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 Is marriage a failure? 
 
 3 1924 031 273 711 
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THh UN J VERSAL ^ RE VIE W LIBRAR Y 
 
 IS 
 
 Marriage a Failure? 
 
 EDITED 
 
 WITH A PREFACE 
 
 BY 
 
 HARRY QUILTER, M.A. 
 
 HARKISTER-AT-LAW 
 
 AND CONTAINING 
 
 THE MOST IMPORTANT LETTERS ON THIS SUBJECT IN THE DAIL Y 
 
 TELEGRAPH;' a paper on the PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 MARRIAGE by MRS. LYNN LINTON, and a full 
 
 account of the principal laws of marriage 
 
 and divorce throughout the christian 
 
 WORLD BY H. a. smith, barrister- 
 
 at-law 
 
 '•REPRINTED BY THE SPECIAL PERMISSION OF THE PROPRIETORS 
 OF THE DAILY TELEGRAPH 
 
 [all rights reserved] 
 
 LONDON 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. 
 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS: 
 
 JOHN THOMSON AND J. F. THOMSON, M.A. 
 
TO 
 
 Sir EDWIN ARNOLD, K.C.I. E., C.S.I. , etc., 
 
 IN ADMIRATION OF THE ENTERPRISE OF THAT JOURNAL WHICH 
 
 ORIGINATED, OF THE DISCRETION WITH WHICH IT CON- 
 
 DQCTED, AND OF THE FIRMNESS WITH WHICH IT 
 
 TERMINATED THE GREATEST NEWSPAPER 
 
 CONTROVERSY OF MODERN TIMES, 
 
 THIS TREATISE IS 
 
 'S)ebicateb 
 
 BY HIS FRIEND, 
 
 HARRY QUILTER. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface and General View of the Correspondence. 
 
 Harry Quiltcr, i 
 What Mrs. Caird Thinks. The Editor, 15 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 General Theories, . . . \ 
 
 The ( 
 
 Case for the Plaintiff. \ . , Soecial / Experiences and 
 I I Arguments, . 
 
 19 
 
 The Case for the Defence. 
 
 Marriages Abroad, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 
 
 
 General Theories, 
 
 '• • And Special ( Experiences and 
 1. I Arguments, . 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 
 ' (fl) Ireland, 
 (b) Scotland, 
 
 
 
 
 
 {c) France, 
 
 
 
 
 
 (d) Germany, 
 
 (e) Austria, 
 
 
 
 
 
 (/) Italy, . 
 ig) America, 
 
 
 
 
 
 {h) Colonies, 
 
 
 
 
 
 , (i) Japan, . 
 
 
 
 
 44 
 
 > 99 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Amici Curi^, 135 
 
Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Philosophy of Marriage. E. Lynn Linton, 182 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Causes of Success and Failure, 203 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 The Remedies Proposed, . , 230 
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 
 Appendix on the Laws of Marriage and Divorce. 
 
 H. Arthur Smith, 262 
 
 Index, 
 
 301 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE first point to make clear is that this book is not 
 and does not profess to be an answer to Mrs. Mona 
 Caird's article in the Westminster Review. Is marriage a 
 failure ? was not in truth asked by that talented lady. Her 
 paper, entitled simply " Marriage," was by no means interro- 
 gative; it stated simply that marriage was a failure — ''a vexa- 
 tious failure ''• — and gave prescription for making it a success. 
 The Daily Telegraph correspondence was an attempt to elicit 
 whether any considerable number of people agreed with the 
 dogma enunciated in the Westminster Review, and for this 
 purpose the interrogative form was adopted, and for pur- 
 poses of brevity and epigram the question stood as above. 
 
 Now, though for journalistic purposes the chosen title was 
 a perfect one, it was by no means easy to understand its pre- 
 cise meaning, or to limit the reply of those who responded 
 to its query to the discussion of any definite points — which, 
 by the way, was one of the principal reasons why the name 
 was so admirably suited to the requirements of a journal. 
 
 For to many people an abstract question is only con- 
 ceivable in terms of a concrete and personal idea. The 
 success or non-success of the marriage state was to them 
 simply the question of their own misery or happiness 
 therein ; and so Is marriage a failure? changed rapidly into 
 Is Tom a satisfactory husband ? Is Mary a pleasant wife ? 
 And as there were many Toms not wholly satisfactory, 
 and probably a few Marys who were sometimes un- 
 pleasant, answers declaratory of failure poured in in 
 abundance. Few of the correspondents paused to ask 
 
Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 themselves what was the real meaning of the problem 
 which they hastened to solve by the electric light of their 
 own experience ; but each, as it were, " shot upon the 
 intellectual dust-heap of this controversy his or her little 
 basket of joys or sorrows, till the Editor's table disappeared 
 beneath the varieties of experience, and England stood 
 aghast at the mass of correspondence, which, like a snow- 
 ball, grew in size as it rolled along. 
 
 Wives and mothers, maids and bachelors, spinsters and 
 husbands, clerks and curates, priests and publicans, saints 
 and sinners, gathered themselves into one compact mass of 
 respondents, and hurled their woes, their joys, their experi- 
 ences, their doctrines, and themselves at the head of the Daily 
 Telegraph. To the honour of Englishmen be it said, the 
 Editor stood firm beneath the shock of twenty-seven thou- 
 sand letters ! He had sown the wind, and he was to reap the 
 whirlwind ! Day by day the inevitable three columns ap- 
 peared in the journal ; day by day we read of the havoc 
 wrought by club or cup, by temper or neglect, or learnt the 
 secrets of domestic joy and single wretchedness. " Seasons 
 changed, summer passed away." Baldwin fell from the 
 clouds, and Edison's voice was brought us in a box, Im- 
 perial diaries came out and were suppressed, grouse were 
 cleared from the moors, and partridges shot in the stubble, 
 but still with the inevitableness of fate, the regularity of time, 
 and the persistency of a Scotch lawyer, the three columns 
 of perplexed curates, city barmaids, observant bachelors, and 
 glorified spinsters maintained their hold upon the journal, 
 and their claim on the public attention. 
 
 At last, in full tide, when it seemed that the corre- 
 spondence might become as long as Albany Street, the 
 Daily Telegraph closed it abruptly. No one will ever 
 know what editorial prevision of the claim to be made the 
 very next day upon the public attention by the horror 
 
Freface. 3 
 
 excited by the Whitechapel murders prompted the close of 
 this correspondence. Suffice it that on Saturday, Septem- 
 ber 29, the controversy ended. 
 
 The idea of republishing and arranging these letters had 
 occurred to me some days before, and the necessary permis- 
 sion to do so had been obtained from the Editor and Pro- 
 prietors of the Telegraph. But it was not till I procured the 
 numbers containing the correspondence that the enormous 
 number of the letters was realised, and that I saw it 
 would be almost impossible and certainly useless to print 
 them en bloc. Impossible because no human being could 
 be expected to read the whole of such a gigantic corre- 
 spondence, and because the mere bulk of the book would 
 have rendered all idea of issuing it at a popular price out 
 of the question ; useless because very many of the letters 
 were not only wholly beside the point, but were simply 
 repetitions of what had been said, and said better, elsewhere. 
 Moreover, many of them dealt with points which, however 
 interesting in themselves, had little connection with the 
 main discussion, or related to parts of it, such, for instance, 
 as the question of continental marriages, which were com- 
 paratively uninteresting to the general reader. 
 
 Besides these reasons for selection, there was another 
 even more important, which was that no satisfactory 
 classification could have been accomplished unless with a 
 very material reduction of bulk and a deletion of the more 
 peculiarly irrelevant matter. It will be found that even 
 now the number of letters admitted under the heading of 
 Amici Curi^ is very considerable, and of the deleted 
 matter probably three-fourths would have to be rightly 
 classed under this title. Roughly speaking, this work 
 would have been nearly four times its present size had I 
 included every letter. There was, however, one drawback 
 to not doing so, which I have laboured hard to overcome, 
 
Is Marriage a PaiCure i' 
 
 with what success I must leave it to others to judge. Have 
 I, or have I not, succeeded in preserving in the letters in- 
 cluded the right balance and proportion of opinion ? In 
 other words, do these letters fairly represent the whole of 
 the correspondence ? It is on the answer to this question 
 that the value of the book depends. I can only say that I 
 am conscious, not only of having had no bias towards 
 proving this or that special theory by my selection, but that 
 I have taken extreme care to represent the opinions of each 
 section adequately, sometimes at considerable sacrifice of 
 popular interest. For many of the letters included are, it 
 must be confessed, wofuUy dull, and some of the letters 
 excluded are not ; but in both cases the reason for insertion 
 or rejection is the one above mentioned. 
 
 Let it be clearly understood, therefore, that the first 
 object with which the selection of letters has been made is 
 to express as fully as possible the general views of the 
 whole body of Daily Telegraph correspondents on the 
 question which was addressed to them, and to do this with 
 as little repetition as possible. 
 
 The next obstacle which presented itself was, if less 
 essentially important, even more productive of difficulty 
 as far as the Editor's work was concerned. How to arrange 
 the letters? That was a problem indeed, as there were at 
 least fifty ways, each of which would offer some specific 
 advantage. The chronological method was evidently out of 
 the question, since it would render classification impossible. 
 But how to classify ? 
 
 Should we, for instance, range all the maids' letters 
 together vis-a-vis to the bachelors' ; and put the Wives to 
 reply to the Husbands ? 
 
 How magnificent and enlightening would it have been 
 to collect all the apostolic advice here tendered by Anglican 
 priests. West-end parsons, curates who " weren't married," 
 
Preface. 5 
 
 curates who were, and curates who wanted to be ! How 
 clearly the lawyers would have proved their cases if the 
 legal arguments had been presented in entirety and con- 
 junction, or what a flood of curious light been thrown upon 
 the physiology and psychology of the subject by the scientific 
 and philosophical writers ! And then how easily one might 
 have proved man's selfishness, woman's generosity, or vice 
 versa. Or the dangers or the joys of single or double har- 
 ness. Or the rewards of virtue, or the penalties of vice. 
 
 How was the decision to be made between a score of 
 such possible classifications ? Simply, it seemed to me, by 
 sticking (to use an old schoolboy phrase) to the text, by 
 arranging not by the answers given so much as by the 
 question asked. An amusing arrangement, no doubt, if we 
 could get it, but an useful one first of all, and the most useful 
 thing was to get at what the folk thought on the main issue. 
 So I have classified somewhat in a court of law fashion, and 
 being as innocent of briefs as an old barrister well can be (and 
 that is very innocent indeed), enjoyed dividing the matter 
 under the legal headings of the Case for the Plaintiff and 
 for the Defendant, the Plaintiff here being the lady who 
 accuses Marriage of being a failure. My readers are the 
 judges, the correspondents the witnesses, and for some 
 pastime from the hard work of deciding on the value of 
 their evidence, there are the Amici Curi^ presenting us 
 with all sorts of interesting and mostly irrelevant experi- 
 ence, and the very considerable number of writers who 
 urge the adoption of some favourite remedy. 
 
 That the book is a fair sample of the whole correspond- 
 ence as it appeared in the Telegraph is the only claim I 
 make for it, but this is to the best of my belief the case ; 
 and as it must be remembered that the Telegraph corre- 
 spondence represented the contributions of 27,000 people, 
 the selected matter represents at least that number, and 
 
Is Marriage a failure Y 
 
 probably is fairly indicative of what the middle class 
 generally think on this subject. Taken in this light, the 
 very vagaries, irrelevances, and banalites of the letters have 
 their use and value, and the correspondence as a whole 
 acquires an interest and value which one would scarcely be 
 likely to attribute to it at first sight. As the Spectator well 
 said, one supreme characteristic of this correspondence is 
 " its almost intolerable right-mindedness," the comparative 
 absence of extravagant views, the solid, conventional, com- 
 monplace, average manner in which the writers regard their 
 subject. And the class from which the communications 
 almost without exception proceed is also remarkable in 
 being restricted within very narrow limits of social status. 
 It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the social status of 
 the writers is bounded by the barrister on one side and the 
 well-to-do tradesman on the other. There is no letter to 
 the best of my belief which proceeds from what is called 
 the aristocracy, and only one or two from the working classes. 
 And these latter letters, it is curious to note, are introduced 
 with an air of quasi-apology, as if it were well conceded by 
 the writers that they had scarcely more right to express an 
 opinion on such a matter than they would have to sit down 
 in the presence of their betters. Therefore the opinions 
 represented here are broadly those which spring from the 
 burgesses of England, from men and women who — 
 
 Are within the world's blest circle born, 
 Beneath its envy, and above its scorn — 
 
 and are the more valuable for that reason. 
 
 Sooner or later, what the doctor wishes, the curate wishes, 
 the solicitor wishes, the schoolmaster, the tradesman, and 
 the managing clerk wish, will be carried into effect by the 
 aristocrat, and agreed to by the proleteriate. For the 
 reform of laws springs neither from above nor below, but 
 from those who are sufficiently removed from want to feel 
 
Preface. 7 
 
 keenly the incidents of social legislation, but not sufficiently 
 far removed to escape the disabilities which a more luxurious 
 state of life overlays, if it cannot entirely annul. 
 
 While leaving the solution of the question proposed, as 
 I have said, entirely to the judgment of my readers, I may 
 perhaps be permitted to point out what the true bearing of 
 the question is. As one of the writers herein represented 
 not unnaturally remarked, from one point of view or 
 another, all human institutions may be considered failures ; 
 but very certainly 27,000 people did not write to the Daily 
 Telegraph to affirm, much less to deny, such a truism. Pro- 
 bably not one of these writers thought that marriage should 
 be exempted from the universal law which denies entire 
 perfection to human products, whether they be customs, per- 
 sons, or things. The problem set, though not distinctly 
 formulated, the question to which an answer was then, and 
 is now, demanded, was this — Does or does not marriage fulfil 
 its purpose ? Is it like a burlesque which does not make 
 us laugh, a tragedy which does not make us cry, a wet 
 summer, a green Yuletide, a plumless pudding, or a fire- 
 less grate ? Does it so fail to fulfil the object of its being ? 
 
 Since we are to regard the institution from this 
 point of view, let us think for a moment, plainly and 
 practically, what the purposes of marriage are, since in no 
 other way can we distinguish between accidental, trivial, 
 and necessary defects, and those results which show 
 an essential deficiency in the institution itself Besides 
 this, one other preliminary step must be taken, since we 
 must agree upon the definition of the word "marriage". 
 Fortunately, upon this point, the lady who started the 
 controversy is, for once, precise. For, though she does 
 not dream of doing anything so dull or masculine as to 
 define her terms, Mrs. Caird leaves us in no doubt that the 
 term " marriage," as discussed in her paper, is to be under- 
 
Is Ma7-riacre a Failure ? 
 
 stood (as it is usually understood in England) as the life- 
 long union of one man with one woman, only to be dissolved 
 by the law itself, and that only in certain well-known and 
 carefully-defined instances. 
 
 VVe have, therefore, to c6nsider the following question — 
 Does the life-long union of a man and woman answer the 
 purposes of those who enter upon it, and of the society in 
 which it exists ? 
 
 What are these purposes ? 
 
 And here the Editor encounters a difificulty which is not 
 uncommon in the experience of English authors : the 
 difficulty of speaking plainly without giving offence. Yet 
 if this question is to be considered thoroughly, it must be 
 formulated clearly ; and, though it is not strange that, 
 partially in Mrs. Caird's article, and almost entirely in the 
 correspondence which succeeded it, the chief motive force 
 of matrimony should have been ignored, such omission 
 would not be justifiable here. Plainly, therefore, the 
 natural human incentive of all marriage, the motive of 
 earliest date and of longest endurance, is the desire of the 
 man for the woman, of the woman for the man. 
 
 In all its endless modifications and phases, ranging from 
 the highest point of spiritual ecstasy to the lowest depths 
 of mere animal passion, this is the elementary instinct upon 
 which all union between man and woman is founded, and 
 which, when once aroused, is sufficiently powerful to bring 
 together two human beings despite every barrier of circum- 
 stance. 
 
 The lovers must, the lovers will, meet. The question for 
 society to solve is — What restrictions shall prevent, what 
 regulations shall safeguard, their union ? The protection of 
 the weaker sex, the mutual well-being of husband and wife, 
 the education and guardianship of their children, the neces- 
 sary observance of social and political duty — these, and 
 
Preface. n 
 
 the various cognate points which social safety and progress 
 require, are the objects with which the institution of mar- 
 riage is mainly concerned, and for which it was founded. 
 How to guard the children and preserve the family ; how 
 to prevent the dissolution of the contract for trivial causes ; 
 how to gradually entwine the first passionate feeling with 
 the slower and more enduring motives of social duty, 
 mutual affection, and parental tenderness; — these are the 
 problems for the solution of which, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, marriage has gradually shaped itself amongst us 
 to be the thing it is. Therefore in all consideration of the 
 question propounded m this book, we must be careful of 
 falling into that elementary error into which the West- 
 minster Reviewer stumbled headlong, — the error of mis- 
 taking the purpose of marriage, and setting it to do other 
 work than that with which it was really concerned. We 
 have no right to demand that marriage should be a social 
 regenerator, that it should be judged by its capability of 
 changing or elevating the present condition either of the 
 husband or the wife ; we have no reason to ask it to pro- 
 duce specifically beneficial effects upon the character of 
 those who come within its boundaries. That many of these 
 results will be effected by any possible form of union ; that 
 man and woman cannot live together without influencing, 
 for good or ill, one another's characters ; that happiness 
 and unhappiness must, according to circumstance and 
 temperament, alike result from any conceivable form of 
 the marriage union ; — all this is, of course, indubitable, and 
 the precise manner in which such effects are produced may 
 well form a legitimate subject of discussion. But this is not 
 the question we have now to consider, which is simply 
 whether the results which society needs from the union of 
 any two of its members are, or are not, attained in a 
 reasonable degree at present by the marriage laws. If the 
 
lO Is Alarriage a Faibirc ? 
 
 net result of this correspondence is to show clearly what 
 those results are, and to prove that they are attained, then 
 the question Is Marriage a Failure ? must be answered 
 in the negetive, though it would be still logical and per- 
 missible to inquire further whether too much happiness 
 had been sacrificed in the attainment of the desired end. 
 Mrs. Caird's article, if I may be excused for saying 
 so, confused these perfectly distinct branches of her sub- 
 ject, and opened the way for many of the irrelevancies 
 of the correspondence which followed. The Westminster 
 authoress did not apparently see that the purpose of happi- 
 ness is really no part of the purpose of marriage ; that 
 marriage is what it is through the necessities of society ; 
 and that so long as society has the same necessities, and 
 finds them fulfilled by marriage, the institution must be 
 considered to be a success, though every married man and 
 woman in the ^^'orld were unhappy. And the matter which 
 arouses Mrs. Caird's greatest indignation, and which is 
 really responsible for her indictment of matrimony, namely, 
 the domination (real or fancied) of the husband over the 
 wife, is no more the product of the law of marriage than is 
 the inferior physical strength of woman the product of 
 legislation. The domination of the stronger arm and the 
 larger brain, which has grown up through long ages from the 
 exercise of power and thought, from superior physical organi- 
 sation, from education in the hard-thinking and the hard- 
 fighting of the world, is a matter beyond the power of any 
 legislation to remedy — we might almost say, to influence. 
 All that the marriage law can enjoin, all that custom can 
 obtain, is that the weaker sex should be protected from the 
 possible abuse of its privileges by the stronger ; that there 
 should be some safeguard to ensure the proper education and 
 guardianship of children ; toassi-st in the maintenance of the 
 family tie ; to prevent the dissolution of the marriage contract 
 
Preface. 1 1 
 
 save for grave reasons. That in nine cases out of ten it is 
 for the State better that a man and woman, having chosen, 
 should, for the sake of their children, and the sake of other 
 folk's children, and for the due performance of the duties 
 of citizenship, continue to live together, though they may ima- 
 gine, or even know, that their union has been a mistake, this, 
 on serious thought, is scarcely to be denied, and is certainly 
 disproved by no argument that is to be found in this book. 
 There is an amusing passage in one of Wilkie Collins' 
 novels of which Mrs. Caird's article strongly reminded me. 
 
 " Is it conceivable that a man can have smoked as long as I have, without 
 discovering that there is a complete system for the treatment of women at the 
 bottom of his cigar-case ? Follow me carefully and I will prove it in two 
 words. You choose a cigar, you try it, and it disappoints you. What do you 
 do upon that? You throw it away and try another. Now observe the applica- 
 tion ! You choose a woman, you try her, and she bteaks your heart. Fool ! 
 take a lesson from your cigar-case. Throw her away and try another ! " 
 
 I shook my head at that. Wonderfully clever, I dare say, but my own 
 experience was dead against it. " In the time of the late Mrs. Betteredge," I 
 said, "I felt pretty often inclined to try your philosophy, Mr. Franklin, but 
 the law insists on your smoking your cigar, sir, when you have once chosen it." 
 I pointed that observation with a wink. Mr. Franklin burst out laughing. 
 
 It may well be doubted, though it is here beside the 
 question, whether Mrs. Caird's plan of allowing the woman 
 and the man to throw away their human cigar-ends would 
 not operate very much more in favour of the stronger than 
 the weaker sex. At all events there would be a very 
 unpleasant lot of cigar-ends about ; and it is extremely 
 probable that the majority of these half-smoked weeds 
 would not be masculine. 
 
 To return to our correspondence. 
 
 Through and from all the various phases of selfish 
 egotism, of querulous complaint, of noble patience, of 
 hopeless resignation, of reforming zeal, of reckless as- 
 sumption, of dull bigotry, of cheerful irrelevance, and of 
 unconscious self-revelation which make up the bulk of 
 
12 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 these letters, there gradually grows into more or less 
 definite shape an intelligible conception of what the 
 people of England think about marriage, of what they 
 find to bear and to enjoy, of what they feel to be its 
 virtue and its deficiency, of what they would retain and 
 what they would change in that institution. Here is the 
 truest of all plebiscites, for it is a plebiscite in which the 
 vote is given, in many cases unconsciously, from the result 
 of the voter's life and experience. And, viewed in that 
 aspect, there is not the silliest, most mistaken letter in this 
 series which has not its value and its significance. The 
 woman who would endow every husband with a prison 
 livery of a wedding-ring, without which it would be penal 
 for him to stir abroad ; the even more foolish cleric whose 
 idea of a separation law is based upon " transportation, 
 hard labour, and hanging " ; the gentleman who wishes to 
 have all bachelors taxed, and his indignant opponent, who 
 regrets the days when women were the slaves of their 
 husbands, and thinks all would be right if now-a-days all the 
 laws were not made in favour of women — all these, and many 
 other equally curious prescriptions, have their use in this 
 controversy, if only by marking out the boundaries of folly 
 and affording a clue to the baseless origin of many of the 
 complaints frequently heard against the marriage institution. 
 
 Before commenting further on the character of this 
 correspondence, let me say a word or two as to what 
 has been done to render the correspondence as amusing 
 as possible, and to extend its interest and usefulness. 
 
 In the first place, I have sought so to arrange the letters 
 which fall within special sections as to contrast with one 
 another and present, in as close conjunction as was 
 practicable, opposite views, conclusions, and arguments 
 bearing on the same point. Where such letters resolved 
 themselves, as was not infrequently the case, into specific 
 
Preface. 1 3 
 
 answers to some prior communication, this was of course 
 simple enough ; in other cases the arrangement pre- 
 sented some difficulty, and the desired result is, I fear, 
 frequently very imperfectly obtained. I have further sup- 
 pressed the necessary journalistic address " To the Editor," 
 and substituted instead a headline of my own, giving as 
 much hint as was possible in two or three words of the 
 contents of the subjoined letter, and giving it for the 
 'most part in some phrase of the letter itself It will not 
 surprise me to find that in doing this I have sometimes 
 touched unpleasantly the susceptibilities of the writers, 
 since it happens occasionally that such a terse heading 
 has a rather satirical effect. As, however, without a 
 definite name it would have been impossible to give an 
 index to the subjects treated, as the writers are for the 
 most part anonymous, and as the relief imparted to the 
 correspondence by this method was on the whole con- 
 siderable, I trust readers, and writers also, will pardon any 
 little annoyance which has been undesignedly given them, 
 and think that there is more gained than lost by these sub- 
 ject-titles. Secondly, I have prefaced the correspondence 
 by a very brief abstract of Mrs. Caird's original article in 
 the Westminster Review* not only because it started the 
 controversy, but because many of the communications 
 allude to it in more or less direct terms, and would not be 
 wholly comprehensible if such abstract were not available. 
 Thirdly,t as a sort of makeweight to Mrs. Caird's rather 
 vague and high-falutiji' estimate of the place and function 
 of marriage in our social economy, I have put before the 
 
 * As this abstract is necessarily confined to indicating the chief points of 
 the article, readers interested in the subject should consult the original in 
 the August number of the WestminsUr Review. 
 
 f It should perhaps be stated that the writers of the various papers 
 herein printed are responsible only for their special section, and are not to 
 be supposed to endorse any other portion of the work. — Editor 
 
14 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 section which treats of the causes of success and failure in 
 matrimony a very brilliant paper by Mrs. Lynn Linton, on 
 " The Philosophy of Marriage," which, perhaps, errs in the 
 opposite extreme of practicality and pessimism, but which, 
 in its vigorous common sense, its absence of sentimental 
 feeling, and its concentration of a wide experience, is well 
 worthy of the closest attention, while as a piece of literary 
 workmanship it is more than admirable. 
 
 Lastly and chiefly, so far as the future worth of this book 
 is concerned, I have had drawn up, by my friend Mr. H. 
 Arthur Smith, a concise and accurate digest of the Marriage 
 and Divorce Laws as they at present exist in the principal 
 countries of the civilised world ; so that if any of the readers 
 of this book should be desirous of finding their way into or out 
 of the marriage state, they may know what course to pursue. 
 
 The difficulty of combining in such a digest the historical 
 sketch, without which the present laws would be at least 
 partially inexplicable, and the enormous amount of detail 
 which the subject includes, and rendering the whole at once 
 legally accurate, and readable from a popular point of view, 
 could hardly be over-estimated, and Mr. Smith's success 
 in this direction has been, in my opinion, considerable. 
 It is no disparagement to Mrs. Linton's briUiant paper, or 
 to the worth of the correspondence herein, to say that the 
 kernel of the book is to be found in the Appendix. 
 
 In conclusion, there have been made Indexes, which 
 will, I hope, be found sufficiently full : — of the subjects 
 treated, arranged alphabetically in each section ; and of all 
 the writers of letters or papers appearing in the book. 
 
 And now I have only to make my bow, and trust that 
 whether the people of England determine Marriage to be a 
 Failure or not, they will not do so without having, each of 
 them, studied the subject thoroughly in these pages. 
 
 HARRY QUILTER. 
 
WHAT MRS. CAIRD THINKS. 
 
 The following lines are not intended to comment in any 
 way on Mrs. Caird's views, but only to epitomise thern in 
 so far as they are expressed in the article on Marriage 
 lately published in the Westminster Review ; and it is 
 necessary to point out that if these views, stripped of their 
 illustrative context, seem occasionally to have but little 
 weight, and to be supported by arguments of a somewhat 
 superficial character, it must not be supposed that the pre- 
 sent writer has sought to exhibit them in an unfavourable 
 light. In a word, the statements and arguments here set 
 down are those which Mrs. Caird offers to us herself, as 
 fully expressed as the brief space in which they are put 
 permits. 
 
 The article is entitled "Marriage," and opens with a 
 statement that the English people are mild and easy-going 
 about all other subjects than social ones. Social philosophy 
 in general is falsified by an universal ignorance of what 
 "woman's nature" really is, and "lapses into incoherence" 
 as soon as it touches that subject. When any thinker 
 considers women he babbles of green fields and goes back 
 centuries in knowledge, as though he had been overtaken 
 by some afflicting mental disease. In fact, woman is ex- 
 cluded from the ordinary ideas of evolution. She has been 
 kept in subjection for centuries — therefore she is not fit for 
 freedom, therefore she is to be kept in subjection for ever. 
 So runs man's argument, and, following it, man's practice. 
 And woman revenges herself unconsciously by her injurious 
 effect upon the physical life of the race, by the defective 
 education of her children, by implanting in them prejudices 
 rather than ideas. 
 
 This may be called the proem to Mrs. Caird's article : 
 
i6 Is Marriage a tailiire i 
 
 this constitutes her initial protest against the idea that the 
 nature of women is different from that of men. 
 
 The first stage of the argument proper may now be said 
 to commence with "a brief glance at the history of Mar- 
 riage ". No dates, of course, are mentioned, but the 
 authoress refers to what she denominates the matriarchal 
 age, as the first era which bears closely upon her subject. 
 
 At this period the mother was the head of the family. She 
 was at once agriculturist, herbalist, priestess, owner of pro- 
 perty, and transmitter of name. Many centuries later men 
 began to claim authority over their children, and finally 
 established it by force. But during the " Mother Age " 
 some of the men (debarred, we suppose, from more peaceful 
 occupations) "used to make raids upon the settlements" 
 and carry off some of the women. This was the origin of 
 our modern idea of " possession in marriage ". 
 
 Then ensued a transition to the " Father Age," which 
 took centuries to effect, and traces of this long struggle can 
 be found in old legends and the survival of old customs. 
 When Christianity spread, feminine influence received 
 another check, and subsequently, in the period of the 
 Minhesingers and troubadours, a new idea of sex relation- 
 ship sprang up — the notion of modern or romantic love. 
 This, when developed and " inwoven with ideas of modern 
 growth, forms the basis of ideal marriage". Unfortunately 
 the Reformation checked the development of this idea, 
 and woman became the victim of that vampire Respecta- 
 bility, " which thenceforth was to fasten upon and suck her 
 life-blood ". The bourgeois increased in power and pros- 
 perity ; the forces of decorum, Philistinism, sensuality, and 
 hypocrisy were brought strongly into play, and a strict 
 marriage system was established. 
 
 The next portion of Mrs. Caird's article is simply an 
 expansion of her dislike to the " devastating doctrine of 
 
What Mis. Caird thinks. 1 7 
 
 Luther,'' which makes it a duty to have an unlimited 
 number of children. In fact Luther degraded the religious 
 sanctity of marriage, turned it into a commercial contract, 
 and made the wife's position the most completely abject 
 and degraded one which it is possible for a human being 
 to hold. 
 
 Hence grew up the modern ideas of wifehood, especially 
 those of women's honour and chastity, which do not take 
 their rise from her self-respect as a woman, but " from the 
 fact of her subjection to man ". 
 
 With this may be said to end the historical part of the 
 article. Mrs. Caird now proceeds to dilate upon the awful 
 sufferings for which the adoption of these ideas is respon- 
 sible, which result in leaving woman only a choice between 
 a more or less degrading marriage or a competition which 
 must be a losing one with men, for the purpose of earning 
 a livelihood. To prove this conclusion, Mrs. Caird quotes 
 a variety of opinions selected from the writings of Mrs. 
 Augusta Webster, Longfellow, Bebel, and Max O'Rell, to 
 the effect that, in the present state of things, woman 
 belongs to her lord and master, that she has the cook's 
 duties " without the cook's privilege of being able to give 
 warning ". And while this is the case with regard to the 
 wife, the husband also suffers, though his is only a mild 
 form of burden as opposed to the wife's poignant anguish. 
 Mrs. Caird does not deny that there are exceptions to this 
 picture, but states that the rule is as above. 
 
 Having made these statements, and having further con- 
 firmed them by the quotations to which I have just alluded, 
 the conclusion is reached that the present form of marriage 
 is " a vexatious failure," and that we must set up an ideal. 
 This ideal, the statement of which follows, is chiefly 
 negative. All interference from society or law is to be 
 excluded. The idea of duty is to be banished. There is 
 
Is Alarria^e a Failure ? 
 
 to be a full understanding that the woman has an obvious 
 right to "possess herself, body and soul, to give or withhold 
 herself, body and soul, exactly as she wills". Woman is to 
 be economically independent. Industrial organisation is to 
 be re-adjusted, so as to replace competition by co-operation. 
 After this the real independence of women will be easily 
 secured. Boys and girls are to be educated together. The 
 " pressure of existence " is to slacken ; the whole nature is 
 to have a chance to expand. And when these (sufficiently 
 wide-reaching) changes have taken place, there will be a 
 general rise in physical and moral health, and " all sorts of 
 new and stimulating influences will be brought to bear 
 upon society". The last page of Mrs. Caird's article is 
 devoted to the consideration of " the dangers attending 
 these re-adjustments "; at least, so it is stated, but I am 
 unable to find in this section any mention whatever of even 
 the most obvious drawbacks and difficulties. There is not 
 one word on the all-important question of the children born 
 of these dissoluble contracts ; there is not one word as to 
 the difficulties of social status, or the pecuniary compli- 
 cations which would inevitably arise ; there is no mention 
 whatever of the religious difficulty ; nor is there any 
 apparent recognition of the fact that some limitation must 
 be put upon promiscuity of intercourse in any civilised 
 community. Having stated her ideals as above, having 
 denounced the existing state of things as above, and given 
 the reasons I have noted, Mrs. Caird leaves the question of 
 the possibility and the desirability of her reforms to be 
 discussed. 
 
 How it is discussed, and what conclusions are reached by 
 the disputants, those who read the following pages will learn 
 for themselves. 
 
 THE EDITOR. 
 
IS MARRIAGE A FAILURE? 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE ANSWER, YES! 
 
 The Case for thk Plaintitf. 
 
 Our Marriage Laws a Mass of Anomalies. 
 
 SIR, — The exhaustive discussion which has taken place in your 
 columns clearly shows how defective the existing marriage 
 laws of England are. Laws which prevent one party from putting 
 an end to the marriage contract when the other party becomes 
 permanently insane or commits some grave criminal offence can 
 only be described as preposterous ; for if one of the parties, either 
 from misfortune or misconduct, becomes incapable of performing 
 the duties of marriage, reason and justice concur in requiring 
 that the other party should be relieved from the contract should 
 he desire it. The suggestion that the marriage contract should be 
 capable of dissolution by the mutual consent of the contracting 
 parties is one which would create a variety of difficulties, and 
 would, moreover, certainly not find favour with the majority of 
 Europeans ; but the point to which I particularly wish to draw 
 attention is the numerous anomalies which exist in the marriage 
 laws at the present time. 
 
 The Roman Catholic religion regards the marriage ceremony 
 as a sacrament, and, therefore, considers that the marriage con- 
 tract cannot be effected without the aid of a priest in orders ; 
 and, although Parliament abolished this doctrine at the Refor- 
 mation, a notion still exists that this ceremony possesses 
 
20 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 a kind of quasi-sacramental character, and the clergy are the chief 
 instruments for perpetuating an error which, while it magnifies 
 the sacerdotal office, often produces mischievous consequences. 
 
 The marriage laws of all countries ought to prescribe that a 
 certain definite legal formality should be gone through by persons 
 desirous of marrying, and which ought to be as simple as possible ; 
 but, instead of this, we find that in England marriage may be 
 effected by means of any of the religious ceremonies which are 
 arbitrarily presented by any of the two hundred and odd different 
 religious sects which are said to exist in England, provided certain 
 other conditions, such as the presence of the registrar, are fulfilled. 
 It is also a sine qua non (with certain exceptions) that the building 
 should be registered for the performance of marriages ; and if the 
 building is not registered, the presence of the whole bench of 
 bishojjs will not avail to constitute the ceremony a legal marriage. 
 Mistakes are sometimes made, and many cases have happened in 
 which persons imagined that they were married when they were 
 not; and this siiows the importance of making a simple legal 
 formality, gone through in the presence of the registrar or some 
 other public official, the sole test of a legal marriage, and leaving 
 the religious ceremony, like the wedding breakfast, to the option 
 of the parties. 
 
 The law of divorce contains numerous anomalies, amongst 
 which it may be mentioned that it is quite possible for a man to 
 have two wives, one of whom is his lawful wife in England, and 
 the other is his lawful wife in Scotland. Let us suppose that a 
 man and woman who have been born and are domiciled in 
 England marry in the same country, and afterwa>ds go and reside 
 in Scotland. If the husband misconducts himself with his wife's 
 maid the wife can get a divorce from the Scotch Courts ; but this 
 divorce is invalid in England, because the English Courts will not 
 grant the petition of a wife for divorce on the ground of her 
 husband's adultery alone. The divorce is, however, perfectly 
 good north of the Tweed, and, if the husband afterwards marries 
 the lady's maid, the latter is his lawful wife in Scotland but not in 
 England, \yhilst the first wife is the lawful wife in England but 
 
The A nswer, Yes ! 21 
 
 not in Scotland. Moreover, if the husband afterwards came to 
 England, he could be prosecuted for bigamy ; and I think most 
 persons will agree that it is an outrageous state of things, and one 
 which is calculated to bring the law into great contempt and 
 ridicule, that a man or woman can be prosecuted in England for 
 doing an act in another country not subject to the jurisdiction of 
 the English Courts, which is legal according to the laws of the 
 country in which the act is done. 
 
 In certain colonies marriage with a deceased wife's sister is legal, 
 but if a domiciled Englishman takes a trip to such a colony, 
 and marries his deceased wife's sister there, the marriage would 
 be invalid in England. I beheve that it has never been decided 
 whether such a marriage, performed in the colony between two 
 such persons who were born and domiciled in the colony, would 
 be held to be legal in England ; but if the English Courts should 
 decide the question in the negative, an additional anomaly will be 
 added to the defective marriage laws of this country. — I am, Sir, 
 your obedient servant, 
 
 A. B. BASSET. 
 
 United University Club, Aug. 31. 
 
 The Lunacy Question. 
 
 Sir, — I was married to the woman of my choice at the age of 
 twenty-two. Within three years my wife showed signs of insanity, 
 and shortly afterwards was sent to a lunatic asylum. She partly 
 recovered and came home, but gradually got worse, and was sent 
 away again five years ago. The doctors tell me her affliction is 
 permanent, and that I shall never have her home again ; so, here 
 am I, a comparatively young man, married, without a wife, left 
 with an only child, and compelled to lead an unpleasant life of 
 celibacy. I have thought of being lost and commencing life 
 afresh, but the love for my child has always kept me straight. 
 Would it not be better for me, better for my child, and better 
 for society in general, to let a man situated as I am take to 
 himself a lawful wife ? — Yours truly, 
 
 R. DAVIS. 
 
 Watford, Aug. 21. 
 
22 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 Should Religion forbid Divorce ? 
 
 Sir, — Your interesting paper has become doubly so since Mrs. 
 Mona Caird gave her honest and truthful opinions on the 
 marriage question. I have not the pleasure of knowing the 
 lady, unless through the medium of the papers; but I shake 
 hands with her in spirit, and think that every woman, especially 
 those unhappily married, should bless her and call her friend. 
 She is not afraid to expose the wretched marriage tie in all its 
 mockery, but does her best to give happiness and fair-play to 
 her sex. She speaks the truth in every line, and there is not 
 a woman in England or Ireland who will, not secretly own to 
 that fact. I am an Irishwoman, who have travelled considerably 
 in other countries, and know from experience that the bondage 
 of the marriage contract is bitter and galling equally all over 
 the world. Religion steps in, and compels an unhappy woman 
 to live with a man who has repulsed and outraged her with his 
 infidelity and cruelty. What is she to do ? Get a divorce ; and, 
 if a Catholic, how can that help her ? It is supreme cruelty for 
 any religion to compel a woman to sacrifice the rest of her life 
 just because the early part was a failure; and I say, with Mrs. 
 Caird, that something should be done to advocate a union free 
 from slavery. I agree with her on all points. Women are 
 afraid to speak for themselves and their rights. Mrs. Caird has 
 made a beginning, and I hope her words will bear good fruit, 
 and have a tendency to make marriage, as it should be, a free 
 contract. — Yours respectfully, 
 
 EDITH MAXWELL. 
 Belfast, Ireland, Aug. 25. 
 
 " JVbi good enough to make doormats of. " 
 
 Sir,— May I be allowed to congratulate Mrs. Caird on her 
 common sense? For how any sagacious woman can think to 
 better herself by the tie matrimonial I know not. Heaven bless 
 the innocence of dear " Lady Patricia," who exhorts her sisters to 
 enter the vinculum ptnfrimnnii. and lavs down for us beautiful 
 
The Answer, Yes! 23 
 
 rules of gentleness, yielding, and careful attention to our partners' 
 interests. It strikes me she is a he after all, and in the habit of 
 telling his "confiding innocent " that he is so overwrought and 
 harassed by, say, Parliamentary or City business, " Don't sit up, 
 my dear," I fancy I hear him enjoin ; " I shall come in softly, 
 so as not to disturb you. I am just going to the club, or perhaps 
 the theatre, for I feel so depressed, and the change may cheer me 
 up a bit." " Simplicity " kisses her lord and master, satisfies her- 
 self that he is well wrapped up and comfortable, then sits down 
 to make baby's clothes, and thinks what a true and good husband 
 she possesses. His marriage oath lies lightly on his conscience 
 as he calmly enters with his latch-key about two in the morning. 
 Be wise in time, ye women ; make yourselves, if you can, inde- 
 pendent, and able to earn your own living and fight your own 
 battles with men : for Heaven help you when your days of youth 
 are over. 
 
 I, as a woman, consider some men not good enough to make 
 doormats of. There hardly ever was a great man yet who did 
 not confess that from his mother — not his father — he derived his 
 greatness or goodness. " Benedick " might with advantage turn 
 up "The Merchant of Venice," and see what Portia says to 
 Nerissa on men. Perhaps he might therein see his own picture 
 in one of the suitors. I entreat you, sisters, to be slaves no 
 longer, and to think well before taking on you ties that may mean 
 endless misery to you, especially in a few years, when you have a 
 family and are helpless in the hands of your taskmasters. 
 
 A WIDOW. 
 Dalling Road, Hammersmith, Aug. 13. 
 
 The Drunken Wife. 
 
 Sir, — Happy, indeed, should be the man or woman who has a 
 kindred spirit for a life-partner, and is living in continual love and 
 harmony, smoothing each other's pains, and intensifying each 
 other's joys. But sad experience has taught me that these 
 "heavens below" are in a minority, and that until husbands and 
 
24 /j Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 wives have learned to practise mutual forbearance, and will 
 strangle that "king of demons," selfishness, marriage will be 
 in many cases a failure. When will people see that this self-grati- 
 fication, this sacrifice of others to an individual desire, is the rock 
 on which so many homes are wrecked ? When will they learn the 
 golden lesson that the only way to be truly happy is to do what 
 one can to promote the happiness of others ? But as this Utopian 
 era seems far away in the dim future, and as we are too awfully 
 human and will make little or no effort to control and suppress 
 what is evil in our natures, I think, with many of your correspon- 
 dents, that enforced separation should be granted in very many 
 cases where it is not allowed at present, and that divorce should 
 be simplified, made far less expensive, and not be confined, as 
 now, to a breach of the Seventh Commandment, but that other 
 outrages on the marriage state should be accepted as equally good 
 cause for obtaining a divorce. Many there are who are daily 
 praying for deliverance from a life that is worse than death ; and 
 that an unmerciful law compels them to live on with partners 
 whom — through debased habits — they can only loathe seems cruel 
 in the highest degree ; and to talk of the sanctity of marriage to a 
 person whose husband or wife has violated all, or almost all, the 
 marriage vows is a mockery. Take the case of a " City Clerk," 
 or take ray case, and I think you will excuse us for having very 
 big doubts about marriages being made in heaven. I com- 
 menced my married life with a loving nature, high hopes, great 
 expectations, and a determination to be a good husband ; but, 
 alas for poor humanity ! my hopes were soon to be shattered ; 
 my castles in the air, so fondly raised, were doomed to demohtion. 
 After about two> years a love of strong drink became apparent 
 in my wife. I hoped, if my earnest entreaties would be of no 
 avail, that her high education and self-respect would prevent her 
 from allowing herself to sink low in the social scale ; but not so. 
 Drunkenness, with its attendant horrors, made our home an 
 Inferno : I had to be father and mother to our four young 
 children ; foul language and pawn-tickets were abundant ; the 
 children were neglected and cruelly treated; and I had suffi- 
 
The Aiiszvcr, Yes! 25 
 
 cient proof for myself that my wife was a sinner against me in 
 other ways. After years' of misery, that seemed almost unendur- 
 able to me, my wife — fearing, I believe, a compulsory separation 
 or divorce — agreed to a mutual separation on an allowance ; but 
 had she not, a law, devoid of equity, would have compelled me to 
 live with her, if living it could be called, till welcome death 
 brought release. 
 
 Let those who talk of the sanctity of marriage, and say that 
 "those whom God hath joined together, no man should put 
 asunder," go to one or two of the many such homes (?), and if it 
 is nothing to them that long-suffering husbands and wives should 
 have these horrible mill-stones hung around their necks for life, 
 they will surely admit that, for the sake of innocent and help- 
 less children, a speedy and radical revision of the laws that govern 
 divorce and separation is sadly needed. — Yours, &c., 
 
 CORNUBIA. 
 Gospel Oak, Sept. 20. 
 
 A Playwright' s Theories. 
 
 Sir, — Your correspondents on the marriage question who argue 
 against easy divorce all fall into the same error : they imagine 
 that by putting divorce more within reach they would make it 
 more reached after. This is contrary to our knowledge of human 
 nature. AVe have all heard of the story of the old man who never 
 went outside the walls of his town for eighty years, but who 
 could not stop within them another month after he had bound 
 himself to stay. It is the knowing that there is practically no 
 escape from it that makes the marriage tie so galling. Let a 
 man and woman feel that they can cast it loose when they wish 
 to, and they will wear it laughing all their lives. 
 
 I am no advocate of "free love'' — I don't suppose any of us 
 are practically, however we may theorise — and I only state the 
 following facts, for the truth of which I can vouch, as bearing upon 
 the tie argument. A gentleman of my acquaintance ran away six 
 years ago with a lady, with whom he was very much in love, and 
 
26 Is Marrtage a I^atiure r 
 
 who very much loved him, and, in the hurry and confusion of the 
 affair, I suppose, they forgot all about the marriage ceremony. 
 They were always determining to put matters straight, but time 
 went on : meanwhile they lived as happily together as a pair of 
 lovers. Last year, however, on the principle of better late than 
 never, they did marry, and six months afterwards they found it 
 so impossible to be with one another under the same roof that 
 they have separated. The truth is, we men and women are merely 
 big children : we only want a thing so long as we haven't got it, 
 and the only way to make us anxious to keep it is to make it easy 
 for us to lose it. — Yours, &c., 
 
 JEROME K. JEROME. 
 
 London, Aug. 17. 
 
 Brutalised by Drink. 
 
 Sir, — Have you space for a few words from one of the failures ? 
 Have those happy folk who talk about the sanctity of the mar- 
 riage tie any idea of the sanctity attaching to the enforced 
 and degrading companionship of a man brutalised by drink or 
 bestialised by incipient softening of the brain ? Think of a 
 sensitive, refined, or even a decent woman subjected to the 
 horrors of such a matrimonial tie ; and, if only a hundreth part of 
 her tortures were realised, I think that most sensible people would 
 reluctantly own that divorce would be better for the woman, and 
 for her children, too, than the continuance of the holy estate of 
 matrimony under such circumstances. The appalling number of 
 unhappy marriages, with their consequent unhappy homes, and 
 unsteady sons, and bad daughters — unsteady and bad because of 
 their unhappy training— calls aloud for some remedy. What that 
 remedy may be I must leave for wiser heads than mine. " Free 
 marriage " sounds like an excuse for licence ; but I honestly 
 believe that the children of a marriage in which the only ties were 
 love and respect would be better cared for, better trained, and 
 would, in time, become better citizens, than the offspring of a 
 legal union where love and respect had become impossible. A 
 
The Ansiuer, Yes ! 27 
 
 man or woman who becomes an habitual drunkard, an imbecile, 
 a lunatic, or a criminal, ought to be divorced. They have no 
 right to bring unhappy, diseased children into the world. And, 
 after all is said and done, it is the rising generation that should 
 be considered. Teaching girls to earn their own living seems 
 to be a step in the right direction. Alas ! the sufferings of the 
 failures are very great. Who will set us right ? 
 
 A MATRIMONIAL FAILURE. 
 
 Coburg Place, Charlton, Aug. 10. 
 
 The Deceased Wife' s Sister Difficulty. 
 
 Sir, — May I give my experience of married life ? I am one of 
 the unfortunate number for whom in England justice cannot be 
 obtained — viz., a deceased wife's sister married seven years ago to 
 ray brother-in-law. The seven years of our married life have 
 been very happy ones (in our own and our large circle of friends' 
 opinion we are as legally married in our Maker's sight as any 
 princess of the blood) ; and to prove that in no way we repent our 
 union, I can only assure you that had the Deceased Wife's Sister 
 Bill become law this session (as in common justice to thousands 
 of women and children it ought to have done), and not been made 
 retrospective, we should have re-married, in order to make binding 
 by English law the ceremony which seven years ago we went 
 through, but which is still so absurdly deemed in this country 
 alone illegal. — Yours, &c., 
 
 A LOVER OF JUSTICE. 
 
 Trowbridge, Salop, Aug. 27. 
 
 Monogamy a Modern Institution. 
 
 Sir, — I have been- following with much interest the letters that 
 have appeared in your paper in answer to the all-important query, 
 Is Marriage a Failure ? But, while I have very definite ideas on 
 the subject, it is not these that I would put forth in this letter, my 
 
28 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 desire being at first to clear the ground a little, in order that all 
 honest people can learn some of the facts upon which they have 
 to reason. 
 
