by her husband the details of his profession or business, and the best and safest investments of the day, and she immediately and invariably is appointed by him secretary of the treasury—among the masses of the people, anyway—and that is why I have not the least hesitation is asserting the fortune of France is so stable and steady. It is because, thanks to the influence of the wife, French families have their money invested in the safest Government securities. So long as they can work, they are satisfied with a very small interest for their capital, in order to be quite sure that when the days of rest will become a necessity, that capital will be there to keep them, if not in wealth, at all events in comfort and complete independence.
When married couples have nothing better to do, they should amuse themselves making all sorts of plans for the future. They should plan journeys to distant countries, build castles in the air, buy country houses, and consult each other and decide how they shall furnish them and lay out the grounds. These plans are like barricades—they mask the future; besides, they cause you amusement and cost nothing. And—who knows?—among those many plans perhaps there will be one of your predilections that you will actually be able to realize. What happens then? Plans are akin to caresses—they go together hand in hand; they are the gratuitous pleasures of sweet intimacy.
Young married people should avoid being too demonstrative, not only in public, but in private, in the first years especially. They should constantly remember that they enter the state of matrimony with a certain capital of love. They must not squander that capital, but live on the interest of it only.
There are young people who too often feel the want of manifesting their love by exaggerated proofs of tenderness, such as the administration to each other of names of birds and pet quadrupeds, of showers of kisses, of little pats on the face. The exaggerated frequency of such acts produces a reaction, and often a slight sensation of enervation, that should never be born of caresses. And as these outward shows of love run the risk of diminishing in number and fervour, there is danger of their thus becoming a sign or a proof of decline in tenderness.
In public these demonstrations are ridiculous and vulgar; they put other people ill at ease, who smile and sneer, and even remark, 'They will soon get over it.'
To marry a beautiful woman for the mere love of her beauty is to undertake to dwell in a country that has a temperature of 100 in the shade without being provided with clothes that will enable you to stand a winter of 50 below zero when it comes.
In the relations between men and women it is, after all, beauty that makes woman particularly attractive to man. For this reason, the love of a man is more sensual, more jealous, than that of a woman, which is more affectionate, more confiding, and more faithful. As a rule, the passion of a husband goes on diminishing as that of his wife goes on increasing. A man exacts of his wife her first love; a woman exacts of her husband his last. Only the select few can manage their matrimonial affairs with such clever diplomacy as to make these different elements of happiness and sources of danger work together with success.
Married people would live more happily together if they could now and then forget that they are tied together for life. Any little scene that may help them to forget it should be enacted by them.
Happiness in matrimony is more solid when it is founded on friendship through thick and thin than when it is merely on love.
In love a moment of bliss is nothing; it is only the morrow which purifies and sanctifies it. How many married couples would be happy if they would only think of the morrow!
The husband who knows how to always keep something in store for his wife has solved the great problem of happiness in matrimonial life.
Cupid introduces men and women into that enclosure which is called matrimony, and then discreetly and almost immediately retires. What a pity it is he does not make their acquaintance later, in order to remain with them for ever!
Marriages would be very much happier if women preferred marrying men who love them to those whom they love.
Matrimony would be a glorious institution if women would take as much care of themselves for their husbands as they do when they expect guests at their dinner-parties and receptions.
Women should devote all their best attentions to learning how to grow old in time and gradually, and in remembering that tears make them unattractive, and angry looks hideous.
One of the greatest dangers to happiness in matrimony is not want of love, but too much of it, at the beginning especially. Love dies of indigestion more quickly than of any other disease. Never satiate your wife—or your husband—with love. Do not live on £10,000 the first year of your married life, and be obliged to reduce your income by £1,000 or £2,000 every year. Begin gently, quietly, and let your revenue, like your love, slowly but steadily increase. There lies your only chance. With self-control you have it at your disposal.
All vocations require preparation and apprenticeship. Matrimony is the only one which men and women can enter into without knowing anything about it. Alas!
In matrimony it is not 'All is well that ends well'; it is 'All is well that begins well, but not too well.' Starting from this principle, I have often advised young husbands to control themselves, and to be careful to avoid putting all their smartest dialogue and strongest situations in the first act of the comedy of matrimony, for fear lest the interest should go on flagging steadily to the end.
I have advised them to see that their wives do not get their own way in everything at once, and not to make themselves their abject slaves, because, just as no government has ever been known to successfully suppress, or even reduce, any liberty or privilege previously granted to the people, just so will no husband be able to recover one inch of the ground he has surrendered if he capitulates on the threshold of matrimony.
