TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

Note that there is a discrepancy between what the book is named on the cover and the title page.

LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. | 988

Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius

The Art of Courtship

Clement Wood

HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
GIRARD, KANSAS

Copyright, 1926,
Haldeman-Julius Company.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS.

| Page
1. Why One Must Woo | 5
The Origin of Wooing | 5
Reasons Against Wooing | 8
Wooing by Women | 12
What Wooing Consists of | 13
2. Whom to Woo | 15
Physical Mates | 15
Mental Mates | 19
Social Mates | 20
Special Problems | 22
3. How a Man Woos | 25
Whom to Woo | 25
Object and Method of Wooing | 27
Problems of Wooing | 32
The Proposal, and After | 33
Courtship After Marriage | 35
4. How a Woman Woos | 37
Fancy Flirtations | 37
Judging Men | 39
“Nice” Girl or Human Being | 43
5. Conduct During the Engagement | 47
Conduct in Public | 47
In Private | 50
Termination of Engagements | 53
6. Famous Courtships | 57
Courting by Poetry | 57
Great Lovers | 59

THE ART OF COURTSHIP

WHY ONE MUST WOO

The Origin of Wooing.—The normal man must woo the woman who attracts him, because of an instinct planted deep in his nature, which had its origin far down in the scale of life. The modern civilized woman must woo, because this obligation has been laid upon her by man’s rearrangement of society, dating from the savage hour when he ended the era of woman-rule, the matriarchate, and took the leadership himself.

The first separate male appears at about the stage of the barnacle in the scale of animal life. The female barnacle, a shellfish attached permanently to a rock, pier, or the hull of a ship, gives birth to from two to seven little male consorts, or husbands, whom she keeps in little openings in her shell, like pockets. From among these pocket-husbands she picks out the one she pleases to mate with her; usually selecting the largest (for all are much smaller than herself), and, where sizes are equal, the one that she feels drawn to emotionally. From this emotion gradually emerges the esthetic sense, or sense of the beautiful. Thus the first male did not have to do any wooing: he was picked, like the apple that one day made Eden vanish away.

As we rise higher in the scale of animal life, say among the spiders and insects like the grotesquely horrible praying mantis, the male has to woo: and a bloody and savage mate he must go after! The female, still larger than her male, sits back and waits for the audacious mate to approach. He feels one impelling biological purpose: to mate with her, and make sure that offspring will come. Nature has implanted this overpowering instinct in him. In the female, are two appetites; a fainter desire to mate, and ordinary hunger. Her male must satisfy both, in his wooing. As he approaches her, the Theda Bara among insects grasps the male and eats, first his head, then a leg or two, and a part of his body. When the edge has been taken off her appetite, she rests. At this time what is left of the male completes the mating. When her hunger returns again, the female finishes her devouring of the male.

The male bee, who outflies the other males in the lofty nuptial flight of the queen bee, mates with her in thin high air far above the earth; and dies at the moment of mating, his husk of a body falling, like Lucifer out of heaven, to the earth far below. There are other cases where mating spells death for the male: but Nature is kinder in most matings, and the male survives. When we reach the birds and the mammals, the wooing is a gorgeous thing. For the male bird or beast, as a slow result of female selection based upon her esthetic or beauty-loving sense, has developed into a far more gorgeous creature than his mate. The bright glitter of the peacock, the gorgeous flame of the male tanager and cardinal bird, the glow of gay tropical bird males, the lion’s mane, the rooster’s comb and feather display, the stag’s branching antlers, the humble billygoat’s beard, the man’s beard, all have developed to stimulate the jaded eye of the female. The mating songs, from the bird carols to the whooping crane’s strange howls, with bill opened to the sky, neck stiff as a ramrod, and wings pumping out the weird noises, and from the tomcat’s caterwauling to the corner quartette’s strange agonies over “Sweet Adeline”—all have developed to stimulate the bored ear of the female. At mating time, the male is often a ridiculous sight, with his stiff formal dances and prancings before the female, even among the animals. He must woo: that is what he was made for. The female was not made primarily to woo: her task is to live, and to transmit life to the generations after her. The male, originally, was merely an incident in her life.

Thus the normal boy and young man came to the wooing period with a tremendous inward urge, that gives them no release until they have wooed and won. The female matures earlier in the human race; and girls pass through a year or two of excessive curiosity and interest in the male sex, when their boy friends of the same age are ordinarily entirely cold to all female charms. The hidden hour comes when boy alters to man. His voice changes and lowers, in that ridiculous kaleidoscope of sound that is humorously called “the goslings.” A tiny fuzz appears on male lips, cheeks, and chin: the young man is as proud of the first hair of his incipient mustache as if he were entitled to credit for it. His body alters, and the mating impulse sweeps over him. No matter how much he has scoffed at mere girls before, they suddenly fill the whole horizon. Just as the animals strut to attract attention, so boys and young men during this transition and shortly afterwards will do anything to gain the gaze of even a passing girl. They talk in loud tones on the street, they jostle a passing girl, they cut up absurd capers—all to gain the first look from a woman’s eyes. Then this bubbling simmers down, and they set out on the long chase of the female, which may occupy much of their lives thereafter.

If the boy or young man continues uninterested in girls, this is a bad sign. It may be bashfulness: we will take up that symptom and its cure later. It may indicate some inner twist, which makes him prefer his own company, or that of members of his own sex, to female company. This is, spiritually at least, a sort of perversion; it is a sterile attitude, contrary to the wide purposes of nature. In normal cases, he can no more avoid wooing than he can avoid feeling hungry and going after food. For that is what he is on earth for, from a physical point of view.

Reasons Against Wooing.—Lord Bacon, that prosy old cynic whom misguided persons have sought to identify as the author of the plays attributed to Shakespeare, says in his Essays: “A wife and children are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.” There is the smoke of truth here, but it points to a fire very different from the one the sardonic old politician intended. Great enterprises gain much of their impetus, from the male’s desire to stand well in the female’s eyes. Another angle on the matter might be worded, that the energy which is implanted in man for wooing purposes may be deflected into enterprises, such as piratical and military careers, adventure trips and explorations. But more often than not, the spur that sends the man into building a house, or tilling a field, into slicing mountains apart to wed great oceans, discovering a pole or a hidden hinterland civilization, into achievement of any distinguished kind, is the desire to gain merit in the eyes of some specific woman, or of women in general. A great thinker has said that civilization is a sublimation, or expression in another form, of the primitive love desire. A man, because of his short height, or some physical diseases or disability, is rebuffed in youth by a woman: to provide against a repetition of the rebuff, he becomes a financial figure in Wall Street, or a conqueror of the world; or, at least, he tries to achieve this. Thus the spur of feminine approval is what goads the horse, man, to enterprises of virtue and mischief.

Of course, wooing does not necessarily involve marriage, or the man’s assumption of responsibility for the children. Many men remain closer to the primitive, and are satisfied to enjoy the woman, often at great cost to her, and thereafter to abandon her with what children she may have as a result of the union. Such men lose the finer fruits of mating, the long comradeship of a compatible woman that makes life a complete enjoyment, rather than a fragmentary one. The fact that a man has accepted a wife and children may tone down his spirit of adventure: from absurd masculine displays, “playing to the galleries” of mankind, his energy is altered to proper continuing courtship of his wife, and the making of a home for her and the children. To that extent Bacon is right: “great,” in the sense of flashy and foolhardy, enterprises “of virtue or mischief” are replaced by ordinary sensible human living. But there is no loss to the man, rather a gain.

Again, the fact of acquiring a wife and children, if the man is well mated, acts as his chief spur to steady achievement in whatever is his role in human life. The unmated man is a wild, reckless creature, taking any kind of absurd risk, sinking a year’s earnings in one night’s play at the gambling table, going on roaring drinking parties, regarding women as his prey rather than as possible companions. The well-mated man is a social unit, or a part of one, at least. The wanderlust is drained away in the humbler yet loftier task of building his own world toward his dreams, rather than skylarking over the world in the vain hope that somewhere he will find the world of his dreams already built for him.

There are dangers in mating, grave dangers: the divorce records of the country indicate many of them. The chief one is where the man, at an early age, contracts a marriage with a woman who is a fit mate for him then, but lacks the capacity for growth along with him. This applies in many cases where the man makes a success thereafter in any line. When he was a ten-dollar-a-week man, he married a ten-dollar-a-week woman; when he became a ten thousand dollar a year man, the woman remained a ten-dollar-a-week woman, and became a distinct and draining load upon his back, and a deterrent to his continued success and happiness. Boswell, Johnson’s biographer, may have had this type in mind when he wrote:

Whilst courting, and in honeymoon,

With Kate’s allurements smitten,

I loved her late, I loved her soon,

And called her dearest kitten.

But now my kitten’s grown a cat,

And cross, like other wives.