 Some of your correspondents — and chiefly those who ought to 
 know better, to wit, the clergy — have advanced the doctrine that 
 monogamic marriage is a divine institution. Thus, a writer 
 signing himself " Presbyter Anglicanus " says : " My great object, 
 however, in writing is to enter an earnest protest against marriage 
 being called a human institution, as it is by more than one of your 
 correspondents. It is a holy mystery instituted in the time of man's 
 innocency, and which no human law can alter or disannul, except 
 for one offence," &c. Now, if this statement had emanated from 
 a layman it might have been passed over as a simple expression 
 of opinion, which, in a " free country " like this, everyone is 
 supposed to be entitled to. But, from one calling himself an 
 ecclesiastic, it comes with — and probably was intended to come 
 with — an air of authority, which I consider the writer has no 
 warrant for parading, if, indeed, he pretends that such an 
 authoritative statement can be inferred from the morality, 
 customs, and precepts of the Bible as a whole. 
 
 By saying that marriage " is a holy mystery instituted in the 
 time of man's innocency," " Presbyter Anglicanus " undoubtedly 
 means to assert that monogamic marriage was instituted before 
 the " fall " of man — to wit, when man dwelt in the Garden of 
 Eden. Now, without stopping to discuss the credibility or in- 
 credibility of this part of the Biblical narrative, let us (for the sake 
 of argument) assume the story to be true, and see what can, 
 honestly and logically, be concluded from it and other parts of 
 the Bible which bear on this question. Of course, some of the 
 clergy believe, or pretend to believe, that Moses is the author of 
 the Book of Genesis and likewise of Deuteronomy ; and I will 
 hypothesise that " Presbyter Anglicanus " is one of them. Well, 
 then, if Moses wrote the account in Genesis, and intended this 
 union of the first man and woman to be regarded as the type of 
 all marriages, why did the same Moses give a different law of 
 marriage in Deuteronomy ? From the Bible itself it can be 
 
The Answer, Yes ! 29 
 
 positively proved that the Hebrews were polygamists from the 
 time of Lamech, or, at any rate, all the great heads of the race 
 again and again violated the "holy mystery" of monogamic 
 marriage by taking wife after wife, and concubine after concubine, 
 until the " wisest of mankind " — the saintly Solomon — is said to 
 have had no less than 1000 women in his harem. Even David 
 — the " man after God's own heart " — was lord of a loving set of 
 ladies whose number exceeded " a baker's dozen ''. Nor was the 
 " holy mystery " of monogamic marriage, " which no human law 
 can alter or disannul," violated by the kings and princes alone ot 
 "the chosen people of God". Samuel's father had two wives, 
 and Samuel's father was a Levite ! And so I might go on, and 
 by innumerable instances show how little these later Hebrews 
 seemed to have regarded monogamic marriage as a " holy 
 mystery ". 
 
 But perhaps some Churchmen will be found to pretend that 
 the earlier Hebrews were not of this way of thinking. Good ! 
 Then let us see what Abraham, Jacob, Moses, &c., thought of it. 
 Of course, by the Bible, it can be proved that both Abraham and 
 Jacob were polygamists. Moses appears to have been a mono- 
 gamist ; but evidently this was from inclination, and not because 
 he believed in the absurd doctrine " Presbyter Anglicanus" pins 
 his faith to. The doctrine of the necessity of men being " faith- 
 ful " to one wife, in the sense in which such word is conven- 
 tionally used, is not to be found, I believe, in the Old Testament. 
 
 I don't wish, or care even, to discuss this subject further ; but 
 if there be priests of the Church of England or any other Church 
 who will controvert my assertions, I cast down the gauntlet at 
 once. Surely those of us who are opposed to Mrs. Mona Caird's 
 preposterous proposals can find better methods of defending the 
 most fundamental law of modern society — to wit, " marriage " — 
 than by bringing forward untenable views, or interpretations of 
 Biblical texts, which assuredly scholars will not assent to. I 
 opine that no man nor woman, endowed with powers of right 
 reasoning in matters moral and philosophical, can for a moment 
 really suppose that all marriage laws can be done away with. Yet 
 
30 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 the laws of marriage are human laws, and the only question is 
 what human laws can we devise for the better regulating of the 
 right. 
 
 In no civilised people whose career has been recorded by his- 
 tory has monogamy ever been the law generally observed by the 
 majority. Nor is monogamy the custom now-a-days in England 
 or elsewhere. When men and women are equal, mentally and 
 physically, it will be time enough to discuss Mrs. Mona Caird's 
 views. The ever-changing social conditions, with the progress in 
 civilisation which science produces, will probably ever cause 
 slight variations in the marriage laws to be necessary. But the 
 first change will have to be of a very fundamental kind ; for the 
 good sense of men and women must show them that the fright- 
 ful hypocrisy we now-a-days preach and practise has become 
 intolerable. It may suit the clergy, but not the laity. — Yours 
 
 truly, 
 
 A PHYSICIST. 
 
 Cambridge, Aug. i5. 
 
 The " Funny Man's " Opinion. 
 
 Sir, — I relate with a degree of pleasure my experience of married 
 life. I was married exactly three years ago. Since that time I 
 have enjoyed a period of two years and nine months of uninter- 
 rupted bliss. — I am, yours truly, GIPP. 
 
 P.S.- — I may mention that I was separated from my wife three 
 months after marriage. 
 Turnham Green, Sept. 24. 
 
 Woman's ^^ Deliberate Fraud" . 
 
 Sir, — After careful observation, I have come to the conclusion 
 that marriage is not only a general failure but often a deliberate fraud 
 on the part of the woman, who, in order to get a home and sus- 
 tenance, pretends to reciprocate the affection of her lover. The 
 result is a loveless union ; for however deceived the lover may be, 
 marriage opens his eyes, and the husband finds himself the dupe 
 of an unscrupulous woman. 
 
The Answer, Yes! 31 
 
 A lady once hit the secret of unhappy marriages, quite inadver- 
 tently. She had several girls to bring up, and endeavoured, by a 
 liberal education, to fit them for professions. One of them proved 
 incapable of adapting herself for any vocation, and the lady, in 
 speaking of the matter, despairingly said, " We shall have to get 
 her married ; she'll be fit for that, if for nothing else ". 
 
 The remedy is not far to seek. Open all professions to women, 
 let them have an equal chance with men in all businesses in which 
 they can engage, and then marriage to them will not so often seem 
 a necessity for existence. Give them a higher moral tone, which 
 will enable them to see that, in wedding a man she does not love, 
 a woman wrongs her husband and degrades herself, and then such 
 marriages as take place will be the outcome of genuine affection, 
 and cannot fail to be happy. — Yours truly, 
 
 A CRUSTY BACHELOR. 
 Hull, Aug. 17. 
 
 The Arts of Dress and the Realities of Life. 
 
 Sir, — Among all the letters of your numerous correspondents, 
 I have not seen one that even so much as hints at a most fruitful 
 source of matrimonial infehcity. Much is written about mental 
 and moral disqualifications, but not one word on the physical 
 side of the question. Is it of too delicate a nature to suggest that 
 married couples have " bodies " as well as souls —an exterior form 
 as well as " dispositions and tempers " ? 
 
 Let it not be forgotten that we live in an age of growing artistic 
 development, and there are few, even among the humbler classes, 
 whose taste and perception have not been influenced by the great 
 examples of Greek art. By frequently seeing these types of fe- 
 male loveliness and manly beauty, an ideal is insensibly formed in 
 the mind, which carries with it, unknown to ourselves, an influence 
 in our selection of a partner for life. The great attraction for man, 
 in woman, is beauty ; and whatever may be said of qualities as in- 
 fluencing our after-thought, the external is the first that claims our 
 attention. Few men will make advances to a woman whose per- 
 
32 Is Marriage a Failure? 
 
 son is not in every way agreeable and attractive to them. Thus 
 it is we fall in love with what we see or think we see ; and if the 
 mind approves the lady in other respects, it is followed up by 
 regular courtship and subsequent marriage. 
 
 Such is the general course of matrimonial alliances. But sup- 
 pose the bridegroom discovers he has been cheated. Growing 
 suspicious, he glances at her complexion, and has a suspicion 
 of pearl-powder and rouge ; and at times he is quite sure there is 
 a remarkable variation in the colour of her eyebrows and eye- 
 lashes. Let me ask what man is there of right feeling who would 
 not feel disgust and aversion at such a discovery ? What chance 
 is there of future happiness ? Is there any wonder that the lady 
 complains to her mother about her husband's unaccountable 
 "snappy temper"?- Now, this is a very bad beginning, but it 
 represents that which takes place in thousands of instances. If 
 the lady had had no shams about her, but had really possessed 
 the personal charms her intended husband beheved in during 
 the days of courtship, there is a strong probability a happy mar- 
 ried life might have been the result ; for, be it remembered, it is 
 the nature of man to tolerate things in a woman he admires that 
 would be utterly reprehensible in one he did not admire. 
 
 I am well aware of the storm of indignation that will be raised 
 in many a fair — I had almost said ''bosom'' — mind by remarks 
 like these ; and I am quite prepared to hear the indignant excla- 
 mation : " Are we not all as God made us ? " To which I reply : 
 " No, my dear young lady, very few of you are as God made you, 
 or would have you to be. Doubtless you will call this rank blas- 
 phemy, but it is the simple truth ; for by neglecting your physi- 
 cal development you have slighted God's laws. The Church, I 
 am sorry to say, is responsible for a good deal of the ignorance 
 that prevails. It descants so much about man's soul that it almost 
 forgets he has a body." 
 
 If it were not in my power to suggest a remedy to the fair 
 enraged ones, I would for ever have held my peace ; but I can 
 do so with the full certainty of most beneficial results. All are 
 advised to take daily exercise ; but walking exercise alone is not 
 
The Anstver, Yes ! 33 
 
 sufficient. Every muscle of the human body ought to be brought 
 daily into play, and with sufficient exertion to produce a gentle 
 perspiration, in order to insure any important improvement. It 
 is to the gymnasium I point as the great beautifier. If ladies will 
 only spend a portion of the time now devoted to patching up 
 defective figures by the arts of dress, in visits to a gymnasium, and 
 form themselves into classes, under the guidance of some ex- 
 perienced professor, they would soon be able to dispense with 
 many of the artifices they now employ to give rotundity to flat, 
 angular, narrow-chested, and stooping persons. The training I 
 am advocating (inasmuch as it not only improves the exterior 
 form, but confers a degree of health attainable by no other means) 
 is, I maintain, the true preparation for entering the " holy estate". 
 Is there anything more likely to lead to disunion than a whining, 
 querulous, complaining, and irritable temper ? The woman who 
 invariably answers her husband's solicitous inquiries with "I have 
 a bad headache " is not by any means a cheerful companion. It 
 may seem unfeeling thus to speak of female ailments, but every 
 medical man well knows they are for the most part self-induced, 
 possibly in some cases stimulated. 
 
 In taking the view I have done — that health, activity, and 
 womanly proportions are important factors in securing married 
 bliss — I have made no mention of the improved offspring of such 
 mothers ; but it may safely be affirmed we should soon see a 
 marked diminution in the number of sickly, pasty, rickety, goggle- 
 eyed httle imps that now daily beset our path — better by far they 
 had never been born. 
 
 It may be objected that my remarks apply only to a certain 
 class. True; but classes, in the aggregate, make up the sum- 
 total of the population. With respect to the lower classes, legisla- 
 tion must step in and " save them from themselves ". To the 
 observer of the last forty years, it is positively shocking to see the 
 gradual deterioration in the physique of the lower classes in 
 London. Surely our lawmakers must do something to save 
 certain classes of the British workman from destruction. 
 
 Before concluding my letter, permit me to add my opinion to 
 
34 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 those of your numerous correspondents with respect to Mrs. Caird s 
 proposition. While I would make it possible for relief to be 
 obtained in certain aggravated cases of conjugal wretchedness, I 
 would rather try and improve the old institution than propose a 
 new state of things. 
 
 The opinions expressed are not those of a novice. I have had 
 nearly half-a-century of married life, and I can truly say, " as far 
 as I've got," I look upon it as rather a failure, due, for the most 
 ])art, to the causes I have indicated and set before your readers. 
 — Yours, &c., 
 
 AN EX-ROYAL BRITISH ARTIST. 
 
 Bexley Heath, Sept. i. 
 
 " A Ruined Life." 
 
 Sir, — Fewer marriages would be failures, as pointed out by 
 "Student," were actions for breach of promise abolished. My 
 own case is strongly in point. When a subaltern I fell a victim to 
 the wiles of a "garrison hack," of about my own age in years, but 
 centuries older in experience. On awaking from my dream, and 
 seeing how unsuitable in every way we were to each other, I in 
 vain proposed that the engagement should be broken off, but no — 
 the father (a retired tradesman, a vulgar brute), a lawyer cousin, 
 and an uncle (a quasi-professional of some sort or other) appeared 
 on the scene, and so I weakly yielded, and accepted a life of 
 misery. We have not a thought in common, and by her mis- 
 management and extravagance I am ruined. An action for breach 
 of promise would have ruined me at the time, but I should have 
 been saved years of misery ; and, as it is, I have had to leave the 
 service, to which I was devotedly attached. I have no hesitation 
 whatever in pronouncing marriage a failure, the great delusion of 
 the age, and it seems to me that a large proportion of young men 
 entering upon it are, like myself, 
 
 LOST BEYOND REDEMPTION. 
 
 LcL-df, Aug. 27. 
 
me Jinswer, Yes! 35 
 
 The Divorce Question. 
 Sir, — I was married in America, and have been divorced in 
 America. The EngHsh law, however, recognises the marriage, 
 but does not recognise the divorce. Is not there something 
 wrong here? Why should I be bound to a faithless woman 
 when her own country and the laws which bound us have also 
 freed us.' — Yours, &c., 
 
 A SAILOR. 
 
 Fulham, Aug, 21. 
 
 " He dabbles in amateur operatic singing." 
 
 Sir, — I have read with the greatest interest the correspondence 
 on " Is Marriage a Failure ? " and should like to add my experi- 
 ence — as far as it goes. I am only recently married (last June), 
 and already have doubts as to the propriety of the step I then 
 took. My husband belongs to a cricket club, which seems to 
 engross a great deal of his time and energies, and he also dabbles 
 in amateur operatic singing, and returns home at all hours of the 
 night, not always sober. Altogether, my life is a most weary one, 
 and he seems unwilling to relinquish any or either of these 
 "recreations,"' as he terms them, in order to give a little attention 
 to his home and encouragement to me. Such conduct as this is 
 calculated to make me think that, if there are more about like him, 
 marriage is indeed a failure, and I hope young women about 
 to take the same step as I took recently will be warned in time, 
 and come to an understanding with their future husbands before 
 they tie themselves for life. — Yours, &c., 
 
 JT. 
 
 Kentish Town, Aug. 24. 
 
 " De Profundis:' 
 
 Sir, — I am one of those who have most unhappily found 
 marriage a most dismal failure. Married when only a girl, after 
 a few years I am practically a widow, having been obliged, from 
 my husband's brutality, to seek a separation. This was not until, 
 through his brutality, I lost an eye, principally owing to the 
 
36 Is Marriage a Failure? 
 
 very merciful law which compelled me to live with a man until I 
 was maimed for life. I do not wonder women ask " Is Marriage 
 a Failure ? " if their experience in any way approaches mine. Do 
 not mistake me : I am not in any way an advocate for the so- 
 called " free love ". No woman of sense or modesty could be so. 
 But why should that curse of drink and cruelty be entailed on a 
 suffering woman and innocent children ? — Yours, &c., 
 
 M. S. 
 
 Bedford Street, Strand, Aug. 2i. 
 
 " When t'other dear charmer's away." 
 
 Sir, — The carrying out of the old proverb, " Marry in haste and 
 repent at leisure," is, in my opinion, the cause why failures so 
 often occur. My wife and I first met on a return trip from New 
 York. Of course I thought her an angel, and no doubt 1 
 appeared pounds above my real form. A very short time saw us 
 joined, till death us do part, but we did not live happily ever 
 afterwards. Two months showed us that we had not a taste in 
 common. We don't actually fight, but both of us enjoy ourselves 
 better " when t'other dear charmer's away ". By the present law 
 we must remain all our lives as we are. If one of us goes wrong 
 so as to obtain a divorce, the Queen's Proctor will probably inter- 
 vene and prove collusion ; for if both parties desire a divorce, the 
 law- does not allow that. Surely, if two people really wish to 
 untie the knot, there ought to be some method to allow them to 
 do so. My wife says that is the only sensible remark I have 
 made for two months. — I remain, yours faithfully, 
 
 THE DOG. 
 
 Silvertown, Essex, Aug. 27. 
 
 Divorce ton Expensive. 
 
 Sir, — I was not too young when married to the man I loved 
 most dearly, but I regret to say we had not been wedded a month 
 when he threw off the cloak, and, to my horror, I discovered 
 
The Answer, Yes ! 37 
 
 that he was a drunkard. For a year I tried, by prayer and kind- 
 ness, to induce him to be a teetotaller, but he would not give up 
 the drink. A broken-hearted, forsaken wife, I resolved to leave 
 him. We have lived apart now for the last ten years, but I am 
 still his wife, just as much as I was when we were first married. 
 I know he is living in adultery with another woman, but a divorce 
 I cannot get because I have not the means. I am like a bird 
 beating her wings against the bars of the cage, and there is no 
 escape. If I could only get a divorce I would do so. Miser- 
 able as my short married life was, I should most certainly marry 
 again, believing as I do that marriage is not a failure. There 
 are hundreds of our poor unfortunate sisters who are dragging 
 out a lonely, miserable existence, because they have not the 
 means to do otherwise. If there was a divorce law within the 
 reach of the poor, there are many who would avail themselves of 
 it. As it is, life is not worth living. — Yours, &c., 
 
 A WORKING WOMAN. 
 
 Norwood, Aug. 20. 
 
 Lucretia's Husband. 
 
 Sir, — I must say I concur in the suggestion that greater facilities 
 should be afforded for divorce. Let me cite my own case. My 
 husband is a helpless drunkard. It is true, he earns a good living, 
 and keeps me in comparative luxury \ but is this an adequate con- 
 sideration for the fact that I have to associate with a drunken, 
 besotted husband five nights out of the seven ? — Yours, &c,, 
 
 LUCRETIA. 
 Westbourne Park, Aug. 20. 
 
 A Wife's Experience. 
 
 Sir, — I have been married nearly six years. I was exceedingly 
 fond of the man I married, and we seemed in every way suited to 
 "run in matrimonial harness,'' with one exception. We were both 
 
38 Is Marriage a Failure? 
 
 of us very quick-tempered. I married with the resolution of mak- 
 ing him a good wife in every sense of the word, and have not a 
 doubt that I should have done so had he met me half-way, or even 
 treated me with ordinary courtesy and kindness. I was daily and 
 hourly subjected to petty slights and insults. From the day I was 
 married until I left my husband and returned home my life was a 
 martyrdom. True, I was not ill-used in one sense of the term — 
 I was not struck, knocked down, or kicked ; but to a sensitive 
 nature there are worse cruelties than absolute ill-usage. In fact, I 
 found in less than a week that the man who vowed that he loved 
 me more than all the world was, like a child with a toy, tired of his 
 plaything, and he didn't scruple to let me feel it. I bore it as 
 long as I could, and then I went home for a while, thinking, 
 perhaps, time would create a change. Things seemed worse instead 
 of better. Shall I ever forget the misery I endured, feeling that I 
 still loved him, and that I was nothing but an encumbrance that 
 he would gladly get rid of? The reason I have never discovered 
 •until this day, if there is one. For 1 was domesticated, and not 
 at all afraid of facing a little hard work, and I was fairly well 
 educated. Feeling that I did not wish to be a burden upon my 
 parents, I went from home again. I lived on, working hard, 
 until my health entirely broke down, owing to the continual anxiety, 
 &c. I was seriously ill for some months, and the doctors gave no 
 hope of my recovery. Then my husband was sent for. He never 
 came, and I might have died among strangers for all he cared — 
 in fact, he would have been glad had I done so. Can you wonder 
 that all affection and respect died in my heart, and that now I would 
 rather beg my bread than live with him again ? Now the case is 
 reversed. He wishes me to return, to forgive him the pa.st — a thing 
 I feel I cannot do — and to make another start. I would give half 
 my life to be free once more, but that cannot be, and I still go on 
 trying to drown reflection in hard work, the only resource left to 
 me. In my case marriage has, indeed, been a failure, and I must 
 bear the fetters until I die. — Yours, &c., 
 
 W. 
 Birmingham, Sept. ig. 
 
The Answer, Yes ! 39 
 
 Mrs. Caird's First Reply. 
 
 Sir, — As I am writing a second article to made clearer the views 
 which I sketched in mere rough outline in the current number of 
 the Westminster Reviezii, I do not propose to make an exhaustive 
 defence of my views against the attacks of your correspondents ; 
 but, in response to your invitation, I shall be glad to make a few 
 comments on the much-vexed question, as well as on some of 
 the interesting and instructive letters which have appeared in your 
 paper. The writers may, I think, be divided into two classes : 
 those who understand what I mean to advocate, and either partly 
 agree with me or wholly disagree (generally wholly disagree), and 
 those who hotly and valiantly belabour an uncomplaining Man of 
 Straw, who naturally is as submissive under the assault as a Guy 
 Fawkes on the 5th November. At present, though I have myself 
 'received some hard blows, my views have really remained almost 
 untouched. What I advocate is one thing ; what most of the 
 letters in your paper attack is quite another ; and not merely is it 
 not the same, but often is accurately the reverse. Perhaps, in 
 writing my article, I, rather rashly, counted upon securing the 
 "candid and intelligent reader" to whom authors so trustfully 
 commend themselves. Probably such a person scarcely exists : 
 it is hard to imagine a being capable of candour and intelligence 
 on any and every subject to which his attention may be drawn : 
 it is too much to ask of human nature. Nevertheless this mythical 
 personage would assuredly have made comments, however adverse, 
 upon what I really did say, not on what I am supposed to have 
 said, or have, by a process of misleading quotation, been made to 
 say. Most of the letters are written by people who have evidently 
 not read the article. A few who have read it I must thank for 
 some very fair and interesting criticism ; though even in these cases 
 objections are made which would be immediately answered by re- 
 turning to the article, where passages have clearly been overlooked. 
 
 Perhaps it is through a natural bias towards my own ideas that 
 I fail to detect the arguments intended to be conveyed by the 
 many interesting details of family life which this controversy has 
 
46 Is Marriage a ratmre r 
 
 brought to light, by picturesque and charming descriptions of 
 Enghsh homes, or even by the communications from affectionate 
 parents about the colour of Tommy's eyes and Tommy's 
 thoroughly excusable predilection for jam. One feels powerfully 
 drawn towards Tommy, who, I am sure, is a delicious child (this 
 in genuine good faith) ; only when one tries to rise from the con- 
 templation of Tommy to the subject of marriage as an institution, 
 historically and philosophically considered, the connection be- 
 tween the two subjects becomes annoyingly obscure. My doctrines 
 may, indeed, be as evil as they are said to be, but mere excla- 
 matory assertions are not convincing, and not even Tommy— 
 strongly as he attracts me — can make up for the lack of quiet and 
 reasonable argument which is always the surest mode of showing 
 up a fallacy, and the only worthy mode which can be employed 
 by those who feel certain that right and truth are entirely on their 
 side. It is so easy to cry down a doctrine ; so difficult, it would 
 seem, to show by force of argument that it is unsound. 
 
 Names carrying associations of horror have been attached to 
 my views, and no words of mine can now save them from the 
 accompanying odium. However, after all, this is perhaps only 
 blow for blow ; for my impeachment of marriage, as it stands, 
 is as uncompromising as anything that could be said against the 
 modifications which I propose, or even against the licence which 
 I do not propose. By " marriage as it stands," of course, I mean 
 marriage in the common acceptation of the term— all that the 
 name connotes in the minds of average people, and all that their 
 opinion causes it to mean to those who enter into its bonds. 
 Naturally, I do not include in typical marriage the unions which 
 go by that name between persons who are able to rise above the 
 laws and ruling ideas of their time, and to anticipate by their 
 nobler interpretation of their mutual obligations the freer marriage 
 of the future. If they found their union on ideas of true justice, 
 equality, and freedom, they have gone beyond the scope of 
 marriage strictly understood, and even contrary to its spirit; 
 although, be it remarked, the institution gets all the credit of a 
 success which is attained, not through it, but in spite of it, 
 
The Answer, Yes ! 41 
 
 because the two life-partners have failed in subservience to the 
 ideas upon which it really rests — ideas which are delicately 
 shrouded from view until some violent disagreement brings 
 the pair into open antagonism, and then, for the first time, on- 
 lookers are able to realise what the marriage tie actually is, and 
 on what barbaric notions it is founded. To the question " Is 
 Marriage a Failure? " the answer might be, " Yes, unless husband 
 and wife agree to make their marriage rise superior in almost 
 every respect to the spirit of the institution as defined and limited 
 by the laws of the State and of society, modified, as these must 
 be, to some extent, by the religious feelings of the age". 
 
 Perhaps it may make matters a little clearer if I state, exactly, the 
 ideas which animated me when I wrote the much-criticised article. 
 I wished to direct attention to the historical aspect of marriage, to 
 .show how it had arisen in sheer barbarism, and how this barbarism 
 has been embalmed and handed down to us across the ages, taking 
 milder forms as the moral sense of humanity advanced, but never 
 to this day ceasing to constitute the basic idea of marriage. 
 
 Secondly, I tried to show how Might, becoming hypocrite in 
 the presence of an awakening human conscience, arrayed herself 
 in sheep's clothing, masquerading in the guise of Right ; how 
 the victims of the system were taught to accept its teachings as 
 the law of God and man ; and how the notions of virtue and 
 goodness were enlisted, and inextricably bound up with the 
 original barbaric conception, as well as with the nobler and more 
 modern ideas which attached themselves to the institution as 
 time went on, serving to bolster up, and make still endurable, 
 the savagery which they embellished and disguised. 
 
 Marriage, beginning in open barbarism, was continued in dis- 
 guised barbarism, which haunts and directs it to this day. My 
 contention is that the time has come to root out this barbaric 
 element in our marriage system, and to move onwards to a 
 higher and less tyrannical form of sex-relationship — one which 
 takes the idea of life-long union between a man and a woman as 
 its foundation, but insists, firstly, that the union shall be entered 
 into under social conditions which make it easy to form judgments 
 
42 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 of character, and to base the attachment upon sympathy ; and 
 secondly, that the pair shall frame their cnvn contract, and not 
 be forced to accept one whose terms they have had no voice in 
 deciding. At the making of the contract, society ought, in my 
 opinion, to stand aside : it is only in enforcing it that its duty 
 commences. But here we enter upon practical details, which, if 
 the principle of free contractual marriage be conceded as ideally 
 right, would have to be worked out by the lawmakers of the 
 future, whose knowledge of the necessities and possibilities of 
 their time will guide them in adjusting matters which are, for the 
 present, beyond our horizon. Possibly it would be found neces- 
 sary to set some slight limitations to the contract, to prevent 
 frivolous reasons being agreed upon for divorce. As little inter- 
 ference with individual liberty as is compatible with the liberty and 
 happiness of others ought to be the guiding principle in all matters 
 of practical legislation. Meanwhile we must be content with framing 
 our ideal bodily, and working towards it by progressive reforms in 
 the marriage law, and in the state of society generally. 
 
 My proposal, if looked in the face, is, after all, a development 
 of the present idea of marriage with the barbaric element weeded 
 out, leaving only the more civilised and nobler additions which 
 have gradually gathered round it. To this purified conception 
 we again add ideas which are the growth of social movements 
 of to-day, and thus achieve the highest ideal attainable by this 
 generation. In the present condition of things, social and eco- 
 nomical, a " free contract " would be free only nominally, not 
 actually. Therefore we must wait until the improved position of 
 women enables us to bring our proposal into successful practice. 
 With regard to the difficulty about the children in the case of a 
 divorced couple, of course it would be laid down in the contract 
 what arrangements were to be made about them ; but this point is 
 too intricate to dwell upon here. It will be treated more fully 
 hereafter, as well as other complex subjects connected with this 
 question. It is my belief that if marriages were made under the 
 conditions which I propose, in a better state of society, divorces 
 would tend to decrease rather than to increase. The present divorce 
 
The Answer, Yes! 43 
 
 law has to contend with the difficulty about children, so this would 
 be no new evil introduced by the proposed changes. Probably a 
 good many upholders of the present form of marriage take the 
 view of the "Family Churchman,'' who considers that my article 
 " audaciously opens a question which, from its nature, is for ever 
 closed " ; but as this vahant sentiment may not be universal, I 
 would suggest to the wiser champions of the institution that they 
 should pause to consider whether there may not lurk in it some 
 serious and avoidable flaws — some evil things sanctified which are 
 causing the enemy to blaspheme. When terrible cruelties are 
 practised in the name of morality and respectability, it is time to 
 cry out. Established ills, be it remembered, are always borne with 
 patience — a marvellous and terrible patience — till human endurance 
 can do no more. Nobody takes upon himself the task of attacking 
 chartered evils as a pastime, or as an occupation for elegant leisure; 
 the attack will be delayed till long after the need for it has arisen. 
 It ought to be recognised, then, that the protest — however mistaken 
 may be the views of those who make it — implies beneath the sur- 
 face of society a mass of silent suffering — suffering as pathetic and 
 as maddening to witness as the anguish of dumb animals. 
 
 Once more let me repeat that my object in writing my article was 
 to try to point to a higher relation between the sexes —and, in fact, to 
 a higher social condition and SiCntiment altogether — and that, how- 
 ever unsound may be my ideas as to the best way of bringing all this 
 about, it is idle to charge me with wishing to give rein to the brutal 
 side of human nature, seeing that my whole desire is to see women 
 ceasing on all hands to remain its helpless and obedient victims. 
 
 In conclusion, let me suggest that a wise partisan will turn even 
 the heresies of enemies to account, by looking upon them as words 
 of warning by which attention may be directed to avoidable dangers, 
 and to injustice and cruelty which might be checked. If all past 
 attacks had been met in this spirit, there would now be very httle 
 to protest against, and the feelings of the " British Matron " might 
 never have been wounded. 
 
 MONA CAIRD. 
 
 Micheldever, Hants, Aug. 23. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 THE ANSWER, NO! 
 
 The Case for the Defence. 
 
 Marriage a Success. 
 
 SIR, — If the institution of marriage were indeed, as it has been 
 foolishly said and written, a failure, it is probable that we 
 should be compelled to maintain about fifty times the number of 
 judges of the Courts of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes than we 
 do at present ; that the statistics of illegitimate births due to illicit 
 liaisons springing from unhappy marriages would be increased to 
 an almost inconceivable extent ; while the police courts would be 
 besieged from morning to night by the outraged wives of working 
 men, imploring the magistrates not so much to send their husbands 
 to gaol for ill-treating them as to grant them judicial separations 
 with alimony. If marriage were generally a failure, the beneficent 
 and beautiful organisation which the French term lafaniille, and 
 we the household, would be utterly and irretrievably shattered. 
 Husbands and wives who hated, or were weary of or indifferent 
 to, each other, would abandon the cheerful practice of fore- 
 gathering with their kindred and their kindred's children at 
 Christmastide ; and were society mad enough to adopt the 
 wicked and mischievous delusion that marriage is a failure, and 
 that some form of the monstrosity known as " free love," or union 
 by elective affinity, must be substituted for it, it would become 
 manifestly ridiculous for children to bear the surnames of their 
 sires. Christenings might be therefore conveniently abolished, 
 together with the laws of succession ; and we should become a 
 
I'he Answer, No! 45 
 
 nation of bastards, the offspring of capricious libertines, and quite 
 as capricious concubines. The writer in the Westminster Review 
 has either been incapable of formulating, or has not dared for very 
 shame to formulate her idea — if she have a tangible or a definite 
 one — of what the precious substitute for lawful wedlock should be 
 like. She can be plain and precise enough in the indictment 
 which she brings against marriage, even to stupidly and spitefully 
 sneering at old couples who have been married so long and have 
 loved each other so well as to be facially like one another, and 
 thus stolidly irritating to the critic, whose motto is apparently 
 " little and often " as applied to amatory alliances. But when it 
 comes to the explanation of a scheme for remedying the so-called 
 failure of marriage, we have nothing offered to us beyond vague 
 generalities and stale truisms. The lady only argues as a great 
 many modern philosophers of either sex have argued before her. 
 They display considerable aptitude in destroying existing opinions, 
 but when it comes to the task of reconstruction they have but little 
 to suggest, and that little is feeble and shadowy. At least the 
 Mormons and the free-lovers of Oneida Creek and the Aga- 
 pemone people have had the courage of their opinions — they 
 made up their minds to trample upon what society has, with 
 tolerable unanimity, declared to be the laws of morality and 
 decency, but they set up a new code of their own, cerlainly 
 thorough and even logical in the sincerity of its profligacy. 
 
 As a plain middle-class man, with twenty-five years of wedded 
 experience, I strongly and indignantly deny that the institution of 
 English marriage, at least, can in any sense be called a failure. I 
 have no desire to search the mystic rolls — if any such rolls exist — 
 of times of uncertain remoteness, when, according to our West- 
 monasterian guide, philosopher, and friend, the mother was a 
 priestess, an agriculturist, an herbalist, and what not ; nor, for the 
 moment, need I concern myself with marriage as it exists in the 
 different countries on the continent of Europe, or even in the 
 United States of America, in which last-named community, not- 
 withstanding the easiness and the cheapness of divorce, there are, 
 I will venture to surmise, many millions of happily married 
 
46 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 couples, with children growing up around them with the whole- 
 some intent of marrying or being given in marriage, just as has 
 been the case with their fathers and mothers before them. I take 
 marriage just and only as I find it in my own country, and in the 
 state of life in which it has pleased God to call me. I know no- 
 thing about Belgravian marriages, or military marriages, or, in fact, 
 any kind of " society marriages ". The people with whom I 
 associate are mainly business people, some of them wealthy, and 
 others in moderate circumstances. I have friends who have been 
 married for thirty years, and others who have been man and wife 
 for only a few months ; and I am candid enough to admit that I 
 have watched, exclusively in the middle class, a considerable 
 number of marriages which have been eminently and miserably 
 unhappy. When the fault has been on the husband's side, the 
 misery has sprung from his ruining himself by betting or by idiotic 
 speculations, or from his taking to drink, or from his incorrigible 
 infidelity and neglect of his wife and children. I have known, 
 too, husbands, who have ruined themselves and made their 
 homes a hell simply through their indulgence in the vice of lazi- 
 ness — that laziness which cannot fail to comprise the basest 
 selfishness, and is often combined with cynical unkindness or 
 with downright brutality. When the fault is on the wife's side, it 
 is that she overdresses ; runs her husband into debt ; that she is 
 a gossip and a scandalmonger; that she has given way to habits 
 of intemperance ; that she is a bad housekeeper and a careless 
 mother ; or that she is afflicted with a fiendishly acrimonious and 
 nagging temper. Jealousy, again, is a rock on which I have seen 
 many households split, and in more than one case religion has 
 been the means of making a once happy home thoroughly 
 wretched. You will have observed . that I have not reckoned 
 conjugal infidelity among the shortcomings of English wives of 
 the middle classes, and I have abstained from doing so because I 
 unhesitatingly believe that the vast majority of English middle- 
 class wives are virtuous. I have said enough, I hope, to show 
 that I do not hold my fellow countrymen and countrywomen 
 in their matrimonial relations to be only a little lower than the 
 
The Answer, No ! 47 
 
 angels. I know, and we all know, that there are plenty of ill- 
 assorted unions, and a good many thoroughly sorrowful and 
 desolate ones; but it would be as unjust and untrue to call 
 civilisation itself a failure because the other night an inoffensive 
 young man was stabbed to death by a gang of roughs in the 
 Regent's Park, as to apply the same opprobrious brand to 
 marriage because Mr. A. has eloped with a barmaid, or Mrs. 
 B. taken to whisky and chloral; because Mr, C. beats his wife, 
 and Mrs. D. bullies her husband ; because Mr. E. has brought 
 a fine business to rack and ruin through backing the favourite 
 or buying shares in bubble companies, or Mrs F. spends 
 more upon her dress than she does on her children and her 
 kitchen. There are spots on the sun, and there are very many 
 blots on the wedding garment ; but the bulk of English middle- 
 class marriages are productive, to my thinking, if not of ecstatic 
 happiness, at least of cheerful contentment. It is not to be 
 denied, however, that both husbands and wives have grievances, 
 two of which at least might be removed by legislative action. I 
 think, and think very strongly, that the Divorce Act is a great 
 deal too much in favour of the husband, and that repeated acts of 
 infidelity — say three — should, although unaccompanied by deser- 
 tion or cruelty, entitle the wife to divorce, instead of the present 
 pitiably inadequate solatium of a judicial separation. Then, again, 
 I hold that a man afflicted — or rather cursed, I should say — with 
 a wife with an incurably ungovernable temper, and a carping, 
 gibing, exasperating, maddening tongue, should be able to divorce 
 her, and vice versa. Timely divorces granted in view of a per- 
 fectly irreconcilable incompatibihty of temper would prevent the 
 occurrence of a great many domestic " scenes,'' a great many 
 more cases of confirmed drunkenness on one side or the other, a 
 great many aggravated assaults, and not a few homicides. Finally, 
 to close this portion of the question, I would grant a divorce in 
 cases of insanity, as also where one of the contracting parties has 
 incurred a sentence of penal servitude extending over more than 
 five years. 
 
 I am somewhat loth to enter upon another and most important 
 
48 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 section of this topic, because I have lived my married life, and 
 may consequently have no right to interfere with sweethearts or 
 to cast a shadow over the rosy visions of love's young dream. 
 The working classes and the agricultural classes will probably 
 continue to marry early, and to beget litters of children whom 
 they are more or less incapable of feeding or tending, and no force 
 of argument which could be adduced bearing on the imprudence 
 of early marriages will be successful in diverting them from their 
 purpose. But, on the other hand, I come in contact every year 
 with great numbers of young clerks, shop assistants, warehouse- 
 men, and such like, and I know the class of engaging and well- 
 behaved young women whom they yearn to seek in marriage, and 
 whom in a vast number of instances they succeed in marrying. 
 I think that every reasonable man, and woman too, should take 
 up their parable against these boy-and-girl marriages. The girl 
 knows nothing of the world, and the boy not much more. The 
 girl often leaves a comfortable home, where the few shillings a 
 week which she may be able to earn by the exercise of some 
 handicraft suffices to furnish her with pocket-money and the 
 means of dressing herself prettily, to unite herself, for better for 
 worse, with a raw hobbledehoy who can scarcely keep himself, much 
 less a wife and the contingent offspring. And when the offspring, 
 the puny babies, do come, the miseries rather than the joys of this 
 premature household are indefinitely augmented. I know many 
 young married clerks, as yet childless, who, save on Sunday, rarely 
 enjoy what is known as a " square meal ". They toil and fag in 
 the City all day, snatching such meagre sustenance as they can 
 afford to buy at a cheap luncheon bar, and returning late in the 
 evening to what is euphoniously known as a meat-tea, but which 
 is far too frequently a haddock-tea, or a bloater-tea, or a sausage 
 and mashed potato one. Meanwhile the babies, which often 
 arrive with alarming rapidity, may bring joy to the hearth, but 
 they certainly fail to bring coals into the fender or beef and bread 
 into the larder. The poor, overworked, underfed, and often 
 sickly wife does not dun her husband for money ; indeed, he has 
 none to be dunned for, for he gives the wife all his earnings, with 
 
The Answer, No! 49 
 
 the exception of the daily pence requisite for his 'bus fare and 
 
 his stand-up skinny lunch ; and the wretched little woman at 
 
 home, peaking and pining and fretting her soul out to make both 
 
 ends meet, inherits a fresh load of anguish with every child that 
 
 is born to her, and with every year that is added to that child's 
 
 age. She has baby's socks on the brain, and the eldest boy's boots 
 
 make life burdensome to her. These are the marriages that are 
 
 really failures, and to realise the infelicity of which it requires 
 
 no high-falutin' sentimentalism to describe. I declare that I 
 
 know crowds of young married men and women with from two to 
 
 six small children, honest. God-fearing, church and chapel going 
 
 folks, living in trim little houses, and wearing decent clothes ; and 
 
 I affirm that from year's end to year's end neither the wives nor 
 
 the husbands nor the brats have enough to eat. If they had only 
 
 waited a little — if they had put aside a few pounds in the Post 
 
 Office Savings Bank before embarking in their tiny shallops on 
 
 the great stormy ocean of matrimony, their married lives might 
 
 have been thoroughly happy. As it is, miserable as they are, it 
 
 would not be true to say that in their case marriage has been a 
 
 failure. It has simply been a silly mistake. — Your obedient 
 
 servant, 
 
 ENGINEER. 
 
 London, Aug. 14. 
 
 She " would rather live with a Tartar ". 
 
 Sir, — I have a sort of hazy ideal of the husband I would 
 choose. I imagine a grave, kind man, who is thoroughly good, 
 and will help me to be so also, and who loves me dearly, and 
 loves everything I do or say, who appreciates all my virtues, 
 and views leniently all my shortcomings, who never does any- 
 thing I do not wish him to, and who glories in my accomplish- 
 ments, and, in fact, thinks me as nearly perfect as it is possible 
 for a woman to become. Well, that is my ideal. In all proba- 
 bility I shall fall in love with a man who is careless about religion, 
 goes his own way in everything, has as decided opinions as myself, 
 and quite opposite ones, who can see all my failings as distinctly 
 
50 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 as my virtues, and who will not mind telling me that I am far 
 from a model. The question is — Will marriage be a failure for 
 me under those circumstances ? No, not at all, if there is true 
 love between us. I would rather live any day with a Tartar that 
 I loved than remain in single blessedness. I could introduce 
 those disconsolate bachelors to many good, pretty, domesti- 
 cated, and accomplished girls. All middle-class girls are domesti- 
 cated now-a-days because no one can rely upon servants. Lovers 
 should never make idols of each other : it is wrong, and the con- 
 sequences are sure to be disastrous, and husband and wife will 
 "find each day they live" something to pity and perhaps forgive. 
 — I am, dear Mr. Editor, yours truly, 
 
 FRESH FROM SCHOOL. 
 
 London, Sept. 12. 
 
 " Then every boy had his siaeetheart." 
 
 Sir, — Will you give a workman's wife a chance to say a few 
 words on this marriage question ? You have let the grand folks 
 have their say, and the great middle class have had free oppor- 
 tunity to express what they think. But the high ones and the 
 mediocrities are not England; and it seems to me the picture 
 of national feeling as to this marriage question would be like a 
 bucket without a bottom if what the workers of the country think 
 were not set out. 
 
 Now, I am a married woman of forty years' wedlock standing ; 
 therefore what I say is entitled to consideration. My verdict is, 
 "Marriage is not a failure," and I will show you why I think so. 
 
 At fifteen, when I was an apprentice girl, I fell in love with 
 my — -well, my old man. He was an apprentice boy, four years 
 older. We were very happy — happy as the finest swells that ever 
 wooed, though neither of us consulted our parents as to our 
 choice, and we enjoyed courting on the quiet, and we longed 
 for the day when we could get married. As soon as he was out 
 of his time we fixed the day ; and one morning we both of us 
 took a day off and marched away to church with a shopmate 
 a-piece for witnesses and wedding train, and were united by a 
 
The A nswer, No ! 51 
 
 good-natured old parson, who seemed to relish the job of making 
 so young and good-looking a couple man and wife. My dowry 
 was the love I had to give. His means were just what he could 
 win week by week as a journeyman. With no bank account, 
 and but the slenderest sort of " establishment,'' we set up in 
 matrimony, and we were as happy as was possible. Within a year 
 my first boy was born. He has had eight brothers and sisters, 
 and seven of them live in manhood and womanhood. Yet we 
 have never been anything but working people. We are not of 
 the middle class ; and I don't think we want to be. Still, our 
 life has been a happy one ; and it is because no one can win more 
 than happiness that I say marriage is not a failure. How can it 
 be when it has made us happy ? 
 
 I do not mean to mislead you into thinking that everything has 
 been honey and smooth sailing. We have had our share of hard 
 times — sometimes they have been hard indeed— and very often 
 domestic controversies have not been of the ' ' cooing dove " order ; 
 but what I wish to convey is that, putting this against that, and totting 
 things up, and striking a balance, I find marriage is a success. 
 
 Why are we made men and women ? Clearly to be partners 
 one to the other, and to fulfil the divine mandate, " Increase 
 and multiply". We are not put on this earth by God merely 
 to amuse ourselves, but to do a work. Woman's work is to be 
 a mother, and form her children's minds and educate their hearts. 
 But in acquitting herself of these duties she finds wondrous joys 
 if she be a true woman. What greater prize can there be in life 
 than to find, when the hair has grown white and the step is losing 
 its spring, that the children one has borne return her love and 
 care a hundredfold, and that every day the interest on the outlay 
 grows apace? I don't know of any; and I would not exchange 
 the love of my sons and daughters, and the fireside quiet that is 
 mine at near sixty, for the wealth of all the Rothschilds. 
 
 But in these days it is different from what it was when I was a 
 girl. Then every boy had his sweetheart and every girl her chap. 
 Now, it seems to me, the boys don't want sweethearts, and the 
 girls can't get chaps. For one youth who means honestly to 
 
S2 Is Marriage a Failure? 
 
 marry a girl, you find twenty whose game is mere flirtation, re- 
 gardless of how the girl may be injured. The times are ungallant, 
 and they want mending. 
 
 I suppose it is plain to you, Sir, what is the cause of this evil 
 condition of things. It has set me and a good many other 
 mothers with marriageable daughters a-thinking, and the con- 
 clusion I have come to is that those people who prate so much 
 about refinement and propriety — and who seem to have about as 
 much head and heart as geese^are at the bottom of the decrease 
 of matrimony, of joy, and of a healthy growth of our country's 
 manhood. Snobbishness has so wrought upon us, that honest, 
 heaven-prompted, social intercourse between young men and 
 maidens is now next to impossible. The consequence is a 
 growing ratio of old maidens whom God intended to be fruitful 
 mothers, and an hourly-increasing horde of selfish young cynics, 
 whose main aim is to contribute their maximum to the sum of 
 human degeneracy. To judge by the attitude of some of our 
 " big guns," one would imagine that the purpose of moral and 
 social regulations, and of religion itself, was to wipe the human 
 race off the face of the earth in as short a time as possible. It is 
 nothing of the sort, though ; and it is time the people of England 
 should be roused to realise that it is their right to reap as full joy 
 as possible here, and that as the fullest measure of earthly happi- 
 ness is to be found in the marriage state, they should resist tooth 
 and nail the stuff and nonsense which would thrust from us the 
 natural and rightful happiness of mankind at large, in order that 
 the wrongful and artificial indulgences of a few selfish people may 
 be cultivated. By all means let us have marriage, and as much 
 of it as possible. — Yours truly, 
 
 A WORKMAN'S WIFE. 
 
 Plymouth, Sept. 6. 
 
 " lie does not put his heels on the table now I " 
 
 Sir, — If you allow me I will tell the public some of my 
 faults for their benefit, and leave my husband, if he likes, to tell 
 his. Before many years pass we hope to celebrate our golden 
 
The Answer, No! 53 
 
 wedding, please God, and we are not tired of one another yet. 
 But I made many mistakes, i. Soon after marriage I was foolish 
 enough, being only in my teens, to make some comparisons 
 between my new home and my former one, to the disadvantage 
 of the latter. This reached my husband's ears and irritated him 
 a good deal. 2. I disliked some things that he fancied — say, 
 putting his heels on the chimney-piece whilst he sat on a chair 
 before the fire. I described the act in too expressive terms. 3. 
 I did not continue careful about tidiness in dress and table as I 
 used to be before marriage. 4. I used to run up little bills and 
 never liked keeping accounts, and when payment was sought my 
 husband seemed displeased often. 
 
 No wonder these faults led my husband to seek and enjoy 
 other society. But we had a great deal of happiness, and we 
 might have had twice as much if I had known a little more 
 before marriage as to the duties and dangers of a young wife. 
 
 I know how to manage my husband now, and have learned to 
 double his pleasures, which are not many, by sharing in them. 
 He does not put his heels on the table or the mantelpiece now, 
 or go from home much, or drink, or smoke, or gamble. We have 
 never had anything to spare, having a large family, but our children 
 are a comfort and help to us and better than money. 
 
 We both think Eden has yielded the two best institutions we 
 
 have — the Sabbath and marriage, and neither of them " a 
 
 failure ". — Yours sincerely, 
 
 WINNY JONES. 
 
 Swaffham, Sept. 17. 
 
 The Glorified Spinster. 
 