In fact, let young husbands and young wives behave toward each other in such a way that their friends will not smile and say: 'Lovely, but too good to last, I'm afraid.'
The dangers against which I have attempted to warn men exist for women—devoted, loving women who wish to start matrimony by trying to do the impossible in order to please their husbands, or, if not the impossible, at all events, what it may not be in their power to do for ever, or even for a long time.
One of these dangers is that of economy.
'My dear,' remarked a shrewd friend to a bride of a few weeks' standing, 'you will make a terrible mistake if you let your husband think that you can keep house on nothing.'
Young wives are sometimes pitifully anxious to be credited with remarkable cleverness as house-mistresses. The more they love their husbands, the less they like the idea of their toiling and moiling. Hence they are keenly anxious to prove themselves helpmeets in the literal sense of the word.
Not only will they name a far smaller sum as housekeeping money than their husbands can well afford to give them, but they will actually save out of that sum enough for their own clothes and petty cash expenses.
All this self-sacrifice is not only charming, but beautiful, when there is necessity for rigid economy. Young couples who wisely marry on small incomes, instead of wasting the sweetness of their youth over an endless engagement, must make a study of ways and means, and the wife who will cajole a shilling into doing duty for a five-shilling piece is a jewel beyond price.
Again, when times are bad, when the bread-winner falls ill, and the treasury runs dry, there is no more pathetic and lovely sight than the brave little wife who struggles and succeeds in keeping the wolf out of the house.
But in instances where no serious demand of this kind need be made upon a wife's ingenuity, she is a very short-sighted woman indeed who does not see the dangers and realize the evils of overzealous economy.
There would be fewer complaints of marriages that result in the wife being merely an unpaid servant or housekeeper, who cannot give notice to leave, if brides began as they meant to go on, for no one save those who have lived through the process knows how difficult it is to introduce a new régime when once its opposite had been inaugurated and accepted.
'You said you would find £3 10s. a week ample a month ago. Why in the world do you want £5 now?' asks the husband, whose wife has been foolishly anxious to impress him with her cleverness as an economist, and finds she cannot keep up the farce beyond the limit of a few weeks.
Economy may be carried too far from choice. There are women who simply love saving. They neglect their intellectual life, and abandon all attempts to keep in the movement, all in order to grind down the weekly bills. No reward awaits them.
The women who believe themselves perfect because they are economical, and consider the spring-cleaning of their house the greatest event of the year, grow old before their time, and are never the companions modern wives should be to their husbands.
Be good, but never overdo it, I will say to any woman who has the sense of humour.
When you are dining with an intimate friend, and an omelette au rhum is served, what do you do? Without any ceremony, you take a spoon, and, taking the burning liquid, you pour it over the dish gently and unceasingly. If you are careless, and fail to keep the pink and blue flame alive, it goes out at once, and you have to eat, instead of a delicacy, a dish fit only for people who like, or are used to have, their palates scraped by rough food. If you would be sure to be successful, you will ask your friend to help you watch the flame, and you will even ask him to lift the omelette gently so that the rhum may be poured all over it until the whole of the alcohol contained in the liquor is burned out.
This omelette au rhum is a fairly good symbol of matrimony.
In the earliest stage of married life the eggs have just been broken, beaten, and strewn with sugar, a light has been set, and everything is burning and perfectly beautiful. The young partakers of the matrimonial repast are intoxicated with their new life, their new emotions, their new sensations; they require no indulgence toward each other, no special cleverness or diplomacy to please each other; there are no concessions to make—neither of them can go or do wrong; the flame burns of itself.
I do not mean to say that the flame can be kept burning for ever and ever—alas! no, not any more than life can be made to eternally animate your body. The flame must go out one day, as some illness must one day end your life. But, just as hygiene teaches how to keep our good health prolonged by precautions of all sorts, just so does common-sense, aided by diplomacy and skill, help us to keep alive the flame of love between the man and the woman who have kindled it.
And let no woman accuse me of manly conceit if I say that, clever and attentive as the man must be, the woman has to be more clever and attentive still, and that simply because it is a fact—an uncontradicted fact (call it psychological if you like, or physiological if you prefer)—that the love or passion of a woman goes on naturally increasing in married life, whereas that of a man goes on just as gradually and steadily decreasing.
In marriage the flame of love has been known to keep long alive through the intelligence of the wife, and even without any effort in that direction on the part of the husband; but the contrary has never been known to be successful.
Woman is a divine delicacy who has to tempt the appetite of man; but the most exquisite delicacy may become insipid if served every day with the eternally same sauce. This is plain common-sense, and let me tell you this: that no married life (not one) has a shadow of chance to be happy for long unless the woman clearly understands and quickly realizes that, if moral duties are the same for men and women, Nature has made their temperaments absolutely different.