Alas! alas! my honest Matt,

I fear she has nine lives.

In “How to Love” (Little Blue Book No. 98), problems of this nature were taken up and discussed: the only remedy being, where a marriage becomes loveless, to terminate the marriage, for the benefit of the man, the woman, and the children concerned. From the woman’s standpoint, the chief danger in mating is that she will get a man lacking her sensitiveness, and unable to grow into an appreciation of it. She finds herself mated for life to a cruder, coarser, and incompatible male; and, when love dies, and cruelty and infidelity take its place, only the remedy indicated above will serve. There are all these dangers: but they call rather for a wiser courtship, than for an abolition of wooing and mating.

Lastly, a man or woman is incomplete without courtship and mating. Those who say that a man or woman can become a perfected, rounded human being without human love, are deceivers, spreading a mental poison. The man or woman who goes too long without the practice of love contracts a case of ingrowing love, as painful and morbid as an ingrowing toenail. All the immense love energy stagnates and fouls into a diseased nature, hateful, spiteful, gossipy, perverted and warped from real humanness. There can be no ultimate reason against mating. The task is to woo well and mate wisely.

Wooing by Women.—Today, contrary to the custom in the sub-human world and among the earliest savage men, woman must woo as well as man. The reason lies in man’s alteration of the standards of society. The female animal is not as competent as her mate in the hunt and the kill, and in coping with life. Men have rendered women incompetent by thousands of years of hothouse sheltering and by servile toil for many more. The woman today realizes,—we speak of the less intelligent woman now—that her task in life is to obtain a husband, as a permanent meal ticket, and as provider of home, clothing, and all the rest of the tremendous trifles of civilization. Such a mistaught girl goes after a man as a fisherman goes after a brook trout, and more frequently than is good for the man lands the poor fish, and has him hooked thoroughly thereafter. Such a woman has been taught that marriage should be based, not upon love, but upon a man’s ability to care financially for the woman. Life’s highest crown is a satisfying human love. This she has not aimed for, and this she does not get. When she aims low, she scores low: and, if the man is wise, he will dump her and leave her high and dry, when it is too late for her to go after the finer goal.

But even the wise woman today realizes that the whole social arrangement of mating between the sexes is overcast with absurd taboos and restrictions; and that, if she is to mate happily, she must regain part of woman’s lost privilege of choice. There is nothing “unladylike” in her doing the choosing, in her unostentatious wooing, and, if necessary, in her proposing marriage herself. We will take up woman as a wooer later.

What Wooing Consists Of.—From the standpoint of either sex, wooing superficially consists of only one thing: conquest of the woman or man pursued, the gaining of the ultimate favor, if the woman be pursued, with or without marriage, and the gaining of marriage, if the man is the pursued. If wooing is regarded in this light, it is possible that the pursuit is always limited, if not erroneous. For the matter of conquest is not the ultimate one in wooing and mating. The proper purpose of wooing is to choose and win the right mate.

The matter of choosing brings up the second and far more important element of wooing, which might be described as education in the opposite sex. Society today makes no adequate provision for practical laboratory education in the characteristics of the opposite sex: a wiser civilization will supply ample facilities for this indispensable part of human education. The man comes to adolescence without any knowledge of woman, beyond his slight information concerning his mother and his sisters, if he has any, and casual contacts with other girls and women. The girl comes to adolescence as ill-informed. Yet soon thereafter man and girl are called upon to enter, without preliminary training, the game or gamble of securing a life mate, who will lift them up or drag them down thereafter, in all of their efforts. Socially this is a crime. The only thing that can partially supply the lack of information, today, is the wooing period. For, after marriage, it is difficult to end the relationship; and, before marriage, if the parties learn they are ill-suited, intelligent men and women still have a dignified chance to break off the unwise mating before it solidifies into the chains of marriage. Keep in mind, then, that the wooing period is primarily a time for learning about the other sex, and its traits and eccentricities. The young man or woman in love should study the subject, from books and from living teachers, as amply as possible: and should observe other men and women, unmarried and married, with eyes as clear as he or she can make them. If the wooing is regarded as an education in love, and especially in the person wooed, its value will be doubled.

II

WHOM TO WOO

Physical Mates.—The lowest form of mating is that on the exclusively physical plane. Yet this is perhaps the most important aspect of all. If lovers are not physically pleasing and satisfactory to each other, all the financial and other inducements are worthless.

The first problem concerns the respective ages of the parties. Should they be of the same ages? If not, which should be older? On this point, Shakespeare says:

Let still the woman take

An elder than herself; so wears she to him,

So sways she level in her husband’s heart.

For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,

Our fancies are more giddy and inform,

More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,

Than woman’s are.

The woman matures earlier; so the younger woman is the normal equivalent, especially physically, of the man a few years older. This is all right for the time of the mating: but thereafter the man overcomes the woman’s lead, and soon surpasses her; and when, at her change of life, she has largely finished her physical function of love-making, the man is still equipped as a wooer and lover. On the other side of the same question, the same poet wrote:

Crabbed Age and Youth

Cannot live together:

Youth is full or pleasance,

Age is full of care;

Youth like summer morn,

Age like winter weather,

Youth like summer brave,

Age like winter bare:

Youth is full of sport,

Age’s breath is short,

Youth is nimble, Age is lame;

Youth is hot and bold,

Age is weak and cold,

Youth is wild, and Age is tame:—

Age, I do abhor thee,

Youth, I do adore thee;

O! my Love, my Love is young!

Age, I do defy thee—

O sweet shepherd, hie thee,

For methinks thou stay’st too long.

This is worth quoting in full to drive home, in the concentrated phrasing of a master, the extreme differences between youth and age. When an elderly well-to-do man marries a young and lovely girl, as often happens, this may apply; and when a young man marries a woman old enough to be his mother, this may also apply.

And yet, each one’s problems of the choice of a mate is an individual problem: no general rules may be laid down. The man’s first vague ideal of the woman he wishes to love is made to imitate largely, in normal cases, his mother; the girl’s, her father. If this first ideal impression persists with great strength thereafter, youth will be happy only with age. If, in the more normal case, youth desires youth finally, then the invaluable courtship period should have taught this lesson: the young man or woman turns from the intended older mate, and the evil is corrected before it is too late. The person fully experienced in love will have experimented in courtship with people of various ages, to find where the ideal lies. Too much experimentation, of course, rubs off something of the bloom, but if enlightenment follows this rubbing off of the bloom, the thing is worthwhile.

As to dispositions, again no general rule can be laid down. Biological science says those are most happily mated whose dispositions are opposite. Similarly, biological science says that blonde should mate with brunette, and tall with short: it making no difference to science whether the man is the tall or short one, or the woman the short or tall one. Biological science is true in generalities, and does not pretend to solve individual cases and preferences. The only recommendation is, try the one you are first attracted to; and, if the period of courtship indicates a mistake has been made, and that incompatibility comes from opposite temperaments, or from the same temperaments, try elsewhere.

When should one woo and marry? Are early or late marriages advisable? Here society’s present financial arrangement comes in. Unless the man or woman is wealthy already—and few are—the man cannot afford to support a wife, in professional or white-collared business life, until he is from 25 to 30. Marriage on a very small income may work out successfully; in the majority of cases, it does not. The girl who marries at eighteen has hardly had time to know her own mind yet: there are arguments for waiting until she is 22 to 25, or even older. If the man or woman matures slowly, this is reason for later mating. The danger in late matings is that the man and woman have grown more fixed and rigid in minor matters: more crotchety, more old-maidish or old-mannish. The young are more adaptable. All of these things must be weighed. In general, courtship should begin soon after adolescence, and the mating should be entered upon as soon as the young man and young woman feel that they are completely unhappy unless living together.

Health is an important matter. Some states require a health certificate from both man and woman; and this is a wise precaution. The man or woman venereally infected should not be permitted to marry, until medical science gives a clean bill of health. If a man marries a sickly and ailing woman, who will become an invalid, he is bound down to an excessive and unpleasing load for life. On the other hand, marriage may end the woman’s invalidism, which may have been assumed subconsciously as a protection against being overworked at home, or which may be a case of physical warping caused by non-expression of the love energy. If the woman marries an invalid man, unless she wishes to support him for life, more unhappiness will follow. Samuel Butler, in Erewhon, calls disease a crime; and crime, a mere disease, to be cured by doctors. For ill health, punishment should follow. This attitude, revolutionary in a high degree, is in the main sound. Except in rare cases, only the physically sound should mate. During the courtship, this should be gone into carefully.

From the physical standpoint, a man should woo that woman or those women who attract him physically. The wooing period will indicate whether any one woman is congenial and increasingly desirable. No one but a congenial woman who is increasingly desirable should be permanently mated with. The girl should be guided by the same principle of choice.