 Sir, — There is a great deal being said at present about women. 
 It seems to me that a transition period has arrived in their destiny. 
 Mrs. Mona Caird seems to object to the marriage rite, and, as far 
 as I can see, advocates something unworthy of womanhood. 
 Disasters follow hasty and improvident marriages, doubtless, but 
 a thousand times more direful would be the disasters which would 
 follow a violation of the sacred law of marriage. Women have 
 
54 I^ Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 enough to contend with, Heaven knows, under the existing state 
 of things, but only degradation and oppression of the weaker sex 
 could possibly accrue were the venerable sanctuary of wedlock 
 d.esecrated. I do not believe that any woman with a spark of 
 womanliness in her could honestly uphold such a doctrine. 
 Women are heavily-weighted enough as it is in the race of life. 
 One law is made for the man, and another for the woman. 
 Women are the weaker vessel, and " might has been right " for 
 long ages ; but in the present day a few females are beginning to 
 take an independent outlook, and to view matters — not as they 
 have been taught to view them, but — as they really are. As a class 
 women are oppressed, and men are the oppressors. A writer in 
 one of the current magazines speaks of " Glorified Spinsters '' as 
 one of the novel productions of this age. The glorified spinster 
 reads Spencer and Mill ; she earns her own living ; she dwells in 
 rooms by herself ; she lives honestly, dresses plainly ; and as she 
 is thrown on her own resources for amusement, she cultivates her 
 intellect. It seems to me that there does not exist on this earth 
 a more respectable character than a woman who can stand alone 
 and make her own way in this big, dreary world. And such inde- 
 pendent, self-reliant ones are not few in the present age. Men 
 require an amount of excitement to make them satisfied with their 
 daily life — drinking, betting, smoking, concert-halls, and the hke; 
 but women who go their own way in the world find life tolerable, 
 and even happy, with none of these. Women who look upon 
 marriage as the end of their aims, and who fail to get a husband, 
 are fretful, peevish, disappointed, and one feels inclined to wonder 
 almost why they were created. But women who have taken 
 broader views of life, and have found their work, and have done 
 it faithfully and honestly, and continue to do it, are not unhappy. 
 Marriage is not essential to a woman's life. There are thousands 
 of women leading honest, independent, useful lives, who have 
 tasted of some of the highest happiness with " no aid from passion 
 and no thought of love ''. Life has only two ecstatic moments — 
 one when the soul catches a glimpse of a kindred spirit, and one 
 when the spirit catches sight of Truth. Few women can enjoy 
 
The A nswer, No ! 55 
 
 both of these, for in the light of the kindred spirit they cease to 
 perplex themselves to seek for the light of knowledge; but the 
 woman who has no kindred spirit to occupy her mind may delve 
 into things and delight her soul in discovering fresh truths. Life 
 has its compensations : we cannot be inquiring philosophers and 
 happy wives as well. Therefore, my sisters, let us at least be in- 
 quiring philosophers. — Yours, 
 
 A GLORIFIED SPINSTER. 
 
 • Reading, Sept. 11. 
 
 What the '■'■Ingenue " thinks. 
 
 Sir,— Like little Mr. " Me Too " Piatt, in one of the late Ameri- 
 can campaigns, I want to have a voice. It seems to me every 
 high-minded woman can but regard marriage as being productive 
 of the highest happiness that can come into this ephemeral life of 
 ours — that is, a marriage based (as my grandmother would say) on 
 mutual respect, esteem, and affection. This sounds old-fashioned, 
 and like a grandmother. Neverthelsss, I think most girls have 
 the same idea snuggled away in their hearts somewhere. " Then," 
 one might ask, " what is the meaning of this new movement and 
 outcry — especially in America— of women's independence, their 
 absolute capability of taking care of themselves, their demand to 
 be placed side by side with men in the professions, on the school 
 boards, behind the counters, and at the factories?" It means 
 simply this — every woman must have something to fill her heart 
 and thoughts, either sent into her life by the course of events, or 
 forced into it by her own determination. Love and marriage may 
 come to her. They may pass her by : she cannot seek them or 
 bring them to her by her own exertions ; but ambition is her own. 
 She can find her niche and work towards her goal— whether it be 
 escape from poverty or a crown of laurel — without the assistance 
 of anyone. The result lies largely in her own hands, and no 
 matter how thorny the way may be in other respects, she can at 
 least enjoy the God-given gift — freedom of choice and action. 
 Notwithstanding this, or any amount of success achieved, I think 
 a large proportion of these brave women would be willing to leave 
 
56 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 off just where they happened to be, and give their hands to the 
 one who had won their hearts. 
 
 I may speak personally, and say that, though I am a member 
 of one of the leading American theatrical companies, though the 
 stage is very dear to me, though my prospects for advancement 
 and success look bright, I would not hesitate one moment between 
 a little home with the man I loved and the highest place on the 
 ladder of fame. The winged lad has not come to me yet, but as 
 the twenties have not advanced very far over my head there is 
 still hope that he may, and, if he does, he will find me ready to 
 go with him. In the meantime I shall work with all my heart in 
 the direction of the stars. 
 
 One word to those who contemn the sacredness of the marriage 
 bond, which, aside from being instituted and sanctified by the 
 One who reads all hearts, is the cement that holds society together. 
 Let Mrs. Caird and others of her ilk read one of Charles Dickens' 
 Christmas stories — " The Chimes ". It is to be bad in pamphlet 
 form for a penny. If, after reading that, they adhere to their 
 former views, they are further from grace than they even appear 
 to be. — Yours truly, 
 
 A YOUNG AMERICAN ACTRESS. 
 
 London, Aug. i8. 
 
 The Ugly Ones would have no Chance. 
 
 Sir, — Your correspondents have all forgotten one of the chief 
 objections to " free marriage," namely, that under such a system 
 an unprepossessing man or woman would have no chance of getting 
 married at all. At present, ill-favoured persons have at least the 
 satisfaction of knowing that nobody can have more than one mate, 
 so that when all their good-looking rivals are disposed of, their 
 own chance will come. But, under Mrs. Caird's plan, a handsome 
 man, tiring of one wife, could straightway take another girl from 
 under the very nose of the unfortunate plain man who was hoping 
 to win her ; and, similarly, a beautiful woman, wishing for another 
 husband, would easily persuade him to jilt an ugly maiden for 
 her.-Yours, &c., EVACUSTES. 
 
 St. Peter's Park, W., August 21. 
 
The Answer, No! 57 
 
 " Bob is to he good for the future.'' 
 
 Dear Mr. Editor, — I see you have allowed many matrons 
 and widows, and one lady who has been married three times, and 
 pluckily says that she " longs to enter the holy state of matrimony 
 for the fourth time," and clergymen and mechanics, and philo- 
 sophical persons, and " Altiora Petos,'' and " Benedicks," and 
 " Perplexed Bachelors," and, in fact, all sorts and conditions of 
 men and women, to pour out their views and say their says on 
 this really very important question. Now, perhaps, you will be 
 good-natured enough to let me have a little word in a corner, 
 because, after all, you know, I and those like me are really the 
 persons most deeply interested in the matter, and, like your friend 
 the " Perplexed Bachelor,'' I want advice and guidance. If you 
 please, I am a girl — I am generally called a " young lady," and so 
 1 am — but I am a girl all the same. I have heard papa, one of 
 the kindest and best men who ever lived, say we " belong to the 
 upper-middle classes," and I know we are pretty well off, for all 
 the boys (three) went to Oxford, and are all doing well in the 
 world, except Bob, who owes money to people ; however, papa 
 is going to pay all that, and Bob is to be good for the future. 
 Well, Mr. Editor, I am the youngest of four sisters, and the others 
 married, and they are all quite, ^wzfe happy, with one exception. My 
 eldest sister, poor girl, is a widow, and she is staying with us now ; 
 and though she does not often speak of him, I know, from the little 
 things she has told me when we are alone, how great and deep 
 her love and her happiness were in the old days. Now, I must 
 say that in our family circle we were in a sense always educated 
 and brought up in the idea that some of these days — " when Mr. 
 Right came round," as we used to say — we should be married, 
 and certainly, until all this horrid talk began, I never thought 
 there was any harm in the idea. Papa and mamma got married 
 just as kings and queens and lots of nice people have got married, 
 and as the lovable people in books do, except when it is a sad 
 book, and I don't like sad books. I have been a bridesmaid to 
 my three sisters — they say that three times is unlucky, but the 
 
S8 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 first time doesn't really count, as I was only a tiny mite in a short 
 frock and a big sash, and I remember I dropped my bouquet ; 
 however, that doesn't matter. What I want to say is, that I re- 
 member when my two present brothers-in-law — dear good boys 
 both of them, with nice taste in lockets, and very good to me 
 always about going to theatres and all that sort of thing — were 
 coming regularly to the house, and meeting us everywhere we 
 went, and turning up unexpectedly when we were abroad in the 
 summer. Jack — that's the one who married the sister next to me — 
 once met us half-way up a mountain in Switzerland, and seemed 
 so surprised, and said he had come there to look for butterflies, 
 as he was a botanist; and, well, there is only one word for it, 
 when they were " wooing " or " courting," or whatever you like 
 to call it, no one objected. No one talked about " institutions," 
 or "social problems," or "readjustments". It all seemed ^azVe 
 right, and natural, and joyful, and no one was sad, or gloomy, or 
 cried, except the sister next to me, and she cried out of pure 
 happiness, I think. It all went on beautifully, and after they had 
 had long talks with papa in the study, they came out looking 
 radiant, and stayed to dinner, and in the evening they said to me, 
 "You know you are to be my little sister now," and— yes, they 
 did — kissed me, and then I went up to talk to the girls, and 
 made them tell me the whole story over and over again, till they 
 said they were sleepy. To make a long story short — I hope you 
 will put in as much of this as you can, it is very important — the 
 weddings were fully choral, with " The voice that breathed," and 
 I wore bewitching frocks, and as I write I may tell you that I am, 
 so to speak, a double aunt ! 
 
 Now, do you think it wrong of me to expect that some day, not 
 soon, mind, but some day — I sing a song called " Some day " 
 rather well— I shall follow in the footsteps of mamma and the 
 girls ? At all events, I never thought it was wrong till I read the 
 cross-grained opinions of an evidently discontented married woman 
 like Mrs. Mona Caird. I don't want, if I can help it, to get 
 perplexed and unhappy about it all, and I do still think — of course 
 I don't know — that married life must be quite the best and 
 
The Answer, No! 59 
 
 happiest part of life. I don't want to " secure a fireside," and my 
 life, even if I am to be an old maid, will not be a " treadmill,'' for 
 I know we have each of us a good portion — I don't know how 
 much, but mine is in " preference" somethings. Now, I am not 
 a bit ashamed to say that I think I shall be married one of these 
 days, and that my people think and hope so too — and this is very, 
 very important, because, I assure you, I am not a bit in love with 
 anybody at present. This is what Mrs. Augusta Webster says 
 concerning "popular notions" on the subject ; "People think 
 women who do not want to marry unfeminine ; people think 
 women who do want to marry immodest ; people combine both 
 opinions by regarding it as unfeminine for women not to look 
 forward longingly to wifehood as the hope and purpose of then- 
 lives, and ridiculing and contemning any individual woman of 
 their acquaintance whom they suspect of entertaining such a 
 longing. They m-ust wish, and not wish ; they must not give, 
 and certainly not withhold, encouragement — and so it goes on, 
 each precept cancelling the last, and most of them negative." 
 Mrs. Caird says about this — I have read the whole article right 
 through to the end — " there are equally absurd social prejudices 
 which hamper a man's freedom by teaching girls and their friends 
 to look for proposals, instead of regarding signs of interest and 
 liking in a more wholesome spirit ". What is this " more whole- 
 some spirit " I should like to know ? I have plenty of dear, good 
 men friends — "chums,'' I might call them — and I know all about 
 t/ieir little affairs, and no more expect a proposal from them than 
 I expect to be a duchess^-not that I wouldn't make a good 
 duchess, if the duke was a really nice and honourable duke, with 
 a taste for music and lawn tennis. But I want to know if a man 
 loves you, and that you feel you begin to care for him just a wee 
 bit, you know, what more " wholesome " offer is he to make to a 
 girl than ask her to be his wife ? Some girl friends of mine have 
 read the article with me, and, although we do not quite under- 
 stand it all, we were unanimous in our little Parliament of Petti- 
 coats, held at tea-time to-day, in saying that we indignantly refuse 
 to consider any sort of offer except that which was good enough 
 
6o Is JSIarriage a Failiii 
 
 for our wise forefathers and foremothers. This may comfort the 
 soul of Mr. " Perplexed Bachelor," whose letter we rather liked. 
 I enclose my card, but not for publication, and remain, yours 
 sincerely, 
 
 A MAID WITH A MIND OF HER OWN. 
 
 Brighton, Aug. i6. 
 
 Marriage is a Compromise. 
 
 Sir, — I have read with much interest your comments on Mrs. 
 Caird's article in the Westminster Ea'ieiv, which seeks to prove 
 that the- present form of marriage is a vexatious failure. It strikes 
 me that this talented lady makes the mistake of wanting to esta- 
 blish an ideal state of things in a real world. Marriage is a hu- 
 man, not a divine, institution; in heaven there is, as we are as- 
 sured and can well believe, no marrying or giving in marriage. 
 Being human, marriage is a compromise, and, like all compro- 
 mises, fails to satisfy everybody. If the majority of mankind had 
 not regarded it as, upon the whole, a convenient arrangement, it 
 would not have been adopted, in one form or another, all over 
 the world, and would not have lasted as long as it has. Men and 
 women of every colour, race, and religion marry ; and women 
 are certainly not more averse to matrimony than men, although 
 Mrs. Caird is of opinion that they get so much the worse of the 
 bargain. In countries where polygamy is the fashion women 
 display no rooted objection to being one of many wives. Where 
 monogamy prevails girls are sedulously brought up to regard mar- 
 riage as the one thing needful; and of all the lessons they learn 
 this is the one to which the dullest as well as the brightest of Ihem 
 most rarely evince repugnance. 
 
 Marriage— that is to say, the union of a man and woman under 
 the mutual and voluntary obligation to belong to one another 
 exclusively throughout life— was considered the best practicable 
 means of repressing the promptings of what French realistic 
 writers are fond of caUing la bete. Its object was to avoid one 
 of the chief causes of quarrel, conflict, and homicide, to render 
 
The A nsiver. No ! 6 1 
 
 parents responsible for the maintenance of their offspring, and to 
 encourage orderly relations between man and man, as well as man 
 and woman. How far it has succeeded in fulfilling these objects 
 is a matter of opinion. Mrs. Caird says it has been a failure. 
 I incline to believe that it has proved a success. That success 
 has not been secured by the binding power of oaths so much as 
 by the influence on mankind of common sense, which suggests to 
 men and women alike that marriage is a salutary institution. It 
 is as impossible to draw any hard and fast line for human conduct 
 as for human thought. Each of us is the world to him or her self. 
 To some marriage is suitable, and even necessary ; others are born 
 celibates, so to speak, who, when they are misguided into matri- 
 mony, make themselves and other people thoroughly miserable. 
 No observant man who, like myself, has lived for thirty of his 
 fifty years in society, and has devoted any serious attention to the 
 actions of his fellow-men, can have failed to become acquainted 
 with many husbands vvho have been systematically or casually un- 
 faithful to their wives, and vice versa. Having travelled much, 
 and been a resident at different times in half the countries of 
 Europe, experience has taught me, with respect to my own sex of 
 the middle and upper classes of society, that strict fidelity to 
 the marriage vow is the exception rather than the rule, and that 
 women are more chaste than men. Idleness and affluence are the 
 chief promulgators of immorality, in the accepted definition of that 
 word. Not less corrupting is their influence upon men. They 
 are the worst enemies of matrimonial concord and domestic honour. 
 Anyhow, marriage, with all its shortcomings, is preferable in its 
 results to free love, which Mrs. Caird recommends as a desirable 
 substitute for existing arrangements ; for " free marriage " (her term 
 for the conjunction brought about by elective affinity) is all non- 
 sense — a direct contradiction of terms. How free love works, as 
 a moral and physical agent, can be seen in the streets of any great 
 city. It can be read in the chronicles of police-courts, assizes, 
 and hospitals; in the records of suicide, infanticide, disease, 
 drunkenness, and petty crime of all descriptions. No woman 
 should advocate free love, which brings infinitely more misery, 
 
62 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 shame, and disgrace to women than it does to men, whereas mar- 
 riage assures an honourable position and social consideration to 
 any woman who chooses to keep them. From this point of view 
 alone, not to mention many others that will suggest themselves 
 to every well-balanced intellect, Mrs. Caird's denunciation of 
 matrimony and advocacy of free love are equally unnatural and 
 reprehensible. 
 
 Is marriage a failure ? As a man in years, believing myself ^ree 
 from prejudice, and earnestly desiring my fellow-creatures' good, I 
 say No, and I believe that the vast majority of women will say so 
 too. As I have already stated, I have been brought into contact 
 with many unhappy, many unfortunate, many disastrous ininages — 
 as who has not ? — ill-assorted unions. But I have known ten 
 times as many happy households, examples of good conduct, and of 
 the perfect accord, mutual respect, confidence, and sympathy that 
 bind together thousands of husbands and wives in every country. 
 These households were the creations of marriage, and presented 
 features of stability, contentment, and well-being, such as have 
 never been offered by any of the irregular connections which have 
 come under my personal notice. To say that marriage, as an in- 
 stitution, is not free from faults and blemishes is simply to say 
 that it is human. Which of our institutions, I would ask, is 
 faultless or spotless? Are our laws, our Parliament, our ad- 
 ministration, our commercial morality, models of perfection ? I 
 trow not ; they are as good as we deserve they should be, and 
 no better. So is marriage— the best contrivance we have hitherto 
 hit upon for at once facilitating and dignifying the natural relations 
 between the opposite sexes, for guaranteeing the proprieties of 
 family life, and for averting many serious evils from society at 
 large.— I am, Sir, yours obediently, 
 
 , ^ , COMMON SENSE. 
 
 London, Aug. 9. 
 
 Marriage on Lease. 
 Sir,— I hope shortly to lead to the altar one whom I believe to 
 be as good as we frail mortals can be, and this question of "free 
 
The Answer, No! 63 
 
 love," " temporary marriage," or whatever its advocates may 
 delight in terming it, had little attraction for me until I 
 applied the idea to myself individually. No man with a pure 
 affection for a woman could possibly bring himself to suggest 
 such a thing to her ; and would any woman who could calmly 
 listen to such a suggestion be worth loving? What would be- 
 come of the various wives when they became a little old and 
 wrinkled ? The prospect of half-a-dozen men awaiting the termi- 
 nation of a pretty woman's lease, or even commencing their 
 overtures before the lease expired, would be ludicrous were it not 
 sickening in its loathsomeness. Widen the facilities for divorce if 
 you choose— it is but necessary and right — but leave the institu- 
 tion of marriage alone. Marrying for life has more or less been co- 
 existent with man, and be assured that, as long as we hold our- 
 selves better than the beasts, it always will be so. I hold that 
 marriage without love is an immoral contract — no one can deny 
 it ; and if " marrying on lease " were introduced to-morrow, you 
 would find that in every case where love entered into the contract 
 that form would be filled in " For life". Then why change? — 
 Yours obediently, 
 
 A LOVER. 
 Stamford, Aug. 24. 
 
 Marriap;e for Woman s Protection, not Man's Pleasure. 
 
 Sir, — In the course of the very interesting controversy — or, 
 rather, record of experiences and opinions — which has appeared 
 in your paper, the advocates of temporary union seem to have 
 omitted two considerations which I shall endeavour to enumerate. 
 
 I. In the first place, the natural tendency of man is towards 
 polygamy, the natural tendency of woman to monogamy. 
 This is shown by the most cursory observation. Few men marry 
 without previously forming a number of attachments. Everyone 
 knows the transports of the early love of a young man, and how 
 easily the unhappy lover is consoled. The love is not the less 
 real on this account, but with men love is transferable. When 
 Shakespeare wanted to make Romeo desperately in love with 
 
64 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 Juliet he purposely first made him commence with another 
 woman, and then, having roused the amatory passions, transfer 
 them to a second object. With women it is different. Their 
 passion is not so easily cured or transferred. We laugh at the 
 rejected suitor, but with a girl the matter is felt to be too serious. 
 
 On the other hand, the purpose of woman is to arrest the 
 transitory passion of men and fix it irrevocably on one object. If 
 a woman can do this for a man, then, as a result, arises the 
 beautiful spectacle of a happy domestic life. The man may be, 
 and generally is, of greater intellectual power than the woman, of 
 wider sympathies, and possesses greater moral force ; but the one 
 thing that a really pure-minded girl, with no very great intellectual 
 gifts, can do for a man, however wise and clever and good, is to 
 purify and refine his sensual nature. It is in this that she be- 
 comes truly his angel, and hence the secret of man's reverence 
 for the other sex. For in all things intellectual women are men's 
 inferiors. In music, painting, the arts, the sciences, what have 
 women done ? Next to nothing. They can copy, but they can- 
 not originate. Is it not notorious that women have rarely 
 patience to master any subject, or to persevere with it through 
 difficulties? Is not the sight of a baby sufficient to drive all 
 thoughts of learning out of the heads of nine girls out of ten? 
 And is there a wife to be found who would not sacrifice learning 
 of every kind in order to make her home happy? Here she be- 
 comes narrow, and, so to speak, would use the only MS. copy of 
 a play of ^schylus to light a fire to cook her husband's mutton 
 chop. 
 
 Secondly, apart from contract or legal sanction, on women is 
 thrown the suffering and care incident on child-bearing and the 
 nurture of children till they grow up. And to induce them to 
 undertake this, nature has planted in women that beautiful and 
 instinctive love for little babies which we see so strongly developed 
 in all of them. Bring a hideous little squalling brat into a room, 
 and the men either turn from it with disgust, or else approach it 
 with a hypocritical smile, only meant to impose on the adoring 
 circle of ladies who surround it ; and, as the child grows older 
 
The Answer, No! 65 
 
 in order to attract the man, Nature has to deck the little creature 
 with its fairest charms. Rarely in after life are people so beauti- 
 ful as they were when they were children (when not pampered or 
 made fools of by greater fools than themselves), nor have grown- 
 up people such attractive or winning ways. 
 
 Let, then, these two facts be admitted, that man is polygamous 
 and woman monogamous, and that, apart from contract, the 
 burden of the consequences of sexual union falls most heavily, if 
 not entirely, on the woman, and the truth follows— that marriage 
 was made for women. It is they who gain by it directly, but 
 indirectly it is a means of purifying and raising the more sensual 
 nature of man, and women instinctively know this. Why is it 
 that women are far more severe upon the frailty c f an erring 
 sister than men ? Is it because by nature they are less pitiful ? 
 Not a whit. It is because that sister has broken the law of the 
 trades-union of women, has surrendered herself to man without 
 the condition which, in the interest of her sex, she ought to 
 exact; has failed in the one great purpose for which she existed. 
 It is for this, and this only, that she is reprobated. It is the 
 female sex that loses by her conduct. It is their censure that 
 really procures her condemnation. 
 
 Now, I fancy I see on the fair lips of many of my masculine 
 lady readers a smile of derision at these very old-world ideas. 
 Many of the women of to-day are attempting to don the intel- 
 lectual garb of men, and, in fact, to " put on breeches," which 
 they wear neither with dignity nor with comfort. But this will 
 not deter us ; we men know that the things I have spoken are 
 true. We have most of us mixed in the company of women of 
 all grades of life —of noble-minded and pure women as well as of 
 those who are much maligned and often most unfairly treated. 
 And whatever we do not know— and we are very stupid on most 
 things regarding women — yet of this we have a very instinctive 
 conviction : That monogamous marriage was instituted for the 
 protection of women, and as a means of raising our own more 
 debased ideas of love, and that any woman is a fool, and any 
 man a criminal, who tries to tamper with an institution which has 
 
66 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 always been held sacred in the great and noble ages of the world. 
 — Yours, &c., 
 
 X. 
 London, Sept. 13. 
 
 What my Cousin says. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I should not venture to write to you of my own 
 accord, only my cousin, who is an Oxford undergraduate, says he 
 is sure you would like to have an engaged girl's views ; and also, 
 I really do think that if people, especially clergymen, were to 
 act on my humble suggestions, we girls would look forward to 
 the marriage ceremony in church with more cheerfulness than 
 we can do at present. Of course I have often looked at the 
 Church "Form of Solemnisation of Matrimony" in the Prayer 
 Book, when uriinteresting people have been preaching, and I 
 think it is one of the dullest and dismallest things I ever read. 
 It is enough to give one what my cousin calls " a fit of the blues " 
 for a week. Now, Sir, is it not possible to invent a service 
 which shall be more lively and less gloomy, and which would 
 send the happy couple (I think that is what they are called) off 
 for their honeymoon in rather better spirits ? I declare I often 
 don't know whether I have dipped into the Marriage Service 
 or the one for the Burial of the Dead by mistake ; but perhaps 
 this is due to the fact that mamma's eye is generally on me 
 during the sermon, so I can only read by fits and starts. In 
 the first place, Sir, if it is not wicked to say so — and I don't 
 see how it can be, because the Marriage Service is not a part 
 of the Bible — I object to being called "this woman," and I still 
 more strongly object to my future husband being spoken of as 
 " this man". I consider it as in very bad taste; but this is not 
 to be wondered at if, as my Oxford cousin says, the Marriage 
 Service was made by " some Elizabethan fellows ". They may 
 not have known better in those days. But this is just what I 
 want to say— that I think a new form of service should be 
 made, suitable to the times we live in. I should, of course, 
 cut out all that about "obey him and serve him," as I don't think 
 
The A nsivei\ No ! 67 
 
 a wife is exactly the same as a servant. I should also omit 
 the homily at the end, or put it much more cheerfully. I hope 
 there is nothing irreverent in this, but I really do think that 
 the marriage day itself ought to be made gay and happy, and 
 that no homilies should be allowed to come in as skeletons at 
 the wedding breakfast. I suppose we must have some good 
 advice about our duties to each other (though I am sure that 
 Tom will always behave as a perfect gentleman to me), but 
 may we not have it in private, and before the wedding day ? 
 Then, also, if it is necessary, let clergymen at the end of the 
 honeymoon give married people some more advice — my cousin 
 suggests "consolation" as well, but I don't quite understand 
 what he means. Perhaps you will not put this letter in, as it 
 may shock some people ; but as I am soon going to be married 
 myself, I think I have as good a right to speak as others. As 
 for marriage being a failure, I am sure that is all nonsense. 
 No girls of my acquaintance think anything of the kind ; they 
 all consider that the real failure is not getting married at all. — 
 I remain, Sir, yours sincerely. 
 
 LETTY S- 
 Brixton, Aug. i6. 
 
 Seeking the Life of the " Tiiiain-one ". 
 
 Sir, — Having celebrated my " china wedding " day, and 
 therefore twenty years of married life, I claim to be an authority 
 on the subject " Is Marriage a Failure ? " Before answering Yes 
 or No, I must inquire what is the quality of the word " marriage ". 
 If, as I understand, it means the "union of two hearts" honestly 
 joined together " for better, for worse," seeking not the life of 
 separate self but of the twain-one, then most assuredly only one 
 answer can be given to the question. No, it is never a failure. 
 Trials there may be, tiffs there will be, disappointments are sure 
 to be, but these are only the showers that make the summer of 
 married life the more beautiful. Thousands of happy husbands 
 and wives can testify that trials and disappointments go to bind 
 true wedded hearts the closer and sweeten love. 
 
68 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 If, on the other hand, " marriage '' is simply a man and woman 
 
 being "knotted" together by law and not by love, by form and 
 
 not by sympathy, well, then, in all such cases only one answer can 
 
 be given — "Yes," marriage is a failure. How many of us can call 
 
 to mind two individuals of opposite sexes, seeking opposite objects, 
 
 having opposite tastes, with opposite sympathies, going through a 
 
 ceremony at church or elsewhere, then calling themselves married, 
 
 but really still two separate and opposite persons, even after the 
 
 ceremony, as before it — this is not " marriage ". Put water and 
 
 oil into a bottle, and well shake them up together, and call it " a 
 
 union '' of fluids ; but experience tells us what a " failure " such a 
 
 union is. — Yours, &c., 
 
 E. W. 
 London, Sept. 12. 
 
 Solid Advantages. 
 
 Sir, — Referring to the very interesting discussion on marriage 
 now going on in your columns, will you allow a married woman 
 of twenty years' experience to say a few words ? I have not read 
 Mrs. Caird's article. Possibly her own observations and know- 
 ledge have led her to an unfavourable conclusion ajDOUt marriage ; 
 and others may feel the same without having her gift of expressing 
 their views. But it seems to me a mistake to call marriage a 
 failure, and I think it comes ungracefully from a woman to dis- 
 parage it. Marriage was instituted, I humbly conceive, in the 
 interest of the weaker portion of humanity, viz., women and 
 children, and 'it works more to their advantage than otherwise. 
 Men could probably content themselves very well— and many 
 do — with a system of free, i.e., temporary marriage ; but when 
 the liaison was over the wife would be simply a cast-off mistress, 
 with perhaps a child or two to support. The wife's state in 
 marriage is certainly more or less one of subjection, perhaps almost 
 of humilation ; but would it not be doubly so under any system 
 other than marriage? The woman, I suppose, was intended to 
 be subject. " He shall rule over thee,'' was part of the curse pro- 
 nounced on the first human sinner, Eve ; and it seems fair to 
 
The Answer, No) 69 
 
 suppose that had she not fallen she would have remained as she 
 was created, her husband's equal in all things. 
 
 One great defect in English marriages (wherein they were really 
 more unjust to the wife than Oriental unions) used to be that, 
 unless protected by a stringent settlement, the wife had no con- 
 trol of her property, and was relegated in the eye of the law to the 
 status of a perpetual minor or a lunatic. The Married Women's 
 Property Act was, however, a step in the right direction. Let not 
 my sentimental sisters frown, or my strong-minded sisters sneer, if 
 I say that an assured position and income will do something to 
 ameliorate a woman's lot in an unhappy marriage. So long as she 
 remains true to herself, nothing that an unfaithful or negltctful 
 husband can do will deprive her of these solid advantages ; but 
 in what other position than that of lawful marriage would this be 
 the case ? The concubine in disgrace with her master, the 
 mistress forsaken by her lover, are the most helpless and forlorn of 
 God's creatures. I write from a feminine standpoint only; and 
 while admitting that marriage is often very disappointing, it can- 
 not be considered a total failure so long as it carries on the race 
 legitimately and surrounds the woman with the dignity — almost 
 sanctity — of true wifehood and honourable motherhood. No 
 " free marriage '' or " free love " does this. Some modern sage 
 has observed that, " Whether you marry or whether you don't, 
 you'll be certain to regret it ''. Perhaps this is but another way 
 of saying that no human life is perfectly happy. 
 
 There's something in tliis world amiss 
 
 Shall be amended by-and-by. 
 
 — Your obedient servant, 
 
 FAITH AND HOPE. 
 
 Brighton, Aug. 10. 
 
 A Man of Judgment ! . 
 
 Sir, — If marriage is a failure in the majority of cases, it is for 
 want of due consideration before entering upon it. The passions 
 have been captivated by the beautiful face and elegant figure, and 
 frequently before the honeymoon is over the enamoured husband 
 
yo Is Marriage a raiiure r 
 
 begins to find out that tlie being he thought was an angel is, after 
 all, a mindless, commonplace daughter of Eve, with really nothing 
 but her beauty and a few acquired accomplishments to recommend 
 her. He has listened to his feelings, not his judgment; he has taken 
 a leap in the dark, and, when too late, begins to discover that, with 
 such a partner for life, he is more likely to have misery than happi- 
 ness. The remedy for such disappointments is longer courtships. 
 No man should enter the married state till he knows the dispo- 
 sition of the one he wishes to make his wife as well as he knows 
 the disposition of his mother or sister. This knowledge is not 
 acquired at once, it takes time and close observation ; but when 
 once acquired, and found to be satisfactory, all the chances are in 
 its favour that the after marriage will never turn out a failure. I 
 have been married three times, and can speak from experience. 
 I first entered the married state when I was twenty-seven years of 
 age, having been acquainted with the lady I married and her family 
 for five previous years. She turned out what I anticipated— a kind, 
 loving wife ; and when she died, ten years after, leaving me a 
 widower with five children, the blow was a terrible one. Some 
 time after her death I had an opportunity of going into business 
 on my own account, and I saw that to succeed I must marry again, 
 so fixed upon a young lady who had been an intimate friend of my 
 late wife, and whom in consequence I had known for many years. 
 She also turned out what I had expected, an excellent wife and a 
 kind mother to my children. After fourteen years I once more 
 became a widower. In the meantime my family and ray business 
 had increased ; and after struggling on manfully for over twelve 
 months I found that the same kind of circumstances that compelled 
 me to marry a second time would force me to marry a third time, 
 so there was nothing for it but to look out for a third wife. Again 
 I had fortunately not far to look ; for as my second wife had been 
 an old friend of my first wife, so my third was an old and intimate 
 friend of my second wife, and when she was taken with the illness 
 that carried her off, this friend left her family to tend her, and do 
 what she could in a motherly way for my children. After due 
 time, therefore, I offered her my hand, which she honoured me by 
 
The A nswer, No ! 7 1 
 
 accepting, though I was old enough to be her father, and now 
 we have teen married close on twenty years, without either of us 
 ever having cause to repent coming together. 
 
 I think this simple history of my married life carries its own 
 moral. — I am, Sir, yours truly, 
 
 ONE WHO HAS BEEN MARRIED 
 THREE TIMES. 
 Bath, Sept. 10. 
 
 Men " are fhe choosers "- 
 
 Sir, — Where marriage is a failure the fault in most cases rests 
 with the man. It seems the correct thing now-a-days for a man, 
 when he wants a partner to share his joys and sorrows, to fix his 
 thoughts upon some woman who, his most unobservant friend 
 could tell him, would not make him at all a suitable wife. Her 
 he endows with all sorts of imaginary charms and good qualities, 
 marries her after a month or two months' engagement, and 
 awakens to find he has been, as he calls it, " deceiyed ". Who is 
 to blame — the woman, or the man who asked her to marry him? 
 This is the root of so many of the marriage failures we hear about. 
 Though I do not quite agree with one of our modern faddists, 
 who says the contracting parties should know each other seven 
 years before marriage, still, I am sure a thorough knowledge of 
 each other's tastes and characters is a first essential to happiness. 
 
 The remedy is entirely in the hands of the stronger sex. They 
 are the choosers. We can only " stand and wait,'' and surely any 
 man of ordinary common sense can discern between the gold and 
 the dross in such a momentous question ; and there are plenty to 
 choose from, goodness knows ! Then, again, " good husbands 
 make good wives," but when the wife is neglected for male com- 
 panions, and the home and children a»e not appreciated, she gets 
 disheartened, and gradually loses all brightness and energy. There 
 are many good husbands who do keep some of their time for 
 home use, and, tell me, are not such men generally the best 
 satisfied with their wives and homes ? 
 
72 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 Your correspondent, " An Observer," seems to me to hit a 
 great truth when he says our domestic social life is wrong. We 
 want more variety of study and amusement in our home lives. 
 This is a question which concerns everyone of us, and can only 
 be dealt with by each one giving it individual consideration. I 
 may say, in conclusion, that perhaps my experience is not worth 
 quoting, as it is only observational. I am not "a disappointed 
 one," nor " an indignant one ". I am just waiting for some one 
 to come along between whom and mjself there will be " an 
 affinity," and then, if he asks me, shan't I make him happy!-- 
 and if he does not I inust remain for ever — Yours, 
 
 AN UNAPPROPRIATED BLESSING. 
 
 Liverpool, Sept. 8. 
 
 Bohemia in fault. 
 
 Sir, — Having in the exercise of a very curious profession been 
 thrown very much into the society of men who live almost wholly 
 without restraint and of women who, with their eyes open and of 
 their own accord, sacrifice self-respect, natural modesty, the love 
 of home, and the joys of maternity, on the altar of an almost 
 uncontrollable vanity, I am in a position to point out some of the 
 dangers that attend a careless disregard of the sacredness of the 
 marriage tie. There is in our midst a pleasant land called 
 Bohemia, a fascinating spot to which earnest men and good 
 women are daily directing their steps, a pretty paradise which it is 
 conceived affords an outlet for the -energy of the youth and the 
 latent talent of the girl, a gay garden with a fair outside and a 
 noxious atmosphere within ; and here, if anywhere, can be seen by 
 observation and proved by experience the misery that ensues when 
 men allow their polygamous instincts to run riot, and the bitter- 
 ness that attends the life of women who are too indifferent to apply 
 their monogamous remedy. I should be saying what was 
 deliberately untrue and shutting my eyes to the nobility and self- 
 sacrifice of many honourable lives were I to assert that in this 
 brilliant Bohemia marriage was an unrecognised institution. 'J'hey 
 
The Answer, No ! 73 
 
 marry there and they give in marriage. The original inhabitants of 
 Bohemia, the old stock — those born and bred on the soil, those 
 who are united hand and heart in the welfare, the traditions, and 
 the dignity of their country — lead their lives as pure and spotless 
 as their neighbours elsewhere. They follow the example that their 
 parents set them, and, having been inoculated in early life with the 
 harmless poison and miasma of the swamp in which they are 
 brought up, seem to be free for life from the disease that the fatal 
 climate so often engenders. But of recent years Bohemia has 
 opened its doors to emigrants — men and women who are strangers 
 to its customs, boys at the most dangerous and thoughtless 
 moments of their lives, girls whose heads are turned and are, as a 
 rule, unguarded by the safeguards of religion, men who fly to 
 Bohemia as a last resource after repeated failures, women who 
 seek to bury there the bitterness and disappointment of wrecked 
 lives ; and who shall say that the freedom of love there practised, 
 the absence of faithfulness there engendered, the diplomatic 
 forms of ingenious deception there exercised, ever lead to anything 
 but misery, disappointment, and despair ? If it be not true that 
 free love, in all its arrogance and defiance, is practised in this 
 Bohemia land ; if society, that flatters, fawns on, and ultimately 
 despises these wanderers in tents who are occasionally made 
 welcome in fastidious houses, puts a' certain check on the open 
 advertisement of illicit union, — certain it is that a kind of morga- 
 natic marriage is practised there that would shock the upholder of 
 middle-class respectability. 
 
 And what is the result? Married or not married, united in 
 church, in the registrar's office, or merely over the broomstick ; 
 bound by religion, by the law, or by a simple code of honour, the 
 man with the polygamous instinct is eventually found out, tamed, 
 subdued, and pacified by the woman with the monogamous instinct. 
 As the poet says : 
 
 Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours 
 
 For one lone soul another lonely soul, 
 Each chasing each through many a weary hour, 
 
 And ending sadly in a common goal. 
 
74 -^-f Marj-iage a paiiure / 
 
 I know a case in point — a case that would have been absolutely 
 impossible, save in this land of Bohemia, where the interference 
 of Mrs. Grundy is seldom tolerated, and her precepts laughed to 
 scorn. A man of generous impulse and loving disposition, a 
 curiously affectionate creature, who had a manner that, to most 
 women, was absolutely irresistible, married in early life, and his 
 marriage proved a failure. His singularly brilliant mind and 
 lively temperament were opposed to a nature reticent, morose, 
 indolent, and unsympathetic. Every impulse for good that he 
 had in him was frozen up. The home that might have been a 
 heaven to him became a hell ujjon earth. Sooner than " die 
 daily '' in this deplorable fashion, sooner than dwell in this end- 
 less purgatory of lovelessness, he broke away, and in a mad 
 moment entered into the dreamy and deceptive land of Bohemia. 
 Here, whilst doing his bounden duty to those dependent on him, 
 he entered upon a course of wilful polygamy, and became as 
 reckless as any of his companions. His nature, his brilliancy, his 
 charm of manner, made him a monarch in this curious country. 
 Almost every apple that he selected fell to his touch. Outwardly 
 he was the envied of his fellows, for who had more success? 
 He encountered the jealousy of rivals, he met with the idolatry of 
 women, but in his heart of hearts he was as miserable in the land 
 of free love as he had been in the married state. He was 
 enjoying licence, not love. His soul was sacred and his heart 
 was tainted. Suddenly he met, one day, on the outskirts of 
 Bohemia, the one woman who could purify his life. Some mag- 
 netic influence, unknown before, but felt by both, drew these two 
 together in a manner that he described to me as absolutely 
 mysterious. After all this life, after all this experience, after this 
 practice of polygamy, an absolutely new sensation was added to 
 his Ufe. He was rejuvenated, his brow lost its furrows, his heart 
 its bitterness. His boy's nature returned to him, and the life 
 that was almost hopeless was saved on the brink of despair. At 
 last release was obtained from the marriage fetter, not by the law, 
 but by death. The two new lovers were united, and in the whole 
 circle of my acquainlance I do not know a jiurer man or a nobler 
 
TJie Anszver, No! 75 
 
 woman than th€se two are to-day. They hve for one another ; 
 they are one in thought, in heart, in sympathy ; they are never 
 happy out of one another's society. Both have known more 
 sorrow and disappointment than ordinarily falls to the lot of man 
 or woman, for each lived apart through dull years of despair. 
 Whatever society may say, and whatever the Puritans may preach, 
 I cannot find it in my heart to condemn my friends who are 
 hourly recovering from the shock that an imprudent marriage 
 gave, and are daily thanking God for the comfort of a unity that 
 is beautiful beyond expressioti, and to them inexpressibly sacred. 
 But they have turned their backs on Bohemia, where the flowers 
 withered in their hands, and the fruit grew bitter at the taste 
 
 of it. — Yours, 
 
 AN OLD BOHEMIAN. 
 
 London, Sept. 18. 
 
 " The Scripture saii/i.'' 
 
 Sir, — I am surprised and grieved to see in the " Is Marriage a 
 Failure?" correspondence such a thorough ignoring by many writers 
 of the Word of God. " Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture?" 
 
 I, however, will confine my remarks to one point, that of 
 
 facilitating divorce, by which I understand not mere separation, 
 
 both parties feeling responsible for chastity, as when unmarried, 
 
 but such a separation as allows both or either party to marry 
 
 again. This is authoritatively settled in Matt. xix. 9 by Jesus 
 
 Christ, of whom God the Father said, " Hear Him ". " And I 
 
 say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for 
 
 fornication, and shall marry another, committeth' adultery, and 
 
 whoso marrieth her which is put away committeth adultery." — 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 H. C, MITCHENSON. 
 
 Christ Church Vicarage, Rotherhithe, Aug. 31. 
 
 Jack's Wife. 
 
 Sij.^_As a sailor's wife I am delighted to read so strong a pro- 
 test as " Anchored's '' against the letter signed " Lobscouse '' of a 
 
76 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 day or two ago. I threvv in my lot with a sailor more than ten 
 years ago, and each home-coming of his during that time has but 
 proved most conclusively to me that a sailor— who is a good 
 fellow— makes an ideal husband. Mine — and I say it with a vast 
 amount of pride — is, without exception, the most affectionate, 
 tender-hearted, and unselfish man I ever met, and, as I have 
 travelled much, and met many men, I speak from a" pretty wide 
 experience. " Lobscouse,'' though writing a nautical lingo 
 strikes me as being no sailor, or where is his chivalry to women, 
 the one bright and shining quality for which Jack is ever pro- 
 verbial? Truly his experience has been a bitter but, I venture to 
 hope, quite exceptional one. I like to think that the thoughts of 
 wife and home have power to keep Jack " straight," just as the 
 remembrance of his anxieties, perils, and deprivations would make 
 a thought even that was disloyal to the absent one a thing im- 
 possible to a loving wife. I know from observation, as well as 
 from my husband's confession, that great temptations often cross 
 Jack's path ; but there is such a quality, even amongst sailors, as 
 the power to resist. They are not all gay Lotharios in search of 
 amorous adventures, though " Lobscouse " would fain have it so. 
 I wonder if he has ever read a pretty and pathetic litde nautical 
 yarn called "Betsy Lee''. If not, I give a {&'^ lines for, his 
 benefit : 
 
 Ah, mates, it's well for flesh and blood 
 To stick to a lass that's sweet and good, 
 Leastwise, if she sticks to you, ye know ; 
 For then, my lads, blow high, blow low. 
 In the roughest day and the darkest night, 
 Her love is the star that will keep us right. 
 
 — lam, yours truly, 
 
 A SAILOR'S STAR. 
 
 London, Aug. 30. 
 
 Some General Reflections. 
 
 Sir, — A vast majority of the letters which have appeared in your 
 columns on this subject remind me of a well-known passage 
 in Edmund Burke's Reflections on the French RevolnHon. 
 
The Answer, No! j] 
 
 " Because," wrote that far-sighted statesman, " half-a-dozen 
 grasshoppers under a fern bush make the field ring with their 
 importunate chink, whilst scores of great cattle repose under the 
 shadow of the oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not 
 imagine that the noise-makers are the only inhabitants of the 
 field, that they are many in number, or that they are other than 
 the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome 
 insects of the hour." Your numerous correspondents who for 
 various reasons denounce marriage as a failure are the noisy and 
 querulous crickets ; while simultaneously there are scores upon 
 scores of married couples who, whether happy or not, have made 
 up their minds to "chew the cud and be silent," like Burke's 
 great cattle. It is idle to tell men, and still idler to tell women, 
 that if they are unhappy in their married lives the fault is almost 
 invariably their own, first from expecting more from marriage 
 than it or any other human institution will bring ; and secondly, 
 from entering into it without deeply studying the character of the 
 yoke-mate with whom they propose to run in double harness 
 " until death do them part". My experience of life during the 
 last fifty years is that an ordinary every-day husband and an 
 ordinary every-day vi'ife are pretty sure to be contented with 
 marriage — there is no such thing as perfect happiness in this 
 world — unless they embark upon it while still children and 
 absolutely without means. A young man, who is, let us say, a 
 clerk in some bank or large retail shop, earns a pound or thirty 
 shillings a-week, and finds his evenings desperately lonely and 
 dull. Having a soul above " billiards, pyramids, and pool," or the 
 music hall breakdown, or the shilling gallery of a theatre, he 
 allows himself to dwell in fancy on the joys of a home of his own 
 "with one fair spirit for its minister". Accordingly he begins to 
 keep company with a young woman, who walks out with him on 
 Sunday afternoons, and takes a trip with him into the country on 
 Bank Holidays. Their spirits soon " rush together at the meeting 
 of the hps,'' and they resolve with gaiety of heart to plunge into 
 the matrimonial ocean. Few young couples of this humble class 
 realise that their marriage, especially if " blessed " with children, 
 
78 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 means life-long self-denial in botii the contracting parties, and can 
 only be made endurable by the good health and cheerful 
 disposition of father, mother, and children. We are all of us 
 aware that these " conditions precedent " are more often absent 
 than present in a poor, dull, monotonous home, which cannot be 
 a blessing to either husband or wife, unless they have made up 
 their minds to " suffer and be strong ". I have seen in my long 
 experience happy homes in which a married couple have brought 
 up their children admirably, without ever having an income of 
 more than ^loo a year. To such couples, in VVhittier's language — 
 
 A dreary place "ivould be this earth 
 
 Were there no little people in it ; 
 The song of life would lose its mirth 
 
 Were there no children to begin it. 
 
 The sterner souls would grow more stern, 
 
 Unfeeling natures more inhuman, 
 And man to stoic coldness turn, 
 
 And woman would be less than woman. 
 
 I am free, however, to confess that there arc more happy 
 marriages among poor German than among poor English parents, 
 arid this I attribute to the greater thrift of residents in the big 
 cities of the Fatherland, and, secondly, to the simi)le pleasures 
 which are accessible to them on both sides. London, which is 
 the largest, might also be made one of the pleasantest capitals in 
 the world, if the poorer classes, and especially clerks and their 
 wives, could repair to places of entertainment in the suburbs, 
 where fine bands of music might be enjoyed in the open air, and 
 a glass of light beverage partaken of for a penny. For German 
 " beer gardens," which are to be seen in perfection at Berlin, 
 Leipsic, Vienna, Munich, Cologne, and Dresden, we look in vain 
 in the suburbs of this gigantic City ; although they have been 
 successfully introduced into the United States, and are frequented 
 every evening for six or seven months in the year by swarms of 
 humble residents in New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, 
 and San Francisco. In the winter months, which are far colder 
 
The A nszvcr, No ! 79 
 
 in Germnny and in North America than in this country, intel- 
 lectual pleasures — by which I mean reading books or newspapers 
 aloud — are the resources of many a humble home in all the great 
 cities which I have just named. There is no excuse for ignorance 
 in these days of universal education and of cheap newspapers, and 
 with the works of ail our best authors purchasable for sixpence, or 
 less, a-piece. A home with wife and children in it is the best peg 
 by which a man can be tethered down ; for Cobbett (who, with 
 all his faults, was an admirable husband and father) says, a lonely 
 selfish bachelor " has no one to talk to without going from home ; 
 no pleasant evenings to pass ; nobody to share his sorrows and 
 pleasures ; no soul who has an interest in him ; while all with 
 whom he comes into contact think only of themselves, and have 
 no care for him ". As a physician, I have always found unmar- 
 ried men and women more accessible to disease and more difficult 
 to cure than married couples and their children. No one has ever 
 written more eloquently on the joys of marriage than Robert 
 Burton in his wonderful book TAe Anatomy of Melancholy. 
 '■ Hast thou means ? Thou hast none, if unmarried, to keep and 
 increase them. Hast none? Thou hast one, if married, to help 
 to get them. Art in prosperity ? Thine happiness is doubled 
 with a wife. Art in adversity? She'll comfort and assist thee. 
 .\rt at home ? She'll drive away melancholy. Art abroad ? 
 She'll wish for thee in thy absence and joyfully welcome thy 
 return. There's nothing delightsome without society, and no 
 society as sweet as matrimony." Mrs. Mona Caird has uncon- 
 sciously done a great service to human society by lifting aloft the 
 dangerous and delusive banner of "free love''. Marriage is the 
 only safe and stable condition for men and women here below, 
 and my earnest advice to the young of both sexes is to prepare 
 themselves for entering into it wisely and discreetly. There is 
 more true courage in discharging aright "the simple dues with 
 which each day is rife " than in leading a forlorn hope. — Yours, 
 &c. 
 