No coquetry in matrimony? Who is the Philistine who dares utter such blasphemy? Good heavens! if half the curling-pins, which are used by women at night in order to be beautiful the following day and attract the attention and admiration of strangers, were used by them in the morning, so that they might be beautiful the same day, and draw the attention and admiration of their husbands, there would be happiness in matrimony, and the world would go much better than it does.
The greatest, the most dangerous enemy of happiness in matrimony is habit which engenders monotony. You get too much accustomed to each other, and love fades, as a flower which falls off its stem before it has lived its natural life, owing to some insect which destroys it.
That insect in matrimony is habit, which devours everything without your being aware of its presence. Destroy that insect before it has had time to do any harm, and you will have saved your dual happiness.
A grave error committed by many women is to believe that they must look their best for the friends, acquaintances and strangers who visit them, but that they need not take much trouble for their husbands.
But the fact is that a woman ought to ever appear before her husband at her very best, whether it is in a morning negligée or in a full afternoon or evening toilette.
Your husband, my dear lady, ought to see in you more than he could see in any other woman. All comparisons ought to be to your advantage. It is not at all necessary that you should have an expensive gown on at breakfast-time. Your hair well fixed, and a nice-fitting dressing-gown may make you look as attractive as a beautiful ball-dress.
It is not clothes that make a woman fascinating; it is the way she puts them on.
In fact, never allow yourself to be seen by your husband in any other state than that in which you would allow yourself to be seen by the male portion of your acquaintances, not even in illness. As long as your strength permit, remain coquettish and jealous of your appearance. Yes, I say, even on a sick-bed.
The part you have to play consists in spraying a perfume of poetry around you. Fill your husband with remembrances of you, so that, even when you are not visible, you are present before his eyes.
Allow him the most complete liberty, and never ask him questions on what he has done, where he has been.
Take it for granted that he has done nothing which he should not have done, that he has been nowhere where he should not have been, and it is that perfect confidence which you show you have in him that will always keep him in the path of faithfulness, unless he is, which is only exceptional, an absolutely bad man.
If clouds are gathering over your happiness, it is for you women to clear them away. You are the guardian angels of the home, which is your kingdom. If you have trials, strain every nerve to appear smiling, and if sometimes tears stifle you, shed them in secret, even should the cause of your trial be the inconstancy of your husband.
You will not bring him back to you with reproaches, tears and scenes. You will thus keep him away for good. Remember that Nature, which has treated you so ungenerously, makes you ugly when you weep and hideous when you make a scene.
You will bring back an erring husband by your kindness, your sweetness, your devotion, and your intelligence. The only infallible way to get a husband attached to you is to let him believe that you never suspected him, much less accused him, even when he was guilty. Call to your aid whatever resources are at your disposal—resources of intelligence, of beauty, of abnegation—and, if your husband is not a brute, he will return to you, and he will be all the more ashamed of the way in which he neglected you for a time that, by your behaviour, you seem to consider he had never for a day ceased to love you.
Never make an allusion to the fatted calf which you killed on the return of the prodigal heart. Be as merciful in your victory as you were in your temporary defeat.
Do not be satisfied with forgiving; forget, and make him forget everything. Use scales: on one side place his years of devotion to you, his industry, his forethought in securing your future and that of your children; on the other his faults; and even if these scales should incline to remain horizontal, with a gentle touch of your finger make them go down in favour of what he has done for you.
The supreme coquetry of a woman is to know how to reign, even when her husband governs. Her very weakness is the best weapon in her hands. Her husband should be the motive of all her actions. Before thinking of appearing beautiful to the indifferent, she should think of appearing beautiful to her husband.
If she is admired, she should feel proud of it for his sake, and make him understand that only crumbs are for strangers; that he alone is invited to the whole meal of her beauty, her love, her boundless devotion.
And let me add that there is not, in this chapter, a single word of advice which I give to women in their dealings with husbands which I do not endorse and give to men in their dealings with their wives.
According to characters and circumstances, resignation is the virtue of the weak or the virtue of the strong. A woman resigns herself to her fate in married life, sometimes because she has not enough strength of will, sometimes because she does not deign to revolt, oftener still because she discovers that her rebellion could only make matters worse for herself, and especially for her children.
If her husband is good, her resignation will soon bring him back to her; if he is bad, her rebellion will make him much worse.
If you cannot sympathize with your husband, or adopt his views and manner of thinking, resign yourself, keep your views for yourself, and do not transform your married life into an eternal French public meeting, where, instead of striking pebbles together in order to obtain light, they throw them at one another's faces.