Mental Mates.—The former conception was that the man was supposed to be the intellectual one, by training, and by contact with the broadening influences of his work, and of the world of men; and that the woman should be an intellectual weakling, tending toward imbecility. In the Oriental world, with its harems and harem favorites, this is at times the situation achieved. Such a method deprives love and mating of its chief glory: the intellectual companionship of congenial spirits.

Woman is no longer forbidden an education. Elementary education is generally hers, required by law; she may have a college training, or its equivalent; and, in general, in life thereafter, if left with time on her hands at home, she is more literate, in the world of books and ideas, than the man; although she may have had less personal contact with large groups of minds, such as a man encounters in his business and social connections. The balance, for the ideal mating, should swing closer. A woman is the gainer by practical experience at working, so that she may realize from the standpoint of the earner the value of a dollar, and not measure it merely from the standpoint of the spender.

A man once locked his business cares up when he left the office, and never brought them home; or, if he brought them home, brought them merely as complaints, unintelligible to his wife. The ideal mating is where the man and woman are equally interested and intelligent in the business welfare, and are, in effect, partners, as they must be in results. This state can rarely be entirely reached. But if, during the courtship, the girl turns out to be a chatter-tongued and scatter-brained little fool, this is a danger signal to the man, to get out while the getting is good. The girl who raves over the movies, dances like a feather, and thinks like one, is not likely to be a fit mate or mother to the man’s children. The man who turns out to be merely a would-be sheik, with no ideas above professional baseball or spending all he has made in a week in one night, is hardly to be chosen as a permanent mate. Unless such a pair woo and win each other: which makes two other people happy, who might have won these lemons and been unhappy thereafter. Courtship is the great testing time, to see whether the two concerned are congenial mentally, and whether they apparently have similar capacities of mental growth.

Social Mates.—Should a girl marry only a man well able to support her? Should a man marry only a girl who is well off financially? These questions would be absurd, if current standards of society did not let them largely dictate many of the most unhappy marriages among us. One should marry for love, primarily and almost entirely. The purpose of mating is to increase one’s happiness: love cannot be bought, and the thing called bought love cannot increase happiness. Love in poverty has a harder row to hoe than love in comparative opulence: but love in poverty is immeasurably better than sham love in opulence, which grows soon enough to hatred in opulence. Let physical attractiveness, plus mental congeniality, be the touchstones during the wooing period. The money will somehow come to those who are not utterly spiritual weaklings, and who present a loving and united front to the world. They may never be well off: but they will win more of the goal of mating and life, which is happiness, than well-to-do haters of their mates.

The matter of social position is similar. The chance of happiness in marriage today is not great when all advantages are in favor of the mating parties. When to this is added a distinct difference in social standing, this makes the problem harder of solution. Let this fact, when ascertained, put you on your guard. But, at the same time, it is only one fact among many to be weighed; and, if the physical and mental attractions are strong enough, they should overweigh any inequality in rearing and background.

Of all errors achieved in mating, perhaps marrying to reform a man is the worst. If a man cannot overcome his pet vices during the courting period, when he is free to fight the battle out within himself, it is almost a sure bet he will not alter after marriage. Even if he temporarily ends the faults or vices during the courting, he may slump later. Reforming a man (or a girl either) is a tremendous gamble. If you choose to gamble with your life, and enjoy the risk, that is an excellent reason for going ahead with it. But the more normal human beings will leave reformation to the person concerned, and marry for other and sounder reasons.

Special Problems.—Should a man be married who has sowed his wild oats? Or should a girl insist upon the man’s coming to the mating pure? Should a girl be married who has sowed her wild oats? Or should a man insist upon her coming to the mating pure?

The average answer is that the man is the gainer by the sowing of wild oats; and that the girl is ruined by the practice. Needless to say, this angle of judgment is all wrong. If the sowing of wild oats consists in mere amorous experience with other women, or in this coupled with drinking, even to the point of moderate drunkenness, and gambling on a scale not too large, the man is not injured for marriage by these. Nor is the girl injured in the slightest. The object of life is to achieve happiness. The chief method of gaining this is by experiencing the world. Love experience is no more harmful (unless pregnancy results) than experience in sampling different food menus. If disease has come, that is a matter for the doctors to pass upon, and the discussion of health above covers it. If the girl has had an illegitimate child, society’s ban is so strong that the case is altered somewhat. This is a factor to be weighed by both parties: it does not of necessity make the girl any the less fit as a mate, than the man would be if he had had an illegitimate child by another woman.

In general, the man is better off for having sowed some wild oats before marriage: he is less liable to plow a field of post-marital wild oats. The same is true, although in a slightly less degree, of the girl. The only difference is caused by the weight of social standards upon the two sexes today.

Should a bashful man or woman woo or be wooed? Bashfulness is in no wise discreditable; it is in general a nervous trait which may be remedied. It comes in general from a want of self-confidence. In general, the bashful continue plugging away in humble self-effacement; and, at times, suddenly burst forth with an achievement far ahead of that of the brassiest individual, self-confident from birth. The cure for bashfulness is contact with crowds, which brings sooner or later the realization that you are not inferior in the slightest to the run of humanity, and are superior to many of your associates. Something of the Coué method—repeating to yourself, without intentional compulsion, “I am important, I believe in myself,” might help. Luckily for the bashful, they ordinarily attract the opposite temperament. If the husband of the bashful woman does not make fun of her peculiarity, but sympathetically brings her out, and if the wife of the bashful man does the same, the effort becomes more than twice as successful. In general, the bashful make mates as satisfactory, or more satisfactory, than the self-confident.

Is love at first sight a possibility? Of course, and a frequent one. The normal man falls in love, at first sight, with every attractive woman he sees. If this is an error, take it as a confession. Many a woman falls in love at first sight with a man who satisfies her ideal, hitherto unrealized. If both feel the emotion simultaneously, we have the perfect case. The subsequent wooing will indicate whether this is enduring love, or an illusion.

Should a man or woman woo several persons at once? In general, especially in the earlier stages of the wooing, this is an advantage. If you wish to buy a jewel, you are wise if you examine several, before making your final choice. The same applies to wooing for a mate. We say at once, because successive wooing permits choice really only of some subsequent love object; whereas the first may be, after all, the most suited. Wooing should be done in honesty; so the element of deception of the parties concerned should not ordinarily be used. This is not because it is ethically wrong, but because, if found out, unpleasant consequences may ensue. But, in general, the wider the choice, the more satisfactory the mating that follows. People who marry the first woman or man they are infatuated with are seldom well mated. Since trial wooings are socially accepted, they should be taken advantage of.

We can now proceed to the technique of wooing.

III

HOW A MAN WOOS

Whom to Woo.—The first thing to emphasize is that you are wooing the girl, and not her father, her mother, her aunts, or her family in general. Since the objects of the wooing are (1) to learn whether the girl is congenial, and (2) to persuade her that you are congenial, and should be accepted, you will find that the second object is achieved best by making yourself attractive to her. In cases where she cares for the opinion of her mother, or father, or family, it is the part of wisdom to court, within reason, the family as well. But the main thing is to woo the girl.

The girl must be willing to be wooed, sooner or later, or you had best cease your efforts. In normal cases, she will not object from the start. If she objects, because she is interested in someone else, or thinks she does not care to be made love to or to marry, or because she thinks there is some personal reason why you are distasteful, your first task is to continue courteously in your suit, until you test out whether or not you can remove this preliminary bar. If she is interested in some one else, this becomes the old conflict between males for the female’s favor: and you will use the methods indicated hereafter. If she professes to be entirely uninterested in love and mating, unless she is abnormal fundamentally this is easy to overcome. Lay aside your obvious wooing, interest yourself in whatever she is interested in, and qualify as a friend and companion in her own interests. She will soon, if she is normal, recognize the great value of your companionship, and from this love should speedily grow.

If the objection is that she finds some trait in the man that is distasteful to her, this dislike must be overcome. Perhaps the objection is to some mannerism of the man’s, some error of speech, or some habit which may be altered by him. In such cases, if he desires to win the girl’s favor, he must either change the trait, or convince her that she does not really object to it. Of course, her very objection may be an education to the young man, both as to her nature, and as to how others look upon his actions. If, for objection, she objects to his friendship with a certain man, or to his going to baseball games, he may, after studying out the matter, decide that the girl is too narrow in her ideas to be his desired mate. He should, of course, first try to educate her attitude toward an acceptance of his trait; but, if he fails, the world is full of girls, and he may find much more happiness elsewhere. Suppose her objection is to some error of speech that the man constantly commits. In this case, his task is to correct it, not only to please the girl, but because her objection has given him an insight into how other people regard the mistake which he may have always heard made and made himself, without exciting comment.