 A RETIRED PHYSICIAN. 
 
 Mayfair, Sept. 6. 
 
8o Is Mairiage a Failure? 
 
 Respect as well as Affection. 
 
 Sir, — I am surprised that no one has touched on what, to my 
 mind, is the only road to real success in marriage, and that road 
 is called "mutual respect". May I illustrate this by my own 
 experience ? I was considered a pretty, bright girl, and had lovers 
 iti plenty. I admired some, liked many, but had my standard to 
 meet before I would marry. I met him in a North-countryman. 
 He was not so eligible in looks, money, and position as some of 
 my friends would have had me marry ; he could not waltz, was not 
 elegant, nor a "society man". Yet I honoured and reverenced 
 him, after a few interviews, as a man of unblemished honour, 
 untarnished reputation, a good son, and true as steel. I was con- 
 sidered hopelessly extravagant, too fond of having my own way, 
 rather bitter with my tongue, and as possessing numerous other 
 faults ; and I fully realised that, in marrying a man who was 
 sensitive to a degree, with little or no allowance for weakness of 
 any kind, and having his own rather peculiar, but withal high, 
 standard of what a wife ought to be, my life would not be all roses 
 and honey. Yet I was proud and honoured to be the chosen of 
 a good man, and earnestly hoped I should make him happy, get 
 somewhere near his standard, to repay the perfect trust he had in 
 me. On the eve of my marriage I made three mental vows. They 
 were — never to aggravate him, never to have a secret from him, 
 nor by any selfish or thoughtless act of mine to lead him one step 
 towards bankruptcy. Fifteen years afterwards I told him of those 
 vows, and although I have been a widow for ten years, I should 
 blot this paper with my tears if I attempted to put in writing the 
 love and tenderness of his reply. 
 
 I hope what I intend to point out by this letter will be clear to 
 all young people, viz., that there is no difficulty in married life 
 that cannot be surmounted if a union is founded on respect as 
 well as affection. Ninety-nine men out of every hundred will 
 listen to reason if put to them in a right way. They are not the 
 tyrants Mrs. Caird would lead us to believe. Let a man see his 
 wife happy, know that he is her Jupiter, that she honours him. 
 
The Ansrcer, No ! 
 
 knows not the meaning of distrust, and does not draw comparisons 
 between her own lot and that of Mrs. A. or Mrs. B., then, depend 
 upon it, he will make himself more and more worthy of that 
 honour, and the match will be one of the shining and convincing 
 proofs that marriage is not a failure. 
 A BELIEVER IN THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 Lincoln, Aug. 20. 
 
 Tke Co-u7itcr-jumpcr''s Experience. 
 
 Sir, — Your interesting discussion has not received many 
 contributions from a large class greatly interested — the much- 
 abused " counter-jumpers ". Speaking broadly, as a class, we 
 are debarred from marriage. In the first place, it is very 
 difficult to find suitable young ladies willing to share our 
 fortunes. The fact is that, in London and other large towns, 
 there are a number of girls as much fitted for being wives as 
 they are for flying ; and another large section quite contami- 
 nated with novel reading. The former receive no domestic 
 training whatever, but have simply learnt how to dress nicely 
 and to enjoy themselves at a poor devil's expense, in return 
 for a little flirtation. The latter have imbibed such high and 
 mighty ideas of the proper income necessary for the comfort 
 of a married couple, that, instead of seeking a man for his 
 good qualities, they simply angle for the highest bidder. On 
 the other hand, we are fettered with many disadvantages, which 
 prevent that economy and thrift which are so necessary to a 
 young man contemplating marriage. I think, however, that the ex- 
 perience of the more fortunate among us, who have not married 
 too young, is that marriage, in the majority of cases, so far from 
 being a failure, is a blessing beyond compare.— Yours, &c., 
 
 COUNTER-JUMPER. 
 
 Brixton, Aug. 18. 
 
 What is to become of the Wife? 
 
 Sir, Mrs. Mona Caird, in her essay, raises a question well 
 
 worthy of consideration. "Is marriage a failure?" she asks, 
 
Is Marriasce a Failure ? 
 
 and I am afraid that a good many people will answer, as she 
 does, in the affirmative ; that is to say, their own marriages 
 are failures, and so they are tempted to assail the matrimonial 
 institution as a whole. They agree with Pimch's old advice 
 to persons about to marry — " Don't ". They also seem to 
 share the sentiment variously expressed by Montaigne, John 
 Webster, Sir John Davis, Emerson, and many another writer, 
 that marriage is like a show, a fortress, a cage, where " they 
 that are without would fain go in, and they that are within 
 would fain go out ". Perhajis no human institution has ever 
 been so bitterly railed against as that of marriage, none which 
 so many people would wish to see subjected to new and 
 improved rules and regulations. But what are its new condi- 
 tions to be? What are we to do so that those who wed shall 
 " live happy ever after " ? It is a large question, not easily 
 answered ; and I doubt whether the boldest foes of matrimony 
 will venture seriously to accept Mrs. Caird's daring solution — 
 "free marriage ". That lady seems disposed to endorse Hamlet's 
 desperate decree : " We will have no more marriages ". She is 
 inclined to adopt, in this matter of the association of the sexes, 
 the motto of the dissolute, sham monks of Medmenham — '■^ Fay 
 ce que voudras". "A pretty state of things!" all but the most 
 " strong-minded " of British matrons and maidens will exclaim. 
 Young men and women are to make a sort of compact of their 
 own, without any "impertinent" interference on the part of 
 the law or society ; to live together just as long as they please, 
 and no longer ; to contract a marriage with limited liability, 
 regulated alone by their own sweet — or bitter — wills. To put 
 the proposition is enough in itself to expose its utter absurdity 
 and impracticability. What, under this precious " free ' marriage, 
 is to become of the children, if there be any ? What is to be- 
 come of the wife? Is she to go back to her parents, who 
 fondly believed that they had got rid of her for life? Must 
 her late husband, with whom she has so " freely " parted, make 
 her an allowance, and, if so, how is it to be enforced ? Is tlie 
 law to step in here after having been scouted as " impertinent " 
 
The Ansiver, No ! 
 
 when it sought to tie the nuptial knot? If otherwise, how is 
 the "free'' woman to Hve ? These are questions with which 
 Mrs. Caird does not deign to trouble herself, but they will 
 trouble other persons very much indeed. I think it a sheer 
 waste of time to consider what must be the state of society in 
 civilised countries in which Mrs. Caird's " free marriage " system 
 should prevail. There are questions of decency and morality 
 involved in it, which will so readily occur to any rational mind 
 that it is quite needless to discuss them. No; the institution 
 of marriage may have its inconveniences and difficulties, its 
 hardships and sufferings, its anomalies and injustices ; but 
 these evils are not to be remedied by such a preposterous 
 panacea as " free marriage ". That would be jumping out of 
 the frying-pan into the fire with a vengeance ! 
 
 That marriage — "the present form of marriage" — is on the 
 whole " a failure," I am not prepared to admit, notwithstanding 
 the undoubted fact that so large a proportion of marriages are 
 more or less disappointing in their results. What human institu- 
 tion may not be in the same way denounced as a failure simply 
 because it has so frequently failed? How often do we find some 
 irritable and impatient person or people who, having discovered 
 many faults in the institutions under which they live, condemn 
 them wholesale, and declare their wish to throw them over or 
 shake them off! Nay, in a moment of extreme provocation has 
 not a disappointed " friend of man " been tempted to raise the 
 cry, " Is our civilisation a failure ? " There is no stronger tendency 
 in ill-regulated minds than this disposition to upset everything 
 ' because something has gone wrong. Marriages have often failed, 
 therefore marriage is a " vexatious failure "—such is Mrs. Caird's 
 logic. But let us apply a little severe common sense, based on 
 experience, to this question. There are few among us who could 
 not adduce a multitude of instances of ill-assorted unions ; there 
 are few, I fear, who can declare that they know of many com- 
 pletely happy marriages. How many claimants would there be 
 for the famous " Dunmow flitch " if competition for that precious 
 prize were universal in this country ? The percentage, even of 
 
84 IsJMarriage a Failure ? 
 
 pretenders, I am afraid, would not be very large. But what of 
 that ? Is any condition of life perfectly happy ? Supposing some 
 daring theorist were to raise the question, " Is celibacy a failure ?" 
 what is the answer likely to be? I take it that there is quite as 
 great a proportion of unhappy single men and women as of miser- 
 able married couples. And the mind shrinks in horror from the 
 thought of what the response would probably be — if Mrs. Caird 
 could have her way — to such an inquiry as " Is free marriage a 
 failure?" Yes, it must be sadly admitted that many marriages 
 turn out very badly indeed, and that few turn out very well. Out 
 of a thousand wedded couples, how many of either sex do not 
 wish that they had married some one else ? Regrets of this sort 
 are common enough, no doubt, but where is the remedy to be 
 found ? I am not speaking of very extreme cases — I do not refer 
 to instances of gross infidelity, cruelty, and persecution on either 
 side — I do not allude to downright bad husbands or bad wives. 
 Here the law does provide a remedy, in judicial separation or 
 divorce. What I have in view — what Mrs. Caird also was doubt- 
 less thinking of — are those examples of incompatibility of temper 
 and disposition, discovered, alas ! when too late ; those mutual 
 misunderstandings and differences, those jealousies and suspicions 
 which divide husbands and wives, those '" rifts within the lute," 
 which, " ever widening," have " made the music mute ". , Two 
 people have bound themselves to each other who find that they 
 have no sympathy in common, who, after the first passion of love 
 has died away, discover that there is nothing else to unite them. 
 These couples are much to be pitied, no doubt, and they were 
 better apart, if possible. Nor am I prepared to say that, if some 
 mode of legally and completely dissolving marriage without dis- 
 grace to either party could be estabhshed, much advantage would 
 not be gained under certain peculiar and special circumstances. 
 But the conditions under which this would be practicable are very 
 rare, and, perhaps, would be hardly sufficient to call for an altera- 
 tion in the law. In most instances, many and great difficulties 
 would stand in the way of such dissolution of marriage. It would 
 be extremely puzzling to decide what amount of incompatibility 
 
The Anszver, No I 85 
 
 would justify total separation. Then there are the worldly circum- 
 stances of the parties to be considered, and the questions — What is 
 to become of the wife ? What about the interests of the children 
 when the union has resulted in offspring ? 
 
 There is, after all, but one safe remedy for unhappy marriages 
 — to bear and forbear. Life is full of suffering, under every con- 
 dition, and a vast amount of pain and hardship has to be endured 
 under all sorts of circumstances, and in matrimony neither more 
 nor less than in any other state — perhaps, indeed, less ; for the 
 suffering I speak of is mental rather than physical, and is, there- 
 fore, to some extent at least, under the control of the mind. Half 
 the miseries incidental to married life are matters of feeling, senti- 
 ment,' passion, and so forth, and a very large proportion of them 
 may be cured, or at least alleviated, by self-restraint, tact, and 
 fortitude. Women who complain that they are " misunderstood " 
 or " neglected '' do not sufficiently consider this. They forget the 
 spirit of Swift's shrewd saying that " the reason why so few mar- 
 riages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in 
 making nets, not in making cages ". If all matrimonial troubles 
 were traced to their source, I doubt whether most of them would 
 not be found due to a want of tact and discretion on the part of 
 the lady who has, unfortunately, not learned that great art, " the 
 way to keep him ". That is why so many marriages fail, and why 
 inconsiderate and shallow minds rush to the conclusion that there- 
 fore " marriage is a failure ". — I am, yours truly, 
 
 A PLAIN MAN. 
 
 London, N.W., Aug. g. 
 
 Independence plus Common Setise. 
 
 Sir, — I have not seen any communication on this subject from 
 one of the artisan class, of whom the majority of married people 
 are composed. They, of all people, form the class to whom the 
 failure or success of marriage is of the utmost importance, as they 
 depend more than any on home pleasures, on account of their 
 restricted purses. How is married life to be made the happiest 
 life to them ? I can best answer the question by giving my own 
 
86 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 experience. I was married at twenty-four years of age, having 
 courted for five years. I had only enough money to get married 
 with, and earned at that time 30s. a-week. We furnished as we 
 went along — that is, we bought for cash, and consequently pur- 
 chased at the cheapest rate. We have been married five years, 
 and have now two children. We have at no time been a penny 
 in debt, thereby fulfilling the conditions of being rich, for we are 
 told that "the rich man is he who is not in debt". Glorious in- 
 dependence is one cause of our married success ; another is that 
 we have no individual secrets ; but the chief cause is the fact that 
 we love each other. It is simply disgusting to hear many of your 
 correspondents lamenting the impossibility of being able to live on 
 Ji^oo a-year. Life, whether married or single, must ever be a 
 failure unless that miserable affection of being better off than we 
 really are is dropped. We, instead, live in honour and honesty in 
 that state of life to which it has pleased God to call us. — Yours, &c., 
 
 A TRULY HAPPY HUSBAND. 
 
 Peterborough, Sept. 12. 
 
 " Till death do them part." 
 
 Sir, — It is a matter of intense surprise to myself and other men, 
 who have been in Turkey, India, China, &c., to find that any 
 English ladies should be so far " left to themselves," as the Scotch 
 say, as to imagine for a moment that they could retain their jjresent 
 position in society if the marriage tie were to be even loosened, 
 let alone abolished. The Christian doctrine of one wife, "till 
 death do them part," has done more to elevate humanity, and 
 especially women, than all the other resources of civilisation, and 
 it would be a very short time before all the sex would repent the 
 change in sackcloth and ashes if ever it was made. Happily, this 
 is more than improbable. Apart from any question of belief in 
 Christianity, women of every class will find their best hopes of 
 happiness, whether wedded or single, in the general acceptance by 
 mankind of its pure and elevating doctrines, including that of 
 marriage.- Yours, &c., ARCHIBALD T. MILLER. 
 
 London, Sept. 11. 
 
The Ansiver, No ! 87 
 
 An Emphatic "No/" 
 
 Sir, — Being a married man, I have naturally read with much 
 interest your review of Mrs. Mona Caird's article and the corre- 
 spondence which has followed in your columns. I have been 
 married nearly six years, and, looking at the matter calmly and 
 dispassionately, I can give an emphatic "No!" in answer to the 
 question " Is Marriage a Failure? " Will you permit me to state 
 why, in my case, it has not been a failure ? I chose my wife from 
 my own station in life We became acquainted almost before 1 
 could maintain even myself. We courted several years, until I 
 was well able to keep a wife in certainly not an inferior position 
 to that to which she had been accustomed. Previous to marriage 
 I had abundant opportunities of seeing her in every position a 
 working or middle class man's wife would have to occupy. At 
 the washtub, at the pasteboard, at the piano, she was equally at 
 home. She is not what some would call pretty, but is good-look- 
 ing, has an amiable disposition, is strong and healthy, and well- 
 educated. 
 
 I regard marriage as a divine institution, and on my wedding 
 morn I prayed earnestly to the God who originated it that He 
 would help me to be true to the vows 1 was about to take upon 
 myself, and to bless our union. I have repeated that prayer 
 every day since, and it has been abundantly answered. I have 
 found the circumstances of married life productive of many causes 
 of irritation and friction, calling for self-denial on both sides. 
 We have two children, who have brought us much joy, as well 
 as many cares, which we share together. I have had to give up 
 many of the companions of bachelorhood and some of its pleasures 
 and [pursuits, but the self denial I have had to exercise and the 
 seeking of another's well-being and happiness have had a salutary 
 and elevating effect upon me, and I believe I am in every way a 
 better man because a married man. We seek our pleasures to- 
 gether, and we bear our cares together. The centre of my interest 
 in this world is my home, and the centre of my home (which is 
 home indeed) is my wife. She is now away from me with the 
 
S8 Is Marriage a Faihire ? 
 
 children for a few weeks in the country ; and, although I have a 
 circle of very interesting friends with whom I can spend my 
 evenings, and so relieve the monotony of our voluntary separa- 
 tion, I find no compensation for the smiling face and warm 
 welcome of my wife, and the boisterous conduct and apparent 
 delight of my youngsters as I enter my home. 
 
 I am a young man, and I would humbly offer my advice to 
 young men contemplating marriage, viz. : Uon't marry until you 
 can really afford to do so. Don't marry a doll, simply face and 
 dress, but a woman, and take care that she marries a man. Don't 
 marry for money but for love ; make up your mind to live for 
 your wife, and she will hve for you, for your wife will be to a 
 large extent what you make her. — Yours faithfully, " 
 
 A SUCCESSFULLY MARRIED MAN. 
 
 Kassala Road, Battersea Park, Aug. i6. 
 
 " There is no magic in ?narriage." 
 
 Sir, — The well-known impartiality with which, "whenever your 
 columns are open for the discussion of any social topic, you permit 
 anyone who has got anything to say about it to say it renders it 
 unnecessary for me to apologise for this intrusion on the score that 
 I am only a working man. Indeed, I am a little surprised that 
 out of the large number of letters you have printed scarcely any 
 have been sent you from the class to which I belong. The 
 reason cannot be that the question " Is Marriage a Failure ? " is 
 one in which the lower class take no particular interest. It 
 appears to me that for a working man to take a wife is an even 
 more serious affair, as bearing on his future happiness, than for 
 the individual of superior social position who ventures on the 
 same experiment. Practically speaking, the coupling is much 
 closer in the one case than the other. Tlie man of means 
 although a very good fellow and an affectionate husband, may 
 find the matrimonial yoke a little irksome at first, but he may 
 gradually accustom himself to it. He need not be always at 
 
Tlie A iiszver. No ! 89 
 
 home, and yet not lay himself open to the charge of being 
 neglectful. He has his club, where he can occasionally dine, and 
 he has leisure for a little harmless amusement, while his wife, who, 
 of course, has her friends and acquaintainces, need not pine in 
 solitude during his absence. But as regards working folk, 
 marriage makes them one to all intents and purposes, and from 
 the time they leave the altar their lives are inseparable. The two 
 are seldom apart — only for just as long as the husband is away at 
 the workshop. Morn, noon, and night, and Sunday as well as 
 week-days, they are seldom half-a-dozen hours out of sight of each 
 other, and their prospect of domestic happiness depends entirely 
 on their being able and wilUng to yield to each other's small 
 whims and weaknesses and peculiarities of taste and temper. 
 
 It is such people as these who should be the best judges as to 
 whether the institution of marriage, as at present observed, gives 
 general satisfaction, or whether it can be proved to be a failure, 
 and ought to be set aside to give place to some other system. 
 It is not a few, or a few hundred, letters written to a newspaper 
 which will settle the question, admitting that it is one that calls 
 for settlement ; but I am very much mistaken, if it was thought 
 worth while to take a universal vote on the subject, if the 
 majority, at least among the working classes, for adhering to the 
 old-fashioned ceremony would not be at least as a hundred to one. 
 As a man who works all the year round seventy hours a-week for 
 six-and-thirty shillings, and who has a wife and seven children, 
 and only two of the latter-able to do anything towards their own 
 keep, I claim to know something about wedded life in a common 
 kind of way. I cannot say that I ever made a study of the in- 
 stitution of marriage, either from a scientific or a philosophical 
 point of view. In fact, I was unaware that it formed part of my 
 duty as a husband to do so. My idea of the contract in question, 
 setting aside the moral and religious obligation it imposes on 
 those who take up with it, is and always has been that when a 
 man and woman, free to choose, and after a reasonable spell of 
 courtship, with some acquaintance with each other's character and 
 temper, agree to put to sea, in a manner of speaking, in the boat 
 
90 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 of matrimony, they must expect rough weather as well as smooth, 
 and though they have half-a-dozen youngsters aboard their craft, 
 or only one or two, pull together in harmony, with the single aim 
 of making the voyage as pleasant as possible. 
 
 There is no magic in marriage. Every man and woman who 
 exercises his or her common sense in the selection of a partner, 
 and who, having joined hands " for better for worse," resolve to be 
 honest, and kind, and straightforward, one toward the other, need 
 have no fear of "failure," in the sense that I understand the 
 meaning of the word. But it seems that an ignorant man, like 
 myself, may be mistaken in this. I have read it only at second- 
 hand, not being able to afford to buy such an expensive work as 
 the Westminster Review ; but, quoting from your own leading 
 article on the subject, Mrs. Caird, with whom all this fuss origi- 
 nates, says; "There are few things more stolidly irritating than 
 a very ' united ' couple " I get quite out of my depth when I 
 try to fathom what that means. Is there a Mr. Caird, I wonder? 
 If so, it is not improbable that he, too, is of opinion that 
 " marriage is a failure," though he may have arrived at that con- 
 clusion by a road different from that taken by his good lady. 
 
 It would be absurd, of course, to contend that marriage in- 
 variably leads to happiness. There is misery in that state of life 
 as in every other, but it is not marriage that makes the misery. 
 The latter, more often than not, is due to the reckless way in 
 which some people blunder into matrimony. He would be a 
 rash man who, judging from what appears on the surface, ven- 
 tured to express an opinion as to the happiness, or otherwise, of 
 his married neighbours, but one has only to cast round him, in 
 his own circle, to find proof enough that, taking the question 
 broadly, the assertion that marriage is a failure is sheer nonsense. 
 Take my own case. As I said before, I have been married six- 
 teen years, and the wife and I are still in the prime of life — she 
 is thirty-eight, and I am forty-one. We have had eight children, 
 and lost one. We have had our troubles. We have one little 
 girl a cripple, through an accident, and I myself have had a long 
 spell or two in hospital. When we were married I was earning 
 
The Answer, No I 91 
 
 30s. a week, and I never earned more than 36s. With so many 
 hungry stomachs to fill, and rent to pay, and clothes to buy, I 
 never was able to save as much as ^^5. For all that, I have a 
 comfortable home, a happy and (excepting no one) a healthy lot 
 of children, and my wife is as dear to me as my own life. Very 
 hkely Mrs. Caird, if she knew her, would say that she was a 
 down-trodden and degenerate creature; but I can't believe I 
 should love her more than I do if she held peculiar views as 
 regards the rights and wrongs of her sex, and inclined to the 
 opinion of the lady above-mentioned— that marriage, in its present 
 form, is "an insult to human dignity". 
 
 If, on the other hand, I am asked if, in my small circle of 
 friends and acquaintances, I know no married men and women 
 who are discontented with their condition, and would willingly 
 alter it if the law enabled them to, I must answer the first part 
 of the question, at all events, affirmatively. I have been reckoning 
 up the number of married couples— mostly old stagers like my- 
 self, each with several children — with whom, I may say, I am on 
 intimate terms, and may set down its total at a dozen. Without 
 exception, the husbands are all of my own station, and perhaps 
 half of them earn much less than I do, and, consequently, the 
 wives have to work as well as the men, who are not all of them 
 teetotallers, and a good many with not such a comfortable home 
 as I have got. But, as far as I know, nine out of the dozen are 
 as happy as we are. I feel quite sure it would be a difficult thing 
 to prove to either one of them, man or wife, that their marriage 
 has been a " failure," and I should not like to be the meddle- 
 some person who went round endeavouring to convince them 
 that a change to "free love" would be much nicer. Being 
 pledged to call on all the nine, I am afraid that the last seven or 
 eight visits would be made limping, and with head bound up. 
 
 But as regards the remaining three married couples, out of the 
 dozen mentioned, they do not get on nearly as well. A wife who 
 drinks much more than is good for her is the cause of one poor 
 fellow's everlasting trouble, and the other two pairs are miserable 
 through their own folly. They are paying the heavy penalty that in 
 
92 Is Marriage a Failure I 
 
 nine cases in ten is incurred by those of ttie labouring class who rush 
 into wedlock while they are as yet but mere girls and boys. That 
 a full measure of matrimonial bliss should not be the portion of 
 parents, who, with no capital but their own hand labour to start 
 in the world with, bring about them half-a-dozen sickly children 
 before their mother is seven-and-twenty, should not be very sur- 
 prising. It is a common calamity, but it does not prove that 
 marriage is a failure. Or, if some people should think otherwise, 
 my quoted instance shows that the majority is immeasurably on 
 the other side — ^Yours, &c., 
 
 A WORKING FURRIER. 
 
 East End, Aug. 15. • 
 
 Is he right ? 
 
 Sir, — Having taken great interest in the correspondence in 
 your columns concerning marriage, and heard it much discussed 
 among the labouring class, will you allow me to say a few v?ords ? 
 I was in conversation yesterday with a number of men, who are 
 only earning their ^i a week, and they assured me (with only one 
 exception) that they are better off married, even on that low 
 wage, than they were when single. Some folks might think it 
 insanity to marry on such money as that ; but if there is no 
 prospect of getting more, and the young people are fitted for one 
 another, why should they not be happy, as well as some of their 
 more fortunate neighbours ? I have known lots of labourers 
 with much better homes than even the mechanic they work for ; 
 and it is not unusual for the latter to borrow money from the 
 former. Some women can make ^i go further than others can 
 double that amount. Perhaps the chief reason why so many 
 labouring men get married so soon is that they are not comfortable 
 in lodgings. If the landlady has company, of course the lodger 
 is in the way, and this often causes him to adjourn to the nearest 
 public-house. — Yours truly, 
 
 T. FOUNDRY. 
 St. Alban's Road, Dartford, Kent, Aug. i 
 
The Anszver, No ! 93 
 
 What Archdeacon Blunt thinks. 
 
 The Ven. Archdeacon Blunt, D.D., Vicar of Scarborough, 
 Archdeacon of the East' Riding of Yorkshire, Canon Residentiary 
 of York Minster, and Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, 
 preached on Sunday night to a congregation numbering upwards 
 of a thousand people, at Christ Church, Scarborough. The ven. 
 gentleman's sermon was the third of a course on the offices of the 
 Church, being on the subject of matrimony. In the course of an 
 eloquent and powerful discourse he touched upon the prevailing 
 controversy, "Is Marriage a Failure?" People, he said, are now 
 discussing whether marriage is a failure or not. It made one's 
 heart sad to see what replies had been given in this 
 correspondence, what nonsense had been talked by many, what 
 low, worldly views had been put forward by others, what irre- 
 ligious views had found favour with more, and what infamous 
 suggestions had been made by many — suggestions so infamous, so 
 shameless, that they would, if adopted, drag back the civilisation 
 of England to a lower state than any negro population in Central 
 Africa — would turn back the civiHsation of England to such a 
 state of things as our old Saxon forefathers, with all their idolatry, 
 never once attempted to promote. 
 
 How " The Telegraph " started the Controversy . 
 
 Is Marriage a Failure? That is the startling question with 
 which we are confronted in the current number of the Westminster 
 Review ; and, as no one who is contented with any social 
 arrangement is likely to invite discussion upon its merits, we need 
 hardly say that the writer of the article to which we refer has 
 answered the question in the affirmative. Marriage, according to 
 Mrs. Mona Caird — or, at any rate, " the present form of marriage 
 — is a vexatious failure". It is a failure because it is founded 
 upon a theory of the relation of the sexes which runs counter 
 alike to history, physiology, and ethics, which is unjust to the 
 woman, demorahsing to the man, and dishonourable alike to 
 both. This, it will be seen, is a pretty strong indictment to 
 
94 Is Marriage a Failure 2 
 
 bring against an institution which, even according to Mrs. Caird's 
 peculiar chronology, is of a respectable age, and under which 
 " quite a number " of human generations have contrived to be 
 born, live, and die without discovering that the whole thing is a 
 vicious and intolerable absurdity. Strong as the indictment is, 
 however, it is supported with perfect gravity, and, we will add, 
 with much ability and acuteness, and no little command of 
 feminine irony, in the article in question. AVhat chiefly moves 
 Mrs. Caird to indignation as she surveys the " present form of 
 marriage '' is the argument of those who plead " woman's nature " 
 as an excuse for her subjection. " We chain up a dog,'' she says, 
 " to keep watch over our home ; we deny him freedom, and in 
 some cases, alas ! even sufficient exercise to keep his limbs supple 
 and his body in health. He becomes dull and spiritless ; he is 
 miserable and ill-looking ; and if by any chance he is let loose he 
 gets into mischief and runs away. He has not been used to 
 liberty or happiness, and he cannot stand it." If the master be 
 asked why he k-eeps his dog chained up he replies that the animal 
 " is accustomed to it " ; that he is suited for the chain ; and thus 
 the dog " is punished by chaining for the misfortune of having 
 been chained, till death releases him ". And this, as Mrs. Caird 
 reads history, is a fair parable of the relations between man and 
 woman. " We chain woman because we have chained her '' — a 
 proposition which, of course, implies that there was a time when 
 man did not chain her — and that, of course, is what the writer 
 means to imply. That which to most people appears a clearly 
 traceable process of gradual emancipation for woman, as man 
 advanced from barbarism to civilisation, has struck Mrs. Caird as 
 a change of the exactly opposite kind. Woman was once free, 
 and is now enslaved. She was free in those prehistoric times 
 when the mother was the real " head of the family, the priestess 
 and instructress in the arts of husbandry, the first agriculturist, the 
 first herbalist, the initiator of all civilisation". It is admitted 
 however, that this golden age was very brief. Some men became 
 wandering hunters, while others remained at home to till the soil. 
 The hunters, being unable to procure wives in the woods and 
 
The Answer, No ! 95 
 
 solitudes, used to make raids upon the settlements and carry off 
 some of the women. 
 
 This was the origin of our modern ideas of " possession " in 
 marriage. The woman became the property of man, his own by 
 right of conquest. Now the wife is his own by the right of law. 
 And so things went miserably on until the middle ages, and the 
 rise of the institution of chivalry, which Mrs. Caird rather 
 grudgingly admits to have done something for the elevation of 
 woman. The development, however, was checked, though the 
 idea was not destroyed, by the "Reformation ; and "the change 
 from the open licence of the age of chivalry to the decorum of 
 the Philistine regime was merely a change in the mode of 
 licentiousness, not a move from evil to good. Hypocrisy became 
 a household god ; true passion was dethroned, and with it poetry 
 and romance ; the commercial spirit, staid and open-eyed, entered 
 upon its long career and began to regulate the relations of the 
 sexes." Women were bought and sold as if they were cattle, and 
 were educated at the same time to strict ideas of "purity" and duty, 
 to Griselda-like patience under the severest provocation. It is from 
 this epoch that Mrs. Caird dates the steady degradation of the 
 institution of marriage. Luther, the interpreter of what has been 
 called the healthy sensualism of the middle ages, " estabhshed in 
 the interests of sensuality and respectability a strict marriage 
 system," and also preached " the devastating doctrine which 
 makes it necessary to have an unHmited number of children ". 
 In destroying the " religious sanctity of marriage he destroyed 
 also the idea of spiritual union which the religious conception 
 implied"; and the poor man — or so we gather — is to be held 
 responsible for all the abuses which have grown up under the 
 bourgeois system which he founded — for mercenary marriages, 
 for excessive families, for prostitution^ for unequal moral 
 standards prescribed to the two sexes, and for the subjection of 
 women. The state of things which we have now reached is 
 depicted by the writer in almost appalling colours. Wives are 
 enslaved to their husbands, husbands bored by their wives. The 
 man loses his liberty ; the woman exchanges one set of restric- 
 
g6 Is Marriage a Failure / 
 
 tions for another. " Of course there are bright exceptions to this 
 picture of married life ; but we are not dealing with exceptions.'' 
 In most cases the chain of marriage chafes the flesh if it does not 
 make a serious wound. When there is happiness it is dearly 
 bought, and of an inferior order. Husband and wife are then apt 
 to forget everything in the absorbing but narrow interests of their 
 home, and to become mere echoes of each other. " There are few 
 things more stolidly irritating than a very ' united ' couple. The 
 likeness that may often be remarked between married people is 
 a melancholy index of this united degeneration." Thus we see 
 that marriage, even when it succeeds, is only another kind of 
 failure, and we are proportionately the more impatient for the 
 exposition of the system which is to supersede it. How is 
 marriage to be " rescued from a mercenary society, torn from the 
 arms of ' respectability ' " — an abstraction which seems to excite 
 Mrs. Caird's peculiar animosity — "and established on a footing 
 which will make it no longer an insult to human dignity " ? In 
 the first place, then, the ideal marriage, "despite all dangers and 
 difficulties, should be free". By this is meant, as we gather — 
 though the lady's utterances are not quite as definite as the 
 boldness of her opinions would prepare us to find — that marriage 
 should be a purely voluntary contract, determinable at the will of 
 either party as soon as the inclination of either for the other shall 
 have subsided. " So long as love and trust and friendship remain 
 no bonds are necessary," we are somewhat superfluously told, " to 
 bind people together ; life apart will be empty and colourless ; 
 but whenever these cease the tie becomes false and iniquitous, 
 and no one ought to have power to enforce it." The matter, 
 says Mrs. Caird, in an amusingly lofty tone, "is one in which 
 any interposition, whether of law or of society, is an imperti- 
 nence,'' neither law nor society apparently having any right to a 
 voice in such a mere detail as the question who is to be respon- 
 sible for maintaining and educating the offspring of the dissolved 
 union. 
 
 We seem to have met with Mrs. Caird's suggestion before. It 
 has an air of familiarity which cannot be wholly delusive, and we 
 
The Answer, No ! gy 
 
 are even under the impression that attempts have been made at 
 various times, and, indeed, are being made at the present moment 
 in a more enterprising hemisphere, and in a society less despoti- 
 cally controlled by respectability, to reduce it to practice. Per- 
 haps it might be worth the while of our lady reformer to study 
 the history of these experiments in America before advocating 
 a repetition of them in this country ; although, to do her justice, 
 she propounds certain preliminary conditions to their trial which 
 ought to save her from the charge of undue precipitancy. For it 
 seems that the economical independence of woman is, in the 
 writer's opinion, the first condition of free marriage ; and she 
 admits that this condition cannot be secured until the competitive 
 system in industrial organisation — the growth, we may add in' 
 passing, of uncounted centuries — has been replaced by some 
 form of co-operation. If, therefore, the new marriage is not to 
 come into force until Individualism and Socialism have fought 
 out their battle, we shall have "plenty of time to look round". 
 The circumstance is a fortunate one, for we are strongly 
 persuaded that the time is not ripe for the adoption of Mrs. 
 Caird's ideas, and that the human race will have to rub on a 
 little longer with the despised institution of marriage in the form 
 in which it at present prevails. " Free marriage " is hardly the 
 last word in the extremely difficult and very ancient problem 
 which the lady has so light-heartedly solved. We will go so far, 
 indeed, as to hint a dorjbt whether there is any one "royal road" 
 to a remedy for the evils attendant upon " the present form of 
 marriage," the evils of undue subjection on the side of the 
 woman ; harshness, selfishness, and indifference on the side of 
 the man. In the first place, no one remedy would be at all more 
 likely to suit all matrimonial cases than the same medical treat- 
 ment for bodily infirmities is likely to suit all constitutions. It 
 is a very crude diagnosis which is contented with saying that " so 
 long as love and trust and friendship remain " a marriage should 
 hold good, but that as soon as one of these sentiments fails on 
 either side the remedy of divorce should be instantly "exhibited". 
 The mere word " love " is itself a very pitfall of ambiguity ; for 
 
98 Ts Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 the mutual affection of the aged John Anderson and his wife 
 is certainly not identical with, though it is a natural development 
 of, the sentiment which animated their bosoms when the pair 
 were "first acquent," and when young Mr. Anderson's "locks 
 were like the raven," and "his bonny brow was brent". Yet 
 surely the whole problem of a successful marriage consists in 
 insuring the development of the earlier of these sentiments into 
 the later ; and it is a problem which every husband and wife 
 must solve for themselves. No "system" will solve it for them, 
 least of all a system which is calculated to give the freest possible 
 play to all the lower instincts of human nature, and to discourage 
 the operation of all its higher impulses. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 MARRIAGES ABROAD. 
 
 Knickerbocker's Happy Wife. 
 
 SIR, — I have passed my last three summers in the best society 
 of your West End, and have come to the conclusion that 
 unhappy marriages are much more common on your side of the 
 Atlantic than on mine, for the simple reason that English wives 
 do not understand how to keep their husbands in order, or, in 
 other words, how to manage them. America is such a paradise 
 for women, and especially for those blessed with good looks, that 
 perhaps my views as to the relations between the sexes are more 
 Transatlantic than European. Such as they are, however, I 
 place them at your disposal. In the United States our men are 
 forbidden to recognise any superiority in social rank, and, being 
 obliged to worship something, they idealise lovely woman. I am 
 free to confess that the external homage rendered to my sex 
 by all adult American males is not so flattering as the deeper 
 sentiment, the perfect communion of heart and mind, which 
 occasionally subsists between a well-matched English couple ; 
 but among the upper classes of England how many happy 
 marriages are there ? Your matrimonial failures — and in no 
 country are there more of them — arise from the transparent fact 
 that with you husbands do not trust their wives, and wives do not 
 trust their husbands. The unbounded liberty accorded to wives 
 in the United States reacts favourably on their general character, 
 because, being trusted by their husbands, they think it unfair to 
 
lOO Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 deceive them. " It is safest to trust a woman," says Molifere, in 
 his L'Ecole des Maris, because no woman ever forgets Lady 
 Teazle's threat to her husband when she warns him that " she 
 will not be suspected without good cause ". In New York most 
 of our educated wives have by heart the well-known speech of 
 Molifere's Lisette, in which she tells Sganarelle : 
 
 En effet, tous ces soins sont des choses infames : 
 
 Sommes-nous chez les Turcs, pour enfermer les femmes ? . . . 
 
 Notre honneur est, monsieur, bien sujet a faiblesse, 
 
 S'il faut qu'il ait besoin qu'on le garde sans cesse. 
 
 Pensez-vous, apres tout, que ces precautions 
 
 Servent de quelque obstacle a nos intentions ? 
 
 Et quand nous nous mettons quelque chose a la tete, 
 
 Que rhomme le plus fin ne soit pas une bete ? 
 
 Toutes ces gardes-la sont visions de fous : 
 
 Le plus sur est, ma foi, de se fier en nous. 
 
 These lines are translated as follows by Dr. Crauford Tait 
 Ramage, whose charming volumes I always carry about with 
 me : " In point of fact, all these precautions are infamous things. 
 Are we living among Turks, who shut up their women ? Our 
 honour, sir, is but too prone to trespass if it is perpetually 
 necessary for man to keep watch over it. Do you think that 
 all the precautions in the world can prove obstacles to bur doing 
 anything that we are determined to do ? Or that the wisest man 
 is not a fool when we take a thing into our heads ? Every kind 
 of watching is but nonsense, and, depend upon it, the best way 
 is to trust us implicitly.'' 
 
 Let me illustrate the point and meaning of these wise words by 
 giving a brief sketch of my own married life. I have been married 
 for five years, and am as fond of my husband as he, I think, is of 
 me. Like all Americans, however rich, he is a very busy man, and 
 I never see him from early morning until dinner-time, if, indeed, 
 he comes come to dinner, which he often does not. ^Ve live at 
 an hotel, and, having so much lime on my hands, I make my own 
 engagements irrespective of my husband, and he makes his irrespec- 
 tive of me. Sometimes he comes home just as I am dressed and 
 about to go out to a ball, or a theatre, or a party. I always tell 
 
Marriages Abroad. lOi 
 
 him where I am going and the hour when he had better fetch me 
 home, adding, " If you won't, somebody else will ". In short, we 
 understand each other perfectly, and no suspicion or mistrust 
 exists between us. It seldom happens that my husband — who is 
 sitting by my side as I write these words — fails to fetch me home, 
 and if he does fail, he is quite satisfied that somebody else should 
 be my escort. He knows everything that I do, if he has time to 
 listen to me, and if not he trusts me implicitly. I never ask him 
 a question as to his doings, and the happy result is that I trust 
 him as much as he trusts me. 
 
 How different is the life of an English married woman in your 
 upper classes ! As a rule, she catechises and cross-examines her 
 luckless husband when he comes home, worn out, from the House 
 of Commons, or from a racecourse, or from the City, and, sooner 
 or later, he has recourse to evasions, or omissions, or subterfuges, 
 from very weariness of her vexatious interrogatories. She soon 
 finds out that he is keeping something back, and begins to suspect 
 him. In this way distrust and jealousy spring up between them. 
 I could mention a dozen cases within my own knowledge in which 
 the happiness of English marriages has been wrecked by the hus- 
 band insisting upon knowing everything that the wife has done, 
 or said, or thought since they last met, and by the wife being 
 equally exacting. I have, indeed, known cases in which American 
 wives married to English husbands have followed the example set 
 by many of their English sisters. The fault of your husbands is 
 that, when rich, they have not enough to do, and hang about their 
 homes until their wives are tired to death of their very presence 
 and companionship. No home can, in my opinion, be happy un- 
 less the husband is away from it every day for many hours. In 
 the United States we have no idle men. Our wives, on the other 
 hand, have such difficulty in getting servants that they often prefer 
 a hotel or a boarding-house to the cares of housekeeping. The 
 consequence is that they have time without end to dispose of, 
 and their husbands think it the most natural thing in the world 
 that these vacant hours should be filled up and spent as the wives 
 please. One of the most respected Americans, General W. T. 
 
102 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 Sherman, lately expressed the opinion that nowhere are there so 
 many happy marriages as in the United States ; and he is right, 
 because nowhere else is there so little suspicion of wives enter- 
 tained by husbands and of husbands by wives. Every woman of 
 the world will confirm the truth of Molifere's line, " The surest road 
 to happiness is for a husband to trust his wife ''. In England the 
 reins are rarely left untightened on a wife's neck, and she is often 
 tempted to slip her muzzle. In America wives have no reins and 
 no muzzles, and never seek to fix either on their husbands. Such 
 is the universal respect paid to women in the United States that 
 the youngest and prettiest of them can go anywhere by themselves. 
 In London it is far otherwise. Until Englishmen of the higher 
 classes conform in this respect to our easy-going American ways 
 there will be no surcease of divorces and matrimonial scandals 
 among you. Such, at least, is the deliberate opinion of, yours 
 
 respectfully, 
 
 THE WIFE OF A KNICKERBOCKER. 
 Trouville, Sunday. 
 
 Views of Emile Zola. 
 
 Our Paris correspondent telegraphs : The name of Emile Zola, 
 the great apostle of Naturalism and minute analyser of modern 
 French humanity, is so well known in England that his ideas 
 on the great question " Is Marriage a Failure " are sure to be 
 interesting. The distinguished novelist had left his little Paris 
 residence in the Rue Ballu— so named after the architect, Roger 
 Ballu — for his country seat at Medan, and having brought to 
 his notice by letter the principal points in Mrs. Caird's article, 
 he sent me the following characteristic reply, which I have his 
 permission to print : — 
 
 " Je n'ai aucune opinion sur cette question du marriage que 
 vous me soumettez. Les questions humaines dans les passions 
 m'ont toujours plus interess^ que les questions sociales. Etudier 
 I'homme est le role de I'Ecrivain et je laisse au L6gislateur le soin 
 de reformer le Code.'' 
 
 (I have no opinion on this question of marriage which you 
 
Marriages Abroad. 103 
 
 bring before me. Questions relating to humanity in its passions 
 have always interested me more than social ones. To study man 
 is the part of the Writer, and I leave to the Legislator the duty of 
 looking after the Code.) 
 
 Since this letter was penned by the novehst, I had the honour 
 of seeing him at his charming retreat on the banks of the Seine, 
 and a long conversation took place between us on several topics, 
 but principally on that of marriage. 
 
 " I confess," said the great writer, motioning me to a fauteuil, 
 and throwing himself down on a divan, and running his slender 
 fingers through his hair, " that this question of marriage does not 
 interest me keenly. Dumas or Renan, or even Daudet, might 
 find it to their tastes. Dumas, particularly, has treated the 
 marriage question at length. For my part, if you want my 
 opinion on marriage, from the French point of view, it is this — 
 I know very little about England, having never been there in my 
 life, but I can understand the absorbing interest which the subject 
 must have from a glance at the columns of the Daily Telegraph — 
 so far as France is concerned, I think that marriage is, like the 
 Church, an old and faulty institution. It will have to go on until 
 something better be found to replace it." 
 
 " What do you think, M, Zola," I said " of the Free Love 
 principle, as advocated by Mrs. Caird in opposition to the 
 present mode of marrying two people together ' for better for 
 worse,' till death do us part, and so on ?" 
 
 " Well, I think,'' replied the novelist, " that the collage system, 
 as we call it in France, may be every bit as good as matrimony, 
 provided the parties agree. There are cases of French couples 
 who have carried on collage for thirty years, and have been as 
 united as if in the bonds of wedlock. It all depends on the 
 people themselves. Who, by the way, is Mrs. Caird ? Is she 
 old ? Has she been happy ? " 
 
 But here I must draw a veil over M. Zola's inquiries and 
 remarks, as in his usual analytically-minute manner he wanted 
 to get at "human documents," with which I regretted I was 
 unable to supply him. 
 
I04 /s Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 The conversation having been resumed after a little mild 
 merriment, M, Zola went on to say that the divorce system, which 
 is now in working order in France, was being greatly patronised 
 by those who did not find the yoke of matrimony agreeable. 
 " But, in any case, marriage, as at present constituted in France, 
 is a failure and a grievance. So, too, is everything in our modern 
 society. We are all going to universal rottenness. I have already 
 touched upon the subject of French marriages in my book Foi 
 Bouille, but, as I have said in my letter, it is not my province to 
 provide remedies. I and my fr-iends are artists, roinariciers, 
 realists, or ' Naturalists,' whatever term you like, and we paint 
 things as we see them, in all their hideous ugliness and filth. 
 We minutely describe the social ulcers, fungi, and ordures, and 
 we leave to the legislator the task of sweeping them away. This 
 is all I have to say on the question ! " 
 
 Military Marriages. — Hmo they Manage them itt Austria. 
 
 Sir, — I write from the headquarters of an absolute Monarchy 
 and from the Eastern centre of Southern Catholicism. 
 
 To view the marriage question from an Austrian point, the com- 
 pulsoFy military service system here is averse to marriage — that is 
 to say, no marriage can be contracted without special licence from 
 the military authorities, until the expiration of the period which 
 the physically sound adult is compelled to serve. This restriction 
 is not limited to the term of active service, but remains in full force 
 as long as a man is subject to military discipline. As a general 
 rule, however, an Austrian may consider himself at liberty to marry 
 on the completion of three years of active service, after which 
 period he is attached to the reserve forces, and only called in every 
 other year for a few weeks' drill. The Austrian attains his majority 
 at the age of twenty-four, and, as a general rule, he is recruited as 
 a soldier between the age of eighteen and twenty-two. On cominc 
 of age our Hans, who, let us suppose, belongs to the hoin-oeois 
 classes, discovers that during his three years of active service he 
 has forfeited the seat at the desk which he occupied preparatory to 
 
Marriages Abroad. 105 
 
 his short mihtary career, and, being of respectable but poor parent- 
 age, the urgent necessity of obtaining employment is but too 
 apparent. He became a soldier at the age of twenty-one, and, for 
 four or five years previous to that momentous event, he was in 
 the receipt of a small but adequate salary. On quitting his 
 regiment he leaves behind him his regimentals, and it is as much 
 as his parents or relatives can do to provide him with a smt of 
 clothes. Out of the pittance he called his pay it was quite impos- 
 sible to save a kreuzer, and his Vaterland that he had served so 
 faithfully had brought about his temporary insolvency and made 
 him totally unfit for office work. His former chief, the grain mer- 
 chant, has no vacancy to offer him ; besides, rich experience has 
 taught the trader that a good soldier makes a bad clerk. Poor 
 Hans ! His condition is pitiable ; but he has a brave heart, and 
 he at last succeeds in obtaining an engagement. The following 
 Carnival finds him comparatively well off. Hs attends a ball, and 
 he falls in love. The object of his affections, of parentage as re- 
 spectable as his own, will make him an excellent wife. Her mother 
 has taught her to cook and sew, and dust and superintend a 
 modest estabUshment, besides which she has had an excellent 
 education at the Government schools. She is a veritable Austrian 
 Fraulein, and, being a Viennese, she knows how to dress and 
 make herself smart on next to nothing at all. Her father, a worthy 
 bureaucrat, has reared a large family, but with all her mother's 
 frugality Mizzi is portionless. There is nothing for it but to wait. 
 Her martial cousin. Lieutenant Dingsda, is waiting too, and so is 
 her bosom friend's brother, Oberlieutenant Haudegen, in the 
 Hussars. Hans and Mizzi wait until Hans, at the age of thirty, 
 enjoys a comparatively large income of seventeen hundred florins 
 a-year (about ;!^ 150.) 
 
 Lieutenant Dingsda, Mizzi's cousin, is engaged to be married to 
 a captain's widow. The Frau Hauptmannin, on marrying the 
 defunct captain, paid her dowry into the Exchequer, in accordance 
 with the marriage laws of the martial legislature, and drew during 
 her husband's lifetime a fair percentage annually — namely, 6oofl., 
 or ;^So — on her fortune. She had, in other words, the " Kaution," 
 
io6 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 and on the captain's demise she drew her "Pension" from her 
 well-guarded dowry. In the event of a second marriage the good 
 PVau Hauptmannin forfeits her " Pension," and her dowry is 
 returned to her. The boys and girls she bore the gallant Haupt- 
 mann are well provided for. The boys are in the military school 
 at Wienerneustadt, and the Emperor was petitioned on bended 
 knee on behalf of the girls. His Majesty's Imperial spouse was 
 made acquainted with the details of the case, and the girls were 
 admitted to an institute, under the high protectorate of the 
 Empress, for the daughters of officers, and provision was also made 
 for the petitioner's afflicted child. And now Lieutenant Dingsda ap- 
 peared on the scene, and the Frau Hauptmannin was quite ready to 
 pay once again her dowry into the Exchequer; but, as ill-luck would 
 have it, the lieutenant stood " seventh " on the marriage list of his 
 regiment. That is to say, six senior officers were entitled to lead 
 their affianced to the hymeneal altar before his turn could come 
 round. His chums urged him to obtain an audience of his 
 Majesty. The audience was granted, but his Majesty, who 
 received him kindly, said "No," and graciously gave him to 
 understand that, with rumours of war afloat, it was not considered 
 desirable, save in exceptional cases, that the marriage sanction 
 should be granted. 
 