Fulfil your duties. Never complain. Never exact what is not offered to you, unless it be respect. So long as your husband treats you with respect, at home as well as in public; so long as he is the thoughtful father of your children, and carefully and industriously attends to his profession or business, respect him and inspire in your children the respect for him, and especially do not make your children the confidant of your grievances; that is your foremost duty.
I cannot say to you: Try to force yourself to love your husband. This is not in your power. But I will say: Be irreproachable, and thus make yourself the superior of your husband. Devote yourself to your family. If you are rich, do with your money all the good that you can. The greatest possession is self-esteem. You can rise so high that the offences committed against you may appear infinitely small. After all, we get in this world the place that we know how to make for ourselves.
Never let the outside public know the details of your private life. Receive your friends and your guests with a smile on your lips. If your husband is a gentleman, he will show you before them the greatest consideration, and if you are a lady you will treat him in a like manner.
If your husband is unable to offer you his love—I mean a lover's love—do not commit the mistake of refusing his friendship, for it is just possible that this man, who has not in him the power to love you as a lover, would still be ready to give his life for you.
He would certainly be still ready to give it for his children, your children. Surely that friendship is worth having. Of course, the young wife, who discovers after only a few years of marriage that the dream of love has vanished, is to be pitied, supposing that it has not been through her fault that the dream has had such a short life; but the woman who for twenty or more years has had a faithful lover-husband is conceited and ridiculous beyond measure when she does not almost cheerfully resign herself to the inevitable crisis in matrimony; and if she has children that she takes in her confidence, and thus estranges from their father, her vanity is not very far from criminal. At all events, she deserves the sympathy of no one.
Resign yourself to the inevitable. Let the days of love, happiness, and devotion count in the final reckoning, and, in turning over a new leaf, be sure you bring forward devotion, and soon happiness may have to be added again.
Put on a cheerful face always, and remember that it pays to excite envy, never to excite pity.
There is more joy in heaven, we are told, for one sinner who repents than for a hundred righteous people who keep straight on the narrow ways of salvation.
And, I should add, there must be more joy in hell for one good man who goes wrong than for a hundred sinners who persevere in their wicked ways.
There should be more joy in the heart of a woman for a man who remains in love with her than for a hundred others whose admiration she may obtain.
There are some women who may love a man ever so much, and be loved by him to their hearts' content, who will use all their artillery to bring down strangers to their feet, but who will make little or no effort to look their best for the man who loves them and is devoted to them. For such women their beauty is an altar erected to unknown gods.
Married life would be an everyday bliss and an eternal one if men never thought of doing to or before their wives what they would never dream of doing to or before any ladies of their acquaintance, and, of course, if women did the same; but such is not always, even often, the case. Hence the trouble.
How many men have taken their wives to a ball, women whose radiant beauty and brilliant toilettes have caused the admiration of all men present, and also the envy of many women?
How many men have felt that, if the said wives had made as much preparation for them as they had for all the strangers present at that ball, they could have fallen at their feet and worshipped them?
On returning home, however, Madame has immediately retired to her room, ordered her maid to quickly remove and pack away the lovely attire, and, an hour later, prepared for the night's rest, she appeared before her husband with her hair all prepared for the next day, her hands carefully gloved so that they may be as white as snow—also for the next day—and wrapped up and as inaccessible as a valuable clock that is going to be shipped to the other end of the world.
That is the lot of many men—may I not even say of most husbands? Then a bold husband will venture to make some remarks. He will say, 'Now, my dear, I hear you practise your scales and exercises, but seldom do you treat me to a piece of music, which I only hear when I have guests or we go out. Everyone—at the ball—has admired your beautiful hair and your lovely gown, but for me, all I see is hairpins and curlers and a dressing-gown.'
And Madame will answer more or less sourly, 'Is it because I am your wife that I must grow ugly? Do you want my hair to fall over my neck and shoulders to-morrow like weeping willows? Do you want my hands to be red and chappy? Are you sorry I am careful of my clothes and have them put away, well folded in tissue-paper, when I have no need of them?
'Do you reproach me for doing you honour and being at the same time careful? Will you tell me, is there any way to please you? And do you think that, after enjoying herself and receiving compliments during a whole evening, it is very pleasant for a woman to return home and hear nothing but rebuffs, reproaches and the like?'
The poor man feels he is beaten, that he is a brute, and he says nothing more, until one night when it is time to retire, he prepares a surprise for his wife.
'What's all this?' exclaims the wife when she realizes what has happened.
