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data/_books/Marriage_and_Love.txt

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-The popular notion about marriage and love is that they are synonymous,
-that they spring from the same motives, and cover the same human needs.
-Like most popular notions this also rests not on actual facts, but on
-superstition.
-
-Marriage and love have nothing in common; they are as far apart as the
-poles; are, in fact, antagonistic to each other. No doubt some marriages
-have been the result of love. Not, however, because love could assert
-itself only in marriage; much rather is it because few people can
-completely outgrow a convention. There are today large numbers of men
-and women to whom marriage is naught but a farce, but who submit to it
-for the sake of public opinion. At any rate, while it is true that some
-marriages are based on love, and while it is equally true that in some
-cases love continues in married life, I maintain that it does so
-regardless of marriage, and not because of it.
-
-On the other hand, it is utterly false that love results from marriage.
-On rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a married couple
-falling in love after marriage, but on close examination it will be
-found that it is a mere adjustment to the inevitable. Certainly the
-growing-used to each other is far away from the spontaneity, the
-intensity, and beauty of love, without which the intimacy of marriage
-must prove degrading to both the woman and the man.
-
-Marriage is primarily an economic arrangement, an insurance pact. It
-differs from the ordinary life insurance agreement only in that it is
-more binding, more exacting. Its returns are insignificantly small
-compared with the investments. In taking out an insurance policy one
-pays for it in dollars and cents, always at liberty to discontinue
-payments. If, however, woman's premium is a husband, she pays for it
-with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life, "until
-death doth part." Moreover, the marriage insurance condemns her to
-life-long dependency, to parasitism, to complete uselessness, individual
-as well as social. Man, too, pays his toll, but as his sphere is wider,
-marriage does not limit him as much as woman. He feels his chains more
-in an economic sense.
-
-Thus Dante's motto over Inferno applies with equal force to marriage.
-"Ye who enter here leave all hope behind."
-
-That marriage is a failure none but the very stupid will deny. One has
-but to glance over the statistics of divorce to realize how bitter a
-failure marriage really is. Nor will the stereotyped Philistine argument
-that the laxity of divorce laws and the growing looseness of woman
-account for the fact that: first, every twelfth marriage ends in
-divorce; second, that since 1870 divorces have increased from 28 to 73
-for every hundred thousand population; third, that adultery, since 1867,
-as ground for divorce, has increased 270.8 per cent.; fourth, that
-desertion increased 369.8 per cent.
-
-Added to these startling figures is a vast amount of material, dramatic
-and literary, further elucidating this subject. Robert Herrick, in
-_Together_; Pinero, in _Mid-Channel_; Eugene Walter, in _Paid in Full_,
-and scores of other writers are discussing the barrenness, the monotony,
-the sordidness, the inadequacy of marriage as a factor for harmony and
-understanding.
-
-The thoughtful social student will not content himself with the popular
-superficial excuse for this phenomenon. He will have to dig down deeper
-into the very life of the sexes to know why marriage proves so
-disastrous.
-
-Edward Carpenter says that behind every marriage stands the life-long
-environment of the two sexes; an environment so different from each
-other that man and woman must remain strangers. Separated by an
-insurmountable wall of superstition, custom, and habit, marriage has not
-the potentiality of developing knowledge of, and respect for, each
-other, without which every union is doomed to failure.
-
-Henrik Ibsen, the hater of all social shams, was probably the first to
-realize this great truth. Nora leaves her husband, not--as the stupid
-critic would have it--because she is tired of her responsibilities or
-feels the need of woman's rights, but because she has come to know that
-for eight years she had lived with a stranger and borne him children.
-Can there be anything more humiliating, more degrading than a life-long
-proximity between two strangers? No need for the woman to know anything
-of the man, save his income. As to the knowledge of the woman--what is
-there to know except that she has a pleasing appearance? We have not yet
-outgrown the theologic myth that woman has no soul, that she is a mere
-appendix to man, made out of his rib just for the convenience of the
-gentleman who was so strong that he was afraid of his own shadow.