Six months ago, a girl whom I know met a young man, of good family, fairly well-to-do, fairly educated (a couple of college degrees, I think), and a man who had traveled rather extensively in Europe and South America. He played a good hand of bridge, was interested in the same artistic things that the girl was, and was smitten with her from the first. After playing around with him for a couple of months, she refused to see him thereafter, except in a large party; and absolutely refused to let him court her further. The reason can be gathered from this typical specimen of his conversation. “I was at the club, see? A lot of the fellows were there, see? And we decided to shoot a little bridge, see? On the very first hand, see? I had four honors in diamonds, and I bid two diamonds, see?” Tactfully the girl had pointed out that the constantly reiterated “see” just was not done by literate people. The man could not or would not change it: and yet that small irksome trait was what cost him the girl he wanted.

In more usual cases, however, the girl is willing to be wooed from the start. Then your task is easier.

Object and Methods of Wooing.—The object of wooing, in addition to its value as education in the opposite sex, is to win the regard of the other person, if you continue to desire her, and to win her consent to the mating. What is the practical method of doing this? The easy and only wholly satisfactory way is to make yourself attractive to the girl, so that you become indispensable to her happiness, her enjoyment of any experience, and her contented living.

Let it be repeated, that the man must stand high in the girl’s eyes, to give the mating a chance for success. If the girl takes a man as a last chance, because she fears she can get no other suitor, the chance for happiness is lessened: if at any time later she meets a more attractive man who persuades her that he would have proposed, if she had waited, regret and dissatisfaction may set in, and the whole love and marriage relationship may be curdled. When a man singles out a girl for his attention, he cannot avoid transplanting the situation back to the old savage days, when the male preened and strutted before the female, anxious for her approval. What are some of the obvious ways to win her approval, which at times are neglected so disastrously that the man’s chances end at once?

Notice the man’s difficult task: to look at himself with the girl’s eyes, and furnish her with an increasingly attractive picture of himself. Some genius uttered the brilliant half truth that love is blind. Luckily for all of us, this is largely true. But a girl’s parents and relatives, friends, and rival suitors, will obligingly lend their eyes as glasses to her: and the man may expect to find what faults he has magnified almost out of recognition. What, then, from the girls’ standpoint, will she look for in the man?

First of all, girls are by nature neater than men. Girls will allow much latitude to a man for carelessness in attire. But the man who neglects such simple toilet matters as the care of his nails, and presents himself with a black rim under them; who lets his shirts and collars remain in service till they are sooty; whose shoes are unnecessarily unpolished, on occasions when she may expect to be judged by other eyes from the standpoint of her escort,—such a neglectful man may as well know that any one of these things may damn him more in the eyes of the girl than if he had committed murder.

Secondly, a girl will judge the man by how she thinks he will look in the eyes of her friends and associates. If the man is slightly ungrammatical, and so are she and her friends, this makes no difference. But, if she has more booklearning than he, and if her friends are critical in this regard, and regard themselves as at all highbrowish, the man must make it his job to grow up to her literate standards. “I don’t like that there show,” “them sort of pictures,” “moving pitchers,” “I ought to of went,” and all the rest of the verbal atrocities that the ungrammatical blunder into, must be corrected. Winning and keeping a girl’s regard must be regarded as seriously as getting ahead in business. Wooing thus includes a course in self-improvement, along every line. It will do no harm to obtain a book of handy helps in grammar, in etiquette, and the like. Don’t eat peas with your knife, or wear a red tie with a dinner jacket: unless the girl prefers it. In that case, the advice is the reverse: study the proper mistakes to make. Later on, you can gradually lead the girl toward improving herself. Make yourself attractive in every way in the eyes of the girl, and of the relatives or friends on whose judgment she relies.

The moral qualities go along with this. The normal girl will prefer a man who stands well in men’s eyes: that is, who has the reputation of a he-man, equipped with at least an average amount of human courage. As a matter of fact, if the last sentence were truer, it would be better for girls. A large number of them, unfortunately, prefer instead the man whom women like, and men dislike: the parlor lizard type, the afternoon tea snake specimen, the namby-pamby woman-pleaser who never makes a success of anything in life except wooing women. There is a thrill, beyond doubt, in being wooed and kissed by such a man: there is much unhappiness in a continuing relationship with him.

Having made yourself attractive, the next thing is to make yourself important and indispensable in the girl’s eyes. If the girl is sensible, a display of sensible ideas on matters of life will aid; if she is frivolous minded, a display of a frivolous, spendthrift nature is more shrewd. Do the things she expects of you: date her up as often as she desires—it may take all of your shrewdness to ascertain the fact, too. Take her, not essentially where you want to, but where she wants to go. If you adore boxing matches, and she prefers Coney Island and art museums, postpone the boxing matches and take in the others. If you like good music, and she cares only for the movies and baseball, first make up your mind whether you want to continue to woo her; and, if you do, especially at first, take her where she wants to go, and only slowly and tactfully sprinkle in with the cinema thrills and the paid athletics a small dose of Brahms and Beethoven. Do what she expects of you: and always do a little more. That is, do the unexpected thoughtful little things. Find out her favorite foods, chewing gums, cigarettes, people, amusements; and go out of your way to provide her with these. If you like chewy chocolates, and she detests candy and adores pickles, do not provide her with an elegant two pound box of chewy chocolates. Don’t be like the married man who presents his timid old-fashioned wife with a box of cigars for Christmas, and then smokes them himself. Be more courteous and thoughtful to her in public that she has a right to expect. This advice is sound, unless the girl is of the rare clinging vine type who wants a man to bang her around in alleged he-man style. If that is what she wants, give her all the banging she can stand. Make your motto, “We Strive to Please”—and do more than strive.

You will want, and she will expect, some physical love from the start. Among different strata of society, customs as to kissing and caressing differ. Never give the girl less than she expects. After you have found out that she likes to be kissed, you will disappoint her permanently if you give her the sort of kiss you would give dear old Aunt Tabbie, aged ninety-eight in the shade. Yet remember to think of her wishes primarily: don’t give her the sort of kisses you want first, but the kind that she wants. Your artistry will come in subtly leading her to want things that you want. And, once a woman is generally satisfied with a wooer, and wants his approval, she moves swiftly to the place where she wants to please her lover in every way. Then the desires coincide: and the man can read his own wishes, and know them for the girl’s as well.

Problems of Wooing.—The man should find out what he wants from the girl—whether a mere flirtation, a temporary mating, or a permanent one—and adapt his technique to gaining his goal. For instance, in the question of letters. He should do his best to satisfy a girl’s craving for love letters, if separations occur. In all probability, he cannot satisfy her desires here: what she really wants is his presence, and a thousand-page letter does not give the thrill of that. Ordinarily it is not the best tactics to spill over endlessly in a love letter: a chatty, companionable letter, with artistically worded love phrases that hint a vast withheld reservoir of love, is better as a rule than pages of sugary sentimentality. Except at the very first, when all rules of sanity are laid aside. And yet, recall that, if you desire subsequently to retire from the courtship, love letters may be very embarrassing. Try to phrase your letters so that they mean everything to the girl, and nothing to the outside world, which may have the pleasure of reading them in newspaper columns featuring a breach of promise case. It is well to keep this possibility in mind from the start. Don’t store up trouble for yourself in this fashion. Be cryptic and allusive, leaving more than half for the girl to read between the lines. It may save you trouble in the long run.

As for wooing and proposing by proxy, even the most bashful person had just as well learn that it is suicidal. The proxy brings a message to the girl that should come from the beloved man: insensibly her emotion goes out to the bearer of the message. Captain Miles Standish sent John Alden to woo Priscilla for him, and the maiden wisely said, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?” King Edgar’s trusted courier wrote the king that the maiden he desired to wed was ugly and wholly unattractive, and then proceeded to marry her himself for her beauty, for which the king later lopped off the man’s head. Wooing by proxy is much worse than not wooing at all.

As for quarrels, the more experienced wooer will have few or none of them. Beginners in love will insensibly drift into them. Now quarrels have no place in most real loves: they are a sign of some concealed dislike or aversion, which may take a more virulent and costly form after the wooing has been made irrevocable, or comparatively so, by marriage. If the quarrel can be easily patched up, well and good; but if quarrels constantly come, it is a bad omen. The only exception is where both man and girl enjoy a quarrel more than peace, and mate in order to have a mate to quarrel with for life. This is abnormal; and, if you are a normal man or girl, understand that quarrels, especially if they are usually over trifles, are a good warning to break off the courtship and look elsewhere.