'Nothing, dear,' he replies. 'To tell you the truth, I go hunting to-morrow morning, and I shall have to rise very early. My hunting-boots are new, and in the morning my feet are always a little swollen, so I keep them on to save trouble. You must excuse my spurs, too, dear, but I prefer these, which are fastened to the boots. I shall be most comfortable to-morrow.'
There are qualities which most women admire in men, and there are qualities which practically every man admires in all women; but if you were to ask of a hundred men, 'What is the ideal wife?' and of a hundred women, 'What is the ideal husband?' you would get a hundred opinions all different one from the other.
Quot capita, tot sensus, which, in the case of women, I should like to translate, 'So many pretty heads, so many different opinions.' This, however, is as it should be. Only there remains that terrible problem for every man and woman to solve: Find your ideal if you can, and when you think you have found it, see that you are not disappointed.
I have of late interviewed a good many Parisiennes on the subject, and I will give some of the answers which I have received.
One said to me: 'The ideal husband is the one who devotes his life to his wife, who makes her the first consideration in all his thoughts and acts, who understands that she is the aim of everything which he undertakes, and that he should use all the resources that Nature has placed in his mind and Fortune has put in his hands in order that she may be happy and remain long beautiful.'
I need not say that this was the opinion of a young girl who had only just made her début in society. Nor do I need say that the following came from the lips of a married woman—one, however, whom I guarantee to be in the possession of all the womanly virtues likely to make a husband most satisfied with his lot.
'The ideal husband,' she said, 'is the one who lets his wife alone, who does not interfere with her household duties or any of her little womanly fads, who is not always paying her compliments or besieging her with advice, and who is not always by her side or behind her back, who seldom addresses her reproaches, and never reminds her of what he has done to deserve her gratitude, who is not fussy, fidgety, or a bore of a model of propriety and virtue.
'When I was a young girl I dreamed of matrimony as a sweet state of slavery. Now I shout for liberty—liberty for him and liberty for me. I do not mean to say, of course, that man and wife should live apart and not care one what the other does. No, no; but I firmly believe that we should remain at a respectful distance from the objects which we want to see to advantage and admire.
'A woman should never allow even the most loving and beloved of husbands to be constantly making love to her. One may suffer from abundance of wealth. A great deal of discretion and a certain amount of respect between married people are sure to secure the duration and the solidity of their affection. Those who live at too close quarters are sure to part one day or the other.'
Here is another, with less philosophy, but a good deal of what I might call paradoxical psychology:
'The ideal husband,' said to me a woman married to a French painter on the road to celebrity, 'is the one who is not a man of genius. Nothing monopolizes a man like a great talent for writing, painting, or even business; he belongs to his muse, his art, or his figures. His thoughts are absorbed, and he has very few, if any, left for the little creature who lives with him, not in the clouds, but by his side on this earth.
'When he returns from his dreams, he throws at her—poor inferior being!—a glance of pity, if not of contempt. My ideal husband is a man who can live for me as I am ready to live for him, and who can do without a mistress, whether that mistress be called Literature, Art, or Commerce. I love great men, great poets, great painters or sculptors, but I would not have a great man for a husband; nay, furthermore, I should like to have a husband jealous of all the great men of my predilection in the world of fiction.'
A piquant little woman, not a bit beautiful, but absolutely charming and the embodiment of amiability and cheerfulness, said to me:
'The ideal husband shall not be a handsome man, but a gentlemanly one, with a keen sense of humour, cheerful, a laughing philosopher, and a man with a magnanimous turn of mind, who would never take advantage of a little trouble in which I might find myself entangled to say to me, "I told you so," but get me out of it quickly.'
Of course, all my fair friends, without exception, have insisted on the ideal husband being indulgent, generous, manly, sincere, loyal, and above middle height. Strange to say that none of them ask him to be handsome, much less insist on it. One of them even went so far as to say:
'A husband should not be handsome. First of all he is never very beautiful, since he is a man. But he might be worse; he might think he is beautiful, and then Heaven help his wife!'
'The ideal husband,' remarked a lady, 'is a man who should never be ridiculous, never make a fool of himself, and never for a moment believe that women took notice of him. A woman's love may survive any defect in her husband, but ridicule never.'
The fact is that words or acts of a man ridiculous enough to make his wife wish she were a mile deep under the floor will lower him so much in her estimation that she will never be able to look up to him again; and no woman has ever been known to drop her love—she sends it up always. I will conclude with the opinion of an American lady:
'The ideal husband should never part with any of his most refined manners in his home, where he should endeavour ever to appear at his best, in dress, language, and behaviour, in the presence of his wife, who is his queen.'
I expected as much from her supreme and magnificent majesty, Mrs. Jonathan, Queen of the United States.