-
-Perchance the poor quality of the material whence woman comes is
-responsible for her inferiority. At any rate, woman has no soul--what is
-there to know about her? Besides, the less soul a woman has the greater
-her asset as a wife, the more readily will she absorb herself in her
-husband. It is this slavish acquiescence to man's superiority that has
-kept the marriage institution seemingly intact for so long a period. Now
-that woman is coming into her own, now that she is actually growing
-aware of herself as a being outside of the master's grace, the sacred
-institution of marriage is gradually being undermined, and no amount of
-sentimental lamentation can stay it.
-
-From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her
-ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed
-towards that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is
-prepared for that. Yet, strange to say, she is allowed to know much less
-about her function as wife and mother than the ordinary artisan of his
-trade. It is indecent and filthy for a respectable girl to know anything
-of the marital relation. Oh, for the inconsistency of respectability,
-that needs the marriage vow to turn something which is filthy into the
-purest and most sacred arrangement that none dare question or criticize.
-Yet that is exactly the attitude of the average upholder of marriage.
-The prospective wife and mother is kept in complete ignorance of her
-only asset in the competitive field--sex. Thus she enters into life-long
-relations with a man only to find herself shocked, repelled, outraged
-beyond measure by the most natural and healthy instinct, sex. It is safe
-to say that a large percentage of the unhappiness, misery, distress, and
-physical suffering of matrimony is due to the criminal ignorance in sex
-matters that is being extolled as a great virtue. Nor is it at all an
-exaggeration when I say that more than one home has been broken up
-because of this deplorable fact.
-
-
-If, however, woman is free and big enough to learn the mystery of sex
-without the sanction of State or Church, she will stand condemned as
-utterly unfit to become the wife of a "good" man, his goodness
-consisting of an empty brain and plenty of money. Can there be anything
-more outrageous than the idea that a healthy, grown woman, full of life
-and passion, must deny nature's demand, must subdue her most intense
-craving, undermine her health and break her spirit, must stunt her
-vision, abstain from the depth and glory of sex experience until a
-"good" man comes along to take her unto himself as a wife? That is
-precisely what marriage means. How can such an arrangement end except in
-failure? This is one, though not the least important, factor of
-marriage, which differentiates it from love.
-
-Ours is a practical age. The time when Romeo and Juliet risked the wrath
-of their fathers for love, when Gretchen exposed herself to the gossip
-of her neighbors for love, is no more. If, on rare occasions, young
-people allow themselves the luxury of romance, they are taken in care by
-the elders, drilled and pounded until they become "sensible."
-
-The moral lesson instilled in the girl is not whether the man has
-aroused her love, but rather is it, "How much?" The important and only
-God of practical American life: Can the man make a living? can he
-support a wife? That is the only thing that justifies marriage.
-Gradually this saturates every thought of the girl; her dreams are not
-of moonlight and kisses, of laughter and tears; she dreams of shopping
-tours and bargain counters. This soul poverty and sordidness are the
-elements inherent in the marriage institution. The State and the Church
-approve of no other ideal, simply because it is the one that
-necessitates the State and Church control of men and women.
-
-Doubtless there are people who continue to consider love above dollars
-and cents. Particularly is this true of that class whom economic
-necessity has forced to become self-supporting. The tremendous change in
-woman's position, wrought by that mighty factor, is indeed phenomenal
-when we reflect that it is but a short time since she has entered the
-industrial arena. Six million women wage workers; six million women, who
-have the equal right with men to be exploited, to be robbed, to go on
-strike; aye, to starve even. Anything more, my lord? Yes, six million
-wage workers in every walk of life, from the highest brain work to the
-mines and railroad tracks; yes, even detectives and policemen. Surely
-the emancipation is complete.