The Proposal, and After.—No sensible girl today wants the man to propose to her father, or her parents, before he proposes to her. After all, he is not marrying the father, or the parents; he is marrying the girl. The father or parents are consulted after the plans are made, for ratification and aid: the goal is the mutual consent of the lovers. Again, customs as to the seriousness with which proposals are regarded differ strikingly in certain localities and at certain seasons. In the South, from which I came, a girl is proposed to almost as easily as she is asked for a dance; she becomes engaged as casually as she accepts a drink of water, and breaks it off whenever the mood strikes her. During college days and the girl’s early debutante days, she may be “engaged” to several or half a dozen men at a time. In the North, the custom is ordinarily different. Again, there are seasonal variations: young couples who meet at a summering place may become engaged for their mutual pleasure during the summer, with no intention of ever seeing each other when they return to their regular homes in the autumn. All of these things must be taken into account.

Don’t study a book of etiquette as to how to propose. The more stilted and formal a proposal is, the easier it is for the girl to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. Real lovers know, without the words having been said, that their equivalent in deeds has been achieved. Even a slang proposal, “Well, honey, shall we hit it off together?” may be far more effective than “May I have the honor of making you my wife?” Be natural in this, unless you have ascertained that the girl desires the frills. In that case, give her what she desires. The acceptance may be given with a kiss, or with mere words. More usually, the girl will ask for time to consider the matter. If she means yes by this, proceed to make that clear to her. If not, keep after her until you win the acceptance, or her friendly refusal.

It is not hard to read from a girl’s refusal whether she means a real objection, or merely a delay. If you really desire her, she will be flattered by your continuing to woo her, and to make yourself more and more attractive in her eyes. In any case, if she is worthy at all, she will word her rejection so as never to wound the man unnecessarily. If the parties are suitable as mates, a rejection alters soon enough to an acceptance.

Courtship After Marriage.—How to Love (Little Blue Book No. 98) takes up the problem of how to act after the mate has been won. It may be briefly summarized here thus: the real lover, man or woman, continues the courtship as long as the mating lasts. All that has been said about making oneself attractive in the eyes of the other, applies with especial force to this wooing after marriage. Do your best to make a success of the mating; if your efforts fail, and a separation or divorce is necessary, you can never reproach yourself afterwards with the accusation that you did not try your best.

As for courtship of other women after marriage, or a woman’s courtship of other men after marriage, both of these are known; and, in our present organization of society, are natural. The man who is by nature promiscuous, or the woman who has the same nature, for his or her happiness will be as faithful as possible. If love comes toward another woman or man, the lover will come to it with more artistry and more experience than in the earlier attempts; and the technique of wooing should be correspondingly improved.

IV

HOW A WOMAN WOOS

Fancy Flirtations.—Most textbooks on wooing and courtship devote their space allotted to woman’s wooing to such absurd devices as flirtation by parasol, fan, glove, handkerchief, dining table signals, window flirtation, and flower flirtation. The number of people who read such silly books is limited; the number among these who remember what they have read is far smaller; and perhaps no men are included in the latter number. Thus no man will understand what your signals mean. A few of the choice instructions given are as follows:

Parasol Flirtations

Carrying it elevated in left hand—Desiring acquaintance.

Carrying it closed in left hand—Meet on the first crossing.

Carrying it closed in right hand by the side—Follow me.

Closing it up—I want to speak to you, love.

Swinging to and fro on the handle, on right side—I am married.

With handle to lips—Kiss me.

The trouble is, all women must carry their parasols somehow, and in more than nine cases out of ten, they have no faintest dream of these so-called signals. If you ignore them, and they are intended, you insult the lady; if you act on them—as, for instance, stepping up and kissing a stranger who has nervously brought the handle of her parasol to her lips—you are liable to be fined $750 in Pennsylvania, $2,500 in New York State, and the vast sum of $1.15 in New Jersey. This whole procedure is a bit too dumb even for Rotary Club members and old maid school teachers, the two classes who seem to know least about life.

Now for the fan:

Fan Flirtations

Drawing across the forehead—We are watched.

Fanning fast—I am engaged.

Open and shut—You are cruel.

Dropping—We will be friends.

It fills space in the books, but don’t try to follow it, unless you wish to get the most unpleasant surprise of your career.

We learn that a girl who drops both gloves means thereby “I love you”; that the right hand with the naked thumb exposed means “Kiss me,” and so interminably on. So anything done with the handkerchief is supposed to mean some tender message. There are 21 tender messages conveyed with napkin, knife, fork, spoon, and cup; there are 40 tender signals conveyed by finger signals through a window, perhaps the dumbest being:

Closing hand to the eye, a la telescope—I would see you.

Or take the elaborate language of flowers. If a man sends a girl white roses, quite a possible gift if they are the most attractive things in the florist’s shop, his message, also is, “I am too young to marry yet”! If he presents her with tansy, one of the loveliest of the daisy family, his message is “I declare war against you.” The books omit a few of the more useful flowers and vegetables, so we add them here as a supplement, urging that they be tried out at least. Send your girl one of the following (or send it to your man), with the meaning indicated:

Chrysanthemum—I prefer Norma Talmadge to kissing at Coney Island.

Cauliflower—My sister is married to a retired butcher with a cork leg.

Onion—You will weep if you don’t marry me.

Japanese Persimmon—Kiss me, my lips are ripe.

Apple—I’ll be your Eve, if you care, Adam.

Wild Leek—Please ’phone the plumber for mother.

Having carefully memorized this list, proceed to forget it, and go ahead and woo naturally without it.

Judging Men.—In general, men have a fairly easy time in judging the girls they go with. For, common opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, a man is more secretive and shrewder in hiding his faults than a woman. A girl who is sparing in her use of paint and cosmetics ordinarily is sensible and fit to be a mate. A girl who over-rouges and over-paints is one of two things: either typically “fast” or an imitator of her favorite movie heroine. Either may make a good mate. In either case, the progress of the wooing will soon teach the man whether the girl has any conception of happy mating, or is only a parasite who wants to be decked in fine feathers and princessed through life, with the man paying the bills.

When a girl comes to judge a man, her task is harder. The man who is liked by other men is, in most cases, to be preferred to the man who is despised by men, and adored by vapid women. There is a class of women who are mere men-hunters, ranging from the out-and-out gold-digger, who sells her charms as shrewdly as she can for outright gifts amounting to support—and who may remain, in the eyes of society, a “good girl” in spite of it—to the girl who protests vehemently that she despises the gold-digger, yet spends all her energies in securing men to take her to dinner and the theater, and to give her gifts sufficient for her support, or at least sufficient to give her the luxuries she would not otherwise get. These parasitic or sponging women are to be avoided, except by the man who wants them frankly, being willing to pay the price for the temporary stimulus of their company.

There is a far larger class of men who prey on women. These men are the vestiges of the social system that is already dying—the system of the double standard of morals for men and women, by which a man was allowed to sow as extensive a crop of wild oats as he could, with social sanction; and by which the woman who strayed a trifle from the narrow path of rectitude was thereafter regarded as a “fallen woman,” and any man’s legitimate prey. To such men, women are the goal of man’s predatory instincts. It was a man’s imperative to seek out innocent girls, and seduce as many of them as possible, taking no thought for their welfare, and caring only to shield himself. The girl who resisted the seductions (and she was equipped for resistance only with an intense and abiding ignorance of all things concerning sex life) was qualified to be a man’s wife; the other, the girl who was deceived by glib promises and a suave exterior into a surrender of her body, and the girl who was willing to experiment with love, were henceforth regarded as fallen women, and were disqualified as permanent mates. Such men exist today: the general class of traveling salesman, not quite fairly, is taken as an example of such men of prey. Needless to say, the girl’s task is to ascertain at once if her would-be suitor belongs to this class. If he does, she must decide whether or not she wishes to play with such unworthy fire. It is a safe gamble that, if she gets him to the point of marrying, with any intention of reforming him, she will fail in the last undertaking by a tremendous margin. If she wants the experience of being seduced, she may go ahead and undergo it, for the man will be found willing. And modern standards of judgment hold that the girl who has sowed her wild oats is no more “fallen” than the man who has sowed his wild oats. Society is only slowly accepting this point of view; but as more and more women become wage-earners, as managers and owners of businesses, as office workers and store workers, they are reaching the point where they can buy their will of the world, and insist that their wild oats be judged no more harshly than a man’s. The girl supported by others, as the girl living at home, cannot afford to run such risks. Furthermore, even the working girl has to face blackmail from the seducer, the possible loss of her job, and the unpleasantnesses and expense of bearing an illegitimate child. But if she understands matters of sex, and desires to go ahead, that is her business.

The more normal girl will regard such a man as the vestigial anachronism that he is, and will promptly give him his walking papers. She will confine her acceptance of courtship, and her wooing itself, to a man with more intelligence and a more modern outlook upon life.