It is said in England that, of all men who occupy high positions in professional life, judges are those who oftenest marry below their station.
Many are even said to have married impossible women, and on these women many amusing stories are related in the smoke-rooms of London clubs—stories which, I have no doubt, are of the se non è vero, è ben trovato type, and as faithful to truth as the stories that are told on the feet of the Chicago women or the intellect of the Boston girls.
However, it must be admitted that fools are not the only men who marry women that are greatly inferior to them in manner, education, and social standing; the cleverest men and the most aristocratic ones have often been known to do the same.
Dukes, marquises, and earls have married chorus-girls and shop-girls; great literary men and artists have married uneducated girls, and have led very happy lives with them. Of course, I pass over the aristocracy who marry among the common people in order to get their coats of arms out of pawn. If they are poor and marry rich girls, you can hardly call this a case of mésalliance, since the superiority of birth in the man is compensated by the superiority of fortune in the woman.
Of course, mésalliances appeal to people, because they always suggest marriages for love, and novelists of all countries have worked this theme for all it is worth. In real life they very seldom work well, for the simple reason that matrimony places a man and a woman on absolutely equal footing, and that happiness for them, in the case of a mésalliance, is only possible on condition that one goes up to the level of the superior, or the other comes down to the level of the inferior.
Marriages that have the greatest chances of success are those in which the two partners bring the same amount of capital in social position, in education, in fortune, in character, and I will even add in stature and in physical beauty, with perhaps a slight—a very slight—superiority to the credit of the man in all these conditions, except that of beauty, which is an attribute that woman can possess in any degree without making the happiness of her husband and herself run any risk.
Mrs. Hodgson Burnett, in one of her novels, makes a barrister fall in love with a girl who works in the coal-mines of Lancaster (another case of the legal profession going wrong). The man has the girl sent to school to learn manners and get educated, then marries her, and all is smooth ever after.
I have heard of this being done in real life with less success. The behaviour of the man in a case like this should create gratitude in the heart of the woman, and gratitude does not engender love. On the contrary, Cupid is a little fellow so fond of his liberty and so wilful that anything that tends to influence him—worse than that, to force him—has on him the contrary effect to that which should be expected.
Yet, I say, it is the only way to bring an uneducated woman to the level of an educated man—before matrimony. After marriage the woman is acknowledged, proclaimed the equal of her husband, and she will stand no hint as to her being inferior to her husband in any way.
If she loves him and is not conceited, any act on his part, however kindly performed, that would suggest to her that she might improve herself in language, behaviour, etc., would cause her unhappiness and even pangs of anguish.
If, on the other hand, she did not love him and was conceited, or even only of an independent character, she would soon give him a piece of her mind on the subject of her improvements, and let him hear the great typical phrase of democracy, 'I'm as good as you.'
DANGEROUS EXPERIMENTS
No, no; he must put up with the situation, and make the best of it. In that case men console themselves with the thought that their wives are pretty, or that they are good housekeepers, good cooks. After all, a man gets married to please himself, not for what the world has to say of his wife.
Still, you have to succeed in the world, and if you despise the opinion of the world the world turns its back on you. And you must remember this: however big you are, or you think you are, the earth can go on running its course round the sun without your help.
French and American women have a keen power of observation and native adaptability. Better than any other women in the world, they can soon adapt themselves to new surroundings and new ways, and learn how to talk, walk, dress, and behave like the leading women of any new social circles they may have entered. Witness the American women that are to be seen at the courts of Europe.
However, the experiment of a mésalliance is always a dangerous one to make. Nine times out of ten the rabbit will always taste of the cabbage it was brought up on.
I'll tell you what the trouble is with most women in connection with matrimony—they expect too much out of it. Not only do they expect too much, but, in their goodness, they prepare themselves to do too much, to give too much; in fact, they overtrain themselves.
The moment a woman is in love and becomes a fiancée she cultivates the growing of her wings, and orders a halo for her head—in fact, she sets herself to rehearse the part of an angel.
But see the 'cussedness' of things! Man is a strange animal, who prefers women to angels, and the result is that things go wrong. The dear soul is persuaded that she is going to marry a hero, a demi-god, and very soon she discovers that, after all, she has married only a man. How few of us can stand comfortably and long on the pedestals that our admiring friends have erected for us!
When that woman engaged herself she did not go straightway to her parents, as she should have done, and ask them for information on man and matrimony. Her father might have gently disabused her on the subject of many illusions. Certainly her mother would. No, she did not do that. She kept to herself, read poetry, invented poetry, filled herself with poetry.