 The brother of Fraulein Mizzi's bosom friend, Oberlieutenant 
 Haudegen, appears, it is true, as number one on the marriage 
 list of his regiment, but in his case neither he nor his intended 
 bride can supply the " Kaution," and all they can do is to pray 
 for the death of the Oberlieutenant's tough, old, spinster aunt, 
 and, meanwhile, the gallant officer invests all his savings in the 
 Imperial Royal Lottery. 
 
 The other day I was invited to a soiree at the suburban villa 
 of my friend Baron Donnerwetter von Blitztausend. The 
 Baron, a retired, high and mighty Imperial Royal Ministerial 
 Councillor, has an only daughter, a very amiable and accom- 
 plished young lady, who has danced at all the fashionable balls 
 given by the haute volte for the last half-dozen Carnivals, and 
 everybody is surprised that she still retains her maiden name. 
 
Marriages Abroad. 107 
 
 It is a recognised institution that a young lady moving in society 
 should never dance beyond the visual range of a chaperoning 
 matron, and that she should never enter into a tete-a-Ute con- 
 versation when unprotected with a man with whom she cannot 
 claim cousinship, no matter how many times removed. On 
 reaching the Baron's villa I found his daughter, unprotected 
 and alone, in the conservatory gathering flowers for the table. 
 In the course of our conversation, "Oh," said she, "we were 
 much amused with the number you sent us of the Daily 
 Telegraph. Some of those letters are surely what you Albions 
 call ' shocking,' and yet, when one comes to think of it, I don't 
 see why English girls need complain about their poor prospects 
 of getting married. We are far worse off. Yes, we are. Don't 
 you see we girls never get to know anything about our adorers 
 until we've married them, and then it is often too late. And 
 we have no divorce, unless we become Protestants, and I don't 
 think any really good and nice girl would give up her religion 
 and anger the Holy Virgin in order to get rid of her husband. 
 My uncle says that your King Henry only introduced that 
 religion into England so as to be able to get rid of as many 
 wives as he liked. But to return to what I was saying about 
 English girls. Do you think that if you were not an Englishman 
 I would be standing here alone with you all this time? Why, 
 everybody who chanced to see us, were you an Austrian, would, 
 no sooner had we entered the drawing-room, scrutinise my 
 hands in search of the engagement ring. It is too foolish, but 
 such is the case. How unrestrained English girls may be ! I 
 quite envy them. They may even go out alone. Now, I have 
 never, and my girl friends have never, even walked the length 
 of a quiet street like the one outside without a garde de dame. 
 I could not imagine myself out alone. How strange I should 
 feel; and I am quite certain that, although I have driven 
 hundreds of times from this house into town, I should lose 
 my way and get frightened to death, and perhaps faint — don't 
 laugh — if I were to find myself out in the street alone." 
 
 The Austrians are a -sociable, but, unlike their neighbours 
 
io8 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 the Hungarians, they can scarcely figure as a hospitable, people. 
 Dinner parties are not in vogue. One is, on high days and festi- 
 vals, invited to a champagne banquet; and during the CaJ-nival 
 families who entertain — and amongst the middle class th^y are 
 few and far between — invite their friends to supper once in a 
 way. Now, young men earning a moderate income do not 
 generally care for invitations of the kind. A young fellow of 
 my acquaintance lately told me the reason why : "A good friend 
 invites you to a dinner or supper party. You accept the invitation. 
 You go home and dress, and, so as not to be outdone by the 
 comme il faut set you are to meet at your friend's house, you 
 drive there in a fiacre. After the feast is over, you must have 
 in readiness a handsome pourboire for the footman who waited 
 at table, or for the parlour-maid, as the case may be, which 
 you slip into the menial's hand outside in the corridor. The 
 least you can offer is one florin. A second servant, on the 
 alert, lights you downstairs, and another pourboire is the result. 
 On reaching the street door, every single guest is prepared 
 with the ordinary porter's fee and an additional pourboire, 
 and on reaching your own home your house porter has also 
 to be feed. The sum thus expended on pourboires in one 
 evening is often considerably larger than is the sum-total of an 
 average fair supper at a restaurant ; and, to add to the disagree- 
 ables of the evening, you feel convinced that you have made a 
 fool of yourself, when you remember how particularly affable 
 were the matrons and how coy the maidens you met at your 
 friend's house." 
 
 The Austrian picnic, the very reverse of the English, is an 
 indoor nocturnal entertainment, and, instead of being a fete 
 champetre, it is a soiree dansante. Several families, mostly during 
 the Carnival season, club together and entertain one another at 
 one or the other of the fashionable hotels, where they engage the 
 ball-room of the establishment. The wine, the viands, and the 
 confectionery are either supphed by the parties severally, or served 
 by the cuisine on the premises. The chief feature of the enter- 
 tainment is the dance-that follows the banquet, when the men of 
 
Marriages Abroad. 109 
 
 the party present handsome and expensive bouquets to the ladies. 
 The Kranzchen, a strictly Germanic entertainment, resembles the 
 picnic, only that frequently established clubs and corporations do 
 the honours of the evening. 
 
 Whenever an Austrian burgher makes up his mind to sue for 
 the hand of a fair charmer, he dons his evening dress suit, a white 
 or black tie, lavender gloves, and an opera hat, and drives at 
 noon, in what he calls " full gala," to the lady's abode. The idlers 
 assemble round the domicile, and the porter's wife, to the best of 
 her abilities, satiates the public greed. " Ach, lieber Gott, I am 
 sure it is Fraulein Olga of the third elage, door number nineteen," 
 and so on. Herr Schwalbenscheif, on crossing the threshold of 
 the paterfamilias' study, bows very low, and with much rhetorical 
 pathos holds forth on the object of his visit. Herr Papa has long 
 since been prepared by Frau Mamma for the likely visits of a 
 certain number of suitors, and, to cut matters short, Herr Schwal- 
 benscheifs position in life, his present income, and his future 
 prospects testify to his being an eligible partie. Herr Papa 
 and Herr Schwalbenscheif embrace; Frau Mamma and Fraulein 
 Olga are called in, and the ceremony of kissing is repeated. On 
 the following day the " Verlobung," or betrothal, is announced in 
 the morning papers, and betrothal cards are despatched through 
 the post to friends far and near. 
 
 The Carnival season may be considered as the annual marriage 
 market, and the goods that do not fetch advantageous bargains 
 one season are in readiness to be bartered for at a discount the 
 next, although during the summer months there is always a fair 
 chance at the Kurhaus balls. Marriage by proxy is at times 
 resorted to, and I have myself known of happy marriages being 
 brought about through the advertising system. One frequently 
 reads in the advertisement columns of popular local dailies, such 
 as the Vienna Fremdenblati, the Extra Blatt, and the Taghlatt, 
 or the Allgemeine, curiously worded advertisements, which one is 
 inclined to set down as hoaxes, and yet I am prepared not only to 
 vouch for the authenticity of not a few of such announcements,- 
 but to give my vote in favour of this exemplary system, always 
 
no Is Marriage a Failure "i 
 
 provided that every measure be taken to guard against breach of 
 confidence and scandalous intrigue. 
 
 Marriage in the abstract is no more a failure in the Austrian 
 Empire than it is elsewhere, but under existing circumstances, 
 which may be ascribed to the evils of an absolute government, 
 and to national and individual insolvency, it may temporarily be 
 considered at a discount. — Yours obediently, 
 
 ANGLO-AUSTRIAN. 
 
 Vienna, Sept. ii. 
 
 The Japanese View. 
 
 Sir, — Will you allow me space for a few lines written in a 
 still unpopular cause? A correspondent of youis states that the 
 evils which would result from free marriage " are plain to all 
 who care to study the question". It is possible, however, that 
 he has drawn his inferences, not in a nation where free marriage 
 is an honoured institution, but rather from a study of what is 
 called the " seamy side " of a society where monogamy is rigidly 
 enforced by law and dogma. 
 
 What are the evils which result from the freest of free marriage 
 laws and free intercourse between the unmarried in the distant 
 " Empire of the Rising Sun," Dai-Nippon ? 
 
 There, at least, we may study a much older civilisation than 
 our own, slowly developed through tens of centuries of prosperity, 
 the continuous evolution of an art and literature, a political and 
 social system as unknown to us until lately as the society of Mars 
 (if there is one) is to-day. After 2000 years of free love, in what 
 condition do we find that State and people ? We find crime rare, 
 the prisons almost empty, domestic tragedies nearly unknown, 
 adultery uncommon, very few foundlings thrown on public charity, 
 all children being at the father's charge. There is no religious 
 marriage rite ; a few words written by the husband at his pleasure 
 constitute a legal divorce; each daimio may have four concubines, 
 each samurai two ; yet in no country in the world are political and 
 social order more complete ; in none it seems is there more life- 
 
Marriages Abroad. ill 
 
 long conjugal fidelity, and in none perhaps so much wedded happi- 
 ness, as in that country, where marriage is not a shackle. There 
 is no pauperism, and travellers and residents agree in naming cleanli- 
 ness, content, lightheartedness, and courtesy among the universal 
 and most striking characteristics of all classes of the population. 
 
 Our Government are eagerly engaged just now in dressing the 
 Mikado and his court in trousers and tall hats, and teaching them 
 the arts of engine-driving and destructive warfare. But might not 
 we bring home a lesson or two of practical domestic happiness, in 
 return for our steam-boilers and torpedoes ? Surely the day cannot 
 be so far distant when many an effete convention of morality will 
 be consigned to the limbo of past history, with the effete dogmas 
 we still force, from motives of expediency, on the ignorant masses. 
 
 — Yours, &c., 
 
 KIOTO. 
 
 Grosvenor Hotel, S.W., Aug. 13. 
 
 M. Dumas is puzzled. 
 
 Cher Monsieur, — Je ne m'explique pas tres bien la proposi- 
 tion de Madame Mona Caird. Je comprendrais que Ton posat 
 publiquement et que Ton discutat des questions comme celle-ci — 
 Faut-il continuer a payer les impots dont nous sommes surcharges 
 dans tous les pays civihses? ou Faut-il continuer a subir le service 
 militaire et a se faire tuer pour des raisons que Ton ne connait 
 pas, et que le plus souvent on trouverait absurdes et injustes si on 
 les connaissait ? 
 
 Ce sont la des servitudes obligatoires, imposees par la Loiet 
 maintenues par la force, auxquelles nul de nous ne pent se sous- 
 traire. Si Ton refuse de payer I'impot il y'a des huissiers pour 
 nous y forcer ; si Ton refuse de tirer a la conscription il y a des 
 gendarmes pour nous y contraindre. La rdvolte centre ces deux 
 institutions vraiment vexatoires aurait sa raison-d'etre, et qui la 
 proclamerait, aurait des chances d'etre, ecoute par les sentiments 
 qu'on a en secret, aprfes avoir ^te honni par ceux qu'on a en 
 public. 
 
112 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 Mais oil sont les huisseurs et les gendarmes qui forcent les 
 hommes et les femmes a se niarier? Y a meme pas de loi qui 
 contraigne un s^ducteur a epouser la fille qu'il a S^duite ni a re- 
 connaitre I'enfant qu'il a eu d'elle. 
 
 La proposition de Madame Mona Caird se resout done toute 
 seule. Le manage etant un acte qui depend absolument de la 
 volont^ des individus — que ceux qui veulent se marier se marient ; 
 que ceux qui ne veulent pas se marier ne se marient pas. Quant 
 a ceux qui ont ete mal et malgrd eux maries, disent-ils, le divorce 
 existant dans tous les pays r^gis par la Loi Civile et I'annulation 
 du manage dans tous les pays rdgis par la Loi Ecclesiastique, 
 qu'ils fassent rompre leur mariage par la magistrature ou qu'ils le 
 fassent annuler par I'eglise. Comme c'est simple ! Je ne vols 
 pas d'autre reponse a faire a Madame Mona Caird, et je crois 
 que Monsieur de la Palisse aurait pu la faire pour moi. 
 
 Veuillez agreer, cher Monsieur, I'assurance de mes sentiments 
 les plus distingues. 
 
 ALEXANDRE DUMAS /A. 
 
 Le Puy, Aug. 21. 
 
 An Italian's Opinion. 
 
 SiRj — Having followed with great interest the correspondence 
 for and against marriage, published in your columns, I have not 
 as yet observed anything to the point in relation to the workings 
 of connubial life in Italy and Spain. I am an Italian, resident 
 since many years in England, which was free when my country 
 was still enslaved, and when its rulers regarded those who, like 
 myself, longed for liberty, unity, and honest government as 
 dangerous wild beasts, to be shot down or chained up whenever 
 laid hold of So, having failed in a badly-managed attempt to 
 upset a stupid and cruel tyranny in the part of the Boot where I 
 was born and bred, I ran away from it and came over here almost 
 penniless, not knowing a word of your language, for bad writing 
 of which I beg your excuse ; very ignorant of the arts and con- 
 trivances by which many Italians before and since me have earned 
 much English money, but strongly believing— and with reason. 
 
Marriages A broad. 1 1 3 
 
 as events have proved — that an honourable man, not a fool nor 
 unwilling to work, could not starve in this rich and hospitable 
 land. I did not starve here, neither did I at first succeed in 
 gaining a comfortable living ; so, when a kind Enghsh merchant 
 found me a place with one of his correspondents in Spain, I 
 went there, and stayed for some years, during which I became 
 well acquainted with Spanish domestic life. Then came poli- 
 tical changes in Italy, allowing me to return to my home there, 
 where I lived a struggling life, no better satisfied with the new 
 state of things than 1 had before been with the old. After all, 
 English freedom was the sort of freedom that suited my brain 
 and heart best. I had the good luck of an opportunity to esta- 
 blish myself in London, where I have lived long and hope to 
 die. 
 
 I tell you all this, Sir, asking your pardon for so long preface, to 
 justify myself in saying that I know how marriage works in 
 Italy and Spain, about which your many correspondents have said 
 very little, if anything, to the purpose. Were I asked " Is 
 Marriage a Failure ? " in those countries, I must answer, " From 
 the English point of view, decidedly Yes ". With us, and with 
 our cousins the Spaniards too, marriage does not make what 
 Englishmen call a home. Throughout the better classes it does 
 not draw man and wife together, but rather drives them apart. 
 There are two main causes to this effect : the way marriages are 
 brought about, and the religious difficulty. It is not too much 
 to say that the marriage of love, as it is made in England and 
 Germany, does not exist in Italy and Spain. With us Latins the 
 parents, even if they are peasants or working folk, arrange their 
 children's alliances as bargains between families, haggling over the 
 terms and beating one another down, sometimes through months 
 of time, till one or other party gives way, or both a little. I have 
 known such negotiations broken off for a difference of fifty 
 lire, of a set of poor cheap ornaments, of an old tired donkey 
 which the father of the girl to be married would not cede to the 
 proposed bridegroom, who was a boscajuolo — I think woodcutter, 
 in English - and wanted it to carry fagots for him. In the upper 
 
114 ^^ Marriage a Failure? 
 
 classes, the preliminary discussions are confided to family lawyers, 
 or aged female relatives of both houses, one of whom asks, 
 " What will you give ? " and the other, " AVhat will you take ? " 
 both reporting the answers to their respective prtudpali — the 
 fathers and mothers of the young people concerned, who often 
 know nothing of all these transactions until an agreement has been 
 arrived at. When the treaty breaks down, for the most part they 
 are not told at all that it has even been in negotiation. In 
 marriages arranged this way there is no question of love, and very 
 little of mutual happiness, except when the sposi, by a fortunate 
 chance, happen to fancy one another after they become 
 acquainted. In ten cases out of twelve, after marriage, the 
 husband returns to his ante-nuptial love, and some enterprising 
 bachelor marks the young wife down for siege and capture. The 
 usual result is, two more of the menages A trois that are the 
 rule in upper and middle class Italian and Spanish society. The 
 third person of this unholy trinity is always on the very best of terms 
 with the husband, whom he relieves of all minor social duties con- 
 nected with the wife, such as escorting her to theatres and parties, 
 providing her with bouquets and sweetmeats, petting her children, 
 and, above all, keeping her in a good temper. Society expects 
 her to be faithful to her lover, not to her husband, and resents any 
 breach of that fidelity on her part. Not long ago the recognised 
 cavalier of a certain great Italian lady, being an officer, had to go 
 to Massowah with his regiment. Shortly after his departure the 
 " signora marchesa " took to herself another " curled darling,'' the 
 bosom friend, as usual, of her husband. Lamenting this de- 
 parture from propriety, another great Italian lady said to me : " Is 
 it not cruel, shameful, dreadful ? There is that poor Giovannino 
 far away, in a bad climate, perhaps shedding his blood for his 
 country like a hero, and Agostina has broken all her solemn 
 pledges to him ! " That was the way that she, an Italian wife and 
 mother, looked at the matter. She never gave a thought to the 
 husband, doubly dishonoured, but pitied the betrayed and for- 
 saken lover. As for the marchese, to whom his wife's love 
 affairs were open secrets, he cared nothing about Giovannino's 
 
Marriages Abroad. 115 
 
 calamity or Giovannino's successor, having his own liaison to look 
 after. 
 
 The other reason why marriage is a failure, according to 
 English ideas, in Italy and Spain is, as I have already said, the 
 religious difficulty. You see all Italian and Spanish women 
 " have religion," as the saying goes, while the vast majority of the 
 men are unbelievers, who neither communicate nor confess. The 
 women do both, and therefore are on confidential terms with the 
 priests, to whom they tell all their peccadilloes, and who not only 
 absolve them, but faithfully keep their secrets, as in duty bound. 
 These gentlemen — I do not say it is their fault or that they can 
 help it — are thus the friends of the wives and the enemies of the 
 husbands. Hence the bitter hatred of the clergy that prevails 
 among laymen all through Italy. Every married man who is a 
 freethinker — and, to believers, they are in the proportion of at 
 least ten to two — feels that his wife's confessor takes her part, so 
 to speak, against him, condones her breaches of the marriage vow, 
 knows her sins, and, by not denouncing them, practically tolerates 
 them. This state of affairs, which appears irremediable, is a 
 terrible stumbling-block in the path of matrimonial felicity. The 
 woman does wrong, and confesses it — perhaps repentantly, 
 perhaps as a matter of course — to her religious adviser. He, of 
 course, reproves her, inflicts a penance, admonishes her to sin no 
 more, and then gives her absolution. But she knows full well that 
 if she repeats her offence he will go through the same set of forms, 
 and finish by absolving her again ; and so on, even seventy times 
 seven. Her husband, she is aware, is regarded by the Church as 
 a reprobate, a pagan, an atheist — rimproverato dlddio. To 
 break faith with him scarcely strikes her as wrong-doing ; the less 
 so because, in all probability, his own conduct is far from 
 irreproachable, and has been sedulously revealed to her by her 
 cavalier and her intimate female friends. It is long odds that 
 neither her husband nor her lover confess, so few Italian men 
 being praticanti now-a-days ; she therefore bears the burden of 
 her paramour's guilt as well as her own, and the lady who favours 
 her husband bears his. Being extremely strict in the discharge of 
 
Ii6 Is Marriage a Failurel 
 
 all devotional exercises, both these ladies of " exemplary piety " 
 are sure of ecclesiastical protection, and therefore do not find the 
 burden in question a painfully onerous one. The whole system is 
 one the workings of which are generally fatal to domestic 
 happiness of the right sort, such as I recognise in many English 
 households that I am privileged to frequent. Man and wife 
 cannot love one another in such circumstances, save by the merest 
 accident ; nor can the man care for the children of such a 
 marriage as fondly as the British paterfamilias cares for his 
 authentic brood of boys and girls. Italians, Spaniards, and the 
 majority of Frenchmen, too, suffer for the moral blindness of their 
 ancestors, who rejected the Reformation, and insisted upon 
 sticking to a faith involving confession and absolution, both of 
 which — especially the latter — they felt to be convenient insti- 
 tutions. Also, we offshoots of the Latin tree are lamentably 
 indolent, careless, and indifferent. We read very little, and what 
 we read is mostly rubbish. Our newspapers are really unworthy 
 of perusal ; our fictional literature is frivolous and licentious ; we 
 ape the French, while dishking them, and are lazily contemptuous 
 of the English and Germans, whom we should do well to iaiitate 
 in thought and action. Few Itahans buy or collect books ; a well- 
 stocked library in an Italian private house is even rarer than a 
 shower-bath or a pianoforte in tune. My compatriots will not 
 spend their time upon publications that are purely instructive; 
 NoH diverte (it is not amusing) is a sentence of final 
 condemnation pronounced by them upon many a book that 
 would deeply interest thousands upon thousands of Englishmen 
 and Germans. Such being a few of our more saHent 
 characteristics — and every thoughtful, perceptive Italian- knows 
 that, alas ! they are so — is it a wonder that marriage, as you 
 Englishmen understand it, must be pronounced a failure in Italy ? 
 Believe me, it is not a much greater success in Spain, where the 
 cortejo plays the same part that is sustained by the cavaliere 
 sen'ente in my country.— I remain, Sir, yours obedientl)', 
 
 A 'son OF ITALY. 
 
 London, Sept. 26. 
 
Marriages A broad. 1 1 7 
 
 Another American View of the Question. 
 
 Sir, — I cannol -allow the letter of my fair young compatriot, 
 " The Wife of a Knickerbocker,'' to pass without a word of 
 emphatic protest on my part. One might imagine from her 
 language that happy marriages result from husband and wife 
 never meeting, never going out together, and having not a 
 thought or a taste in common. I am much older than your 
 correspondent, " The Wife of a Knickerbocker," as I have been 
 married five-and-thirty years against her five. She will change 
 her views as to marriage, if I am not mistaken, when she ceases 
 to be young and pretty. Instead of rejoicing, as she does, that 
 so many American wives live in hotels and boarding-houses, she 
 will live to see, as I have seen, a thousand cases in my long 
 experience which prove that the absence of a home and its 
 daily duties have incapacitated young American wives for re- 
 taining the affection of their husbands when the lapse of years 
 plants wrinkles on the faces of wives and husbands alike. What 
 sort of stuff can a husband be made of if he is content to come 
 home night after night to a hotel and to find his young wife 
 going out to a party, or a theatre, or a ball, without his pro- 
 tection and companionship ? In my opinion the latitude ac- 
 cording to young American wives —that latitude in which " The 
 Wife of a Knickerbocker " takes such pride, and which she 
 recommends English men and women to imitate — makes mar- 
 riage a mockery. There is nothing more galling to an American 
 wife, who respects herself and her husband, than to see the airs 
 assumed by young and pretty American women towards men of 
 high intellect and eminent position. I am old enough to 
 remember the time when Mr. Clay, Mr. Calhoun, and Mr. 
 Webster — three members of the United States Senate whom it 
 would be impossible to match at present — were seen almost 
 every night in Washmgton society. There rises before me the 
 vision of a young and attractive wife, who had nothing but her 
 good looks and her husband's wealth to recommend her, as she 
 was without intellect, or conversation, or solid accomplishments, 
 
Ii8 Is Marriage a I^aiLure 
 
 or book-learning. Nevertheless, she was always beautifully 
 dressed, and it soon became the fashion to treat her as a kind of 
 goddess. I have seen the three great Senators whom I have 
 named— together with Mr. Everitl, the late Lord Carlisle (then a 
 visitor to Washington), and the still living Mr. Jefferson Davis- 
 waiting en queue for their turn to sit down by her side, as though 
 she had been a Madame de Stael or a Madame Recamier. What 
 was the consequence ? Her weak little head was soon turned by 
 the homage of which she was made the object, her self-conceit 
 became intolerable, and when her husband (a most estimable 
 man) took her back to Boston, he found that instead of trying to 
 make his home happy she occupied herself solely in recapitulating 
 her Washington triumphs. Many Americans of my own age 
 will recall her name, and the miserable end of her married 
 career, of which I will say no more than that the worst trespasses 
 ever proved in your Divorce Court against an English wife were 
 surpassed by the hideous revelations of her treachery, ingratitude, 
 and infidelity, over which the New York journals gloated for 
 many a day in succession. At this moment there is not, I 
 verily believe, a single big city in the world, not even excepting 
 Vienna, or Buda-Pesth, or Bucharest, which contains so many 
 worthless wives as the city of Chicago. No married woman can 
 long be happy or respectable if she has not the constant company 
 of a husband to whom she is all in all. The long idle hours spent 
 by young American wives in hotels and boarding-houses incline 
 them to listen to the attentions of young and idle bachelors — and 
 there are many more such men in the United States than "The 
 Wife of a Knickerbocker " seems to believe — with the usual result. 
 Every young and attractive married woman pines for attention 
 and sympathy from a man of her own age, and if her husband 
 does not supply them, somebody else will. 
 
 That there are many happy marriages in the United States I do 
 not deny, but they exist almost invariably in the case of husbands 
 and wives who live in private homes. So universal is the feeling 
 that hotels and boarding-houses expose wives to undue tempta- 
 tions from lack of something to do, that I have known fathers 
 
Marriages Abroad. 119 
 
 refuse to allow their daughters to marry men except on the condi- 
 tion that homes should be provided for the married couple. 
 Neither in England nor in the United States are there so many 
 happy marriages as in Germany, where, from their earliest youth, 
 girls are taught to occupy every hour of the day in active work 
 and to learn the duties of housekeeping. Depend upon it, Sir, 
 that, in the words of " The Wife of a Knickerbocker," " there will 
 be no surcease of divorces and matrimonial scandals," either in 
 England or America, until English and American girls are trained 
 for the duties of a wife otherwise than they now are. To play on 
 the piano, or (as is now fashionable) the fiddle, and to dress in 
 the latest Parisian mode, is all that many EngUsh and American 
 parents of the upper classes now exact from their daughters. Let 
 it not be forgotten that in both countries most young husbands 
 and wives start poor, and that it rests solely with the wife to make 
 her home comfortable and economical. Debt is the sorest tempta- 
 tion to which a young wife can be exposed, and it is also the cause 
 of the many maris complaisants who now disgrace the two great 
 Anglo-Saxon countries. Without a radical revolution in the 
 training of English and American girls, marriages will continue in 
 a vast majority of cases to be failures, and to the father of every 
 young husband who has the misfortune to get a vain, worthless, 
 and incompetent wife, I might say, " Tu I'a voulu, George Dandin " 
 — Yours respectfully, 
 
 ANOTHER AMERICAN WIFE. 
 
 Statistics of Irish Marriage. 
 
 Sir, — We in Ireland have been watching with close interest 
 from day to day the progress of the controversy in the Daily 
 Telegraph upon the pros and cons of the married state, and I 
 have heard much surprise expressed in general social circles that 
 so little contribution has been made to the discussion of the 
 subject from this side of the water, though it is in the mouths of 
 all. The other night a large company, including many well- 
 known personages, resolved - itself into committee, and sat in 
 
1 20 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 really serious consultation for some hours upon the problem. 
 Though a variety of opinions were expressed in the course of 
 an animated argument, which would have done no discredit to 
 the reputation of a Social Science Congress, a definite conclusion 
 was finally arrived at, and the question "Is Marriage a Failure ?" — 
 as regarded from the Irish point of view — was by an overwhelming 
 vote answered with an emphatic "No ". This is not the only in- 
 stance in which certain social knots have set themselves to crack 
 the nut. I know of other cases in which debate, commencing 
 in mere casual conversation across the dinner table, waxed 
 warm, and kept the gentlemen long over their wine, while the 
 female forum, in similar session in the drawing-room, forgot, like 
 their lords, the lapse of time, and when at last they appeared were 
 in a position to compare notes with an ability and decision that 
 raised the issue to the highest level of intellectual interest. 
 
 Perhaps, Sir, you would permit me to put before your readers 
 the leading points of such debates as those of which I speak, and 
 have taken part in, since they indicate not merely an individual 
 opinion, but that of a large and representative section, which is 
 in the best position to form an honest and equitable judgment. 
 First, then, it is accepted without much demur that marriages, as 
 a general rule, are happy in Ireland, the observation applying to 
 all, whether dwellers in the castle or in the cabin. I do not like 
 to trouble you with comparatively stale statistics, but must state, 
 for the sake of explanation, that we had before us Dr. Grimshaw's 
 annual report upon marriages, births, deaths, &c., some few days 
 ago published. We saw that during the year 1877, with an 
 estimated population of 4,837,373, the marriages registered 
 numbered 20,945— a figure under the average of that for the 
 preceding ten years. We discovered, further, that the percent- 
 age of persons married in this country who are under age is far 
 below the corresponding rates in England and Scotland, and had 
 little difficulty in agreeing, when reviewing such facts, that in the 
 vast majority of instances the married state is entered upon in 
 Ireland with distinct and remarkable deliberation. In the higher 
 middle classes engagements are long, and everyone familiar with 
 
Marriages Abroad. 121 
 
 the routine of business in the courts of law is aware that breach 
 of ])romise cases are rare. As concerns the peasantry, the 
 marriage contract is a matter universally of long negotiation, and 
 at this time of day it is hardly necessary to speak of that in- 
 violability and purity with which the tie is religiously preserved. 
 As operating in this direction, the influence of the Roman 
 Catholic and Protestant Churches is identical, and to the 
 teaching of priests and pastors alike the high prevailing lone of 
 popular morality is in great measure due. The experience of the 
 country gentleman, well acquainted with the social life of the 
 tenantry, of the parish priest, and of the " minister,'' coincide in 
 the expression of opinion that marriage is far from being a failure, 
 or anything like it, in this country. Such information as they 
 have at command comes fresh from sources that the statistician 
 canriot reach, and you, Sir, have it as I heard it. On the whole, 
 then, I,_have no hesitation in stating, with confidence, that the 
 Irish people are not only the "most car-drivingest and tea- 
 drinkingest " people on the face of the earth, but also the most 
 married, and, if you like, the most hopelessly domesticated. 
 
 May I be permitted to pursue the question a step further, and, 
 as one explanatory reason of the high moral record of my country- 
 men — which, be it said without offence, contrasts favourably with 
 that of their neighbours in the sister lands — suggest that the non- 
 existence of an Irish Divorce Court, with its necessarily polluting 
 influence and outflow of poisonous literature, acts as a bulwark 
 against the spread of evil. The Irish Probate and Matrimonial 
 Division can grant a "judicial separation," but nothing more, 
 while the cases that come before it are so few in number as to 
 bear no appreciable percentage to the total of the population. If 
 marriage were a failure, how would the figure stand ? 
 
 There is another and most important reason why our marriages 
 are not only not a failure, but unlikely to become so in the future. 
 This lies in the fact that the wealthy middle classes, and those of 
 a lower grade who call themselves " comfortable," have given up 
 all the wild proceedings of their forefathers in the way of extra- 
 vagant entertaining. There are people in Ireland at this hour 
 
122 Is Marriage a Failure? 
 
 who are in the world's eye well endowed, but who in reality are 
 poor, simply because they have not yet succeeded in paying off 
 the dinner bills of their rackety grandfolk, whose " lashins and 
 leavins" in the "good old times " have hung a mill-stone of debt 
 around the necks of a frugal-minded posterity. But all that is 
 gone now. We are a sadder and a soberer race. The weekly 
 bill of the mansion is cut down by a good half, while in the 
 middle-class household there is no lavish outlay. Of course no 
 rule is without exceptions, and exceptions there undoubtedly are ; 
 but in these days simpler tastes hold the field, and our social 
 entertainments are both fewer and cheaper. Many happy homes 
 in Dublin and throughout Ireland are kept respectably going at a 
 tithe of the expenditure which even a moderate English household 
 demands from the breadwinner, and in these matrimony ranks as 
 a boon and a blessing. When no longer a prohibitive luxury, but 
 a safeguard and a saving, we Irish people cannot think it a failure. 
 — Yours, &c., 
 
 ANNA LIFFEY. 
 
 Dublin, Sept. lo. 
 
 Domestic Married Life in Germany. 
 
 Sir, — I am about to assist at the marriage of a very near male 
 relative in this town ; and, having followed your series of letters 
 on the comparative success or failure of marriage with much 
 interest, he and I have frequently had discussions on the subject 
 ^I, with the experience of a Benedick of a certain number of 
 years' standing; he with the wide gulf of the unknown gaping before 
 him. Every intelligent German whose opinion I ask on this sub- 
 ject gives pretty much the same answer as you would expect to 
 have in England : " Marriage is a lottery. Some draw prizes, 
 some blanks ; some may be happy, others intensely miserable." 
 But I take it, notwithstanding the great facility there is in this 
 country for obtaining divorce, that there is no more domestic un- 
 happiness here than in any other country of the globe. On the 
 contrary, if there be a difference at all, I should put it on the other 
 side of the scale. Some ten days ago, or more, one of your corre- 
 
Marriages Abroad. 123 
 
 spondents, signing himself "Anglo-Celt," wrote: "No wonder 
 houses are dull and marriages failures, when the man takes no 
 pains to elevate and amuse his wife ". This sounds plausible 
 enough, but we must read it in connection with the well-established 
 fact that woman's character tends to shape itself in every country 
 to the type most admired by the men of that country. Now, I 
 contend that in general downright unhappy marriages are very 
 few and far between in the German Fatherland. You seldom find 
 a menage in which husband and wife are absolutely indifferent 
 towards one another ; and, taking the domestic hearths in this 
 country as a whole, very general content seems to prevail there ; 
 and yet, I assure you, husbands here give themselves neither 
 pains nor trouble to amuse their wives, 
 
 German married women have the reputation, in England, of 
 being model housekeepers. They decidedly are so in the sense 
 that they employ the greater part of their time with their cook in 
 the kitchen or with their nurse in the nursery. They are obhged 
 to do so because they consider it their duty to work with the 
 servants, these latter, in all small households, being absolutely in- 
 capable of working independently. Your cook, who assists in 
 the work of the house, will tell your wife, when she engages her, 
 that she thoroughly understands what she calls hausmann's 
 host, which means small family cookery, but on trying her you 
 find that she has to learn everything from her mistress except how 
 to boil beef to rags and burn and spoil your mutton chops and 
 beef steaks in a greasy frying-pan. Your nurse, if you have a 
 family, has no idea of managing children unless she is also 
 minutely looked after by the mother. And as for housemaid's 
 work, no room is properly cleaned and dusted unless the mistress' 
 eye is constantly superintending or her hand helping. 
 
 If the above be true — and I contend that, with a due allowance 
 for individual exceptions, it is a very fair sketch of the reality — it 
 will easily be understood that the tasks that a German husband 
 will expect to see properly fulfilled by his wife are of a somewhat 
 menial kind. However much Teutonic maidens may be petted 
 and spoilt as a Braut before marriage ; however exacting she 
 
 9 
 
124 -^■S' Marriage a Failure i 
 
 may be, and whatever pretensions she may make on harjiand's 
 time before the civil and religious knots shall have been tied, — all 
 that is poetical and sentimental ceases when she returns from the 
 Flitterioocheii (the honeymoon) to her own hearth and home. In 
 a country where sentimentalism was less worshipped than it is in 
 Germany, such a life of domestic drudgery as is led by the 
 ordinary married woman here would inevitably spoil her character. 
 But in no class of society in Germany do married women expect 
 to indulge in the aesthetic and intellectual pleasures and amuse- 
 ments that their sisters in other countries crave for. A married 
 woman is certainly the mistress of her husband's house, but her 
 province is limited. A woman is looked upon here as an inferior 
 being compared with man ; she is not his companion, or the 
 intellectual sharer of his interests and pleasures. She is his house- 
 keeper, his maidservant, his slave if you will. And she does not 
 demand more. It is this fact that justifies the exception I take to 
 " Anglo-Celt's " remarks above referred to. She exaggerates her 
 devotion to her household, and consequently unfits herself for 
 taking the position due to her as her husband's equal in their 
 common home. She does not assert her rights in this respect be- 
 cause she does not care to do so. And this is exactly the conduct 
 that a German husband expects from his wife and admires in her. 
 
 To make a long story short, German housewives do what they 
 consider their duty, and what the circumstances of their mode 
 of life expect from them. If English young girls, especially those 
 of families that are but poorly off, were to drop some of their snob- 
 bish, so-called ''lady-hke" ideas, and employ their time in a 
 manner moie useful for their parents' purses, they would be less 
 likely to come under the head of that class pointed out by 
 "Anglo-Celt" when they married and had houses of their own. 
 
 A few more words in conclusion, as to the age for marrying in 
 Germany. Amongst the artisan and working classes, early 
 marriages are unhappily very common, though not so common 
 as in England. Men under twenty are also known to marry here 
 in those classes. But when you come to the trades-people, mer- 
 chants, officers, members of the legal and learned professions, 
 
Alarriages Abroad. 1 25 
 
 civil servants, and ihe like, their matrimonial proclivities are 
 hedged in by a variety of obstructions. The necessity to serve 
 in the army throws most young men back in the race of life 
 for a few years, the age at which men may be called upon to 
 serve being twenty. The incomes of parents are not high, so 
 that neither Brdutigam nor Bravt can expect much help from 
 home during the parents' life-time. Some years must elapse here 
 as well as in any other country before a young man in any of the 
 learned professions can earn a sum of money sufficient to support 
 himself and wife and family. Officers are not' allowed to marry 
 under a certain annual income. These difficulties, however, do 
 not drive young men and maidens from the influence of the god 
 of love — a fact which in itself is a proof that marriage is no failure 
 in Germany. But lovers become engaged sooner, and engage- 
 ments are of longer duration in Germany than in England. This 
 meets Mrs. Caird's objection, that married people do not know 
 enough of one another. The formal betrothal, which is announced 
 on elegantly printed cards, circulated amongst the friends of the 
 two families, and registered in the columns of the newspapers, is 
 a solemn affair, and the lapse of time between the betrothal and 
 the wedding day enables both the man and the woman to obtain 
 a fair insight into each other's character before marriage. En- 
 gaged couples here are allowed a good deal of liberty, walking 
 about arm in arm, and spending much of their spare time to- 
 gether. 
 
 The strongest negative to the question Is iVIarriage a Failure? 
 if asked in Germany, is the warmth and depth of family affection 
 that is exhibited throughout this country at Christmas. I have 
 purposely drawn out the rough points of German domestic life, 
 which are striking to an Enghsh observer accustomed to a more 
 comfortable state of things in his native country, in order to show 
 you that, notwithstanding these external drawbacks, the inner life 
 of matrimonial unions is, on the whole, thoroughly satisfactory 
 here, and that marriage quite fulfils its object, from the German 
 point of view. Anybody who has passed a Christmas in Germany, 
 and has witnessed the domestic preparations, and family love, and 
 
1 26 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 fondness displayed by husband, wife, parents, and children, will 
 gratefully exclaim, as I am sure all your English readers have 
 long since done, that, however many have been unlucky enough, 
 from their own, or others' faults, to draw blanks from the conjugal 
 urn, the majority of married people here are perfectly satisfied 
 that they have entered upon a bond which they would not will- 
 ingly see dissolved, and that marriage is anything but a failure in 
 the German Fatherland. — Yours faithfully, 
 
 ANGLO-GERMAN. 
 
 Berlin, Sept. 22, 
 
 The Mar?-iage Customs of India. 
 
 Sir, — I beg leave to appear as a witness before your commis- 
 sion on matrimony in two capacities — first, as an Anglo-Indian, 
 who has spent by far the larger part of his life, from childhood 
 onwards, in the East, and has, as a solitary European among 
 natives, enjoyed unusual opportunities of watching the result of 
 the almost unlimited varieties of connubial customs permitted by 
 our extraordinarily tolerant Government ; secondly, as a European, 
 whose married life has been subjected to the strain of separation 
 from wife and children which an Indian career too often involves. 
 In the first capacity, then, I have seen in working order many of 
 the expedients which the more hopeful of your correspondents 
 suggest as panaceas for our own marriage customs. " Free love " 
 I have seen among the Kai-tabhajas and other Vishnuite sects of 
 Eastern India who have revolted from the extreme rigour of 
 orthodox Hinduism. " Love," says Sir W. W. Hunter, " is the 
 foundation of their faith, and hence they consider each other as 
 dadas and didis (brothers and sisters)." On many a high road in 
 Bengal will you meet Vaisnav and Vaisnavi, each with shaven 
 poll, joined by no rites save those of common consent, and free to 
 separate whenever the whim seizes them or some better partner 
 offers. Again, among the Manipuris an"d other semi-FIinduised 
 tribes of the N.E. frontier I have seen unmarried girls who were 
 allowed a licence of intercourse with the bachelors of their 
 village which would shock the tolerance of even an American 
 
Marriages Jibroad. 127 
 
 mother. Yet no race more sternly punishes breaches of married 
 faith, as I might show by startling instances were I not afraid of 
 trespassing on your patience. Yet again, in the fertile valley of 
 Assam, you will find substituted for the infant marriages which 
 are the bane of orthodox Hinduism a system of infant betrothal, 
 which would seem to give the young people ample opportunity of 
 changing their minds before it is too late. If facility of divorce 
 be your aim and goal, you will find it, so far as the husband is 
 concerned, among our Mussulman fellow-subjects, who permit a 
 husband to rid himself of a faithless, quarrelsome, or childless 
 wife by thrice pronouncing the word talak, subject only to the 
 restitution of dower. I have heard young Mussulmani women 
 admit in open court in the presence of Hindus, to whom such a 
 confession must have been even more shocking than to ourselves, 
 that they had been married by the neka ceremony and divorced 
 three or four times over. Finally, to leave out many other 
 interesting varieties of marriage customs, which, though allowed, 
 are perhaps not sufficiently studied by our legislators, there are 
 the strict rules of the Hindus, who marry boy and girl together, 
 and suffer no divorce and no second marriage even when death 
 has, for this world at least, parted husband and wife. Under all 
 these varied institutions (chiefly, it must be remembered, poly- 
 gamous) I have met many happy couples — many loving and 
 self-sacrificing parents ; but I am bound to say that, on the 
 whole, my impression is that marriage is more often a success 
 among the Hindus, who know that they must make the best 
 of what is often a bad business, than among sects whose tenets 
 allow divorce and re-marriage. I believe most careful observers 
 of Indian customs will agree that my impression, unsupported 
 though it necessarily is by statistical proof, is a correct one. 
 
 To return to my second point of view, that of an Englishman 
 not unhappily married, in spite of the necessity of frequent and 
 prolonged separation from wife and children. Some of your 
 more cynical correspondents may urge that the separations which 
 Anglo-Indians regard as one of the gravest drawbacks of Eastern 
 life conduce to happiness. Unfortunately, the records of the 
 
r 28 Is Marriage a Failure / 
 
 Divorce Court tell a different tale; but I do say that where common 
 sense and mutual consideration exist, these trials, as well as the 
 various drawbacks of poverty, large families, and other evils of which 
 your correspondents complain, do but strengthen and enhance 
 married affection. If a wife or a husband be fickle, self-indulgent, 
 and weak, absence affords an opportunity for sin. If they be con- 
 stant and self-respecting, absence makes the heart grow fonder. 
 
 Even when we come to the graver hindrances to married hap- 
 piness, I doubt if divorce and the licence to marry again are good 
 remedies. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred of unhappy 
 marriages, it is not the system but the persons who are to 
 blame ; and, moreover, they are the very persons who would take 
 advantage of a laxer system to perpetrate fresh blunders. If we 
 are to have any changes, let them not be such as will encourage 
 youth, already too prone to yield to impulse and passion, to defend 
 an unwise choice by the argument that it is not irrevocable. 
 
 Let men and women have the option of separation from partners 
 who are drunken, insane, or released gaol-birds ; but as they have 
 been married once and have found the experiment a failure, let 
 them be contented to have escaped so easily. Individual cases of 
 hardship there will be under all systems of interference with 
 liberty, and marriage must always be an interference with liberty. 
 I may be permitted to doubt whether any change of system will 
 conduce to the greater happiness of the greatest number of 
 married people. — Yours, &c., T! r S 
 
 London, Sept. 6. 
 
 How other Nations manage. 
 
 Sir, — Your Paris correspondent, in the course of his interesting 
 remarks upon French marriages a few days ago, called attention 
 to one or two of the family arrangements that have to do more 
 particularly with the matrimonial prospects of " young persons,'' 
 in the Podsnappian sense, and that are worthy of a good deal 
 more serious consideration than has hitherto been accorded to 
 them in this country. These arrangements, by the way, are not 
 confined to France, but are more or less prevalent throughout 
 
Marriages Abroad. 120 
 
 all the civilised parts of the Continent. I refer to the several 
 systems, carried out with equal steadfastness by rich and poor, 
 believers and agnostics. Monarchists and Republicans, of pro- 
 viding girls with dowries, suitable to their social condition, by 
 the time they attain a marriageable age. In England, except 
 among the wealthier classes, the necessity of making this provi- 
 sion is far too widely ignored. As, while priding ourselves upon 
 our practicality, we are really the most sentimental people on the 
 face of the earth, I have no doubt that our carelessness about 
 dowering our daughters is due to a secret conviction that true 
 love ought to be the only recognised inducement to marry, and 
 that sordid considerations are unworthy of the trusting heart. 
 This is one of those " English views " which I, though as staunch 
 a Briton as ever preferred roast-beef to kickshaws, cannot agree 
 with. It is all very well to leave one's boys unprovided for, 
 except by a good sound education. When they come to man's 
 estate they must look out for themselves, and " face the music ". 
 Girls are in every way " weaker vessels '' than boys ; they require 
 "aid and comfort," and naturally look to marriage for both. 
 Now-a-days, however, men of moderate means, sufficient for their 
 own maintenance, bnt little more, are not so willing as they 
 formerly were to double their responsibilities, without doubhng 
 their income, by taking unto themselves penniless life-partners. 
 Consequently, it is more than ever the duty of parents to reduce 
 the matrimonial disabilities of their girls to a minimum, by ena- 
 bling them to contribute something more solid than good-looks 
 and superficial accomphshments to the well-being of the men who 
 may ask them in marriage. Thousands of amiable young women 
 are condemned, in this country, to perpetual celibacy for the lack 
 of a dowry of some sort, possessing which they would experience 
 no difficulty in finding husbands. Young Englishmen of the 
 present day are reluctant to marry for love only, lest they should 
 be constrained to repent at leisure. 
 
 In France, as a rule, as soon as a female child has got over its 
 early infantile troubles — vicarious nursing, teething, &c. — its 
 parents begin to save up little by little — I am speaking, of course, 
 
I30 Is Marriage a Failure'^ 
 
 of the lower middle classes, operatives and peasantry — for the 
 "dot" which will secure her some sort of husband when she 
 shall have passed her sixteenth year. Part of the dowry is 
 generally paid in money or its equivalent in stock ; part takes the 
 form of underclothing, household linen, and not infrequently 
 furniture. This is the method of providing a property qualifica- 
 tion for marriage, as far as girls are concerned, which obtains in 
 all European countries peopled by the Latin race, and where 
 Catholicism is the predominant variety of religion. In Italy, 
 Spain, and Portugal, it differs in certain details from the French 
 system, with which, however, it is identical in principle. The 
 parents of female children set aside a certain percentage of their 
 earnings with a view to the ultimate establishment in life of their 
 daughters, knowing full well that these latter will never gain hus- 
 bands by mere good looks, if otherwise unprovided for — indeed, 
 that personal beauty, unaccompanied by a dowry, is almost certain 
 to lead to their ruin. 
 
 The Germans and Scandinavians, in making provision for their 
 daughters, favour a duplex insurance system, which has come 
 largely into vogue of late years throughout the Fatherland, Den- 
 mark, Sweden, and Norway. The child, shortly after its birth, is 
 insured in such sort that a certain sum is paid to the parents on 
 its death — should it die during infancy or girlhood — or on its 
 marriage before the age of twenty-one ; or^ by special arrangement, 
 on completing its legal majority whilst yet unmarried. The 
 premiums of this insurance are very moderate ; so much so that 
 even the poorer class of operatives can afford to pay such a yearly 
 sum as will secure a fitting dowry to their daughters, if they don't 
 have too many of them. 
 
 In countries where the Greek orthodox faith prevails, the 
 majority of the population deriving its subsistence from agricultural 
 pursuits — and it is worthy of note that manufacturing industries, 
 which imply considerable intelligence in those who practise them, 
 do not thrive among followers of the Greek Church — a girl's 
 dowry generally consists of live stock ; sometimes, as in Roumania, 
 Servia, Montenegro, Albania, and parts of Greece, in ornaments 
 
Marriages Abi'oad. 131 
 
 fashioned in the precious metals, necklaces and headdresses made 
 of small coins, and other gewgaws, more showy than valuable, 
 that are transferred by marriage from family to family. There is, 
 in short, no continental country in which I have sojourned — and 
 I was a dweller in strange places for two-and-twenty of my fifty 
 years of life — where the duty of providing some sort of dowry for 
 girls is not more assiduously carried out by parents of all classes 
 than it is in these islands. There is, moreover, no other people 
 in Christendom so improvident as the British people, whether in 
 relation to their public or private affairs. They alone systemati- 
 cally neglect the interests of their daughters, as well as of their 
 army and navy, and expose their girls to unnecessary dangers as 
 well as their coasts. — Yours obediently, 
 
 A TRAVELLED ENGLISHMAN. 
 