Should a girl woo, when she is convinced that the man is worthy to be her mate? There is no reason in the world why she should not. Her object is to make herself attractive to the man: and this usually involves preserving a certain amount of dignity. Thus her wooing should, as a rule, be less obtrusive and more subtle than a man’s. But, once having decided that she desires a man for a mate, she should use every method of proving herself his invaluable companion—a campaign that the man should use in a similar situation. A little tactful questioning on her part will soon discover where the man’s ideals lie. If he really wants a home-maker, and she is willing to give this rather subservient role a trial, she can emphasize her domestic capabilities, cook him tasty dishes if there is an opportunity, embroider his handkerchiefs, and otherwise show that she fits into the role of his desired mate. If he wants an intellectual companion primarily, she can indicate that she qualifies in this respect.

In general, there is a prejudice against a woman’s taking the aggressive in the actual wooing, and the final proposing. This prejudice is dissolving. Wooing and mating should be matters of mutual choice: and if, for instance, the man is the more backward and bashful of the two, it is the duty of the girl to aid him over the difficult spot, even to the extent of doing the proposing. Just so she preserves the role of being pleasing and attractive, there is no limit to what she may ethically do.

This altering standard carries with it a change in the man’s attitude. There was once a so-called chivalrous attitude, which would prevent a man’s refusing a woman, in such a situation. Now such chivalry is based upon a false assumption, and tends to produce lifelong unhappiness, rather than happiness. After the preliminaries have been finished, the course of the courtship and the mating should be marked by as high a degree of honesty and sincerity as is possible. Insincere chivalry is a wrecker of happiness. If the man does not want to marry the girl, it is his duty to say so, just as sincerely as a girl would refuse, if the roles were reversed. He will, of course, phrase his rejection finally, but at the same time so tactfully that the girl will not feel insulted. In such cases, a good way is to refuse on the ground that the man regards himself as unworthy: a courteous insincerity which both will understand, if the man makes it clear that his decision upon this ground is final.

“Nice” Girl or Human Being?—The old-fashioned training of girls developed them into “nice” girls, with Victorian prejudices, ignorant of everything essential to life. The pendulum has swung to the other extreme: the modern generation of petters and neckers, who have the forefront of today’s picture, are the very reverse of this. There are still enough girls today, who have much of the old so-called “niceness,” and hardly tend at all to the petting type. Many of them retain this finicky and meticulous niceness, because they are assured, by their dumb elders, that this makes them more attractive in the eyes of men.

It does not. Unless you desire your man to continue to divide womankind into two classes—“nice” women like his wife, to whom he may not tell a clever risque story, whom he will love physically only in a “nice way”; and the other type of women, to whom he probably will turn sooner or later, and thereafter increasingly, for the solid human comfort of utter physical mating—unless you wish your husband to share his physical love with less worthy and more human women, you had best get over your “niceness” as soon as possible, and graduate into the class of human beings.

Here is a typical problem. A young friend of mine was tremendously intrigued by an attractive young girl. He told her censored versions of some of his favorite stories, such as the story of the negro preacher who announced to his congregation: “Breddren an’ sistren, I aim to take my text, dis mawnin’, from de text ‘De widder’s mite.’” As he paused impressively, a deacon in the front row rose. “Brudder, dere’s only one thing wrong wid dat text: Dey do!” This is a delightfully clever story, with a subtle and inoffensive double meaning. The girl put on her “nicest” expression, and said, with finicky distaste in her face, “How revolting!”

When she had made the same response to all efforts on his part to interest her in matters which men regard as almost too mild for a laugh, and which other girls of his acquaintance were highly amused at, he came to the wise conclusion that this was not the girl for him. He had no intention of being saddled for life with a girl whose attitude was “How revolting!” He ceased to pay attentions to her, and soon found a much more admirable girl, with whom he is at present happily married. The “How revolting!” girl still thinks that her conduct was right; that the man has lowered himself; and will continue to delude herself so until she wastes into a vinegary old-maidhood.

If a girl has had a normal rearing, she will not make the mistake of thinking that the Puritans were right: that bodies end at the neck and at the shoe-tops, with nothing between, and that ordinary human matters, especially those touching the tabooed facts of life, are never to be mentioned intimately between men and women. No matter what the taboo before mating, after mating the happy lovers speak with utter frankness to each other. A certain amount of coarseness, in its place, is a splendid release for energy that would otherwise fester and warp, and lead the lovers to seek satisfaction outside of the mating relationship. And, since this will come after mating in well-mated couples, even before the mating an increasing frankness will mark the intercourse of an intelligent young man and young woman.

There is one other thing to be remembered by the girl, both as wooer and as wooed. Courtship is an education in the opposite sex, and in love: and this education should not be superficial. It is a common statement of doctors that engaged people as a rule know each other physically before the marriage. I will take this up in the next chapter.

V

CONDUCT DURING THE ENGAGEMENT

Conduct in Public.—An engagement is a pledge, mutually given by two people, that their courtship is to terminate in mating or marriage. This is both a private and a public matter. Personal reasons may make it necessary to keep this secret, at least for a time. It is preferable, from many standpoints, that it be announced as soon as possible. Intimate friends, at least, should be let in on the secret. Whenever possible, it should be made public. For it affects other people, and their conduct toward the engaged couple, as well as the two themselves.

An engagement, luckily for men and women, is not irrevocable: I will take up the breaking of engagements later. But it should not be entered upon too casually. This is especially true when, for instance, two men woo one girl. If one man persuades her to decide in his favor and against the other man, he should weigh more carefully than usual his proposal. For, if he gets her to surrender something tangible—the courtship of the other man—for his own courtship, it is less fair to her thereafter to break the engagement. She has actually surrendered something; it may be impossible for her subsequently to accept the attentions of the other man, who will not renew an offer once rejected. A breakage in such cases should only be urged by the man, when the happiness of both clearly demands it.

The matter of an engagement ring comes up, as the conventional way of announcing to the world that the girl is engaged. There is a decided feeling today against wedding rings, originating as symbols of servitude; and this extends, among some girls, to a dislike of engagement rings as well. For all their jeweled state, they represent a subjection, a surrender of freedom to the other party. The sting of the subjection is lessened, if both man and woman wear wedding rings, and both wear engagement rings. Yet there are men who are not willing to wear rings: and, if the girl objects, it may be better for neither to wear them. As to choice of ring, the girl is wisest who makes sure that the young man does not exceed his legitimate income for spending, in purchasing her a ring. The object should not be to secure a ring slightly larger than any worn by her girl friends; it should be to wear an attractive token of an inner affection. There is no sense in going into love blindly, even at this stage: it is the girl’s duty to find out what her fiancé’s financial prospects are, and for him to find out hers. Since they propose to share financial life together, there is no sense in even starting this blindly.

As to the ring, it is true that it symbolizes a loss of freedom. But it is also true that this loss of freedom is an actual thing. Parties to an engagement must of necessity surrender much, when they decide to proceed with a courtship into a mating or marriage. Before the proposal is given and accepted, the man and the girl as well have the whole world of women and men to choose from: the proposal and its acceptance definitely mark a surrender of all the other possibilities, in favor of this one. When you scan a menu of desserts, you can select pie, ice cream, pudding, or many another choice. The choice of one, as a rule, must mean the surrender of the right to choose any of the others. This is, as a rule, as true of lovers as it is of desserts. Since, then, the loss of freedom is actual, there is no great extrinsic objection to the custom of the wearing of rings by both.

The compensations for the loss of freedom should overbalance the surrender. A man cannot forever balance in his mind the rival possibilities of settling in Florida, California, Chicago, New York, or some village: he must sooner or later make up his mind, choose one, and do his best to make his life a success there. It is so with love. The engaged couple have given up the rest of the world as potential mates: and they step at once, and increasingly, into the pleasure-garden of mated human love. A mere choice of all the women in the world is not to be compared with the actual embrace of the one among these that you desire. Only the man or woman with an insatiable physical wanderlust will prefer the wandering to the arrival at the goal of love.

Mating does not mean slavery to the other party: it means, as a rule, exclusive physical love with one person, but constant human intercourse with many more. There is not even the slightest ethical offense in a girl’s acceptance of attentions from other men, which stop short of the erotic. She can go to dances, plays, meals, with them; and a man can do the same with other girls. Life after mating will be monotonous enough, in most cases: if the engaged couple dance exclusively with each other, the monotony may commence so soon that it will frighten the pair off from ultimate marriage. As a rule, other people incline to leave an engaged couple alone anyhow: it will be up to the man and girl to encourage reasonable attentions from others.

This is theoretically sound: but the element of human jealousy must be taken into account. If either of the parties is excessively jealous, since the lover’s desire is to remain attractive in the eyes of the other lover, there must be some compromise. Jealousy partakes of the nature of a malignant disease: rooted in a normal desire to possess the loved one, it may degenerate into an insanity that wrecks all happiness. If the jealousy of the other party is increasingly extreme, our advice is to end the relationship. If the decision is to continue it, compromises will have to come in: and the girl or man will retain the right to go with other people, only to the extent that the jealous one can be persuaded to permit. This calls for all the tact and sympathy in the world.