Boys dream of military life. To them it means gorgeous uniforms, a sword, a life of adventure, battle and glory. Girls dream of married life. To them it means beautiful dresses and jewels and a life of love-making. But soldiers do not always fight, and husbands do not always make love, and that is why military life and married life are often so sadly disappointing.
The dear little woman has prepared herself to be loving and devoted every minute of her life. She has stored provisions of all the best resolutions and virtues under the sun and above. She arrives in her new home ready to yield in everything, even ready to run the house and dress on nothing a year. How she loves that man! Her whole being is given up to love. By-and-by she discovers that the most loving couples require one or two meals a day, and that fig-leaves are much more expensive than they were when they were first worn. Her husband, who, like all men, is an idiot as far as the knowledge of housekeeping is concerned, begins to grumble when she asks for a reasonable sum to allow her to keep things going decently. Remarks pass, lectures are delivered, faces frown, and frowning faces don't go well with halos.
Why will young girls leave it to their imagination to find out what married life is? Why do they not consult and listen to the advice of married lady friends, choosing those who are happy, of course?
They would hear the voice of common-sense.
'If you want your husband to love you and be happy, my dear,' some old stager will tell her, 'follow Punch's advice—feed the brute. Never expect him to be loving while he is hungry. The way to his heart is through the portion of his anatomy that lies just under it.'
Another will say to her: 'Don't start married life by keeping your house on nothing a year, because your husband will find it quite natural, and will get used to it.'
Let that girl frankly confess to her sweetheart that she is not an angel, and the probability is that, if he is a man, he will say to her: 'Never mind the angels, dearie; be a woman: that's quite good enough for me.'
'Are you married?' once asked an English magistrate of an actress who had been summoned for assault. She had flung a pot of cold cream in the face of her manager.
'No, sir,' replied the lively lady, 'nor do I wish to be.'
'That is fortunate for your husband,' remarked the judge, who probably had Irish blood in his veins.
The actress—I do not mean the mere woman on the stage—is made by her profession unfit for matrimony. If she is fit for it, she is not, and never will be, a great actress.
I know that you will at once tell me that Mr. and Mrs. Kendal and Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Maude (Winifred Emery) have been married a good many years and lived most happy lives together. I even imagine that you will easily be able to name others, but I will still maintain that they are only exceptions, and you will please remark that in the exceptions I have named the husbands have, as actors, quite as high a reputation as their wives, which may be the very explanation of those exceptions.
The actress is a heroine, partly owing to the rôles that she plays, and partly to the talent which she displays in them, and no heroine can be a good wife to a man unless he be a hero himself. A woman can never drop her love, and she never does; she gives it only to a man she can look up to.
But there are a great many other reasons. An actress wants perfect freedom of action. She cannot be bothered by household duties, hampered by the bringing up of children, mindful of the attentions required, or at least expected, by a husband.
Her soul and her very nervous system have to be stirred by the whole gamut of sentiments, sensations, and even passions, or she will never be able to stir the soul of her audience.
Can you imagine Lady Macbeth, Camille, Fedora, Phedre, La Tosca, Brunnehilde, played by young innocent virgins or by attentive and devoted wives who mend their husbands' stockings and make the puddings? Perhaps you will tell me that Mrs. Kendal does all that, and if you do, my reply will be, 'Will you please leave me alone with Mrs. Kendal?'
However, since we have mentioned the name of that great actress, I will quote her, and repeat what she said to me one day: 'It is a general rule with me never to engage married couples in my company; whenever I have done so I have had trouble. I want both men and women to act in my plays without having to mind what their wives or husbands may look like in the wings while they are making love on the stage.'
The husband of an actress is nine times out of ten an intolerable bore. He is jealous when she rehearses, he is jealous when she plays, he is jealous when the audience applauds her, he is jealous when she receives bouquets, he is jealous and suspicious if the manager increases her salary, he is jealous during the intervals, he makes scenes to her when she returns home, and, if he does not, he sulks, which is worse, because the man who consumes his own smoke is far less bearable than the one who 'has it out' and has done with it. Even if he is not all that, he has that feeling, which we can quite understand, that his wife belongs to the authors of the play, to the manager of the theatre, to the public, to the critics—in fact, to everybody except himself.
No, actresses should certainly not marry unless they marry actors, but as a rule they do not, and will not.
The actor may be a hero to the susceptible matinée girl, who sees him as Othello, Hamlet, Romeo, Henry V., d'Artagnan, or some other romantic swashbuckler, but he is no hero to the woman who dwells in the dressing-room next to his, and who knows that he is putting on his wig, smearing his face with grease-paint, making-up his eyes, and covering his face with violet-powder with a puff, which he handles in ladylike manner. The actor loses in the eyes of an actress all the prestige which is due to mystery and imagination, and which constitutes the primary and fundamental element of the attraction of one sex for the other. I have never met actresses of standing who had admiration for actors as men, much as they might praise them as members of their profession.