 Inner Temple, Aug. 22. 
 
 Marriage in Scotland. 
 
 Sir, — In answer to the critical question which has for the last 
 few days filled your widely-read columns with interesting and often 
 instructive letters, let me, as the wife of a Scotch factor, confess 
 with humiliation that marriage is quite as frequently a failure to 
 the north as it is to the south of Tweed. Between the end of last 
 October and the present time 126 actions for divorce and twenty- 
 seven for separation were brought into court at Edinburgh alone — • 
 not a bad record for a nation with less than four million in- 
 habitants, and in which not more that 24,000 marriages take place 
 every year. My Scottish fellow-countrymen are proverbially 
 " canny," or gifted with a keen eye to self-interest, and I attribute 
 the frequency of matrimonial failures among them to financial 
 pressure. Within half-a-dozen years of their marriage most 
 Scotchmen have at least three or four children, whom they find it 
 very difficult to support. Scotch husbands were pronounced by 
 M. Taine, the accomplished French critic who visited this country 
 in 187 1, to be more selfish than English or Irish husbands, and to 
 be more deficient in the paternal instincts. I know that I shall 
 expose myself to vehement attacks from my male compatriots 
 
132 Is Marriage a Failure! 
 
 when I venture to reproduce M. Taine's unflattering comments 
 about them, and, therefore, while forwarding you my card, 1 will 
 ask you to allow me to subscribe this letter with a signature which 
 conceals my name. My object in writing is to suggest that it 
 would be a priceless blessing to this country if Scottish maidens 
 were not allowed to marry until they were provided with what we 
 call a " tocher " and the French term a "dot". It rarely happens 
 that a Scotch girl in the middle and lower classes has any dowry at all, 
 and, being penniless, she jumps at the first offer of marriage made 
 to her by a man who, in Carlyle's words, " displays insane anxiety 
 to maintain another man's daughter''. If a girl has, as occasion- 
 ally happens, a dowry, she understands as well as any girl in the 
 world how to turn it to the best account. Whenever a young 
 Scotchman makes matrimonial advances to one of our " lang- 
 tochered Nancies,'' he has no chance of winning her hand unless 
 he can offer at least as much " gear'' as she herself will bring; 
 but when a Scotch girl has, as is usually the case, no " tocher " at 
 all, she cares little whether the man who courts her be young or 
 old, be handsome or ugly, be sober or a slave to whisky. She 
 takes him, although old enough to be her father — perhaps with 
 the design attributed to " a young lassie " by Burns, when he 
 makes her say : 
 
 I'll wring him and rack him until I heart-brak him, 
 And then his auld brass will buy me a new can. 
 
 How different is the procedure of matrimonial aspirants in 
 France, where the man never thinks of asking a young girl to 
 marry him until he has first spoken to and obtained the consent of 
 her parents. In Balzac's wonderful novel, Eugenie Grandei, the 
 father of the heroine sets to work to plant fifty poplars directly she 
 is born, in order that the sale of the trees may provide her with 
 a dot when she is of a marriageable age. It is the custom of 
 English writers to ridicule French mnriages de convenance ; but 
 in England and Scotland love-matches end often in discord, 
 while French " marriages by arrangement ' end usually in con- 
 cord. In France the wife's dowry is always placed in the hands 
 of trustees, who are responsible for its integrity, and hand over the 
 
Marriages Abroad. 133 
 
 interest only to the family. In general this fixed income is 
 the wife's pin-money, with which she dresses herself and her 
 children. Her fortune thus becomes a kind of dotal fund, 
 secured against the casualties which may befal the husband. Un- 
 provided with a "tocher'' of her own, the Scotch wife, on the 
 other hand, knows nothing of her husband's concerns. Whether 
 he speculates, or builds, or buys, or sells is none of her business, 
 and ruin often arrives without her having any suspicion of its 
 approach. She is merely a housekeeper, and must busy herself 
 only with her household and her children. If the husband dies, 
 the wife, having been kept in ignorance and dependence, knows 
 nothing of business, and is utterly unfit to become the head of the 
 family. As an instance of the imbecility of our Scotch education 
 for girls, let me quote the following passage from The Personal 
 Recollections of Mary Somerville — one of the most gifted Scotch- 
 women that ever lived. Mrs. Somerville writes ; " My mother 
 taught me to read the Bible and to say my prayers morning and 
 evening ; otherwise she allowed me to grow up a wild creature. 
 I amused myself in the garden, watching the flight and habits of 
 the birds. In due time my mother sent me to learn the 
 Catechism of the Kirk of Scotland, and to attend the public examina- 
 tions in the kirk. These meetings were attended by many old women, 
 who came to be edified. The minister once said to one of them, 
 ' Peggy, what lightened the world before the sun was made ? ' She 
 answered, "Deed, sir, the question is mair curious than edifying'." 
 If I had my own way, Sir, I would enact (i) that no Scotch 
 girl should be allowed to marry unless she had a "tocher," how- 
 ever slender ; and (2) that in every town and village there should 
 be an institution in which girls might be taught the elementary 
 rules of housekeeping, such as sewing, cooking, and making 
 simple dresses. I would allow no Scotch girl to marry unless 
 she had a certificate from one of these institutions showing that 
 she had acquired all the knowledge necessary for the management 
 of a small household. As matters now stand, I know hundreds 
 of Scotch wives who cannot make their own or their children's 
 clothes, and whose knowledge of cookery is confined to preparing 
 
134 Is lilarriage a Failure? 
 
 "parritch" and boiling a "lumper". I lay no claim to origi- 
 nality in making these suggestions, the first of which will be found 
 in Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, and the second in the writings 
 of Sir H. S. Maine. In Scotland, however, the loose views of 
 the matrimonial lie which are sanctioned by our marriage laws 
 have always prevailed. With us marriage is not only an entirely 
 civil contract, but may be entered into with the same freedom as 
 any other contract which requires nothing but mutual consent. 
 We divide marriages into regular and irregular, of which the 
 first take place after the proclamation of banns in the parish 
 church, some religious ceremony being performed by a clergy- 
 man ; or, if the two parties to it prefer, they declare themselves 
 married in the presence of a clergyman, either in a church or in 
 a private house. In irregular marriages it is sufficient for a man 
 to point to a woman and say, in the presence of two witnesses, 
 "This is my wife". Hence it often happens that in Scotland 
 two persons cannot say whether they are legally married or not, 
 and the point cannot be cleared up without expensive litigation, 
 as happened in the celebrated case of " Yelverton v. Yelverton ". 
 Can it be wondered. Sir, that under these circumstances there 
 should be so many matrimonial failures in Scodand ? It would 
 be in harmony with our national characteristic of cautious canni- 
 ness if every Scotch girl were required to bring her husband some 
 " tocher," however small. How greatly would the possession of 
 some small income settled on the woman conduce to the respecta- 
 bility and status of Scotch wives ! Throughout the whole of 
 the United Kingdom it would also tend to the diminution of 
 divorces if women were unable to enter into matrimony without 
 producing evidence that they have been taught the elementary 
 rudiments of knowledge, without which they cannot, by any possi- 
 bility, make their homes happy, cheerful, and thrifty, and set an 
 example to their daughters which will enable them to tread in 
 the steps of what our Presbyterian clergymen call their " sainted 
 mothers ". — Yours to command, 
 
 THE WIFE OF A SCOTCH FACTOR. 
 Edinburgh, Aug. 17. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 AMICI CURItE. 
 
 Wanted, " A Congenial Mate ''. 
 
 Sir, — I am unmarried, because I wish my marriage to be a 
 greater success than that of some of my" friends. I see them 
 happier married than they were single, but I think they should be 
 happier than they are, and would have been could they have 
 found more suitable partners. And this is the difficulty I wish to 
 point out, that of finding a congenial mate. 
 
 No doubt there are plenty of girls with small and some with 
 large incomes as anxious to get married as the men are to marry 
 them ; also lots of nice girls, well grown and healthy, who would 
 make good mothers and capital wives, of whom any man might be 
 proud, but the difficulty is to get at them. Numbers of men like 
 myself, with good characters and moderate incomes of ;^2oo to 
 ;^3oo a-year, would be glad to marry them, but have to wed 
 instead penniless girls, often sickly in health and half-educated, 
 with whom they pass an anxious and struggling existence, while a 
 healthy, handsome wife, with a small annuity of her own, would 
 change all that into comfort and perfect happiness. Of course, 
 sickness and poverty are misfortunes and not faults, but they are 
 certainly not qualifications for matrimony. 
 
 And all this is accounted for by our severe and exclusive social 
 laws, which injure both sexes equally. 
 
 Take the young man in London. He goes daily to the City ; 
 when he returns all the eligible girls are at home with their 
 parents. His feminine society is limited to the few who may 
 visit his home— if his family are unsociable, perhaps none. If he 
 
1 36 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 lives in lodgings, as so many do, the girls who visit will probably 
 be poor, and very possibly vulgar, so that he is quite cut off from 
 congenial female society, and is thrown entirely into the company 
 of men, or of the girls he meets in the City restaurants. Several 
 of my acquaintances have married barmaids or shop-girls, half- 
 educated women, unsuitable to them in every respect, rather than 
 remain single ; others, not so easily accommodated, have had to 
 remain bachelors. 
 
 Girls talk about their difficulties and helplessness, but take the 
 case of a solitary man. If he sees a lady whose manners and 
 appearance charm him he may watch her for months, but must 
 not speak unless he can get some mutual friend to introduce him 
 — no easy matter ; and, having procured an introduction, he 
 cannot call until he has been introduced to and received an invite 
 from her parents. Even then he cannot call more than two or 
 three times, unless he engages himself to her before he has had a 
 chance of seeing if their dispositions are congenial, thereby risking 
 a breach of promise. So that, although all girls wish to marry, 
 and all parents would like to see their daughters happily married, 
 yet they surround themselves with a hedge of difficulties almost 
 impenetrable, the result being that numbers of eligible girls and 
 men have to remain single or content themselves with the wrong 
 party because they cannot get at the right one. 
 
 I would allow any person to speak respectfully to any other 
 without it being considered a stigma upon either, and, if visits 
 cannot be paid without the parties being engaged, then 
 engagements should be regarded as periods of probation, and 
 breach of promise, except in cases of pecuniary loss or seduction, 
 should be entirely abohshed. I would also advocate the free 
 use of the columns of the leading daily papers for matrimonial 
 advertisements, where they could be seen by all, and where the 
 ladies would have the opportunity of meeting the gentlemen half- 
 way. With or without the aid of such means as I have suggested, 
 I shall wait until I find a girl whom I can not only like but love 
 intensely, and in whose company and by whose help I can not 
 only exist, but live in comfort and happiness ; and should I be 
 
Amici Curies. 137 
 
 so fortunate as to meet my affinity, then, in the words of your 
 
 correspondent " Unappropriated Blessing," " Shan't I make her 
 
 happy ! " — at anyrate, I will try. Until that happy time I must 
 
 remain as at present, 
 
 A VICTIM TO ETIQUETTE. 
 
 Selhurst, S.E., Sept. 14. 
 
 " My husband has a liver P 
 
 Sir, — I should indeed be grateful to Mrs. Mona Caird, or to 
 anybody else, who would show us unhappily married folk a decent 
 way out of our difficulties. Marriage, in my case, has been a 
 miserable failure, simply because my husband and I do not suit 
 each other. Ours is a clear case of incompatibility, proved beyond 
 all doubt by the almost daily jarring and wrangling of some four- 
 teen years. We are " too disputatious " for each other's company ; 
 there is not a subject under " this majestical roof,'' or beyond it 
 for that matter, on which we can agree, and surely we've had 
 enough of it. My husband has a liver, and I've got nerves, both, 
 I firmly believe, the result of this mismating. We have both 
 broken every vow we made to each other on our wedding day, 
 save one ; and being highly moral, if nothing else, we must still 
 endure, wearing out our days in mutual misery, and darkening and 
 embittering our children's lives by a loveless and joyless home. 
 
 I am sure I began with every intention of making a model wife. 
 I had high notions of devotion and self-sacrifice, which the circum- 
 stances of our lives gave me ample opportunity of acting upon, 
 but I soon discovered that the reciprocity, like the Irishman's, was 
 all on one side. I believe that hundreds of young wives systema- 
 tically half starve themselves that the husband may have all the 
 little indulgences he has been accustomed to in his bachelor days. 
 I know several who heroically struggle on with an allowance — 
 and that intermittent — which, after providing for the way to the 
 man's heart, would not leave enough to nourish a decently hungry 
 fly. Small wonder the wives get pale, pinched, and irritable, and 
 take to stimulants, — Yours, &c,, 
 
 A TIRED WIFE. 
 
 Felpham, near Bognor, Aug. 21. 
 
138 Is Marriage a Failure^ 
 
 The South Shields Man's Dry Humour. 
 
 Sir, — I quite agree with your lively young correspondent 
 
 Letty S , that the homily with which our Marriage Service 
 
 closes lacks intrinsic cheerfulness, and that its peculiar charms, 
 actual or suggestive, are seldom appreciated by the more youthful 
 class of brides. Neither, despite its slight indelicacy, do all bride- 
 grooms relish it with a perfect zest, although, in summarising the 
 obligations of matrimony, it puts the case for the husband a good 
 deal more advantageously than for the wife. I remember an odd 
 incident, illustrative of the objections entertained towards this 
 tiresome exordium by men of the "Time is money" and "Self- 
 help " ways of thinking. It took place at the second wedding of 
 an honourable and gallant friend of mine, whose humour was 
 abundant, but of the variety known as "dry". He was being 
 married, let us say, at South Shields, a good many years ago, 
 and, having been through the ceremony before, as a principal, 
 was sharply on the look-out for the homily, which he regarded in 
 the light of a vexatious superfluity. Accordingly, when the curate 
 — a young and somewhat nervous ecclesiastic— had completed the 
 " buckling-to '' part of the service, and was mildly bleating out the 
 
 exhortation to " hear what Saint Paul saith," Captain P held 
 
 up his hand, to the officiant's utter dismay, and interrupted him 
 with the words, " I beg your pardon, sir ; but are we legally 
 married?" "Why, yes; certainly you are," was the hesitating 
 reply. " Then, sir," rejoined the captain, " I'll not trouble you to 
 tell us what Saint Paul said. Saint Paul may have been a very 
 good fellow ; but he wasn't a South Shields man." This said, he 
 gave his arm to his newly-made wife, and led her away calmly in 
 the direction of the vestry. 
 
 The curate, it appears, entertained so high an opinion of the 
 occult virtues of the homily, and of the beneficial effect they could 
 not fail to exercise upon a young married couple, that he took my 
 friend aside a few minutes before the wedding breakfast and 
 timidly asked him whether he would permit him, the said curate, 
 to impart St. Paul's views to him and Mrs. P orally on their 
 
Amici Curice. 139 
 
 return from the honeymoon trip ? To this question, dictated by 
 professional zeal which would have done credit to an Early 
 Christian, my friend retu-rned a polite but evasive answer. 
 When, however, husband and wife came back to their native 
 town, at the conclusion of what the Germans so happily term 
 " Die Flitterwochen," they were so obviously a happy pair, and the 
 subsequent harmony of their married life proved so delightfully 
 continuous, as far as their many friends and acquaintances knew, 
 that the reverend enthusiast never found occasion to " place " 
 his favourite homily, and wisely left at least two of his wedded 
 parishioners to work out their connubial felicity in their own way. 
 In the firm belief that there are plenty of "douce bodies" in 
 the canny North, bridegrooms as well as brides in posse, who 
 entertain just as strong an objection to the homily as did the hero 
 of my true story, I remain, Sir, yours obediently, 
 
 JINGLING GEORDIE. 
 
 ■ Newcastle-on-Tyne, Aug. 20. 
 
 An Indignant Hebe. 
 
 Sir, — The letter signed by " A Victim to Etiquette " has made 
 me, though amused, very indignant. Necessity has made me, as 
 it has many others, glad to accept a position as barmaid. Where 
 is the disgrace? At what standard of education has "The Victim" 
 arrived that he should gauge that of a barmaid, as a whole, as 
 being only half it should be. There are others who, like myself, 
 have daily to attend to the whims and fancies of a parcel of self- 
 opinionated and conceited fellows, whose very ignorance of com- 
 mon politeness puts them completely outside the prospect of ever 
 marrying any girl who has any self-respect. Their only idea is 
 to parade their so-called superiority before such as myself, little 
 thinking the disgust it creates in our minds. If these educated 
 gentlemen would remember that fine clothes do not make fine 
 birds, but that manners make the man, they would speedily look 
 to their ways, and not act as though the moment they are in the 
 presence of a barmaid they have unlimited licence to say and act 
 
140 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 in a manner they would never dare to do under any other circum- 
 stances. — Yours, &c., 
 
 A CITY BARMAID. 
 
 Kennington, S.E. , Sept. 17. 
 
 The Meek Wife's Ascendency. 
 
 Sir, — Perhaps it may be interesting to your readers to hear in 
 what manner young people of the German-speaking nations are 
 trained for marriage. We German girls are proud of being able 
 to scrub our rooms, cook our husband's dinner in the morning, 
 and entertain a select party of beaux esprits in the evening. We 
 are taught to be self-reliant as well as obedient, and while our 
 minds arfe trained and beautified by study, we are still led not to 
 neglect the duties of a good housewife. We are taught to be 
 charitable by actually helping those in need ; not by talking about 
 what might be done, and going to fancy bazaars. We are taught 
 self-denial by daily practice ; and, above all, we are taught that we 
 have not come into this world to please our own unimportant 
 selves, but as a link of the whole. We look upon our womanly 
 calling as a thing so sublime that we dare contemplate it but with 
 awe ; upon our subordinate position to man as something desir- 
 able ; for we know that in that very subordination lies our greatest 
 power, and that the truly meek and obedient wife has a far greater 
 ascendency over her husband than the one who rebels and fights 
 for women's rights. 
 
 ELLEN COURT. 
 
 Lewisham, Aug. 20. 
 
 A Successful Early Marriage. 
 
 Sir, — I am more than surprised to see that all your correspon- 
 dents so utterly and entirely condemn early marriages, on the 
 ground that young people cannot possibly understand what a 
 serious thing marriage is. We all know there are many giddy, 
 senseless, frivolous, creatures even at twenty-five years of age ; 
 but, nevertheless, there are hundreds of girls who have as much 
 sense and good judgment at sixteen as others ten years their 
 
Aniici CtiricB. 141 
 
 senior. One correspondent goes so far as to say that early 
 marriages are the sole cause of all the miseries of married life. 
 Now, had there been a law to prevent early marriage I, for one, 
 should have been deprived of the happiest year in my life. I was 
 married when I was seventeen, and my husband was called away 
 from this world thirteen months after we were married ; I have 
 now been a widow nearly three years, and am thinking about 
 marrying again. 
 
 My mother and grandmother were both married at sixteen 
 years of age, and seven other members of our own family also ; 
 and I can confidently state that a happier, more devoted, or well" 
 beloved family is not to be found anywhere,' and in none of these 
 instances has marriage proved to be a failure, but rather a source 
 of the greatest happiness it is possible to obtain during this life. 
 " — I am, 
 
 ONE OF THE SUCCESSES OF EARLY MARRIAGE. 
 
 Rickmansworth, Sept. 4. 
 
 What an " Old Maid" thinks. 
 
 Sir, — As a woman who has had a wide experience of life in 
 some of its saddest aspects, i.e., in hospitals, lunatic asylums, and 
 workhouses, I venture to write to you on the important matter now 
 before the public. In the various capacities of nurse, superinten- 
 dent, and matron, it has been my lot to come in contact with a 
 great many people whose marriages have been utter failures. 
 This, in the majority of the cases, I believe to have been the fault 
 of the parties themselves, and certainly not because the institution 
 of marriage is a failure. The chief causes of misery, I think, are 
 drink, the " social evil," poverty (especially when combined, as it 
 so often is, with a too numerous family), bad health on one or 
 both sides, early marriages, and, though last, not least, a want of 
 judgment in selecting a suitable partner. The onus of choice rests 
 with man, who is, I admit, the superior being, but who often seems 
 deficient in the faculty of choosing a help-meet for himself. On 
 the other hand, too many women marry for the sake of a home, or 
 
142 Is Marriage a Failure? 
 
 from the dread of being stigmatised as old maids, without a thought 
 as to their own fitness to become wives and mothers, or to the cha- 
 racter, &c., of those who wish to take them "for better or worse ". 
 
 I myself am an old maid, although an attractive, good-tempered, 
 intelligent, domesticated woman (I may blow ray own trumpet 
 under the shelter of a ?tom de plume — may I not?). This is 
 chiefly because when very young I determined never to marry to 
 be very poor, or to wed one who was a drunkard or profligate, or 
 who for any hereditary cause, such as insanity, ought not to marry, 
 or who was inferior to myself in intellect or education. A woman 
 should be able to look up to her lord and master, for where there 
 is little respect there can be no lasting love. I have never regret- 
 ted keeping this resolution, though I must frankly own to a natural 
 desire for some one to "love and cherish'' me, and whom in 
 return I would cheerfully promise to " love, honour, and obey,'' 
 notwithstanding all that has been said against the marriage service. 
 But those for whom I have felt "an affinity" have always been 
 either married, or engaged, or something or other, or the " recipro- 
 city was all on one side,'' as an Irishman said. 
 
 My opinion of marriage is that " when it is good, it is very good ; 
 but when it is bad, it is horrid ". But it would be a bad day for 
 my countrywomen if in the case of " Marriage versus Free Love," 
 a verdict should be given for the latter. What would become of 
 wives over forty, if they could be thrown on one side like broken 
 toys ? They would be crowded out in the struggle for existence, 
 as well as from their position as wives, by the younger women. 
 And what would be done with the children ? That the present 
 laws relating to marriage are in urgent need of reform most people 
 will admit ; but don't alter them too much ! Make divorce as 
 easily attainable by women as by men, by the poor as by the 
 rich. Abolish breach of promise prosecutions except in cases 
 of seduction. It is far better for people to find out that they 
 have made a mistake before marriage than after. Relax some of 
 the laws of etiquette. "What would Mrs. Grundy say?'' has 
 prevented many a young couple getting thoroughly acquainted 
 with each other's good and bad qualities. 
 
Amici CuricB. 143 
 
 Finally, if all votaries of Hymen will avoid early marriages and 
 short courtships, will seriously consider all they are going to 
 undertake, will " bear one another's burdens," and be true to each 
 other and to their vows, we shall hear less of unhappy marriages. 
 Those who will not do these things must abide by the conse- 
 quences, and blame themselves, and not any laws, human or 
 divine. — Yours truly, 
 
 A TRAINED NURSE. 
 
 London, Sept. 22. 
 
 " Men and women expect too much." 
 
 Sir, — In the name of thousands of wives, I am sure I may 
 thank a " Retired Physician " for his letter in the Daily Tele- 
 graph of Saturday last. I am convinced that one great reason 
 why some marriages are failures is that men and women expect 
 too much of each other. They think they have but to enter the 
 holy estate of matrimony, and that then for the rest of their lives 
 they may confidently look forward to a state of uninterrupted 
 felicity of a peculiarly satisfying kind. To put it as Jean Inge- 
 low does — 
 
 As if with marriage came the end, 
 
 The entrance into settled rest. 
 The calm to which love's tossings tend 
 The quiet breast. 
 
 Let men and women realise the fact that marriage means volun- 
 tarily taking upon themselves more duties, more cares, more 
 sufferings, as well as gaining more pleasures, then both man and 
 wife will be prepared for the inevitable trials of domestic married 
 life. A man clamours for fresh laws to be made, that he may rid 
 himself of a wife, who, by reason of her temper or her frivolity, 
 is objectionable to him ; yet the same man would spend years of 
 companionship with a mother or sister equally bad-tempered or 
 frivolous, and never dream of repudiating their claims upon his 
 forbearance and kindness. The first wife God ever gave man 
 brought him trouble. Put one of our nineteenth century hus- 
 bands into Adam's place — what would have become of poor Eve ? 
 
 I myself am a deserted wife, and my husband has treated me 
 
144 Is Marriage a Faihtre ? 
 
 with exceptional contempt and unkindness, but I am proud to 
 say that so great is my reverence for the sanctity of the marriage 
 vow, that if my husband sent for me to return to him to-morrow, 
 I would go, and with a hearty will and friendly affection strive to 
 do my duty to him. — Yours truly, 
 
 A CITY MERCHANT'S WIFE. 
 
 Worthing, Sept. lo. 
 
 " Curate Worship." 
 Sir, — " A Victim to Etiquette " deplores the difficulty of meet- 
 ing with girls to choose from as regards matrimony. I, as the 
 curate of a large country parish, have nothing to complain of in this 
 way ; and if I have not tasted the sweets (?) of matrimony, it is 
 not the fault of the hundred and one young ladies who are con- 
 stantly hanging on to my coat-tails, but simply that I have not 
 the means to marry. Your correspondent wishes that the ladies 
 would meet the gentlemen half-way. My experience is that 
 whatever else they may fail in they certainly do not in this parti- 
 cular. My week-day services are entirely composed of young 
 ladies, who have their eyes fixed on me instead of on their prayer- 
 books ; and with regard to Dorcas meetings, church decorations, 
 and Sunday schools, were I not in the midst of them, I often 
 wonder, would they be so well supported? Why should this 
 curate-worship exist ? With regard to my personal attractions, I 
 cannot boast much, having a pale complexion and sandy hair ; 
 but, even with these disadvantages, £go a-year, and rooms over 
 the greengrocer's, do not lessen the number of my fair worshippers. 
 Why should these girls (many of them having comfortable homes) 
 wish to plunge themselves into poverty with a '' pale young 
 curate," when they would turn up their noses at other men not 
 wearing the cloth, earning the same amount ? Is it that parish 
 work has such great charms for them ? This is a problem that I 
 (when sitting over my bread and cheese, which others are so 
 willing to share with me) have often tried to solve in vain. Per- 
 haps others may be able to help 
 
 A PERPLEXED CURATE. 
 
 Newport, Sept. ig. 
 
Amici Curim. 145 
 
 " Who shall decide when Barmaids disagree 1" 
 
 Sir, — I beg to differ with " An Observant Barmaid "; Marriages 
 in this business are not so rare as she imagines. Out of five young 
 ladies in this hotel, two are engaged and will soon be married. 
 Three of my most intimate friends, who were barmaids, are 
 married'to men in good position, and three happier homes could 
 not possibly be. I think one reason is, the girls had such a good 
 opportunity before marriage of studying the whims and fancies of 
 the male sex, which makes them more ready to humour and sub- 
 mit to them. 
 
 Of course there are barmaids and barmaids. I, for one, have 
 nothing to say against the men. I have always received the 
 greatest respect and kindness from them, with the exception of 
 one or two cases. 
 
 About a week ago one of your correspondents hinted that bar- 
 maids do not make good wives. I have often wondered why the 
 British public have not taken up the cudgels for barmaids as well 
 as they have for lady clerks, milliners, and others. We are not all 
 bad, believe me. Sir. Many of us come of good family, but are 
 thrown upon the world wiihout father, mother, or brother to 
 protect us. Yet we manage to keep ourselves as pure and straight 
 as if we were beneath the shelter of our own homes. The life is 
 not an easy one at the best, and I do think we are entitled to as 
 much sympathy as other girls who earn their own living. — Yours 
 respectfully, 
 
 ANOTHER BARMAID. 
 
 Liverpool, Sept. 24. 
 
 " / am not sorry." 
 
 Sir, — I, like " Hypocrite " in your issue of to-day, have been 
 engaged to a young man in a good position some ten years, and 
 we are as far off getting married as ever. But I am not sorry. I 
 have seen much of the married life of my friends and relations, 
 and have come to the conclusion that marriage is a failure. The 
 discussion in your instructive paper has given my young man such 
 
146 Is Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 a shock, and made him feel so unhappy, that he thinks we had 
 better break off our engagement. — Yours truly, 
 
 LEFT IN THE LURCH. 
 
 Somers Terrace, Notting Hill, W. , Aug. 2i. 
 
 "In vain is the snare set in sight of any bird.'^ 
 Sir, — That there are many marriages founded entirely and 
 solely on one consideration, i.e., true love and affection, I am 
 firmly convinced, but that such form anything like a majority I 
 cannot admit. I have a case in my mind now. A girl and a 
 young man were much in love with each other. The parents of 
 the former thought it was not a "good match," and therefore 
 objected to the engagement in every way, as she had a " better 
 offer ''. Like a dutiful child the girl resolved not to marry during 
 her father's lifetime. A few years after they were engaged the 
 father died, and the lovers were married. They are very happy, 
 although poor. Would the marriage have been a success if the 
 girl had accepted the " better offer " ? How many girls will 
 sacrifice almost anything in order to marry a man in a better 
 position than themselves, and what won't a millionaire do to get 
 his daughter married to a peer ? Is there happiness in any of 
 these cases ? Very little, I am afraid. No, as long as marriage is 
 looked upon as a commercial transaction, so long will it be a failure. 
 One of the chief reasons why young men do not marry is 
 because they see through so much of the humbug and devices 
 practised by the girls of the present day in order to be married, 
 and by their "mammas " to get them off. I visit a certain house, 
 and am made much fuss of because the " ma " thinks she will 
 catch me for one of her daughters. Unfortunately for them, these 
 daughters do not show that diplomacy which the generality dis- 
 play. They constantly say to me that they are sure they will never 
 marry, and that they will be " on the shelf soon ". So I should 
 think, if they tell every fellow the same thing. The great mistake 
 made at the present day is to bring girls up to believe that the 
 only aim and object they have in life is to get married. When 
 
Amid Curice. i/i^J 
 
 they grow up the father is anxious to get them off his hands, so 
 the girl naturally accepts the first offer, whether she cares for the 
 man or not. Is it to be wondered at that in such cases marriage 
 is a failure ? Parents seem to treat marriage as a matter of bar- 
 gain and sale, and as in an auction the highest bidder becomes 
 the purchaser, so the highest man in social position and wealth 
 that a daughter can get should, they think, be accepted by her. — 
 Yours, &c., 
 
 A YOUNG OBSERVANT BACHELOR. 
 
 London, Sept. ig. 
 
 " When Lubin is awa-a-a-a-y.'' 
 
 Sir, — It is all very well for engaged girls like " Elsie Donovan '' 
 to gush so charmingly about the picture of "the happy-faced wife,'' 
 with her "dainty dress," and a welcoming combination of "smile, 
 kiss, and a nicely-cooked dinner on a prettily-arranged table, when 
 the lights are subdued and soft ". And it is all very sweet and 
 nice for that other engaged lady to tell us how she can " light the 
 fire and get breakfast before starting in the morning,'' and com- 
 bine these accomplishments with domestic aspirations and a 
 thorough knowledge of bookkeeping, and " Wife, Mother, and 
 Grannie " can look down on the likes of me from her lofty 
 pinnacle of venerable experience ; but none of these ladies faces 
 the real difficulty that presents itself to me — which is, how to get 
 decently and respectably engaged. We eligible maidens who live 
 in or near small country towns have none of the social chances 
 that fall to the lot of our sisters who stand higher in the social 
 scale. For them there is the London season, and when that is 
 over a continental trip, or a series of flying visits round comfort- 
 able and cheery country houses, where their talents in the shape 
 of tennis, singing, '' playing games," dancing, acting charades, and 
 the wearing of smart frocks, and the saying of smart things can be 
 displayed to the best advantage. But for us, whose purses and 
 positions are smaller and less important, whose chance of a dance 
 or a picnic is dependent on the advent of some cheery entertain- 
 ing regiment with a couple of good-natured "Booties" therein, 
 
148 Is Marriage a bailure 1 
 
 who tnay turn up trumps, or may, alas ! " love and ride away, 
 how are we to meet, and choose, and select, and study the 
 characters of, and ultimately give way in sweet surrender to, the 
 lord of our hearts ? We are hemmed in and hedged round at 
 every side, and we yearn in vain for the power and privilege of 
 being "out" in the sense in which that fascinating little word 
 applies to our more richly-dowered sisters. Now, Sir, your cor- 
 respondent, the young man from the country who calls himself 
 "J. A. Z.," has got on the right track when he speaks — and very 
 sensibly, too, for a young man — of possible new opportunities for 
 young people to enjoy life. He is quite right in saying that while 
 none of us would be prevented entering a bal pare, or a bal des 
 enfans, or a soiree dansante in any one of the etablissements or 
 casinos to be found at such places as Trouville, Dieppe, or Bou- 
 logne, we would all of us virtually shudder over such a suggestion 
 if brought forward in this decorous island. The "dancing saloon" 
 has, of course, a horrid sound about it, and, as we can't give balls 
 ourselves, of course we are not asked to many. Your young man 
 suggests that the local clergy with Liberal views, who see no sin. 
 in a dance, should arrange entertainments of the sort required. 
 Unfortunately there are not many of such amiable broad-minded 
 clerics about, and I am sure our old rector, and the new pale 
 young curate who has just come from Oxford, with a pile of 
 books, and spectacles, and a fancy for making people get up to 
 go to church at a desperately early hour in the morning, would 
 shrivel up in their surplices if they were asked to organise a weekly 
 dance and pose as clerical chaperons. No, Sir, the notion of 
 weekly dance is good, but the committee of local residents start- 
 ing the scheme themselves is a vastly better plan. \\'e want some- 
 thing simple and popular, and, now that the winter months are 
 coming on, this seems to be an idea that you ought to take up 
 and work out, and thus earn the gratitude of many a Mariana in 
 Moated Grange. Let the local magnates — the doctor, the lawyer, 
 the parson by all means if he will join, the squire if he will con- 
 descend, the millowner, the respectable townsfolk generally — join 
 together, and once a week take the local Athenaeum or I'own 
 
Amict CuricE. 149 
 
 Hall and give a " Cinderella Oance " from, sa)', six to twelve 
 o'clock. Let them engage the pianist — and if it "runs to" a 
 fiddler and a clarionet so much the belter — and also provide light 
 refreshment, and we girls will gladly undertake the decorative 
 part of the work and fit up a pretty little ball-room, where the 
 young men will not have the gloom and awe of the Dissenting 
 Chapel over them, and where there will be every inducement to 
 prevent the said young men from "going to the bad". These 
 "calico balls," as they are sometimes called, would rather induce 
 young men to '• go to the good " ; and, frankly, Sir, by "going to 
 the good " I mean coming to meet nie and my girl friends, and 
 being innocendy happy, and forming friendships, and brightening 
 existence, and possibly — it would riot be wise to be too sure on 
 this point — finding the truest and deepest of all friendships in its 
 most perfect form. I have heard that long ago in your I^ondon 
 you had a grand fashionable gathering called " Alraack's," where 
 all the lofty people went to meet each other. Now I should like 
 every little town and district to have its local provincial " Almacks," 
 entrance to which would be subject to the approval of the local 
 committee, and where we could all meet in pleasant concourse, 
 instead of, as we do now, sit staring at each other Sunday after 
 Sunday in church, and wonder what we are all really like. If 
 you please, I am all for dancing : for the " educational magic- 
 lantern," or the "literary debate," or, indeed, anything with a 
 touch of the class or lecture in it, has no charm for me at all. 
 Your young man from the country has got as far Londonwards 
 as Brixton. If Brixton will start the scheme it will deserve well 
 of the whole community, and earn the gratitude of many honest- 
 minded maidens, including that of yours appreciatively, 
 
 A YOUNG GIRL IN THE COUNTRY. 
 
 Wiltshire, Sept. 20. 
 
 " She simply ordered a cab" 
 
 Sir, — I am one of the many who sincerely believe that marriage 
 upon the whole is not a failure ; but, as a parent, I write this letter 
 
1 50 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 as a warning to daughters generally not to disobey their parents 
 where so serious a step is concerned. 
 
 My daughter has married a man against my consent She had 
 about ;!^2ooo in her own right. When she came of age she 
 simply ordered a cab, and, without even a good-bye, after the 
 twenty one years of anxiety in carefully bringing her up, went off 
 and married this man. Although he was employed as a clerk, 
 from ill-health he was not likely to keep his situation ; and so it 
 turned out. Now for the consequences. They have spent every 
 penny of the ^2000, their furniture is all sold, and they are 
 living in one miserable room with no comforts about them what- 
 ever, while a very kind brother allows her a pittance weekly, simply 
 to prevent the disgrace of going to the workhouse. Fancy what a 
 life-long misery and anxiety it is to me as her father ! The man, 
 I presume, is now too old and too much of an invalid even to 
 obtain any employment. Her young life is therefore absolutely 
 blighted, and the distressing circumstance in all probability will 
 shorten mine. I may add, also, that she married this man, not 
 out of love, but simply to spite others, who were in a very good 
 position ; but who, from some cause or other, held aloof. The 
 consequence is misery to herself and to your obedient servant, 
 
 A PARENT. 
 London, Sept. 19. 
 
 " She tneefs the case.'" 
 
 Sir, — I have been waiting to see if any amongst your numerous 
 
 and clever correspondents would hit upon one of the most fruitful 
 
 sources of failure in marriage. At last " A Tired Wife," in your 
 
 issue of to-day, exactly meets the case when she mentions the fact 
 
 of her husband having a liver. This, although unknown to many, 
 
 is the cause of more daily jarring, wrangling, and disputations 
 
 than most are aware of, and those who have to endure the temper 
 
 of the proprietor of a real torpedo liver know what I mean. This 
 
 organ of ours can, I am sure, answer for 50 per cent, of failures in 
 
 marriage. — Yours, &c., 
 
 TARAXACUM. 
 Euston Road, Aug. 24. 
 
/imict Lurtm. 151 
 
 " Eight ' unappropriated blessings ' / " 
 
 Sir, — I hope you will allow a "Farmer's Daughter" space for 
 a few words. I have read with much sympathy the letters of a 
 "Would-be Benedict" and "Encore Isol6," and agree with them 
 that it would be very nice if girls and young men could meet and 
 learn to know each other without so much stiffness and formality. 
 Now, just look at our case : My father is the happy (!) owner of 
 eight " unappropriated blessings," all of whom have, I may say, a 
 fair share of good looks, are all very domesticated, most of them 
 musical, and any of them capable of getting their own living either 
 in one way or another. At home we have every facility for court- 
 ship in the shape of woodland walks, tennis, music — in fact, 
 everything but the masculine element. Now, if only you can 
 persuade a few of your " splendid, noble-minded fellows " to pay 
 a visit to this benighted village, what a godsend they would be, 
 and the clever letters you have so kindly published will indeed 
 have proved of use and benefit to the rising generation. 
 
 There are heaps of nice, well-educated farmers' daughters about 
 besides ourselves, and I think it is a shame for somebody not to 
 hunt them up. The fact is, the men are too lazy to take the 
 trouble. I am quite sure I don't want to be a " Glorified Spinster," 
 and shall continue to do my daily duties in the hope of some one 
 "turning up" some day. In the meantime I have picked up a 
 few crumbs of comfort from one of your lady correspondents, who 
 very coolly tells us she has had no fewer than fourteen offers of 
 marriage ! That one may some day be my portion is the modest 
 hope of yours truly, 
 
 A MAID OF KENT. 
 
 Goudhurst, Kent, Sept. 19. 
 
 How the Clergy Marry. 
 
 Sir, — I confess, to not having read Mrs. Mona Caird's article 
 " Is Marriage a Failure ? " but I have read some of the articles 
 and letters contributed to your columns on that subject, and 
 among them many from members of the clerical profession, who 
 frequently are essentially competent and qualified, by their inter- 
 
1 52 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 course with various classes of society, to express an opinion on 
 this question, in which every home in the land is more or less 
 interested. But while they express their sentiments on the 
 general eflfects on morality and on individual cases that have 
 fallen under their notice, I have seen no letter deprecatory in 
 the smallest degree of early and improvident marriages among 
 the clergy themselves. 
 
 Who is there that has not known a case of a poor cjrate who, 
 having no means beyond his wretched stipend, has allied himself 
 to a penniless girl, who had neither capacity nor opportunity to 
 earn one farthing to supplement the husband's pittance, but, on 
 the contrary, has either become a burden on it through ill-health, 
 or, by an annual addition to the number of the family, has reduced 
 their means to starvation point ? I myself not long ago had to 
 give my votes at the election of children to a partly endowed 
 school. Among the candidates were children of three clergymen, 
 two of whom had fourteen children each, and one seventeen. 
 They were all beneficed clergymen : one had a living of ;^i8o 
 annually, one of ^130, and the third of ;!^i2o. To them it 
 would, indeed, have been bitter sarcasm to put the question " Is 
 Marriage a Failure?" and yet with such examples before them 
 young clergymen are improvident enough to try the same experi- 
 ment, and, unless some exercise of superior authority can be 
 brought to bear, the same evils will continue. Could not a 
 provision be made that no clergyman should be allowed to 
 marry under the age of thirty without his bishop's consent ? — 
 Yours, &c., 
 
 H. 
 
 Grosvenor Crescent, W., Aug. 30. 
 
 " JVo end of nen'e. " 
 
 Sir, — I was married on Wednesday last, on my twentieth 
 birthday. I have always been brought up to revere and love 
 our Anglican Church and all her services, and, as the solemn 
 words of the Marriage Service fell on my ears on our wedding 
 morning, at first I was greatly impressed ; but this feeling soon 
 
Aviici CuricB. iS3 
 
 gave way to one of great confusion— may I say it, of dismay — as 
 the service continued. I felt an agonising wave of scarlet spread 
 over my face, and then in the next minute I felt myself grow 
 white as death ; and though 1 am considered as possessing no 
 end of nerve, 1 confess that I never felt more idiotically nervous 
 and confused in my life than I did whilst the words of our 
 marriage service were being poured into my ears. 
 
 My husband told me too the other day that he' thinks it is ten 
 times worse for " the fellow '' in similar cases. I had happened 
 only to have glanced at the Marriage Service in the most casual 
 manner some time before my marriage. Would it be well, do 
 you think, for girls to study it thoroughly on the eve of their 
 marriage, and so nerve themselves beforehand to face its possible 
 grandeur, but its sure and certain hideous candour ? — I am, Sir, 
 yours obediently, 
 
 CONSTANCE D. 
 
 London, N.W. , Sept. 3. 
 
 Bow ike ^' Happy Wife" Escaped Hearing the Marriage Service. 
 
 Sir, — I read with interest the letter of " Constance D.," and do 
 not wonder that she or any other bride of refined taste should be 
 shocked by the " hideous candour " of parts of the Marriage 
 Service of the Anglican Church. It must also make a man of 
 refinement feel dreadfully uncomfortable. I have been married 
 ten years, but fortunately escaped the trying ordeal that " Con- 
 stance D." had to face, as I was married in the United States, 
 and the Marriage Service in the American prayer-books has not 
 these objectionable parts in it. It is written more in the spirit of 
 the age we live in, and not in the style of past centuries. The 
 impression the service made on me was that we were married for 
 mutual society, help, and comfort. The Httle word so much 
 objected to is in the American service, but neither bride nor 
 bridegroom takes it as being meant seriously. — I am, &c., 
 
 A HAPPY WIFE. 
 Kensington, W., Sept. 7. 
 
154 !s Marriage u ruiiure I 
 
 " Our fine old Marriage Service." 
 Sir, — It seems to me that many of your correspondents weep 
 and lament over the " humiliation '' caused to the bride by the 
 words "love, honour," and especially "obey," &c., in the 
 Marriage Service. Now I think it extremely improbable that 
 any "humiliation " is caused to the wife by the congregation, as 
 they may safely be said to be too fully engaged in taking stock of 
 the bride's and the bridesmaids' apparel to pay any attention to 
 the clerical part of the ceremony, and, as the husband is quite 
 occupied in wondering whether he looks as big a fool as he feels, 
 the only possible humiliation (if any) to the wife is caused by, and 
 can be confined to, herself. But, I ask, if the "humiliation" is so 
 great, how is it that the great majority of girls are so anxious to be 
 humiliated ? As regards our fine old Marriage Service, surely 
 what was good enough for our ancestors is good enough for us, 
 more especially as the said service only declares that woman 
 is the " weaker vessel," and this we know has been the state of 
 things since the creation. — Yours, &c., 
 
 CONSERVATIVE. 
 Guernsey, Aug. 31. 
 
 " Thompson! s single blessedness.'' 
 Sir, — It must have occurred to many of your readers to ask 
 whether the correspondence which has so much interested them 
 can have any beneficial practical result. Personally, I have little 
 hope that it will eventuate in any material or immediate amend- 
 ment of our wretched marriage system, for in social matters we 
 are a most conservative people ; but it is well, nevertheless, that 
 men and women should be stirred up to think for themselves, 
 and that a mere superstitious reverence for what is should be 
 superseded by rational judgment founded upon intelligent know- 
 ledge. When people understand that the particular laws under 
 which we live are of only human origin, and that it is not sinful 
 to wish to modify them in any way that experience and reflection 
 suggest, the sooner will there be a chance of our social habits and 
 our legislation being placed upon a basis of common sense. The 
 particular form of marriage in use in England is, after all, simply 
 
Aniici CuricB. I5S 
 
 an artificial and arbitrary code for regulating, mainly in the in- 
 terests of property, the necessities of society. The system might 
 be altered, and possibly improved. It is not, at any rate, like 
 the laws of the Medes and Persians, for it can be changed at any 
 time by means of an Act of Parliament. 
 
 Without undertaking to answer at large the question " Is Mar- 
 riage a Failure ? " I know of several individual cases in which the 
 affirmative of that proposition could be easily demonstrated. I 
 have the misfortune to be married myself, and to belong to that 
 middle class whose cheerless, monotonous home-life has been so 
 well depicted in the letter of " An Observer ". My case is not 
 made better by the fact that, when a bridegroom, a generous im- 
 pulse led me to offer a home to my mother-in-law, who has ever 
 since sought to dominate the "show". I have four children, 
 and I keep one servant. With these and the wife and mother-in- 
 law and myself, I have thus a family of eight persons to maintain, 
 and, being a professional man, it is necessary for me to keep up 
 certain " appearances ". My income is ^350 a-year, and I spend 
 every penny of it. There is still always something " wanted," and 
 my wife and daughters are ever declaring that they have " nothing 
 to wear," and that they "can't afford to have company". 
 
 The case of my next-door neighbour, a bank manager, is more 
 lamentable than my own. Although his salary is a trifle higher 
 than mine, this little monetary advantage is more than counter- 
 balanced by the fact that his lady has proved herself a very fruit- 
 ful vine, having presented him in the course of fifteen years with 
 five daughters and two sons. As he is also favoured with the con- 
 stant company of one of his wife's dependent relatives, he finds it 
 necessary to keep two servants. The good man bears it all nobly, 
 and suffers in silence ; but the sacrifices he has had to make, and 
 the ever-present consciousness of the growing responsibilities he 
 has voluntarily embraced, have soured his disposition. His only 
 happiness now is to shut himself up in his "growlery" away from 
 the whole of his belongings to smoke the pipe of peace. I am 
 sure if he were to pronounce a conscientious opinion, he would 
 vote marriage a dismal failure. Contrast his condition and mine 
 
156 Is Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 with that of my friend Thompson, who is in ihe same office as 
 myself, who is of the same age, and who draws a similar salary. 
 He has had the prudence to remain in single blessedness. He 
 has neither wife, child, nor mother-in-law. If he misses any of 
 my " home comforts " he escapes my domestic troubles, and, 
 having only one person to maintain instead of eight, he has al- 
 ways ample means wherewith to purchase pleasant compensations. 
 If anything untimely happens to him he can die comfortably, 
 without being troubled in his last moments by contemplation 
 of the distress and poverty in store for his survivors. I am at- 
 tached, Sir, to my belongings, and, now that I have them, would 
 not willingly part from them ; but I am bound to admit that 
 Thompson has the best of it, and enjoys life more than I do; 
 albeit his enjoyments may differ in detail from those of a family 
 
 man. — Yours, &c., 
 
 NANSON RIVERS. 
 
 Redhill, Surrey. Sept. 6. 
 
 Rash Alfred. 
 Sir, — I am astonished that in the voluminous correspondence 
 which has appeared in your columns, that which seems to me to be 
 the real cause of ninety-nine failures in every hundred has not been 
 so much as hinted at. I allude to the infatuation and obstinacy 
 that often lead to marriage. Take a case as an example. I can 
 vouch for its literal accuracy, as it occurred in my own family. 
 Alfred falls in love with Angele's pretty pink-and-white face. He 
 is subsequently informed that Angele has a fearful temper, and he 
 is earnestly warned to look before he leaps. But dear Angele is 
 so sweet ! She has no sympathy at home, and she is misrepre- 
 sented; and, in face of evidence that would satisfy a jury, Alfred 
 marries his Angele. Before the honeymoon is over, he learns to 
 his bitter cost that Demonia would have been a more appropriate 
 name. Years of misery follow, till she and her ceaseless nagging 
 tongue and furious temper are under the sod. But had Alfred 
 any one to blame but himself? — Yours, &c., 
 
 A WOMAN OF 67. 
 Lowestoft, Aug. 23. 
 
Amici Qirice. IS7 
 
 Not so bad after all. 
 