In Private.—The conduct of engaged people in private must keep in mind the purpose of the engagement. This is the great testing period of compatibility and mutual adaptability. If both parties are not adaptable, a heavier burden is laid upon the one who is. If the burden of adjusting oneself to the whims, caprices, and crotchets of the other is too great, there is still the chance to terminate the engagement. And, if neither party is adaptable, there seems no other happy way out of the situation.

The chief problem confronting the engaged girl is to what extent she will experiment physically with love. As stated, many doctors say that most engaged couples, before marriage, have experienced love fully. This is not an indictment, but a statement of a fact. There are strong arguments in its favor. If a man and woman are not physically pleasing to one another, the happiness of the marriage is doomed from the start. If, for instance, one of the mates is sexually frigid, and one passionate, it is almost impossible for them to satisfy each other: and the constant temptation will be present to try to find satisfaction outside of the mating relationship, a temptation that is often yielded to, at times to the wreckage of the relationship. There is no way for people to know the physical nature of the other, without physical experimentation.

The danger in the procedure is that the man may turn out to be a predatory male, who becomes engaged to girl after girl for the mere pleasure of temporary enjoyment of her. This is a danger that the girl must run; and, if she has made it her task to study the man’s nature carefully, she should know by now whether or not her intended mate is to be trusted. There are many women who believe that, if a man is once given the ultimate favor, he at once regards the girl as cheapened in his eyes. The consensus of intelligent opinion seems to be to the very other extreme: that that many a girl has wrecked her chances for happiness, by refusing to grant the ultimate favor. Only an abnormal man will habitually regard a woman who yields to him as cheapened. As the time for the final mating draws near, and the mutual desires rise toward their crest, he may regard it as utterly unreasonable for the girl to withhold longer. The man is usually the aggressor in such cases; and, if the woman is the aggressor, she will have the same opinion of the man.

Yet, since there are risks on both sides of the matter, it remains a subject on which the wise will give no advice, but will leave it to the two concerned to work out their solution as wisely as they can, with the facts spread out before them.

It is a matter concerning the private relations of the engaged couple, when the attentions of outsiders pass the stage of the non-erotic, and approach the erotic. Whether a man should be engaged to two or more girls, and a woman to two or more men, at the same time, affects the parties concerned too intimately to be regarded as a matter of outsiders. Theoretically, there is much to be said on both sides. A real engagement—a definite pledge to marry—cannot coexist with an engagement to an outsider. The laws do not permit polygamy in this country. Yet what are we to say of a provisional engagement, where the parties merely assure each other that they think they will marry each other, yet at the same time offer themselves to the world as engaged? If such is the agreement, there is less objection to concurrent engagements. From the standpoint of education in sex, there is something to be said for the idea. Common sense would favor it, yet human nature runs counter to common sense too often to let us stop here. It is better, perhaps, to let the concurrent courtships take place before the formal engagement; and then let the choice, for the time being at least, be an exclusive choice. If either party is attracted outside, to the extent of believing that more happiness lies in the love of another, the engagement may be broken, and the other relationship commenced and tested.

Termination of Engagements.—Should an engagement be short, or long? What is the proper length, for the happiness of the parties involved?

We have scriptural authority for the engagement lasting fourteen years: the story of Jacob can be stretched into this interpretation. Jacob, who loved Rachel, agreed with her father to serve seven years for her. Frankly, we have yet to meet the woman who is worth such a sacrifice; and, in this case, at the end of the seven years Jacob, tricked by his prospective father-in-law, found himself married to the elder sister Leah, instead of to his beloved. Accordingly, he put in another seven years serving for Rachel, and, fourteen years after his engagement started, was wed to her.

Especially in old-fashioned country districts, long engagements are often known, and laughed at. There is the story of the countryman who courted a schoolmate for years—until, in fact, both had drifted from youth toward the end of middle age.

“Why don’t you marry Sarah?” he was asked.

“Marry her!” in surprise and dismay. “Why, if I got married, where in tarnation could I go to spend my evenings?”

Long engagements are not wise. If the two are separated by distance—if, for instance, the young man goes to the city to make his financial way, so that marriage is possible—there is strong chance that either he or she will find a more suitable mate. In such cases, if the original engagement is carried out, happiness is almost inevitable; and the breaking of the engagement may bring unhappiness to at least one of the parties concerned. If the girl and man remain in the same city, they gradually grow old, apart from each other. Their little tricks and idiosyncrasies, which living together could have smoothed out, become permanent—hardened into unbendable things. They come to regard each other as matters of course, without the exquisite physical thrill which love should mean. They have, in brief, all of the discomfort and monotony of marriage without any of its joys.

Too brief engagements are at times more dangerous. This is especially true where the man and girl have not known each other before. If they have been raised side by side, there is small danger of being mated to a person who will turn out, on closer acquaintance, to be everything unworthy. The wisest thing is to let the engagement last a month or longer, and then, if the mating is desired, take the plunge even on a moderate income, than risk the danger of letting the engagement become a tedious habit.

The normal termination of an engagement is marriage. Any book of etiquette will tell you the formal ways to accept the mad gamble of marriage, with all of the frills of such service, receptions, honeymoons, and the like. The honeymoon, it may be pointed out, or the period in which the deluded man and woman try to live on love alone, is one of the most cruel inventions ever made by man. Its almost invariable result (unless it be merely a brief trip, or a trip which the parties desired to take anyhow) is to send them back to the city thoroughly bored and disgusted with each other, and avid to interest themselves, perhaps unduly, in parties outside the mated relationship. For those who do not like the antique pomp of the marriage in church, there is always the simpler ceremony of being married by a justice of the peace, mayor, or alderman.

And there is, luckily for men and women, another termination possible, and that is to break the engagement. This should not be done without grave reason—but far more frequently than the actual breakings of engagements, such a reason exists. The problem simply is, which is better: to act wisely and terminate an unwise mating, which would result in unhappiness, at the cost of some slight temporary unhappiness; or to enter upon a life-time of unhappiness, or at best a long stretch of it, breakable only by the costly and elaborate method of separation or divorce, which may require the assumption by one party or the other of a guilt not actually earned. Where the case is so clear, there should be no hesitation: the engagement should be terminated, the man accepting the blame out of a chivalrous insincerity socially understood, and the parties parting, if possible, as friends. If the matter is still uncertain, better a postponement than a marriage, which may be repented soon enough. Only a mating which will bring increasing happiness is wise, for that is the object of life, and of its playtime, courtship.

VI

FAMOUS COURTSHIPS

Courting by Poetry.—One of the invariable effects of the love emotion is to inspire, in the amorous breast, the delusion that the man or woman who is in love can write poetry. Most people can feel poetry, but writing it is another story. Yet, whenever any celebrated case of breach of promise comes up, we have the poetic effusions of him and her published in the papers, for the delectation of the multitude. There is good propaganda in courting the lady of your heart, or in replying to the man of your heart, in the words of Shelley or some other great lover—but your own words may not be as efficacious. Countless poetic first volumes (and later ones, too), however, are filled up with the overflow at wooing time, and occasionally such books are books which the world would not willingly spare.

A favorite record of courtship by rhyme is Lilies of the Valley, by Percival W. Wells, of Wantagh, New York. Could any woman resist strains like this:

Life’s just begun! the flowing tide

Of love has stirred it into motion.

Farewell to bachelorhood’s calm pride,

And welcome, love’s intense emotion!

Faulty as the rhyme may be, the sentiment is flawless. Again,

Put thy hand in mine, and kiss me tenderly,

Beautiful Lilian, fashioned so slenderly;

Place a kiss upon my lips with thy dear lips so soft,

And do not stop with one, but kiss me oft.

How magically the “soft” evokes its rhyming mate, “oft.” “Soft,” which at times is applied to brains, here refers to the lips. But for the magic of rhyme, could we have had the picture of “Lilian” in the last two words of this masterly confession?

I love thee, O I love thee, Lily; stay

Beside thy Percival and with sweet kisses say

That thou wilt always love him. Dearer than day

Art thou to me, O Lily—wanton fay!

Yet a poet out of the Village Milton class, say Shakespeare, might be a safer guide in your own Muse flights. Shakespeare’s plays are saturated with gorgeous examples of courtship. Othello’s magical wooing of Desdemona is one type. Here the simple warrior and conqueror used no method but the plain unadorned story of his deeds of daring. The maiden’s heart capitulated to his indirect siege at the first attack. A different love is Romeo’s, saturated with poetry:

Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye

Than twenty of their swords; look thou but sweet,

And I am proof against their enmity....

Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!

Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!