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the marriage of an actress is a mistake, a remorse, or an act of folly. An actress, in order to interpret the works of dramatists, should love, love passionately, dream, suffer even terribly, in order to be able to incarnate love, voluptuousness, suffering, and despair. The drama is the reflection of humanity; the art of the actress should be the reflection of all the different passions that have stirred her own heart and soul.
Another thing: The public takes a greater personal interest in a woman who is not married than in one who is. Actresses know this so well that, when they are married, they insist on having their names put on the bills as Miss So-and-So. When they do not, managers make them do it.
For art's sake, for her own sake, and, remembering the remark of the magistrate, I will add, for her husband's sake, an actress should not marry.
There is quite a boom in the French matrimonial market just at present, and not marriages of convenience either, but real good love matches. Young girls elope with respectable young men holding good positions in order to compel their parents to give their consent. Sons now inform their fathers and mothers that they have, without their help or even their meddling, chosen wives for themselves. It is an open state of rebellion against the old state of affairs in France.
Hitherto there were practically only two kinds of marriages among the upper classes and the good bourgeoisie of France: the marriage of convenience from which love was excluded, and the marriage for love, which, nine times out of ten, was a mésalliance. And, to do justice to the old system, let me say that, as a rule, the marriages of convenience turned out to be much happier than mésalliances, which generally consisted in marrying mistresses—that is to say, according to Balzac, in changing tolerably good wine into very sour vinegar. However, in these marriages of convenience, arranged by families, the social position of the bridegroom and the dot of the bride were the first considerations, and these couples, after being married, often discovered they were made one for the other, and more than one husband won his wife by courting, and really fell in love with her. In cases of mésalliance, after the hours of passion had gone, the husband discovered that all his prospects in life were destroyed through being married to a woman he would never be able to make acceptable to the people of the set he belonged to, and often despair followed disgust, for woe to married people if either of them has the slightest cause for being ashamed of the other!
But things are being changed, and a splendid sign of the times it is, too. Young Frenchmen now seek wives among the families of their own stations in life, court them, and make up their minds to marry them, and, what is best of all, parents begin to realize that, after all, it is their sons, and not themselves, who marry, and that it is they who should make their choices.
I believe that this new state of things, which I hope, for my country, will last, and even yet improve, is greatly due to the influence of the Anglo-Saxons, English and Americans, whose freedom in matrimonial matters is getting more and more familiar to the French through reading and travelling.
Like the Anglo-Saxons, they begin to see the practical side of matrimony. The young Frenchman says to himself: 'I do not send my father to my tailor to choose the clothes I am to wear, and I do not see why I should allow him to go and choose for me the girl I am to marry.'
There are other reasons which may also be due to the ever-increasing influence of Anglo-Saxon manners and customs on France. The French girl is every day getting freer. She is no longer cloistered, as it were, at home and at school. She now frequents the society of young men, gets better acquainted with them, and on more intimate terms than before. She is more independent, feels more confidence in herself, knows more of life than before, and the consequence is that she is better able to provoke the love which she desires to inspire in a man of her choice.
There may also be an economical reason which incites young Frenchmen to seek love in matrimony instead of outside of it. They have been observing their elders, and come to the right conclusion that real love and respectable women are much more within their means than sham love and disreputable women. A charming companion, who is at the same time a sweet mistress and counsellor, a careful housekeeper and a devoted wife, appears to them in her true light—the best article in the market. Besides, they realize that the man who is married has a social advantage over the one who is not. The man who marries a girl of his own society can now explain that he married her simply because he loved her, without thinking that he has to apologize for his action by mentioning what a good stroke of business he has made.
Most men of the preceding generation avoided matrimony as they would have avoided ridicule. The part of husband and father struck them as unpleasant and too petit bourgeois. Literature and the drama helped to fill them with this notion; but now literature and the drama are getting optimistic. We are getting over the period of problem novels and plays, in which all the morbid diseases of the heart were dissected. The heroes of novels and plays begin to get married without ceasing to be interesting, and the result is that the present generation of France is getting more healthy and more cheerful. This is most hopeful for France, for the regeneration seems to take place in every class of society. The friends of France will rejoice in this evolution. I have always maintained, and still maintain, that it is the educational system that explains the prosperity of the Anglo-Saxon race, and that absolute freedom for men to marry the women they love explains its strength and its marvellous vitality.