-
-Yet with all that, but a very small number of the vast army of women
-wage workers look upon work as a permanent issue, in the same light as
-does man. No matter how decrepit the latter, he has been taught to be
-independent, self-supporting. Oh, I know that no one is really
-independent in our economic treadmill; still, the poorest specimen of a
-man hates to be a parasite; to be known as such, at any rate.
-
-The woman considers her position as worker transitory, to be thrown
-aside for the first bidder. That is why it is infinitely harder to
-organize women than men. "Why should I join a union? I am going to get
-married, to have a home." Has she not been taught from infancy to look
-upon that as her ultimate calling? She learns soon enough that the home,
-though not so large a prison as the factory, has more solid doors and
-bars. It has a keeper so faithful that naught can escape him. The most
-tragic part, however, is that the home no longer frees her from wage
-slavery; it only increases her task.
-
-According to the latest statistics submitted before a Committee "on
-labor and wages, and congestion of population," ten per cent. of the
-wage workers in New York City alone are married, yet they must continue
-to work at the most poorly paid labor in the world. Add to this horrible
-aspect the drudgery of housework, and what remains of the protection and
-glory of the home? As a matter of fact, even the middle-class girl in
-marriage can not speak of her home, since it is the man who creates her
-sphere. It is not important whether the husband is a brute or a
-darling. What I wish to prove is that marriage guarantees woman a home
-only by the grace of her husband. There she moves about in _his_ home,
-year after year, until her aspect of life and human affairs becomes as
-flat, narrow, and drab as her surroundings. Small wonder if she becomes
-a nag, petty, quarrelsome, gossipy, unbearable, thus driving the man
-from the house. She could not go, if she wanted to; there is no place to
-go. Besides, a short period of married life, of complete surrender of
-all faculties, absolutely incapacitates the average woman for the
-outside world. She becomes reckless in appearance, clumsy in her
-movements, dependent in her decisions, cowardly in her judgment, a
-weight and a bore, which most men grow to hate and despise. Wonderfully
-inspiring atmosphere for the bearing of life, is it not?
-
-But the child, how is it to be protected, if not for marriage? After
-all, is not that the most important consideration? The sham, the
-hypocrisy of it! Marriage protecting the child, yet thousands of
-children destitute and homeless. Marriage protecting the child, yet
-orphan asylums and reformatories overcrowded, the Society for the
-Prevention of Cruelty to Children keeping busy in rescuing the little
-victims from "loving" parents, to place them under more loving care, the
-Gerry Society. Oh, the mockery of it!
-
-Marriage may have the power to bring the horse to water, but has it ever
-made him drink? The law will place the father under arrest, and put him
-in convict's clothes; but has that ever stilled the hunger of the child?
-If the parent has no work, or if he hides his identity, what does
-marriage do then? It invokes the law to bring the man to "justice," to
-put him safely behind closed doors; his labor, however, goes not to the
-child, but to the State. The child receives but a blighted memory of its
-father's stripes.
-
-As to the protection of the woman,--therein lies the curse of marriage.
-Not that it really protects her, but the very idea is so revolting, such
-an outrage and insult on life, so degrading to human dignity, as to
-forever condemn this parasitic institution.
-
-It is like that other paternal arrangement--capitalism. It robs man of
-his birthright, stunts his growth, poisons his body, keeps him in
-ignorance, in poverty, and dependence, and then institutes charities
-that thrive on the last vestige of man's self-respect.
-
-The institution of marriage makes a parasite of woman, an absolute
-dependent. It incapacitates her for life's struggle, annihilates her
-social consciousness, paralyzes her imagination, and then imposes its
-gracious protection, which is in reality a snare, a travesty on human
-character.
-
-If motherhood is the highest fulfillment of woman's nature, what other
-protection does it need, save love and freedom? Marriage but defiles,
-outrages, and corrupts her fulfillment. Does it not say to woman, Only
-when you follow me shall you bring forth life? Does it not condemn her
-to the block, does it not degrade and shame her if she refuses to buy
-her right to motherhood by selling herself? Does not marriage only
-sanction motherhood, even though conceived in hatred, in compulsion?