Then there is the caveman-wooing of Catherine the shrew by Petruchio the roistering gallant—the most amusing courtship in Shakespeare, with the possible exception of his bluff English king, who knows no French, and his wooing of the spirited French princess, who knows no English. But love speaks a language of its own and even this bar did not keep the royal lovers from understanding each other. There is the simple, childlike wooing of Ferdinand and Miranda in The Tempest, and there is the passionate wooing—by the woman this time—of Adonis by Venus:

“Vouchsafe, thou, wonder, to alight thy steed,

And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;

If thou wilt deign this favor, for thy meed

A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:

Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,

And being set, I’ll smother thee with kisses.

“Art thou ashamed to kiss! Then wink again,

And I will wink; so shall the day seem night;

Love keeps his revels where there are but twain;

Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight:

These blue-vein’d violets whereon we lean

Never can blab, nor know not what we mean....”

And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,

With blindfold fury she begins to forage;

Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,

And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage;

Planting oblivion, beating reason back,

Forgetting shame’s pure blush and honor’s wrack.

Timid maids and men may well be reassured by this tempest of passion on the part of love’s queen, and by the whole gallery of Shakespeare’s great lovers.

Great Lovers.—The world has its long roll of great lovers, whose names are sweet on the tongues of the generations that come after them. The Bible, in the Song of Solomon, has one of the greatest series of love lyrics in all literature. David loved his Bath-Sheba as a king loves; and Solomon was at least efficient, with his seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines. Helen of Sparta eloped with Paris of Troy, and lighted the conflagration that burned the topless towers of Troy to the ground, and embroiled the world in the Trojan War and inspired the first two Greek epics. Dante saw the girl Beatrice passing him on the street and as a result, he worshipped her thereafter from a distance, and lifted her in imagination, in his Divine Comedy, to the high throne of heaven. Don Juan was the great predatory lover, putting on a new love as easily as he slipped on a new garment. Bluebeard (or Gilles de Rais) was the bloodthirsty lover; Cleopatra was the world’s queen, with Pompey, Caesar, and Antony successively at her feet. In more modern times, Casanova was the gentlest great lover of all time, with a roll of loves as long as Solomon’s, and far more varied. Great secular popes, like Alexander VI, the Borgia, were great in love; many of the Roman emperors were chiefly distinguished in the lists of Cupid. Caesar himself was nicknamed “the husband of all women.” Such men and women have made the history of love. Read their love stories, as aids in your own suits.

Among the poets, we have had many great lovers. Shelley spent his life in a high idealistic pursuit of the ideal woman, pouring out his deathless lyrics to some Harriet or Mary or Jane or Emilia who captured his fancy for the moment. Byron loved all over Europe, Keats burned out his young life in a wild adoration of Fanny Brawne, as in this sonnet:

I cry you mercy—pity—love!—ay, love!

Merciful love that tantalizes not,

One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,

Unmask’d, and being seen—without a blot!

O! let me have thee whole,—all—all—be mine!

That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest

Of love, your kiss,—those hands, those eyes divine,

That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast—

Yourself—your soul—in pity give me all,

Withhold no atom’s atom or I die,

Or living on, perhaps, your wretched thrall,

Forget, in the midst of idle misery,

Life’s purposes,—the palate of my mind

Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!

Burns was a magnificent voice of love, who enriched man with many of his choicest love-songs. Poe not only was a great lover, but used the same poems successively with a number of desired women. Edna St. Vincent Millay, among modern poets, has a charming cleverness in her love-songs; and, indeed, modern poetry is full of excellent love material. One of the most effective modern love sonnets is the dramatic Pirate Song, from “Leaf Buds Turning Rose,” by the author of The Eagle Sonnets:

Ahoy, there, you slim craft with the virgin ensign!

Heave to—we are boarding! You’re a fancy prey

To tread the slippery plank, or do your dancing

On air, over the wind-bedevilled spray.

Low in the water—you’ll be rotten with treasure!

Ay, there’ll be hot blood foulin’ your clean decks

When we shall tread you in our lordly pleasure

Then scuttle you with all the plundered wrecks.

Yet you’re a rakish craft.... How would you like it

To make one more of the buccaneering tell,

To raise the Jolly Roger, and not strike it

In the face of all the punishing fleets of hell?

By God, we’ll take you, then! Fair or foul weather,

Two of the black gentry, off together!

An amusing love story in rhyme is The Lang Coortin’, by Lewis Carroll, best known for Alice in Wonderland. The lover for years wooed the lady, saying no word of his love. She used his gold rings as a chain for her doggie; stuffed the dog’s pillow with his repeated locks of hair; and when he sent love letters from a far country, with the postage still due on them, she had the postman take them all away. For thirty years he had kept up this courtship: and now at last he has come to propose. But the lady tells him, that, since he has lived so satisfactorily for thirty years, he can wait a bit longer yet. He repents, as he leaves her:

“O, if I find another lady,”

He said with sighs and tears,

“I am sure my courtin’ shall not be

Another thirty years;

“For if I find a lady gay

Exactly to my taste,

I’ll pop the question, aye or nay,

In twenty years, at most!”

There is a real lesson for lovers here. Do not postpone your proposal until your grandchildren are old enough to laugh at your tardiness.

The first lovers were Adam and Eve, according to the Genesis story; and Milton, in his largely unread Paradise Lost, has told their love in resounding lines. The most recent lovers assumably include you who are reading this book. Love is an art, as courtship and wooing is an art: and your task is to perfect yourself in the art. You should make your wooing serve the double function of winning the mate you desire at the moment, and at the same time serve as an education to you in the loved one, and the opposite sex in general. Both the educational function, and the task of winning the desired one, call for your highest abilities: and these abilities will be sharpened and increased by a knowledge of man’s lore upon love, and the ups and downs of the great lovers of the past. So saturate yourself, during the loving period, with the literature of love: read carefully the love stories of the world’s great lovers, and constantly increase your technique as wooer, in the beginning of the courtship, in the actual engagement, and in the most perilous of all periods—that period after the marriage has commenced.

There is a third purpose, which hardly needs mention, and that is, the pleasure that you yourself have in wooing. Pleasure consists in the satisfying of an appetite—not in the satisfaction of it; when the appetite is satisfied, your feeling becomes negative. The chase is the fun; the gaining of the goal is a mere sense of accomplishment, far below the joy of the running. Man has not only the appetite to enjoy love, but the added appetite for the chase: and woman, daughter of man, has this delight too, and an implanted pleasure in her part of the wooing. Her part is, in general, more passive than man’s: she gets her thrill from seeing the male or males cavorting before her, in the endeavor to gain her approval. Yet, at times, when the worthy male is backward or bashful, or young and inexperienced, she will assume the aggressive, and be a very Venus in action. As a matter of fact, no matter who does the actual wooing and proposing, it is today, largely, woman who rules the field. How else explain her elaborate and seductive dressing, to win man’s approval? Her concealment of this, and display of that charm, her alluring perfume, her flattering pretense that the man is the wisest being in the universe, her continuing attentions to him in a thousand subtle little ways? These collectively weave a net which even the wariest male fish may not often escape. Go to your wooing, men, with all the courage you can: it is hardly the time to reflect that you are being summoned to the slaughter, as the spider nets her prey, as the spider nets her mate. It is pleasant to be a victim of love: and some men found it a pleasure to be such a victim constantly.

And when you have made yourself an artist in wooing, both in theory and practice, do not be stingy with your lore, but pass it on to other men and women, who lack it. For only the great in love are great in life, and great in joy.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Page 6: “and the male surivives” changed to “and the male survives”.

Page 20: “when the left the office,” changed to “when he left the office,”

Page 26: “how other people regared” changed to “how other people regard”

Page 26: “have always hear dmade” changed to “have always heard made”

Page 30: “in mens’ eyes:” changed to “in men’s eyes:”

Page 31: “box of chewy chololates” changed to “box of chewy chocolates”

Page 32: “or a permanent one:” changed to “or a permanent one—”

Page 33: “wholly unattractive:” changed to “wholly unattractive,”

Page 35: “ask time to consider” changed to “ask for time to consider”

Page 37: “Fancy Flitations.” changed to “Fancy Flirtations.”

Page 37: “space alloted to” changed to “space allotted to”

Page 48: “out what her fiancée’s” changed to “out what her fiancé’s”

Page 49: “can elect pie” changed to “can select pie”

Page 52: “The concensus of intelligent” changed to “The consensus of intelligent”

Page 53: “of to his beloved” changed to “of to his beloved.”

Page 57: “VI. FAMOUS COURTSHIPS” changed to “VI FAMOUS COURTSHIPS”

Page 58: “peril in this eye” changed to “peril in thine eye”

Page 58: “against their enmity. .” changed to “against their enmity....”

Page 59: “Forgetting shames’ pure” changed to “Forgetting shame’s pure”

Page 61: “cleverness in her love songs” changed to “cleverness in her love-songs”