 Sir, — The defenders of the "innocent babes" of unmarried 
 women all unite in clamouring for the removal of the " unjust 
 stain and stigma '' which is supposed to rest upon them, and this 
 they appear to think would be effected by permitting them — after, 
 I presume, an exhaustive inquiry to prevent imposture — to assume 
 the name of their male parent. An equally undeserved stigma 
 rests, also, on the equally innocent babe of the convicted felon, 
 but would anyone suggest an attempt to remove this unmerited 
 disgrace by Act of Parliament ? That the sins of the fathers shall 
 be visited on the children is simply the expression of one of the 
 most immutable of nature's laws, and, say what we will, we strive 
 against the sentence in vain. I would suggest, too, that the 
 practical disabilities of a person born out of wedlock are extremely 
 insignificant. He is shut out from no profession, from no occupa- 
 tion of any description, from the possibility of no honours the 
 State can bestow. He can inherit property if his father desires to 
 leave it to him, and even a lawful son can be disinherited at his 
 father's will and pleasure. He can will his own property to whom 
 he pleases. He may bear any name he thinks proper, and the law 
 and the world alike will tacitly admit his right to call himself what 
 he pleases. The whole question is beset with endless difficulties. 
 The only attempt during modern civilisation to place the offspring 
 of such parents on a legal equality with the children of marriage 
 occurred during the wild frenzy and unbridled licence of the French 
 Revolution. And even at that period, at a time when every 
 restraint of religion and morality was laid aside, the experiment 
 does not seem to have been attended with such success as to 
 recommend its adoption by cool-headed and decent-minded 
 Englishmen. — I remain. Sir, yours truly, 
 
 BONOS MORES. 
 
 Bournemouth, Sept. 7. 
 
 The Curate who Restrains his Feeliiigs. 
 Sir, — " H." says that " he has seen no letter deprecatory in the 
 smallest degree of early and improvident marriages among the 
 
158 Is Marriage a Failure 
 
 clergy ". If you will insert this he shall at length see one. I am 
 a curate, thirty years old, surrounded with young, beautiful, and 
 accomplished ladies, any one of whom I should be only too pleased 
 to propose to, and (if they would have me) to marry ; but I have 
 only ;^2oo a-year, so I restrain my feelings and remain a celibate, 
 because I feel the clergy ought to set an example in this repect. 
 — Yours, &c., 
 
 A CURATE AVHO AVOULD LIKE TO MARRY. 
 
 Cheltenham, Sept. 3. 
 
 What a Man requires in his Wife. 
 
 Sir, — In the course of the interesting and instructive discussion 
 now going on in your paper, many correspondents have dwelt on the 
 mental equality of the men and women of the present day. Now, 
 this I believe to be a mistake, and that women are not, and never 
 can be, mentally the equals of men. Take, for instance, the wife of 
 the average intelligent artisan or mechanic, or professional man 
 even, and endeavour to enter into a conversation with her on any 
 of the thousand and one little topics which crop up every day, and 
 it will be found in the majority of cases that she not only cannot 
 converse with moderate ability, but fails altogether to make even 
 an intelligent comment on the subject under consideration. 
 Whether this is the result of education or not, I cannot venture to 
 say; but it seems to me that women do not possess the same 
 versatility of mind that men do. An ordinary man, in any walk 
 of life, will be found, as a general rule, to converse on most 
 subjects, often with considerable intelligence, even though he has 
 never given them any previous study or consideration. 
 
 ■\\'omen appear to lack interest, and consequently knowledge, in 
 anything which does not lie immediately within their special 
 province, or everyday existence. In politics, art, science, &c., 
 they do not seem able to take sufficient interest to gain intelligent 
 knowledge. This is not the case with all women, I admit, as we 
 may often meet with very striking exceptions. In the routine of 
 the office they may be the equals, and perhaps superiors, of men, 
 
Amici Ciirice. 15 
 
 for the reason that they are more conscientious, painstaking, and 
 temperate; but that they are mentally equal to men I cannot think. 
 
 What a man requires in his wife, in addition to love and 
 tenderness, is sympathy with his work and hobbies, and it is 
 evident that if she does not take an intelligent interest in his 
 pursuits she cannot give him that sympathy for which he craves. 
 A wife may, perhaps, simulate an interest she does not feel ; but 
 she is bound to be discovered sooner or later, with the possible 
 result that the husband goes elsewhere in search of a more 
 congenial spirit. 
 
 The number of happy homes would be largely increased if 
 wives would try to understand and appreciate their husbands, 
 occupations and pet pursuits, instead of turning away with 
 indifference, and making not the slightest effort to do so ; 
 apparently from a preconceived idea that it lies entirely outside 
 their province, and therefore can have no possible interest for 
 them. — Yours respectfully, 
 
 ESPRIT. 
 
 Oxford, Sept. 25. 
 
 A Common-sense Ansiver. 
 
 Sir, — I trust you will spare me a short space in which to defend 
 my order. I am a lady clerk, but none the less very domesticated, 
 and though I spend nine hours daily, and sometimes more, at a 
 desk, I love my home and home duties only more on that 
 account. Will " Experienced Lover " forgive my saying that I 
 think his experience is quite exceptional ? The thought naturally 
 occurs to me, what woman is so fitted to be a companion to a 
 business man as one who knows by daily experience what his 
 trials, troubles, and temptations are ? Surely, having been behind 
 the scenes, she is more fitted than any other to comfort, 
 strengthen, and cheer ? She knows what it is to turn out all 
 weathers, ill or well, to the same " daily round and common 
 task," and she knows too often, alas ! by the want of it, that it is 
 pleasant to return to in the evening. Those only who have 
 worked in cold, dreary, and often unhealthy offices can conceive 
 
i6d Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 the value of a bright, peaceful, happy home and a cheerful, loving 
 face to a business man. Then it seems to me — though, of course, 
 I may be mistaken — that the habits of accuracy, punctuality, and 
 carefulness acquired in business are very good training for 
 housekeeping, especially where economy and management are 
 required. I am the only lady in a merchant's office, and my 
 companions tell me I am an excellent bookkeeper, but I hope, 
 Sir, all the same to make some day an excellent wife. — Yours, &c., 
 
 LEHTEA. 
 
 Bayswater, Sept. 14. 
 
 Absence and Exercise. 
 
 Sir, — It is unfortunately the fact that everybody's experience 
 can point to numerous cases of " ill-assorted unions,'' or rather of 
 unions which may have begun satisfactorily, but in which incom- 
 patibility of temper has been subsequently developed. Of course 
 it is grossly unfair to judge of matrimony by these samples ; but 
 I think it is really of social importance to inquire whether nothing 
 can be done to diminish the number of such failures, which seem 
 to occur so much more frequently now-a-days than in the times of 
 our grandfathers and grandmothers — if we can take the evidence 
 of our grandfathers themselves on this point as being trustworthy. 
 Let me first just lay before your readers three instances of men I 
 know who do not " get on " with their wives, and see what 
 inferences are to be drawn ; for unless we descend to particu- 
 lars in such a delicate domestic matter we are very likely, indeed, 
 to be led off on an entirely wrong scent. 
 
 Case No. i. In my circle of acquaintanceship is an M.A. of 
 a university, a brilliant mathematician, a wrangler, and a late 
 Fellow of his college. He is what all his friends would call an 
 excellent fellow. His only faults are that he has delicate nerves and 
 rather a quick temper, that he smokes all day long like a chimney, 
 and that his favourite hour for going to bed is two o'clock in the 
 morning. Not a very serious catalogue of crimes, surely. He 
 married, years ago, a young lady, whose nerves are equally 
 sensitive, and who is known to all her female acquaintances as 
 
Amici Ciirice. l6i 
 
 " nice, but finicking ". Now these tvvo are constantly bickering. 
 When one goes to a meal at their house there is no saying whether 
 or not the wife will not bear traces of recent tears, whether the 
 husband will not be abnormally silent, and whether at some awk- 
 ward moment a domestic wrangle may not break out, of a polite 
 and sarcastic sort, which will serve to make everybody feel exceed- 
 ingly uncomfortable. This gentleman's occupation keeps him 
 at home most of the day. He writes on scientific subjects, and 
 besides that takes private pupils ; so that he is present at every 
 meal, and it need hardly be said that the smoking and late habits 
 of her spouse cause the wife's " finicking " mind a great deal of 
 annoyance. After enduring his wife's protests for some time, the 
 husband's nerves and temper are liable to give way, and there is a 
 " scene ''. 
 
 Case No. 2 is a solicitor, who is of the plodding, rather heavy 
 sort, while his wife likes gaiety. He has unfortunately contracted 
 the perverse notion that when a women promises to " love, honour, 
 and obey " her consort through life she virtually undertakes to be 
 a sort of superior " slavey," always at his beck and call to sew on 
 a button or make a poultice, and that she renounces the vain 
 pomps and vanities of the world once and for all at the hymeneal 
 altar. The lady in this case takes a different view of the position, 
 and sees no harm in going out to dances and theatres of an even- 
 ing ; and she considers that her husband's business is to take her 
 to such places. He is offended because she does not find his 
 society all-sufficient for earthly bliss, and she is offended because 
 he will not do what she thinks his duty in conducting her about 
 and chaperoning her to entertainments. From this sole cause here 
 are two human beings, who really love each other, steadily drifting 
 apart. 
 
 Case No. 3 is a retired officer in the army, who married, rather 
 late in life, a woman with some money. He has no occupation, 
 and is a superannuated veteran not more than forty-five to fifty 
 years old. The result is that while he might be serving his 
 country to advantage, he is merely drawing his country's money as 
 half-pay, and making his home miserable by constant grumblings. 
 
i62 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 He has no hobbies, unfortunately, for his own peace of mind. 
 He lives in a suburban villa, does not keep bees, hates gardening, 
 loathes tricycles, does not paint, play, fish, or shoot, and merely 
 wastes the day at home, anathematising his own lot in life. His 
 wife, an excellent little woman, tries to urge him to take exercise, 
 and get rid of his " biliousness " ; he replies by — I regret to say — 
 swearing. Now, in spite of all this, he too is a good fellow when 
 you know him, although I admit that you have to know him first. 
 His wife evidently does not appreciate his peculiar character, and 
 I foresee as absolutely certain the evil time coming when a 
 separation deed will be executed, and this pair will be sundered. 
 
 Now, what is the moral of this ? What is the practical con- 
 clusion I wish drawn ? Your readers will, if they have followed 
 my cases, have noticed that No. i and No. 3 are gentlemen who 
 are at home all day long. I am sincerely of the opinion of the 
 authoress who asserts that no house can be expected to go on pro- 
 perly unless the male members of the family are out of it for at 
 least six hours daily. This is specially necessary where there is 
 any tendency of nerves to clash. If I were called in to advise on 
 the best way to make these two couples agree, I should to the 
 males say, " My dear sirs, you both of you must find some occupa- 
 tion away from your own homes for at least six hours every day, 
 except Saturdays, when you can try four. I further insist that on 
 every day when the weather is not absolutely prohibitive, you take 
 quite one hour's strong exercise— either fast walking, cycling, 
 tennis, cricket, rowing, or riding.'' ^Vhat would the effect be ? 
 Why, that nerves would be strengthened, the demon of dyspepsia 
 banished, the absence from home would make a return to it seem 
 more promising, and a chance of healing the domestic breach 
 would ensue. As to case No. 2, I fancy that a little judicious 
 management would here too soon effect a change for the better. 
 One cannot alter people's natures, but a judicious friend would 
 certainly try and hit on some via media wherein both husband 
 and wife could walk— would try and find what entertainments the 
 husband really did hke, and would see that he took his wife 
 to these occasionally. Then he would also advise the husband to 
 
Amici Curies. 163 
 
 give the wife a little fun now and then at home, such as a few 
 friends at a social party; even a humble bagatelle table might 
 come in useful as an enlivener of dull domestic evenings. But 
 the general point I wish to make is this — it is unfair to blame the 
 institution of marriage when no pains are taken to make it work 
 smoothly. There are, I am convinced, hundreds of cases of 
 so-called incompatibility where the judicious advice of a friend, 
 really acted on, would soon mend matters ; only we men are too 
 proud to accept outside advice, and often too lazy or too exacting 
 to give it to ourselves.— Yours obediendy, 
 
 AMICUS CURI^. 
 
 Kent, Aug. 10. 
 
 " Still and deep." 
 
 Sir, — I think, with others of your correspondents, that the 
 chief cause of unhappiness in married life is that the contracting 
 parties do not know enough of each other before they marry. 
 At one time it was considered improper for engaged couples to 
 go out alone unchaperoned ; and though that has been greatly 
 altered of late years, I hold that there is still need of less restrained 
 association between the two sexes. At present a man who is seen 
 much in the society of one special girl stands in danger of having 
 his intentions inquired into ; while the unlucky girl who, failing to 
 see in every man a possible husband, treats the opposite sex as 
 friends, is immediately dubbed a flirt or considered fast. I be- 
 lieve this fact has much to do with the many unhappy marriages, 
 and with the apparently growing disinclination of men for the 
 society of their lady acquaintances. In America the relations 
 between the two sexes are far more simple and natural than here, 
 and what is the result? A respect for our sex so great that a 
 woman may travel from one end of America to the other free 
 from insult of any kind, while happy marriages are the rule, and 
 not the exception. 
 
 The man who marries from a mistaken idea of honour, while 
 loving some one else, makes a terrible mistake. Yet, once made, 
 he has no right to visit his mistake on the innocent head of his 
 partner. Other couples are shipwrecked on the rock of "keeping 
 
164 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 up appearances". Edwin and Angelina endeavour to start life 
 where their parents left off, and the result is misery ; or else they 
 start on inadequate means, and life becomes one long, dreary 
 struggle for existence. But even where there is money enough 
 for comfort there is too often a canker-worm gnawing at the root 
 of happiness. Angelina too often forgets that when Edwin is 
 won he still has to be kept. But how often do we find that this 
 is not thought of? How often, when Edwin comes home 
 wearied with the toil and bustle of work-a-day life, is he met by 
 complaints of the servants or children, or a clamour to be taken 
 to some amusement, or is plagued with questions when he only 
 wants to be quiet ? Again, how often young wives are jealous of 
 their husband's friends whom he knew before he married. They 
 want to keep their husbands to themselves, and consequently give 
 "the cold shoulder " to old acquaintances when they "look in". 
 The friends take the hint, and don't come again ; and perhaps 
 the wife lives to regret her action when Edwin puts on his hat 
 and goes out to see them. 
 
 But all the blame does not lie with the wives. Do men ever 
 consider, I wonder, how necessary love is to a woman ? One 
 would think not, considering how coldly many men treat their 
 wives even when they really love them. We English pride our- 
 selves on our want of demonstrativeness, and continually quote 
 the proverb, " Still and deep '' ; and yet how much happiness is 
 caused by a loving word of praise or a tender little compliment ! 
 Many of your writers have mentioned the carelessness which 
 women so often manifest in their dress after marriage. May this 
 not often be caused by the feeling that the husband does not care 
 how his wife looks ? It is hard when one dresses prettily to please 
 the man one loves and he passes no remark of admiration, though 
 maybe he is not slow at admiring the dress of others. Alas ! there 
 are only too many men ready to admire and console a neglected 
 wife, and heaven help both husband and wife if the latter seeks 
 her happiness away from home. I believe. Sir, if the real nature 
 of matrimony was only taught to our young people — if they were 
 made to feel that it is not the end and aim of our life, though its 
 
Amici CuricB. 165 
 
 greatest blessing when rightly understood ; if they were taught 
 that it is not a way to gain influence, position, or money, but that 
 it should be the deliberate choice of kindred natures, and a life- 
 long union of heart and mind, we should hear of fewer failures. 
 
 — I am, Sir, yours truly, 
 
 FIANCEE. 
 St. John's- Wood, Sept. 25. 
 
 " Nothing to say against it.'" 
 
 Sir, — I have been married thirty years, and have nothing to say 
 against matrimony; but I think the Anglican Marriage Service does 
 a great deal of harm. It publicly humiliates a woman, makes her 
 feel uncomfortable on her wedding day, and arouses a spirit of 
 resistance. " Let the wife see that she reverence her husband ! " 
 Can any precept be more unreasonable ? If people are worthy 
 of reverence they are reverenced, and not otherwise. Neither 
 reverence nor love will come to order. The Anglican service 
 lowers the wife and sets the husband on a pedestal, not at all 
 suitable to him, filling him with notions of marital supremacy, 
 which are the cause of half the unhappiness of married life. 
 What wonder that when a man hears himself described as his 
 wife's god (" the man is the head of the woman even as Christ is 
 the Head of the Church ") he should consider her in the light of 
 his dog, or his horse, or anything that is his ? Why should an old 
 bachelor like St. Paul influence our ceremonies of to-day ? — Yours, 
 &c., 
 
 CAROLINE. 
 
 Nottingham, Aug, 20. 
 
 " I am in the beautiful prime of life.'' 
 
 Sir, — I have not only perused with deep interest your able 
 leader on this important subject, but I have gone to the fountain- 
 head, read Mrs. Mona Caird's article, and studied the new 
 theory of "readjustments," and meditated over the phrases that 
 "development involves an increase of complexity," that "the 
 ideal free marriage requires no bonds to bind people together," 
 
1 66 Is Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 and that " the idea of a perfectly free marriage would imply the 
 possibility of any form of contract being entered into between the 
 two persons, the State and society standing aside and recognising 
 the entirely private character of the transactions ''. Sir, I am a 
 middle-aged bachelor; I may safely say, without conceit, that I 
 am good-tempered ; I possess a competency ; I know many nice 
 people in my own class and condition of life; I am not bad- 
 lookjng ; I am in the beautiful prime of life ; I have travelled, 
 speak many languages, possess a University education, belong to 
 respectable clubs, keep regular hours, have cultivated a sense of 
 humour, am fond of children and animals, and I don't owe a 
 shilling in the world. My friends tell me it is high time I was 
 range, and I have seriously meditated being rangi, and, what is 
 more, had an object in view ; and the " object " and I were 
 getting on very nicely indeed until your article fell on me like 
 a thunderbolt, and I took to a serious study of matrimony from 
 its scientific aspect. The Westminster Review article, which 
 comes from the " independent section," who, while they are 
 "zealous friends of freedom and progress, yet differ widely on 
 special points of practical concern, both from the editors and 
 from each other,'' sketches out no less than five systems of matri- 
 mony ; and I venture, Sir, to ask which system you would recom- 
 mend, avowedly confessing that none of them are quite to my 
 heart. Briefly, they are as follows : (i) In the "matriarchal," or 
 mother-age, the mother was the head of the family, priestess, and 
 instructress in the art of husbandry — good word that ; she was an 
 "herbalist and initiator of civilisation". She also dragged a 
 plough, and John Stuart Mill moaned over her. Sir, this lady is 
 not, to my thinking, lovable. (2) In the monastic age woman 
 was "an ally of Satan, seeking to lead men away from the paths 
 of righteousness," and concerning her Tertullian exclaimed with 
 starding frankness, "Thou art the gate of hell!" The Minne- 
 singers and Troubadours seem to have been a bad lot, and the 
 "Age of Chivalry," whose decadence we all deplore, and which I, 
 in my humble way, have striven to resuscitate recently, is called 
 "open licence," and "chaotic," and other curious things. I do 
 
Amici Curice. 167 
 
 not like theory No. 2, and I will not call my object "a gate" of 
 anything. (3) " Luther was coarse and irreverent towards the 
 opposite sex," and true passion was dethroned, and with it poetry 
 and romance, and " the commercial spirit, staid and open-eyed, 
 entered on its long career, and we find a peculiar mixture of 
 sensuality and decorum ". There is a good deal to be said in 
 favour of this last-mentioned "blend," which might be called 
 health and courtesy combined ; but I am told that this teaching 
 " destroys the religious sanctity of marriage," and yet that such 
 ideas produce "rigid ideas of wifehood," and that man's "mono- 
 polising jealousy'' — quite my own ideas — are born of it. These 
 things are preached as wrong, and I give up No. 3 theory 
 as " one of those things no fellow can understand ". (4) 
 "Honour" did not take rise from a sense of self-respect in 
 woman, but from the fact of her subjection to man, and " honour " 
 is set down as a " remarkable paradox ". The docrine is be- 
 wildering, not to say repugnant, to the likes of me, for I have 
 always, since I have been told to be 7-angi, held that truth and 
 trust should be the basis of married life, and that your wife 
 should be at once the cheeriest of chums and the most idohsed 
 of idols. I may be wrong, but you can't help a man having a 
 view. No. 5 theory I have stated, and this "free marriage" 
 notion is very beautiful in one direction, when it talks about men 
 and women being "comrades and fellow-workers, as well as 
 husbands, lovers, and wives '' ; but when I am told that the 
 changes in the status of matrimony would involve " fresh forms 
 of human power, and thus all sorts of new and stimulating 
 influences would be brought to bear on society," I am fairly 
 puzzled, and I wish you would indicate what the article quoted from 
 does not, where the new "stimulating influences'' come in, and 
 from what source. 
 
 I am not alone in this request, and there are others near me 
 as I write who desire more expHcit formute as regards "free 
 marriage," and what it really means, as anxiously as I do. There 
 was an old-fashioned method extant in my forefathers' days of 
 people marrying each other for love, and being true and constant 
 
i68 Is Marriage a Failure t 
 
 to each other. Is this quite extinct? I may add, the " object" 
 is, I fancy, equally interested in this matter with yours, &c., 
 
 PERPLEXED BACHELOR. 
 
 West End, Aug. g. 
 
 " looi Little Duties." 
 
 Sir, — Will you permit an " engaged lady-clerk " to say a fe_w 
 words. Without being self-opinionated, I venture to hope that, 
 having bean in an office, I shall make a better wife than had I 
 remained at home a burden on my parent's small income. 
 
 I am engaged to a business man, who, with me, thinks my 
 commercial experience will assist us both, and that I am not likely 
 to be any the less domesticated because I understand bookkeeping 
 thoroughly. Many of my fellow-clerks like me light the fire and 
 get the breakfast before starting in the morning, to say nothing of 
 the I CO I little duties performed in the evening, Saturday after- 
 noon, and Sunday. So I hope the shadow cast on us by one of 
 your correspondents will vanish, for, " though I say it as 
 shouldn't," a business man cannot do better than marry a lady- 
 clerk. She is, as a rule, well educated, fairly accomplished, and 
 intelligent, and so would be not only a comfort but a help to him. 
 
 If, in the course of years, this correspondence, " Is Marriage a 
 Failure ? " be resumed, I firmly believe I shall be able to write, 
 " No, it is a great success," for " he" and I have the right ideas 
 —meaning to bear and forbear, to make the best of everything, 
 to work hard when young, and never let our courting days be a 
 thing of the past. — Yours faithfully, 
 
 AN ENGAGED LADY-CLERK. 
 
 London, N.W., Sept. 14. 
 
 The " Feor" Scottish Widma. 
 
 Sir, — Following the example of some of yonr correspondents, 
 who seem to have lost sight of the original question in their 
 anxiety to air their own ideas on various subjects, I would like to 
 ask why, when a man vows at the altar and before witnesses 
 "with all my worldly goods I thee endow," his widow (there being 
 
Amid Qiria. 169 
 
 no children) should not be allowed to keep what her husband had 
 given her and always intended she should have when he died. 
 The want of a will, in my opinion, is not sufficient excuse for 
 existing laws on the subject. Why should the law have the power 
 of taking from the widow half of whatever the husband leaves 
 when he has already endowed her with all his worldly goods ? I 
 happen to be one of many sufferers from the existing state of 
 things. My husband and I were married ; our marriage was not 
 a failure. Having lived little in England, he was not aware that 
 a will was a necessity. My husband died ; half his " worldly 
 goods " were given to me, the other half divided amongst . 
 numerous brothers and sisters, who had never expected anything, 
 and, as far as I am aware, were none the better for the small 
 amount which the subdivision gave each one, whereas the united 
 amount would have made a considerable difference to yours 
 faithfully, 
 
 SCOTTISH WIDOW. 
 Bedford, Sept. 6. 
 
 A "Difficult" Parent. 
 
 Sir,— I have been engaged some twelve months, totally 
 unknown to the father of my fiancee., and should get married to- 
 morrow clandestinely, could I only afford to do so. The father, 
 being a business man, naturally is in town during the day, so 
 knows nothing whatever of his three daughters' doings during his 
 absence. The daughters are well read, play and sing well, dance, 
 and, above all, cook, and make their own dresses, and, financially 
 speaking, they will be " warm ". At the usual hour the father 
 arrives home ; the daughters, knowing that he does not like to 
 see the place smothered with pins, needles, cottons, and pieces of 
 material, have cleared them away, and are found reading some 
 standard author. Pa kisses his daughters, and if business has not 
 been quite to his liking during the day he makes sarcastic remarks 
 to the mother (who is a perfect one) about the girls wasting their 
 time reading. The mother, of course, explains that they have 
 been busy all day. Then there is a slight breeze — which makes 
 
1 70 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 the girls wish they had never been born, literally speaking. 
 Next evening out come the needles, &c., upon which the father 
 remarks, " You might have found time during the day for such 
 work ", What are girls to do, situated as they are ? Are you sur- 
 prised to find them one fine day getting married to the man they 
 love in order to escape their father's tongue? If another failure 
 is added to the list, to whom is the blame to be credited— father, 
 daughter, or husband ? I say most certainly the father. — I am, 
 
 ONE WHO LOVES. 
 
 London, S.W., Sept. i8. 
 
 TAe Child, the Barmaid, and the Heiress, all Failures. 
 
 Sir, — I have, like your correspondent "Z.," entered into the 
 bonds three times. When I was twenty I made the acquaintance 
 of an extremely fascinating barmaid at a large railway station in 
 Scotland. I hurried into marriage with a girl practically unknown 
 to me, and soon afterwards my wife showed tendencies towards 
 drunkenness, and its accompanying vices. In a moment of mad- 
 ness she jumped from a third-storey window, and was killed. 
 This happened in Buda-Pesth. A year or so after this tragic 
 event I courted a lady with a large fortune. She was many years 
 older than myself, but my monetary position was very em- 
 barrassed, and I ultimately won her hand and fortune. I had 
 for her the greatest respect and friendship, but no love. Excel- 
 lent and worthy woman as she was, our tastes and habits were 
 totally dissimilar, and our life together was not a happy one. My 
 second wife died, after ten years of married life. In my old age 
 I met a young girl — so young, indeed, that she might have been 
 my daughter. She died after eighteen months of marriage, in 
 giving birth to a child. I had never possessed any other feelings 
 than those of pity and "protectorship," if I may coin the word, 
 for my young wife, and did not find that these are sufficient for 
 marital bliss. The conclusions I draw from my varied experi- 
 ences are these : (i) Mere passion, interest, or affection is not 
 likely to produce great happiness in marriage ; (2) the mysterious 
 
Amici Cur ice. 171 
 
 and' inexplicable mixture of passion and affection, commonly 
 called "love," should be felt by both parties to the solemn con- 
 tract) and (3) when entered into solely from the "head," and 
 not from the heart, marriage is indeed a dreary failure. — Yours 
 
 faithfully, 
 
 OLD AND LONELY. 
 
 Perth, Aug. 21. 
 
 Why not Advertise ? 
 
 Sir, — Why do capitalists and employers advertise for partners, 
 clerks, and housekeepers ? Because they expect to have a 
 ijmmber to select from, and their requirements are more likely to 
 oe suited than if they relied upon casually hearing of persons 
 ;';hrough their friends. How much more important, then, is it 
 'ithat we should have a wide field for selection of a partner for life ? 
 I must say, I don't think it advisable for the woman to advertise ; 
 but if a man advertises for a wife, there is no moral reason to 
 prevent any woman who thinks she would suit him from answer- 
 ing such advertisement. Any inquiries into the antecedents of 
 the parties could be made after such introduction, just as well as 
 if they had met in an ordinary way. — I am, yours, &c., 
 
 JNO. C. E. 
 Camden Town, Aug. 23. 
 
 The Quakers' Formula. 
 
 Sir, — Amongst the voluminous correspondence with which you 
 have been favoured on marriage and marriage regulations, much 
 objection has been taken to the service as conducted in the 
 Anglican Church, and to those passages in particular that point 
 to the intention of marriage. These passages, to an ordinary 
 mind, would seem to be more applicable to those who have no 
 thought- of marriage rather than to those who were standing at 
 the altar to carry it out. The passages are not refined ; they are 
 not such words as any clergyman, it is hoped, would preach or 
 speak to young ladies in church or in private, and are, to say the 
 least of it, exceedingly indelicate. As far as I am aware, none of 
 
172 Is Marriage a Failure? 
 
 your correspondents has pointed to any other form of such service 
 in use amongst us than that of the Church of England, but there 
 is a body of people in our midst— not a large body, it is true, not 
 an important body numerically considered, but one that has 
 much quiet influence, and though often ridiculed, yet finds 
 other Churches gradually and insensibly gravitating to many of 
 its simple principles. This body, whose word alone the law has 
 accepted without an oath, who were allowed to marry in their 
 own way, and conduct their own affairs without a priest, or paid 
 officer of any kind whatsoever, are the Quakers or Society of 
 Friends ; and here is their form of marriage and the advice 
 periodically given in their public assembhes on the subject. They 
 are simplicity itself compared with the service of the Church ; 
 the safeguards are greater, and the ceremony itself more solemn 
 by far. Is wrangling found in Quaker homes ? Do we hear of 
 Quakers in the Divorce Court ? Do they seem as much troubled 
 as other men and women? Why is the answer No? When the 
 parties have made up their minds when to be married they have 
 to give notice to the " meeting '' or church to which they severally 
 belong of their intention to marry, that they are clear of any other 
 such engagement, and that their parents or guardians consent to 
 their union. This intention is made public in their respective 
 meetings, and opportunity is given for public objection to be 
 made. If no objection is made, leave is given by the meeting 
 for the solemnisation of the marriage, and the certificate is 
 obtained from the public registrar. The marriage then takes 
 place in public " meeting ". After a reasonable time of silent 
 prayer, the parties stand up, and, taking each other by the hand, 
 declare, in an audible and solemn manner, the following, the man 
 first, viz. : " Friends, I take this, my friend, C. D., to be my 
 wife, promising, through divine assistance, to be unto her a loving 
 and faithful husband, until it shall please the Lord by death to 
 separate us ''. The woman then says the same form of words, 
 substituting the husband's name, and promising to be a loving 
 and faithful wife. A certificate is then signed, declaring that the 
 marriage has been solemnised after notice had been duly given. 
 
Amici Curies. 173 
 
 the consent of parents obtained, and the proceedings been allowed 
 by the " meeting ''. 
 
 I give also the advice that is read amongst " Friends '' on the 
 subject. " In contemplating the engagement of marriage, look 
 principally to that which will help you on your heavenward jour- 
 ney. Pay filial regard to the judgment of your parents. Bear in 
 mind the vast importance in such a union of an accordance in re- 
 ligious principles and practice." Such is the practice of the 
 Society of Friends— a people who do not obtrude themselves on 
 public notice, but in whose liberty many would rejoice did they 
 know them better, and in whose simple faith, free from all priest- 
 craft, the public would find the purer Christianity so many crave 
 for. The form of marriage may be found in the Quaker book 
 called Christian Discipline of the Society of Friends. — Yours, &c., 
 
 H. W. 
 
 Hertford, Sept. 24. 
 
 " Till the right one comes along." 
 
 Sir, — I consider divorce should be granted for hopeless 
 insanity, desertion, and confirmed drunkenness. As to so-called 
 " free love,'' I must express my disgust and indignation at such a 
 degrading suggestion, and I am thankful to find there are men 
 and women who have still some sense of honour left, and are 
 ready to denounce such a disgraceful " doctrine ". I am an un- 
 married woman from choice, and intend to remain so till the right 
 one comes along. Then I will do my best that our marriage 
 shall not be a failure. Were I a man in the position of a 
 " Victim to Etiquette," and charmed with a lady, I would brave 
 all and make her acquaintance, provided I had already found out 
 from observation that she was not utterly indifferent to me. I am 
 sure any true woman would value the friendship of such an 
 honourable man, and before long the friendship would possibly 
 ripen into a lasting affection. Amongst my relatives and friends, 
 I am glad to say, married life seems, on the whole, decidedly the 
 best-Yours faithfully, MARGUERITE. 
 
 London, S.E., Sept. 18. 
 
174 Is Marriage a Faihire ? 
 
 " Mis. Bardie s" husbaiid ! 
 
 Sir, — At the age of twenty I left home, and what I considered 
 parental restraint. I soon got tired of life in lodgings, and, to end 
 a long story, for the sake of again, as I imagined, obtaining home 
 comforts, I married my landlady — an active widow of forty-two, 
 with the numerous progeny of two previous husbands. It is need- 
 less to repeat the oft-told story of a mistaken marriage. As might 
 have been expected, it was indeed a fearful failure. To put an 
 end to further misery, and there being no children of mine, we 
 agreed some six years ago to separate. During the ten years of 
 our wedded existence I had learnt to love a worthy girl some 
 five years my junior. Her broad, noble mind and loving heart 
 were won, not "by the dangers I had passed," but by the cares my 
 indiscretion had wrought, and for the last three years she has 
 been what I had hitherto not known— a wife. This marriage 
 has been no failure. Unless hearts are joined by perfect love 
 and trust, no ceremony can unite them. — Yours, &c., 
 
 A. A. 
 Bow, E., Aug. 24. 
 
 " Dorit IV ait for better times" 
 
 SiR,^ — I wish to protest against the injustice that has been done 
 my sex, chiefly by your bachelor correspondents. Their cry is 
 that there are no nice, sensible girls of the present age, and they 
 make that excuse for their present existing single-blessedness. I 
 admit that there are many frivolous, silly creatures ; but girls are 
 not all alike. From my experience I have found that the vainest 
 women are generally those to whom Nature has been loth to dole 
 out her charms, and that the pretty girls are generally the best- 
 tempered and nicest in disposition. Men get the erroneous 
 notion that if a girl looks natty and sweet her tastes must be 
 extravagant, and that her time is spent wholly on adorning her- 
 self, whereas a plain woman may have spent double the time on 
 her own get-up with a far less satisfactory result. Let me tell you 
 that I know heaps of girls who are to be seen at dances and con- 
 certs always prettily dressed who manufacture their smart attire 
 
Amici Curice. I75 
 
 out of old muslins, washed ribbons, &c., and who have been 
 
 employed all day at home in cooking and cleaning. 
 
 If you love a girl truly and well, and know that she is worthy 
 
 your best trust and affection, don't wait for better times to come 
 
 before you ask her to have you. If she be a woman worthy the 
 
 name in its highest sense, she will help, not hinder you, and will 
 
 be ever too eager to repay you with all her love and devotion for 
 
 your trust in believing she was worthy to share your storms and 
 
 calms, hke a good ship. Maybe if you hang back she will think 
 
 you do not care, and perhaps marry some one else who loves 
 
 her ; because we poor women are so dependent upon love, and 
 
 are grateful for any affection, even if it does not come from the 
 
 man of our choice. — Yours, &c., 
 
 A BRITISH MAIDEN. 
 
 Stockwell, Sept. 15. 
 
 Divorce for Nothing. 
 
 Sir, — If your correspondent "A Working Woman" is, as she 
 says, anxious to obtain a divorce, which she imagines she cannot 
 procure for want of means, I would remind her that, if she has 
 not ;^25 in the world, she can apply to the Judge of the Divorce 
 Court, who will assign her a solicitor and counsel, and the pro- 
 ceedings will cost her nothing. As your correspondent seems to 
 think there are hundreds of women in the same position as herself, 
 it seems only right to point out the foregoing, which is of course 
 common knowledge among lawyers, and is my reason for writing. 
 Apart from this I have at present no interest in the marriage 
 question, having been married only eight months and the honey- 
 moon still shining. — Yours, &c., 
 
 FRED. A. STROULGER. 
 
 Eastbourne, Aug. 23. 
 
 How she " won Jiirn hack ". 
 
 Sir, — Allow me to give my opinion as to why marriage is so 
 often a failure. I had known my husband over three years before 
 we were married, and saw a great deal of him ; consequently we 
 
176 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 thought we understood each other's disposition sufficiently to live 
 happily together. But we had not been man and wife many 
 months before I found he was drifting away from me. No place 
 but London offered any pleasure to him. He very often stayed 
 away all night, whilst I remained quietly at home breaking my 
 heart. The advice from different friends was : " Ifhe goes his 
 way, you go yours " But I knew this was not the way to win 
 him back ; so, after bearing it pretty patiently for three years, I 
 set about in my mind the best way to go to work, and I thank 
 God I succeeded by a very simple means. I always met him at 
 the door myself, as though nothing had happened, and paid the 
 same little attentions I had always paid before we were married, 
 took great care to study what friends he liked, and made a rule to 
 ask one or two cheerful ones to dinner two or three times a-week. 
 This plan took well. But I must say our means were small. I had 
 to keep my house up, and a maid, clothe myself, and all on ^16 a 
 month. Then on Saturday I always arranged to go up to London, 
 have some luncheon, and bring him home. So, by degrees, I was 
 enabled to wean him from bad companions, and now, for the 
 past year or more, we have been as happy as possible. He seems 
 to think there is no place like home, and often says how thankful 
 he is he can resist the evil which crosses his path daily, and come 
 home to me with no shame. 
 
 Now, I am convinced, if young wives would but have more 
 patience, and try to think for themselves, instead of telling friends 
 all their troubles and foolishly taking bad advice, there would be 
 more happy wives and less wretched, drunken husbands. — Yours, 
 
 '^'^•' MIDDLE-CLASS WOMAN. 
 
 Croydon, Sept. 12. 
 
 A Born Celibate'' s History and Advice. 
 
 Sir, — May another " Failure " address you ? But first. Sir, I 
 think that universal thanks are due to you for bringing this 
 question before the public, and most interesting has been the 
 correspondence. I only trust that permanent good may be the 
 outcome of it, in the shape of an association to promote reform in 
 
Amici Curice. 177 
 
 the present marriage laws. I think that divorce should be attainable 
 without shame and sin, though, as a matter of fact, incompatibility 
 of disposition causes more unhappiness and more ruined lives than 
 infidelity. Infidelity is frequently only a temporary aberration of 
 the senses, bitterly repented of; and again, many husbands and 
 wives go down to the grave happily unaware that such infidelities 
 have ever been ; but incompatibility of dispositions is a daily sore, 
 a never-ending irritation, which undermines health, heart, and 
 mind, and which ruins many lives. 
 
 I agree with your correspondents, that hereditary and permanent 
 insanity, desertion, confirmed drunkenness, crime, &c., should 
 also be admitted as causes for divorce, and I would add another. 
 
 There are persons to whom one of your correspondents has 
 referred as " born celibates," and this is my case. I married at 
 nineteen, for the reason that many girls do — viz., because my 
 parents wished me to marry, for I had several younger sisters 
 following close on my heels, and my father was not very well off. 
 I was not in love with anyone, and I never have been, although I am 
 now thirty-seven years of age. I never much liked, and I certainly 
 never admired men; but being at that age (nineteen) extremely 
 handsome, accomplished, and attractive, I had over thirty offers of 
 marriage, and on being urged to choose by my parents, I married 
 the man I liked best amongst those who loved me. I had not 
 been married a week before I discovered that I was quite unfit for 
 marriage. I had insuperable objections to it. In the years that 
 have gone by I have heard of many similar cases amongst girls. 
 Surely in these civilised times escape should be possible in such 
 cases. My partner and I suffer from a total incompatibility of dis- 
 position. We do not quarrel, but there is an absolute want of sym- 
 pathy — an absolute antipathy of every thought and feeling, our 
 thoughts and hopes and ways and wishes are, as the poles, 
 asunder. Surely, when two people know that they would be 
 happier and better apart, and that their lives would be better ful- 
 filled, and yet that they are not prepared to obtain that freedom 
 by sinning, surely the law should make that freedom possible 
 without sin. 
 
1 78 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 As to the abolition of marriage, or legal marriage, the world is 
 not yet civilised enough for it ; but I certainly did not understand 
 Mrs. Caird to mean what is generally called " free love " as the 
 exchange for it. I understand her to mean that the moral ties of 
 love, reverence, sympathy, and, if I may so express it, oneness, 
 should be sufficient, and that where people are so far morally apart 
 that they require fetters to keep them together, they would be far 
 better parted altogether. This is really the very highest morality. 
 I think the great cause of marriage being a failure, where it is so, 
 is the selfishness of men, and the idea so many of them have that 
 the minds of all women must be moulded in one form and run in 
 one groove ; whereas both their minds and temperaments are as 
 diverse as amongst men. There are born authors, poets, states- 
 men, musicians, artists, teachers, scientists, &c., amongst women, 
 as well as housekeepers and gentle domestic creatures whose only 
 thoughts are baby, cook, and dinner. Nor does it follow, as some 
 men think, that to educate girls, and encourage them to make the 
 best and most of their talents, and to learn to keep th»mselves 
 and make their own way in the world in various professions, 
 will unfit them for married life if they choose to marry. I 
 cannot think that superior education and independence for girls 
 can affect domestic life in any way except to improve it. An in- 
 tellectual and educated woman simply knows better how to do 
 everything, and certainly better how to bring up children, than one 
 who is the reverse. But if an intellectual and thoughtful woman 
 does marry she requires something more to fill her life. The 
 "home" world is a beautiful one; but servants, very young children, 
 and the store-closet are not all-satisfying to the mind, and this hus- 
 bands should consider and think over. A student and an author 
 myself, I am an extremely good cook and housekeeper, and take 
 some pride in it ; but I cannot say I find it elevating, and some- 
 times, when I am "thinking out" something, I find small domestic 
 worries most trying to both mind and nerves, and to the unfortu- 
 nate "imagination " a most woful " wet blanket ''. But I should 
 feel it all the more if I had nothing to fall hack upon ; and I 
 believe there would be fewer fretful, unhappy, and broken-down 
 
Amid Curi(2. 179 
 
 wives if husbands would see that their wives had amusements and 
 occupations, apart from domestic matters, which would act both 
 as relaxation and tonic upon both mind and body. Tennyson 
 compares happy marriage to a song — ■" Perfect music (woman) set 
 to noble words (man) " Men always expect the music, but how 
 often are the noble words wanting ! And then, where is the song? 
 Again, men always expect women to practise the Christian virtues; 
 but, as a rule, they never attempt to practise them themselves. I 
 remember once hearing the late Bishop of Winchester, Samuel 
 Wilberforce, make the remark that, from the way men lived and 
 talked, they appeared to think that the Bible was written for 
 women only, and not for men at all. In this same address — it 
 was to men especially, and very severe, but women were also 
 admitted — he went on to remark upon the objection men appeared 
 to have to the higher education and advancement of women. He 
 said: "The reason is, because you know that as they advance 
 they will become juster judges : they will sit in judgment upon 
 you, they will weigh you in the balance, and find you wanting ; 
 they will remember that the only true superiority is moral supe- 
 riority, and when they look for it in you they will not find it. 
 And remember, my friends, that you cannot stop them. This 
 movement is Progress, and it cannot be stopped. Your work will 
 be to try to keep ahead of them ; as they become nobler, better, 
 wiser, purer, do you become still nobler, still better, still wiser, 
 and as pure. Do not leave to them alone the practice of unsel- 
 fishness, self-denial, faith, morality, purity, and self-control." The 
 Bishop said much more (and many of his utterances were prophe- 
 cies — ii '■ . ighteen years ago — for they have since come true), 
 but I fear .j take up too much space in my letter by quoting 
 more from my notes. 
 
 Another case of " Failure " in marriage is the objection English 
 husbands have to their wives being independent in money matters. 
 My experience among married friends is that it is one of the chief 
 sources of unhappiness, causing a sense of injury and vexation 
 that frequently works the little rift within the lute into an untra- 
 versable chasm. Few men reahse how humiliating it is to a 
 
1 80 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 woman of independent spirit to ask for every sixpence, nor the 
 spirit of bitterness and rebellion that it engenders. This applies 
 to fathers and daughters quite as much as to husbands and wives. 
 English fathers give everything to their sons; foreign fathers, 
 especially Americans, look after their daughters first. I think 
 every father who cannot provide an allowance for his daughter by 
 the time she reaches twenty-one should give her an education to 
 fit her for some work or career by which she could make her own 
 living if she wished, and enable her thus to remain unmarried if 
 she preferred it (as so many girls appear to do now-a-days), and 
 yet not remain a burden on her parents if they are not well 
 off; or supposing she should desire to leave the parental 
 nest, that she could do so, and earn her own living. Another 
 cause of unhappiness, not only in poor households, is too many 
 children. I trust this "question" will be considered by the 
 nation at large. An eminent German physician and two of the 
 leading physicians in Paris for women and children spoke to me 
 in the most decided manner against women being married before 
 they were twenty-three. I trust when the " Reform Society '' that 
 has been suggested is fairly started, that two other matters will 
 not be lost sight of. I think, with many of your correspondents, 
 that subsequent marriage should legitimise children born before 
 wedlock — a law which would hurt no one, and which would 
 enable many a sinner to right sad wrongs. Secondly, the laws in 
 this country with regard to the rights of mothers to their children 
 are simply barbarous, and should be some of the first amended. 
 Another cause of failure in marriage, which I have omitted, is, I 
 think, " mothers,'' and not " mothers-in-law ". No argument can 
 make a man the superior of a woman if he is naturally the in- 
 ferior ; and though there are thousands of men superior to many 
 A-omen, there are equally thousands of women superior to many 
 men, while those who belong to Carlyle's crowd of "mostly fools" 
 are about equal in both sexes. I believe in equal rights, and 
 3qual bearing and forbearing. — I am, Sir, yours faithfully, 
 
 A LOST LIFE. 
 Darenth Kent, Sept. 26, 
 
A niici Curice. 1 8 1 
 
 The Basis of Happiness. 
 
 Sir, — Of all the letters on this subject, that of "Anti-Humbug '' 
 attracts me the most. The case he has in his mind's eye is pre- 
 cisely my case. When I married my income was £^\^o per annum. 
 That was ten years ago, and now my income has increased to some- 
 thing more than ;^3oo per annum. We commenced with most 
 enthusiastic views of life, and of our responsibilities; but, alas! 
 we are bound now to confess that we have not made the most 
 perfect success of our venture. The reason is to be found in 
 the fact that our enthusiasm and all our high-flown ideas had 
 to give way before the sharp necessities of life. ^Ve married on 
 an insufficiency of means, and we have to bring up and educate 
 our children on an insufficiency of means. Can anyone be told 
 before marriage, or be made to understand, in ever so slight a 
 degree, what the anxieties are of two sensitive persons who are 
 required to maintain a home under such circumstances as these ? 
 It is all very well to talk of the happiness there is in a Christian 
 home ; but, for my part, I am convinced the basis of such happi- 
 ness is, in very nearly every case, if not in all, a reasonable supply 
 of the wherewithal to maintain it. — Yours, &c., 
 
 AN IMPECUNIOUS PARENT. 
 
 Balham, Aug. 22. 
 
 Statistics with regard to Crime and Marriage. 
 
 SiE, — Kindly allow me to contribute a short but important 
 item to this discussion. It is a fact worthy of notice that 
 marriage has a deterrent effect upon crime. This is mentioned 
 in an official report of New South Wales, in which it is stated 
 that, of 3859 prisoners committed, during six years, 2779, or 
 72 per cent., were unmarried; and, curiously enough, of acknow- 
 ledged drunkards, exactly the same proportion are bachelors or 
 spinsters. — Yours, &c., 
 
 (REV.) J. M. EASTERLINC;. 
 
 Gerrard's Cross, Aug. 16. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 THE rudiments of orderly society lie in the voluntary restrictions 
 of marriage as against promiscuity, just as the rudiments of 
 political organisation lie in the voluntary submission of a tribe 
 to one chief as against individual independence. Whether the 
 method of gaining the wife be by capture or purchase — whether she 
 must be one of the same tribe or some dusky Sabine taken by 
 force from afar — whether she never pronounces her husband's 
 name or loses her own in his — nothing of this is integral to the 
 question. Even polygamy or polyandry is only a fringe, an 
 adjunct. The vital thing is that a man and woman marry with 
 the consent and knowledge of their society, and that the children 
 born of this authorised union belong emphatically to that society. 
 
 Marriage is easy enough among a primitive people, where life 
 is reduced to its elements. The young brave demands, from 
 those who have the right to sell her, the virgin squaw who may 
 have struck his fancy ; a new mud hut is built, or another bark tent 
 is pitched, to be furnished with a few skins and calabashes ; he 
 hunts and fishes, and she cooks the meat which he brings in on his 
 own account, or which is assigned to him as his portion ; he takes 
 scalps, and she tends the children ; he lessens the number of 
 the enemy, and she increases the number of the tribe. This is 
 the cotyledonous state of things from which all the rest springs. 
 And so long as he performs with due diligence these three functions 
 of hunter, warrior, and father, she has no complaints to make — and 
 she makes none. The whole thing is as purely instinctive as the 
 union of birds or beasts, and the aims of life are not much higher. 
 