-Yet, if motherhood be of free choice, of love, of ecstasy, of defiant
-passion, does it not place a crown of thorns upon an innocent head and
-carve in letters of blood the hideous epithet, Bastard? Were marriage to
-contain all the virtues claimed for it, its crimes against motherhood
-would exclude it forever from the realm of love.
-
-
-Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of
-hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all
-conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human
-destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that
-poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?
-
-
-Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but
-all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued
-bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man
-has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love.
-Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly
-helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp
-his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him
-by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life
-and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king.
-Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it
-gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. All the laws on the
-statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil,
-once love has taken root. If, however, the soil is sterile, how can
-marriage make it bear fruit? It is like the last desperate struggle of
-fleeting life against death.
-
-Love needs no protection; it is its own protection. So long as love
-begets life no child is deserted, or hungry, or famished for the want of
-affection. I know this to be true. I know women who became mothers in
-freedom by the men they loved. Few children in wedlock enjoy the care,
-the protection, the devotion free motherhood is capable of bestowing.
-
-
-The defenders of authority dread the advent of a free motherhood, lest
-it will rob them of their prey. Who would fight wars? Who would create
-wealth? Who would make the policeman, the jailer, if woman were to
-refuse the indiscriminate breeding of children? The race, the race!
-shouts the king, the president, the capitalist, the priest. The race
-must be preserved, though woman be degraded to a mere machine,--and the
-marriage institution is our only safety valve against the pernicious sex
-awakening of woman. But in vain these frantic efforts to maintain a
-state of bondage. In vain, too, the edicts of the Church, the mad
-attacks of rulers, in vain even the arm of the law. Woman no longer
-wants to be a party to the production of a race of sickly, feeble,
-decrepit, wretched human beings, who have neither the strength nor moral
-courage to throw off the yoke of poverty and slavery. Instead she
-desires fewer and better children, begotten and reared in love and
-through free choice; not by compulsion, as marriage imposes. Our
-pseudo-moralists have yet to learn the deep sense of responsibility
-toward the child, that love in freedom has awakened in the breast of
-woman. Rather would she forego forever the glory of motherhood than
-bring forth life in an atmosphere that breathes only destruction and
-death. And if she does become a mother, it is to give to the child the
-deepest and best her being can yield. To grow with the child is her
-motto; she knows that in that manner alone can she help build true
-manhood and womanhood.
-
-
-Ibsen must have had a vision of a free mother, when, with a master
-stroke, he portrayed Mrs. Alving. She was the ideal mother because she
-had outgrown marriage and all its horrors, because she had broken her
-chains, and set her spirit free to soar until it returned a personality,
-regenerated and strong. Alas, it was too late to rescue her life's joy,
-her Oswald; but not too late to realize that love in freedom is the only
-condition of a beautiful life. Those who, like Mrs. Alving, have paid
-with blood and tears for their spiritual awakening, repudiate marriage
-as an imposition, a shallow, empty mockery. They know, whether love last
-but one brief span of time or for eternity, it is the only creative,
-inspiring, elevating basis for a new race, a new world.
-
-
-In our present pygmy state love is indeed a stranger to most people.
-Misunderstood and shunned, it rarely takes root; or if it does, it soon
-withers and dies. Its delicate fiber can not endure the stress and
-strain of the daily grind. Its soul is too complex to adjust itself to
-the slimy woof of our social fabric. It weeps and moans and suffers with
-those who have need of it, yet lack the capacity to rise to love's
-summit.
-
-Some day, some day men and women will rise, they will reach the mountain
-peak, they will meet big and strong and free, ready to receive, to
-partake, and to bask in the golden rays of love. What fancy, what
-imagination, what poetic genius can foresee even approximately the
-potentialities of such a force in the life of men and women. If the
-world is ever to give birth to true companionship and oneness, not
-marriage, but love will be the parent.