 In acutely civilised societies the picture is enlarged, and the 
 cotyledon has blossomed into a many-branched tree of countless 
 leaves and twigs. The infinite varieties of individual temperament, 
 and the thousand minute gradations and shadings of social circum- 
 stance — the substitution of nerves for passions and of tastes for 
 
TJie Philosophy of Marriage. 183 
 
 instincts — all these complicate the question, so that the original core 
 is lost in the multitude of adventitious wrappings, each of which is 
 as essential as that core itself. And as more goes to the making 
 of an omelette than the breaking of eggs, so more goes to modern 
 marriage than personal desire or the preservation «f the race. It 
 has ceased to be cotyledonous, and has become intricate and many- 
 branched. Even when it is founded on what is called love, and 
 social condition comes in as a subordinate consideration, even then, 
 in that love itself, is less unconscious instinct than apparently care- 
 ful eclecticism — the person chosen being surrounded by a halo of 
 poetic beauty, and hallowed by ideal virtues. For the mind sees 
 what it brings ; and in nothing more than in love. Sir Lancelot 
 was not to Iseult what he was to Guinevere, and Guinevere was not 
 to Sir Tristram what she was to King Arthur. Poetic passion, which 
 is an outgrowth from instinct — the embroidery wrought by educa- 
 tion on the original stuff — the sublimation of the brute energy which 
 demands the continuance of the race at any price — this poetic pas- 
 sion changes all to its own colour, and crowns the beloved with its 
 own roses. When we have mere instinct as the ruling force, very 
 slightly differentiated from the impulse which brings the young 
 brave and the virgin squaw together, our daughters marry our 
 grooms, and our wives elope with the footmen. 
 
 There are two principles on which modern marriages are 
 founded and on which they differ. The one is love and personal 
 harmony ; the other is social condition and the fit adjustment 
 of material interests. Which ought to be the dominant motive in 
 marriage — individual desire or social well-being ? The French 
 think the latter. We have held to the former until of late, when 
 the tables have been turned with a vengeance, and we have exag- 
 gerated our neighbour's principle out of all likeness to itself. The 
 consequence has hitherto been : — with ourselves, a finer race ; with 
 them, more uniform ease of circumstances. Our splendid boys 
 and girls, true children of love as they often are, have caught the 
 beauty of the mother and inherited the manly independence and 
 self-sufficing resoluteness of the father. But they have to turn out 
 betimes from home to make their own bread, which is sometimes 
 
184 Is Marriage a tauuni .- 
 
 bitter, sometimes scanty, and not infrequently poisonous. On the 
 other hand, the French family remains A, I'abri, undiminished in its 
 generally scanty numbers, and unagonised by the fears and acci- 
 dents which beset the disintegration of an English household. Its 
 son is not lost in the bush nor killed by savages on the plain ; its 
 daughter does not tramp about the streets at all hours alone, ex- 
 posed to every kind of danger, moral as well as physical, but is kept 
 close to the mother's side till marriage opens to her those golden 
 gates of liberty which so often lead to temptation and the sweet 
 sorrow of sinful love. 
 
 The French mother makes that marriage for her daughter, and 
 leaves her but the narrowest margin of freedom in her right of re- 
 fusal. In bygone days that refusal meant the convent. It was this 
 or that, and no half-way house possible. To-day things are better ; 
 and even devout mothers are not so prone as they were to make 
 their daughters brides of Christ rather than of men ; for the nunnery, 
 if not destroyed like the Bastille, is infinitely diminished both in 
 extent and power. Unhappily, too, for the essential manliness of 
 the nation, the mother makes the marriage for her son as well 
 as for her daughter ; and the son submits because of that fatal 
 gynKcolatry which rules all social and domestic life across the 
 Channel, and which makes the woman the supreme arbiter of 
 affairs. As a rule — having exceptions, of course — the French 
 mother is so far considerate to the weakness of the educated 
 flesh, with nerves and ideals, as not to sell her daughter to an 
 absolutely loathsome purchaser merely for the sake of his money. 
 On the other hand, she does not trouble herself much about the 
 beauty or the wishes of her designated son-in-law, provided his 
 family, his present fortune, and future prospects are in line with 
 her own. There is a certain spirit of commercial rectitude in these 
 bargains, which, while it allows of a little overreaching, as so much 
 sword-play between wits, does not countenance gross trickery im- 
 modest and immoderate discrepancies. Each has to give an equi- 
 valent for what is received, that so the balance may be kept even 
 and the pride of each respected. And to do her justice, the French 
 mother does not often throw the beauty, youth, and virgin inno- 
 
The Philosophy of Marriage. 185 
 
 cance of her daughter into the scale as her equivalent for titled 
 corruption or gilded brutality. She prefers something more akin 
 and more harmonious. She believes so far in elemental instinct 
 that — given a girl who has been carefully secluded from all chance 
 of a premature romance on her own account — any man of her 
 class and kind, who is moderately amiable and not personally 
 hateful, and who gives her the status and liberties of a married 
 woman, will be loved before the honeymoon is out. And at the 
 worst, if he is not, there will be the children, who supply so much 
 of 'the family happiness in French homes. She knows that, after 
 a time, personal passion, of even the most exalted kind, dies down 
 into the tranquillity of friendship or flames out into the destruc- 
 tive activity of disgust. But material possessions remain. She 
 knjws that married hfe is not all love and kisses; that no one 
 can live long at high pressure ; that, when the honeymoon is 
 over, the prosaic duties of home, the profession, the family, have 
 to be fulfilled; that absence of sordid anxieties, with mutual 
 esteem and common interests, is the foundation of all enduring 
 happiness, and that these are to be secured just as certainly with- 
 out that preface of passion as with it. Hence she takes care that 
 this material foundation— -this pavement of well-fitting conditions 
 — shall be strongly laid; and she trusts the future, as we all must, 
 a little to the blind workings of chance and fortune, and more to 
 the guiding power of reason. And the average French home is 
 quite as happy as the average English one ; and the French 
 mother understands human nature when she brings her daughter 
 out of the convent school and marries her to a practical stranger, 
 whose fortunes suit, whose morals are not hopelessly corrupt, and 
 whose physique is not that of Beauty's Beast or the Yellow Dwarf. 
 
 And one thing the respectable French mother would rather die 
 than do— would think herself lost for time and eternity if she per- 
 mitted to be done — and that is, she would not allow her daughters 
 to hunt for their own husbands, to hold themselves aggrieved if 
 she interfered with their flirtations, or to give themselves to social 
 loss for the sake of personal love. 
 
 This making of her daughter's marriage which comes into the 
 
Is Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 forefront of a French mother's duties, is in England regarded as 
 the very reverse of a duty. A "match-making mother" is here a 
 term of reproach, as one should say a swindler or a card-sharper. 
 It is part of our British pride not to stir a finger to help on a 
 nascent love affair : part of our British prudery to ignore the dis- 
 creet flirtations of our daughters, so long as they are discreet and 
 not too violent to be overlooked. And it is part of our daughters' 
 inheritance of freedom to be permitted to conduct these matters 
 themselves, as the wisdom of their eighteen or nineteen years may 
 determine. If a few vigilant mothers keep their eyes wide open 
 and their hands closed tight on the young daughter's arms till such 
 time as she has learned to walk alone, they are out of the ordinary 
 course for the moment, and are as old-fashioned as their great-grand- 
 mothers in hoops and powder. Girls for the most part make the 
 running for themselves ; and the young men resent interference as 
 the girls themselves resent restriction. Yet the mother, if she have 
 any sense at all, and is not merely a dummy with a broad waist and 
 pendulous cheeks, ought to be a better judg-e of suitability than 
 a young creature who has had no experience of life on the one 
 hand, and is blinded by passion or romance on the other. When 
 Ethel, who loves dress and personal ease, and who cannot use her 
 hands for rough or useful work any more than if she were the child 
 in years she is in character and training, falls in love with Charlie 
 — bound to impecuniosity at home or to a settler's rough life in 
 the colonies — does not her mother know that, if she rnarries him, 
 she is dooming herself to misery of the most abject kind ? It 
 is in vain to argue, to demonstrate, to forewarn. Ethel is in 
 love. She says she will die if she may not marry Charlie on 
 two hundred a-year as a clerk in England, or on what he may be 
 able to scratch out of the bush in the colonies. She is sure that 
 a life of perpetual picnic will be the most awfully jolly thing 
 possible ; and she knows that she would rather bake the bread 
 and scrub the floors for Charlie in the bush than be a million- 
 aire in England with anyone else for her husband. And she 
 hates that hideous Mr. Smith, with all his money ! But the 
 mother knows that if she married Mr. Smith — good, kind 
 
Tlie Pldlosophy of Marriage. 187 
 
 patient, honourable little man that he is — who would make good 
 settlements, give her a lovely home, and never cross her humour, 
 she would cry for a week, to be happy ever after. Taken in the 
 pleasant toils of ease of living, a good social position, as many new 
 dresses as she could possibly desire, children taken off her hands 
 from the moment of their birth — all the conditions of her existence 
 such as best suit her nature — she would forget her young romance 
 and make herself happy with reahties. Or, what certain women 
 prize more than all else, she would keep that young romance as a 
 pasture-ground for discontent when her nerves were upset or her 
 digestion had gone wrong. Then she would think of Charlie in the 
 bush, and how different things would have been had she married 
 him instead of this horrid little man, whose sole offence is that he 
 loves her and she does not love him, and she would pity herself 
 as a victim and a martyr to her heart's desire. As it is she marries 
 Charhe for a few months' rapturous delight, when she sinks into a 
 painful, haggard, self-neglecting drudge, keeping house under con- 
 ditions for which she has not one single physical qualification, and 
 unable to make a good job of things in any direction. Or perhaps 
 she dies outright of weariness, hardship, and toilsome maternity. 
 
 This is the kind of marriage with all its variants for which a 
 French mother has so great a horror. And it is to guard against 
 the possibility of such romantic ideas being transmitted to her 
 own daughter that she dreads the companionship of English 
 misses. She does not suspect them of impropriety in the proper 
 sense of the word, but she does believe in their romanticism and 
 their preference for personal love over social condition, which 
 in her nicely-adjusted scales weighs just as much as what goes 
 under the name of impropriety. 
 
 Romance, however, does not reign quite so triumphantly in the 
 present as it did in the past days of Lydia Languish, or even when 
 the " Lady of Lyons " held the stage. Our roses and lilies have to 
 be gilded, not perfumed; and for dewdrops we demand diamonds, 
 and plenty of them. Marriages for money, and money only, 
 without the smallest consideration of even approximate fitness in 
 the person, are far more common in England than in France, for 
 
 13 
 
1 88 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 a mariage de raison or de convenance is not quite the same thing. 
 It is not the open and confessed self-sale as we have it in England ; 
 and the procedure is different —which also is a modifying influence. 
 In England our girls give themselves ; in France they are given by 
 the parents. It is all the difference between the principal and 
 the perhaps unwilling accessory— the voluntary gift and the com- 
 pelled sacrifice. Money is now more than ever the one thing 
 needful; and the strong vitahty of the English nature— that 
 powerful fibre which leads to exaggeration as well as whole- 
 heartedness— makes English men and women throw overboard 
 even the very pretence of sentiment or fitness when they take it 
 in hand to sell themselves for settlements. The most beautiful 
 girl in England will of her own motion give herself to the most 
 fearful snob, the most ridiculous litlle Snipson extant, if he have 
 the required number of thousands at the bank. And young men 
 follow suit. Anyone with money can buy of the best in the 
 open market ; for money is power, and the old adage about know- 
 ledge is as rococo as that about love in a cottage and the dinner 
 of herbs. Let that pass. We sell our energies, our brains, our 
 time, our health and strength, for so much current coin of the 
 realm. We sometimes sell our consciences and that thing — that 
 " sort of a something " — we call our soul. Why not our bodies as 
 well ? In the streets it goes by an ugly name ; but society and 
 the Church call it marriage, and society and the Church should 
 know best. It is all a question of pride, of self-respect, of honour 
 for ourselves, of consideration for our flesh. If we hold ourselves 
 fit for no better use than sale, if we have so little self-respect as 
 not to feel degraded, we are in our right to make the best bar- 
 gain we can ; and it depends on the price we set on ourselves 
 whether we make our market betimes or outstay it. 
 
 Grant that we accomplish what we desire, there is no harm done 
 to anyone (but ourselves) if we fulfil our part of the bargain. The 
 buyer gives the stipulated price. The income is there ; security 
 from all pecuniary troubles ; the settlements, as covenanted ; the 
 social status resulting. All these are well and duly delivered. The 
 bought has also agreed to give something — an outward show of 
 
'The Philosophy of Marriage. 
 
 attention and respect, if the inner heart is cold and empty. If the 
 bargain is honourably kept, the thing is a sorrowful success, and no 
 one has a reproach to make. If it is not, the thing is an infamy, 
 and neither the Church nor society lifts that marriage above the line 
 of authorised prostitution — makes it other than a swindle on a par 
 with loaded dice, and that ace up the sleeve. If a woman marries 
 the man she abhors for the sake of his money or rank, she is bound 
 in honour not to simulate passion nor to pretend devotion, but to 
 disguise her abhorrence, conceal her contempt, and to treat her 
 marital ape, should he be of the ape kind, as if he were a man. 
 She took him on those terms, and she ought to abide by them. 
 When she flouts and fleers him — is always la femme a Giac, 
 bitterly humiliating herself that she may the better humiliate him 
 — when she thinks to show her own superiority by flinging the lime- 
 light of her scorn on his inferiority — she is no better than a passer 
 of false coin, giving bad money for good. The convention has 
 been kept on one side only, and the other side profits without 
 paying the stipulated share. 
 
 So with men. If they marry the woman they do not love, and 
 make her feel that they do not love her ; if they take all and 
 return nothing ; if they keep to their bachelor habits and re-enact 
 the part of poor Miss Kilmansegg's possessor ; if they still visit 
 that little house in St. John's Wood, and break off no old rela- 
 tions for the sake of new ties ; if they want a la fois les benefices 
 du mariage et ioutes les douceurs de la liberti, like Ohnet's beau 
 garfon a la barbe d'or, they too are the passers of false coin — 
 gamblers whose dice are loaded. And on them the same dis- 
 honour as that which attaches to the trickery of women lies as 
 thick as the mud of a Morocco lane in the rain-time. If, on the 
 contrary, they return the gratitude of care and companionship, 
 and only so much of fidelity as includes outward respect, 
 for the gift of love and money, they are justified in their 
 act, and the world has no cry against them. Disraeli's marriage 
 was a case in point : so is another where the discrepancy in age 
 and original condition is even greater than with his, and where 
 the happiness resulting to the woman by the man's honourable 
 
1 90 Is Rlarriage a Failure ? 
 
 fulfilment of his share of his bargain is as patent as in the 
 Beaconsfield household. The world which cried out against 
 this marriage at all four quarters of the heaven — and, indeed, it 
 did look both louche and risky !— has learned by now that the 
 bargain has not been all one-sided, but that he has given the 
 care, protection, companionship, and faithful stewardship of her 
 affairs, which was what she asked and what he promised. Surely 
 these two marriages have justified themselves by the honourable 
 fidelity to the agreement which each of the men maintained, and 
 by the corresponding happiness of the woman who risked so 
 much and yet did not lose by the venture. 
 
 Any marriage made for other motives than personal affection, 
 if the terms of the agreement are kept, is as successful as the 
 most [exacting can desire. Let the marriage be one where her 
 money pays for his title, and where there is no question of love 
 on either side. Each gets what was bargained for ; and if there 
 is only so much as one grain of common sense, of good feeling, of 
 regard for appearances, each will pay the stipulated price of public 
 politeness and apparent accord. In secret each may go_ so far out 
 of the line as is consistent with the outside of the Divorce Court. 
 No convention is broken so long as appearances are kept and 
 the public is not admitted behind the scenes. There was no 
 question of one-sided love buying the beautiful beloved with gold 
 in exchange for her (supposed) affection. It was the meeting 
 together of two traders, one with a pearl to exchange against the 
 other's diamond— title for income, rank for money. If the ambi- 
 tion has gone to name, and a woman's desire is for celebrity rather 
 than worldly rank, or if two brains agree to join the bodies belong- 
 ing, that too is a bargain which, if honestly kept, has nothing against 
 it. But there must be some kind of fitness to make it successful. 
 When a young woman with moist red lips and roving eyes marries a 
 kiln-dried old Dryasdust for his name and acquirements, we can- 
 not wonder if the straw of that nuptial crown takes fire and goes 
 lichterloh to the skies. If May elects to live with January, she 
 must keep her lips dry and her eyes steady, else she will make 
 pie of her marriage lines before the year is out, when all that will 
 
The Fhilosoplty of Marriage. 191 
 
 be left her will be a broken law fearfully avenged by her ever- 
 lasting disgrace. It takes a special kind of youthful femininity to 
 be able to live well with age. She must be either of the race of 
 Dryasdust on her own account, or one whose fihal feeling is in 
 excess of both the conjugal and the maternal. Still, there are all 
 sorts for all choosers, and even among roses not every one is red. 
 If marriages for money and for ambition have their risky side, a 
 woman's marriage for a man's good is a danger of even more 
 formidable dimensions. No woman can make a greater mistake 
 than to found her marriage on benevolence — to hammer out the 
 wedding ring from the golden nugget of compassion. The 
 average man cannot bear vital obligation to a woman. It takes 
 generosity of a very exceptional kind to accept generosity nobly, 
 and without humiliation culminating in ingratitude. The woman 
 who marries beneath herself in education and refinement for the 
 most part gives herself a brutal tyrant, not a devoted lover ; the 
 woman who marries into poor conditions that she may help, 
 sustain, and benefit, gives herself a bitter enemy and not a grate- 
 ful friend. This brutality of ingratitude from men to the 
 women by whom they benefit has its raison d'et7-e in the inherited 
 sense of superior strength which all men should, and most 
 Englishmen do, possess ; the knowledge that it is for the man to 
 protect and bestow, not for the woman to be his shield and cornu- 
 copia. This inversion of functions and duties sours a man's 
 temper, and unless he has brought on his side youth for his 
 portion, which is something to the good, he resents the very 
 generosity by which his fortunes are redeemed and his home is 
 rebuilt. This is the one point in Balzac's novels which never finds 
 sympathy with English readers. His de Rastignacs, de Marsays, 
 and the rest of his handsome young adventurers are, one and all, 
 men who are kept by their titled mistresses, which is a long step 
 beyond the subvention of a marriage. And not one among them 
 seems to feel it a disgrace to his manhood that he should be kept 
 by a woman, with sometimes the additional dishonour of turning 
 the screw when supplies run short, and the hopper strikes fire for 
 want of grist to the mill. Sometimes such things get whispered 
 
192 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 about in English society, whe ___-tnoral rank with crimes, 
 
 though the law does not recognise them as crimes ; and the lover 
 who has enriched himself by a woman's passion, or forced from 
 her by fear of betrayal the material benefits which she dare not 
 refuse, might as well have cut a throat or forged a cheque for the 
 estimation in which he will ever after be held. 
 
 As great a mistake as it is for a woman to marry out of compas- 
 sion or benevolence, so it is for a man to marry his kept mistress. 
 If she has been married, or he, or one or both, so that a legalised 
 union between them was impossible, and only an unlawful love re- 
 mained — failing renunciation, which does not count in the present 
 paragraph — that puts the thing on a different footing, and makes 
 their marriage both honourable and wise if they become free. It 
 does not condone the adultery, but it does justify the after-bond. 
 But a woman, free in her own condition as the man in his, who has 
 been kept as a mistress, and is the mother of illegitimate children, 
 is more likely than not to make a man repent the tardy impulse 
 which induces him to make " an honest woman of her " at the last. 
 If the marriage legitimated the children, as it does in some coun- 
 tries, well and good ; but as it does not in England, the woman has 
 ever on her lips those unanswerable and, for the most part, those 
 unending reproaches : " Why did you not do before and at first 
 what you have done now when too late ? This marriage cannot 
 redeem my name nor make my children your heirs. You yourself 
 have smirched the name of your wife, and I resent your cowardice, 
 your want of trust in me, your want of respect and sincere love, 
 and the blunder that the whole thing has been.'' It would have 
 been better to have gone on to the end as from the beginning. 
 That suburban estabhshment might be suspected, but it was never 
 acknowledged — never flaunted in the eyes of virtuous women and 
 men of staunch principles and honour. When the boys and girls 
 are suddenly brought to hght as bastards who might just as well 
 have been legitimate, society is shocked, and no one benefits. The 
 new wife and long-time mistress — always of an originally lower 
 status — is in a false position, and the children fare no better. The 
 one bears a stain which no magic words of tardy benediction can 
 
The Philosophy of Marriage. 193 
 
 efface ; the others are under certain disabilities which never leave 
 thera, and a cloud is about them which only their own after-success 
 can dispel. And all concerned feel that this too-late legalisation 
 of an irregular union has been a concession to superstition rather 
 than to a noble principle, and that the gross result is simply need- 
 less publicity and increase of shame. As one mesh more or less 
 in a net does not count, so one deception more or less in circum- 
 stances founded on falsehood and fraud throughout does not much 
 signify. The decent veil of "my favourite niece " and "my dear 
 nephew," which the peccant members of the Romish Church 
 throw over the living proofs of their human frailty, is a wiser 
 thing than this unmasked and unblushing truth, which has the 
 personal humiliation, but not the spiritual cleansing, of public 
 penance. Which way soever the thing may be taken, no one can 
 rule the crooked line straight, and not all the artful pencillings in the 
 world can change that original tracing. At the best they can but 
 confuse, obscure, and modify. And for the mass of mankind they 
 call more attention to the smudge than would else have been. 
 
 Also, it is a psychological fact that many men are charming as 
 proprietary lovers who are impossible as husbands, and many 
 women make the most complacent and delightful mistresses who, 
 as wives, would give points to Xantippe. When a man does not 
 want a companion in the woman with whom he lives, and to whom 
 he grudges the equal rights conferred by matrimony, he is best as 
 a proprietor whose own will is his only tie. To such a man his 
 home must be ever as his throne-room, where he is absolute and 
 without rivals. If he is a self-flatterer whose vanity goes to his 
 morals, it is a daily pleasure to him to be able to peacock him- 
 self on his generosity, his voluntary fidelity, his greatness of soul, 
 all through. He could rid himself of this woman at a word — in a 
 moment — and he keeps her. He looks in the glass of his self- 
 love, and thinks what a fine fellow he is not to abuse his liberty, 
 and yet the sense of that liberty is very sweet. Not bound, like 
 those who have been fooHsh enough to slip their neck into the 
 noose, he is doubly honourable and infinitely more constant 
 than they ; and this thought is a perpetual incense to his nostrils. 
 
194 Is Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 Besides this, he has the delight of perfect freedom in society. 
 Many men find the enforced companionship of the wife at 
 dinners, soirees, and functions of all kinds a bore beyond words. 
 The man who has his unmarried wife in secret has all his personal 
 liberty, all the social isolation he desires; and the woman knows him 
 only as a good-tempered — because voluntary — companion. Were 
 he to marry he would be unendurable, and would either leave his 
 wife at home, as Tom Moore used to leave poor Betsey, or would 
 make her life a burden to her by his bearishness in the ^irougham. 
 
 So with women. There are certain natures which have to be 
 kept in subjection by self-interest. Free and dominant, they too are 
 unendurable. A woman whom her lover, holding the purse, would 
 know only as sweet and gentle, her husband, having made settle- 
 ments and ensured her well-being, would have cause to dread as a 
 MegEera — a moral stinging-nettle of the worst kind. Security deve- 
 lops her evil qualities, and when not under restraint she is rampantly 
 tyrannical. It is the old story of the coward and the bully— the 
 " villain " by nature, enriched of fortune, and acting according to the 
 law of her kind. Every student of humanity must have seen these 
 two characters — the man who, from a generous and kindly — because 
 voluntary — proprietor, becomes hateful under legal obligations, and 
 the woman who, from a complaisant and delightful mistress, becomes 
 just as hateful so soon as she has touched the security of wedlock. 
 
 Masculine tyranny imposes burdens ; feminine domination 
 makes restrictions. The one says, " You shall " ; the other, " You 
 shall not ". True liberty says, " Do as you hke and think best 
 for yourself, so long as you do not hurt others ". The marriage of 
 a deceased wife's sister comes under the feminine law of arbitrary 
 prohibition, though, in spite of physiology, the marriage of first 
 cousins as well as of the hereditarily tainted, is permitted, to the 
 certain detriment of the race. The prohibition against marrying 
 a deceased wife's sister presses most hardly on the poor. The 
 well-to-do can escape by going abroad and marrying under the 
 more liberal law of a foreign land. This satisfies the sentiment, 
 challenges, while it respects, society, and saves the conscience of 
 the tender. The marriage is then the morganatic marriage of non- 
 
The Philosophy of Marriage. 195 
 
 royalties, and there is no " sin " — though the nephew inherits the 
 entailed estate. Year after year the struggle is repeated between 
 those who want to have and those who say they shall not take ; 
 and this, though the social principle involved in the restriction is 
 of the shadowiest kind, and the practical evils are among the most 
 patent. The Greek Church, which translates literally the scrip- 
 tural restriction of one wife only for her priests, and the Romish, 
 which for the sake of the organisation, and to keep it yet more com- 
 pactly welded and isolated from the outer world, forbids any wife 
 at all to hers ; the Ritualists, who refuse to marry the divorced, 
 and who, like the Positivists, would forbid remarriage after death 
 had they power ; the Romish Church, which does not allow of 
 divorce, let the offence be never so monstrous ; we who refuse to 
 sanction the marriage of the deceased wife's sister — all incorporate 
 that feminine element of restriction, of prohibition — all say, " You 
 shall not do what you want to do, because, though it does not hurt 
 anyone else, it offends my individual taste, denies my private 
 superstition, and I do not choose it ". And always it is the lesser 
 need which controls the greater — as those with "small appetites pre- 
 scribe the amount of food for those with large, as the man with a 
 rapid circulation sets the thermometer for the man with a slow one. 
 Those who do not want to marry their deceased wife's sister forbid 
 those who do, and he for whom 58° is inconveniently warm rakes 
 down the fire for him who takes cold in anything under 68°. 
 
 On this subject much might be said which perhaps the world 
 is not prepared to receive. In the inequalities of temperament 
 lie the main causes of unhappiness in marriage. Want of har- 
 mony in tastes counts for much, but a misfit in temperament for 
 more. A splendid physique, ebullient with energies of all kinds, 
 united to one frail and feeble and just able to live — no more — ■ 
 what happiness can there be to either ? Restrictions which are 
 as maddening as starvation to the one are yet excessive and as 
 deadly as surfeit to the other; and the feebler, measuring 
 humanity at large by its own narrow two-foot rule, thinks that 
 standard the absolute, and all beyond both sinful and exaggerated. 
 The feminine fashion of the day — and, in obscure corners, certain 
 
196 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 snippets of the masculine — goes to asceticism and disdainful 
 disapprobation of the broader lines and more imperative needs of 
 the lustier and stronger natures. To these women marriage and 
 maternity are perhaps necessary evils, but, however necessary, 
 they are evils, and of a very detestable kind. Hence they are 
 justified to themselves when they refuse to submit to the condi- 
 tions including either, even though they have undertaken to play 
 the roles of both wife and mother. That warm, ripe, generous 
 humour which was not ashamed to love the man in the husband, 
 and, therefore, loving him in jocund harmony and assured con- 
 tent, was not likely to be led away by any other fancy — that 
 generous humour is out of date. " Passionate Brompton,'' with 
 its sickly poets and epicene artists by its side, worships sun- 
 flowers and lilies, and sighs for the unattainable stars. It thinks 
 life, as nature, instinct, and necessity have made it, a failure as 
 great as marriage, and chiefly a failure because of marriage ; 
 straining at the leash against its yoke-fellow — that hunting, shoot- 
 ing, courageous, woman-loving yoke-fellow, with fighting blood 
 soon up and eyes not blind to a fair skin and a well-turned ankle, 
 but clean of life and honourable withal. Passionate Brompton, so 
 precious to its poets and artists, finds the man in such a husband 
 unendurable. Its poets and artists would find the woman as unen- 
 durable were they to marry some magnificent, white-armed daughter 
 of the gods who feared no danger, delighted in out-of-door exercise, 
 enjoyed life, loved babies, and preferred an honest kiss to a luscious 
 sonnet, and a frank embrace to a weeping, subtle, half-melancholy 
 caress. In these radical differences of temperament, and in the 
 views held by wives who should have been vestals, lie the deepest, 
 the most incurable, and the most disastrous of all the causes 
 which produce domestic unhappiness and the failure of marriage. 
 The question of divorce is one of the most complicated, as it 
 is undeniably the most diflScult, of all our social arrangements. 
 Between the indissoluble sacrament of the Romish Church and the 
 loose holding of certain American States the stages are many. We 
 in England, with whom it is a point of honour and modesty to deny 
 the instinctive quality of love as an insult to modest maidenhood 
 
The Philosophy of Marriage. 197 
 
 and a shame to civilised manhood alike, grant divorce for the one 
 fault which is the very essential of that instinct. We still say that a 
 man's honour is stained by the infidelity of his wife, just as a brave's 
 would be — though we would deny the identity of cause. We have 
 more reason when we divorce the wife on the ground of introducing 
 false heirs into the family to inherit the husband's property. Yet 
 this now sufficiently just and logical plea would not hold good if the 
 inheritance went by the spindle side. We all know of that famous 
 historic instance in our own times where not a child belongs to the 
 putative father, but is eligible to the succession by the mother's right. 
 And, if ever woman became the governing power, and inheritance 
 was from the mother alone, practical polyandry would not be infre- 
 quent, because it would entail no legal disabilities on the children. 
 The restrictions on divorce are theoretically held as so many 
 safeguards for woman against the fugitive passions of men. In 
 reality they are safeguards against her own irritable nerves and 
 sensitive personality. In countries where divorce is granted for 
 incompatibility of temper, by far the largest number of applica- 
 tions come from women. How should it not be so ? A woman's 
 poetry of life is in the romance of love, and this is over when she 
 marries. We are speaking now of strictly virtuous women — not 
 of those who supplement an unloved husband by a secret lover. 
 A woman, loyal to her vows and too chaste to break them, has nc 
 more tender love-making in the moonlight — no more pleasant 
 agonies of doubt, of hope, of fear, of suspense. The slight 
 lingering of the hand, like a timid and uncertain caress — the look 
 that wakens hope and satisfies desire — the consciousness of being 
 adored and of being the arbiter of happiness or misery to the one 
 who loves and whom she also loves — she has none of this now. 
 Her husband is her possessor, and his days of wooing are at an 
 end. Those of disillusionment have begun. He has no reason 
 to sue her — no desire to flatter her. He is at home, and appears 
 in dashabille of mind and body. Perhaps he lets her feel that he 
 is a little tired of her, and thinks her something of a millstone round 
 his neck — even if supportable, yet always a millstone. But his 
 occupation and his amusements take him out of doors ; and with 
 
198 Is Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 a man of a certain temperament those amusements include infi- 
 delities. For all men are not monogamous, just as birds and 
 beasts are not ; and, in spite of the tremendous force of law, 
 social obligations, and inherited habits, the men who are faithful 
 to the one wife from beginning to end are in a decided minority. 
 If he does not commit the mistake of entering into a dangerous 
 intrigue — if he keeps clear of a grande passion and contents him- 
 self with amourettes — the chances are he is more patient with the 
 domestic strain than she is, because he suffers less from it, and 
 has indemnities which she has not. The angles rub her more 
 sharply than they rub him ; and what there is of incompatibihty 
 grates most on her, both by temperament and circumstance. 
 Hence she seeks divorce far more eagerly than he. She has no 
 secret rose-coloured hours to brighten the grey days ; and in 
 breaking an uncongenial marriage she gives herself the chance of 
 a second better venture. He, on the contrary, has the trouble of 
 looking for a successor who may do no better than the wife he has. 
 As things are, and as he has arranged his life, the wife he has does 
 well enough. He is accustomed if bored — and custom goes a long 
 way towards the easing of that pinching shoe. Besides, the wife 
 is always the wife — the mistress of the house — the mother of the 
 children, and he does not care to change the colour of the per- 
 manent yoke. He has padded it so that it does not greatly gall 
 him. She, on the contrary, does want to change hers, for she has 
 no padding, and it does gall. And we must always remember 
 that, if a man finds it an agony to see the same woman at break- 
 fast for three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, the woman 
 does not find the same man a Proteus of joy and romance; and the 
 chances are that she is just as much bored by him as he is by her. 
 For much of which the chair-a-chair closeness of the English home 
 is greatly responsible ; and the romantic notions of enduring and 
 self-sufficing passion indulged in by the average English girl have 
 also something to say to it. A fall from the Monument is a more 
 disastrous matter than one from the ground-floor window. 
 
 The question has been asked, " Is marriage a success ? " The 
 answer lies in the proportion of divorces to unions. That pinching 
 
The Philosophy of Marriage. 199 
 
 shoe may be pretty general, but we bear it, and do not throw it 
 off unless it is too painful to be borne. No charm has yet been 
 found to make marriage an assured success, whatever the form 
 of wooing or of holding. No freer personal intercourse before 
 ensures more complete accord after ; for marriage often changes 
 the very nature, and brings to the surface all that was latent 
 and undeveloped before. Also, no one can tell whether the 
 feeling is the love that will last or the passion that will burn 
 itself away. Certainly not the guileless Genevieves whom all 
 impulses of soul and sense have thrilled. Even experienced 
 women who have a point of imagination deceive themselves like 
 Georges Sand, and always believe this to be the wingless Love— this 
 to be the true one and the last. As for men, whether they know 
 or not, their passion is generally too great for prudence ; and 
 they marry the woman who has fired their blood, though they do 
 not respect her, do not really love her, and though they know that 
 in a year's time they will be ready to cut their throats in despair 
 for the mess they have made of their lives. With the majority, 
 however, the thing has to prove itself, and the permanence of 
 happiness is believed in, while the rubs and jars and rents are not 
 foreseen. Yet how many things come in to interrupt that happi- 
 ness as it is dreamed of — that happiness which our refinement, 
 our education, our sybaritic physique, both increase in intensity 
 when we have it, and lessen our chance of having it at all. 
 Think of a person with nerves all ajar, a light sleeper, and an 
 irritable temper, with the other half of that four-poster occupied 
 by an inveterate snorer — by a fidget — by one who, also a light 
 sleeper, wakes up at unholy hours, Hghts the lamp, flashing the 
 flame into the only half-closed eyes of the scarce-slumbering 
 partner — by a man who smokes even in the middle of the night — 
 by a man who stirs up his wife to read him to sleep again, and this, 
 perhaps, more than once in the night. Think of a person of fas- 
 tidious cleanliness married to one who is, well — not fastidious ; or 
 to a habitual drunkard ; or an occasional maniac ; or a wilful, and 
 for the most part unlucky, gambler. Should we not say that it is 
 simple superstition which keeps a man or woman joined to any of 
 
200 Is Marriage a Failure I 
 
 these last three — to a hopeless drunkard? to a maniac? to a gambler 
 who ruins his fortunes and beggars his children for the sake of his 
 passion for play, betting, or speculation ? When the essential 
 meaning of marriage, in the good of the family and the happiness 
 of the individual, is lost, the form may well go ; and divorce is 
 a better state of things than domestic unhappiness, wherein the 
 passions have it all their own way, and the dignity of human 
 nature is lost in the turmoil of dissension. And honest divorce 
 is a better state of things than judicial separation^ which is a 
 senseless and cruel compromise. Without wishing to make divorce 
 too easy, it does seem as if it should be given when, for any 
 cause, the marriage is a distinct and insupportable failure, and 
 the well-being of the children is at stake. 
 
 Naturally the crux of the whole question is in the children. As 
 we began with them so must we end. Marriage would be no 
 more binding than any other voluntarily undertaken partnership, 
 were it not for these helpless members of the community, whose 
 future good ought to be sacred to that community — these 
 unrepresented citizens whom their parents have in present pawn, 
 but for whom they are answerable to the State, though the State 
 takes very little active interest in them, believing that in the main 
 parental instinct and affection know best. The integrity, the 
 sanctity, of the family lies at the root of all stable and well- 
 conditioned society ; and, frankly, the individual happiness of 
 this husband or that wife, ill-mated, does not count a hair's- 
 breadth in comparison with the stability of society and the good 
 of the family. But here again we are met by that oscillation, that 
 evenness of balance, which makes the whole thing once more 
 indeterminate. For surely nothing can be worse for the morals of 
 children than to bring them up in an atmosphere of dissension, of 
 mutual hatred, of mutual recriminations and disrespect, between 
 father and mother — where, too, they are forced to take sides and 
 be partisans. One has heard parents of this miserable kind say : 
 " Oh, she is my child," or, " She is her mother's child, not mine," 
 &c., &c., as the sympathy of the child may go. And we know 
 the injudicious fondness or the cruel injustice tjiat follows on 
 
The Philosophy of Marriage. 201 
 
 this partisanship — either of which is simple ruin to a child's 
 character. Where, then, the passions are stronger than the 
 parental feeling, and self-respect, self control, consideration for the 
 children, count for nothing in comparison with the fierce delight 
 of strife, it is very sure that these would be better brought up 
 under one sole influence than in a home where the two heads are 
 simply two hostile forces. How they should be divided would be, 
 of course, matter for arbitration and arrangement ; but it would 
 be, as it is always, a difficulty how to apportion them with due 
 regard to their own welfare, and due regard to the claims of each 
 parent. Nothing can be worse than that a mother should have 
 the sole charge of her boys, when once these have passed their 
 infancy ; and yet her influences wholly withdrawn are so much the 
 less of future good. Nor is it fitting that a father should bring up 
 his daughters while the mother lives, and nothing worse than in- 
 compatibility of temper can be recorded against her. But a father's 
 influence over his girls is ju^t as valuable as a mother's over her 
 boys ; and so the balance sways, and the difficulty and doubt ren- 
 der it almost impossible to determine which side is the heavier. 
 
 Though it is true to say that sometimes the mother is just the 
 most unfit person in the world to bring up her own children, that 
 " sometimes " is the exception, not the rule ; and the great, broad, 
 patent law all through human life is that the father is the best 
 guardian of his children, and the mother their best caretaker^ their 
 best moral guide and instructress. Almost all great men have 
 owed much to the mother — many also to the father. If we were 
 to come to such a state of things as some complacently anticipate — 
 if the State were to be father and mother to the children, and the 
 ties of family were to be dissolved like jelly in water — then would 
 marriage cease to be an institution in any sense of the term, and 
 we should go back to practical promiscuity. Why not ? The 
 pleasure of the individual would then be the one sole good, and 
 morality would not suff'er, because, the family having ceased to 
 exist, there would be no need of restrictions. With the father 
 rubbed off the state of home, " lawfully begotten " would have no 
 meaning ; and the descenda,nts of M^ssalina would be safer thari 
 
202 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 their ancestress in those famous Pincian gardens, where her sins 
 received their punishment. It would be a different state of things 
 altogether, one as entirely different as if we were to become 
 in our own persons "anthropophagi and men whose heads do 
 grow beneath their shoulders ". No, we must not look for such 
 a radical change as this. We must content ourselves with 
 smaller and more tentative measures — legislation of the bit-by-bit 
 kind — compromises granting here and holding there, which are 
 more often our illogical and conservative way of doing things than 
 wholesale changes. Perhaps some day those who do not want to 
 marry their deceased wife's sister will grant permission to those 
 who do ; those who are happy in their own marriage, and with 
 whom death would be eternal widowhood, will have legislative 
 compassion on those who are unhappy and with whom death 
 would be a blessed release ; perhaps society will recognise that 
 our intricate and acute civilisation has somewhat modified the ori- 
 ginal idea and added to the archaic meaning of marriage, and that 
 certain social crimes, like drunkenness and inveterate gambling, 
 are as destructive to the essential conditions as the one fault of 
 infidelity. This is not saying that infidelity has lost its import- 
 ance as a fault, but that it has others associated with it of equal 
 rank, in the present condition of things — ^just as madness and 
 felony, with its imprisonment for life or for a long term of years, 
 are as good grounds for divorce as certain physical disabilities 
 already provided for — but, by the way, resented by society at least 
 at its apex, when the law granting release is taken advantage of. 
 In all cases the happiness of the parents ought to be subordinated 
 to the good of the children ; and the individual must suffer for the 
 preservation of society. If it is superstition to remain attached to 
 the hard and fast lines of a primitive time, it is suicide to break 
 away from all lines altogether. Between the two extremes thut Jvsie 
 milieu holds the royal place ; and common sense, self-control, and a 
 modicum of good principle are in themselves solvents of most social 
 and personal difficulties. Undoubtedly the law is too restricted as 
 things are ; and the altered conditions of society have to be con- 
 sidered as well as its preservation. Perhaps the two are identical. 
 
 E. LYNN LINTON. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 CAUSES OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 
 
 Men and Women do not carry out their Agreement 
 made at the Altar. 
 
 SIR, — I quite agree with a large number of your correspondents 
 that it is impossible to draw a general conclusion from a 
 limited number of instances, but I very gravely suspect from a 
 wide experience that domestic infelicity is more common than is 
 openly acknowledged. If your discussion is to be of any value 
 the causes of unhappiness in marriage must be carefully probed. 
 This leads us to consider what marriage really is and is intended 
 to be. It will generally be admitted that in marriage the man 
 chooses the woman, and not the woman the man. He chooses 
 her dehberately to be his companion — the sharer of his home and 
 the bearer of his offspring. The very nature and gravity of the 
 choice will not brook the idea of its being for a period only, nor 
 could the woman, with due regard to her existence, constitution, 
 and welfare, run so heavy a risk of the future unless some pledge 
 were given that the union would be lasting. By the very nature 
 of the tie, as well as by its circumstances, the union between man 
 and woman implies a devotion that is enduring and a faithfulness 
 that is lasting. It would be intolerable to a man who loved 
 a woman truly to enter upon marriage with the idea of its early 
 dissolution, and, if possible, more than intolerable to a pure- 
 minded girl to marry a man with the thought of being deserted 
 for another. Fatherhood and motherhood become the bonds of 
 union, and the temporary idea becomes the idea realised. 
 
 But very many men and women marry without any due 
 realisation of the relation which is to exist between them in 
 the married life. As a clergyman whose lot it has been— almost 
 
 14 
 
204 Is Marriage a Failure i 
 
 a disaster — to marry very many in every rank, and latterly among 
 the poorest of South London, I can say that very few of the married 
 couples at all realise the step they are taking. The instruction 
 given them by the Church on their marriage day is almost the 
 only teaching they have ever received, and the question arises 
 whether that lesson is or is not reliable and a guidance for the 
 future married life. 
 
 The instruction clearly places before the married the relation of 
 man and wife. The position of the man is laid down as the 
 elector of his wife — as the one who is to provide, to sustain, and 
 to love. Unless a man be prepared to do this it is clear that he 
 has no right to marry, or, having married without due regard to his 
 needs, has no right to complain that the contract has been 
 vitiated. Quite apart from any question as to the superiority over 
 the woman mentally, morally, or physically, the Church assigns 
 to the man on the marriage day the duty of loving, comforting, 
 honouring, and keeping the wife in sickness and in health. No 
 man has any right to complain of the failure of marriage if he has 
 not duly kept the terms of his own agreement. To the wife is 
 assigned the duty of obedience, of service, of love, and honour. 
 The woman dehberately and of choice takes the man after his pro- 
 mise duly made, nor has she any right to complain of the failure 
 of marriage unless she has duly kept the agreement. 
 
 It is in hope of recalling some of the unhappy married ones to 
 their marriage agreement that I write, and for no ulterior purpose. 
 Unhappiness springs from very many sources in marriage, but 
 among a very large class from neglect to carry out faithfully the 
 agreement made on the marriage day. The man does not provide 
 for the wife and children ; he is unfaithful ; or, in most in- 
 stances, does not love and cherish truly the wife of his choice. Or, 
 as I am bound from my experience to say, most frequently the 
 woman dishonours the husband — disobeys him — does not love 
 him. What wonder that the marriage should be a misery ? 
 
 I almost dread to refer to the common experience of mankind 
 on the banes of married life — the mother-in-law and the interfer- 
 ences of kind friends, La bdk niir( voil^ r^nmmi is pro- 
 
Causes of Success and Failure. 205 
 
 verbial. The mother-in-law, although I have known exceptions, is 
 generally the wedge between husband and wife. She begins by 
 wanting nothing, she ends by wanting everything. She begins by 
 avowing her devotion to her son-in-law, she ends by abusing, if 
 not cursing, him. Then grows up an antipathy between the two, 
 which makes married life an utter burden unless the wife clings 
 with added devotion to her husband. 
 
 To the large experience of many I could add tale after tale of 
 the sorrow brought by the mother-in-law into the new life. 
 
 The interference of friends — and perhaps its most intolerable 
 form, clerical interference — is a fruitful source of unhappiness. I 
 scarcely know how to characterise the clerical friend who is rapidly 
 becoming fashionable, and who occupies a middle position be- 
 tween the celibate Roman Catholic confessor and the director of 
 the French school. 
 
 To put away a wife except for unfaithfulness is repugnant to 
 nature. Perhaps drunkenness may deserve temporary removal. 
 Nearly every union may become endurable if only husband and 
 wife will make allowance for the weaknesses of human nature, 
 and recognise their one duty to be to make each other happy. 
 
 The terms of the fulfilment of the marriage vow depend upon 
 entire faithfulness and devotion to each other's best interest. 
 Women are proverbially perverse, but they are also proverbially 
 uncertain. They often end by liking those whom they disliked, 
 and disliking those whom they have liked. A woman's repent- 
 ance is often her too-late love of the neglected husband. Many 
 an early unhappy marriage has ended happily. 
 
 I am old-fashioned enough to believe that if the husband love 
 his wife, and if the wife will only reverence and serve her husband, 
 that marriage will be found to be not a failure. — Yours faithfully, 
 
 AN EAST-END CLERGYMAN. 
 
 City, Aug. 15. 
 
 " Let the wife have three or four hours every day to herself 
 
 Sir, — I am an hotel-keeper. Newly-married couples in all 
 circumstances of life come to my hotel, and spend from two to 
 
2o6 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 six weeks there. It has often struck me that, in the majority of 
 cases, the wife sees too much of her husband, and they thus get 
 tired of each other before their honeymoon is over. If the 
 husband is sensible, he will let his wife have three or four hours 
 every day to herself Again, there are some men who, with very 
 small incomes, deny themselves and wives nothing during their 
 three weeks' honeymoon, and after it is over find it hard to 
 come back to the old life of poverty. This is a small matter, but 
 helps in many cases to make marriage a failure. — Yours, &c. 
 
 R. S. T. 
 
 London, September 12. 
 
 A Happy Family. 
 
 Sir, — I am one of eight children, and my father and mother 
 will soon, please G'od, celebrate their golden wedding day. My 
 five brothers and two sisters are happy husbands or wives, and I 
 am the aunt of about twenty promising nieces and nephews, one 
 of whom, seven years old, is industriously copying a sheet of 
 music at my table just now. My experience is that, of the eight 
 marriages, of which I have the closest knowledge, not one is a 
 failure, but the reverse, and I am sure we owe our family happi- 
 ness to the holiness and sanctity of the marriage tie. 
 
 We eight children were brought up in an atmosphere of purity 
 and innocence, and, therefore, my brothers and sisters have gone 
 into life qualified to form pure and holy households, and to bring 
 up their children as they were brought up themselves. Most of 
 the misery is, I believe, brought about by a false education. 
 Girls and boys are- not taught what marriage really is — a mutual 
 contract, not for mere animalism, but for helping one another. 
 A lot of utter nonsense is talked about love, by people who do 
 not know what love is. When the real meaning of true love — /.«., 
 self-sacrifice— is properly taught and learnt, we shall hear no more 
 of such painful stories as have appeared in your columns. To 
 loosen the ties which now make marriage sacred would be to 
 disintegrate society, and reduce men and women to the level of 
 the beasts of the field. — Yours truly, n t c 
 
 Ryde, Sept. 19. 
 
Causes of Success and Failure. 207 
 
 "■Cuisine anglaise I ExtcrahleU" 
 
 Sir, — I am afraid your correspondent "A Young Girl," whose 
 letter you publish this morning, mistakes the real feelings of her 
 gentlemen friends, who regard good cookery and housekeeping as 
 essential in their future wives. They do not thereby disparage 
 intellectual accomplishments or underrate them, any more than 
 by saying " the wife they marry must be healthy " they would be 
 disparaging any of those accomplished and estimable ladies 
 who are debarred from marriage by weak health and by nothing 
 else. A thorough knowledge of housekeeping and of high-class 
 cookery is a necessity in mistresses of all households where the 
 income is not sufficient to warrant the employment of a French 
 chef. The mistress of the house need not touch the cookery her- 
 self, but she ought to be able to superintend and teach. Good 
 cooks and housemaids can only be trained where the mistress 
 is head cook and housekeeper, and keeps all accounts, makes 
 all purchases, and arranges all meals personally. Especially 
 important is it that young girls, who contemplate marriage, should 
 learn thoroughly the chemistry of food, so as to be able to arrange 
 a digestible meal, and should also learn how to purchase, how to 
 distinguish young, tender flesh and fowl from old and tough, fish 
 in good condition from that which is out of season or stale, and 
 good fruit and vegetables. A young housekeeper cannot make a 
 greater mistake than in trusting to what tradesmen choose to send. 
 
 Where the husband is an intellectual man, and engaged in 
 intellectual pursuits, good cookery assumes a tenfold importance, 
 as the want of physical exercise entailed by most intellectual 
 occupations renders it imperative that all food eaten shall be of 
 first-class quality and cooked to perfection. The most intellectual 
 man in existence ceases to be intellectual while he has a couple of 
 pounds or so of bad food slowly decaying in his stomach instead 
 of digesting. Is "A Young Girl's" ideal of married hfe to have 
 the man she loves always bright and cheerful, always intellectual, 
 and generally at his best, and to have him as strong and healthy, 
 and even brighter and better company, at sixty and seventy than 
 
2o8 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 at twenty-four? I am sure it is. Then let iier give him a chance 
 of realising that ideal by giving the utmost attention to his dinners, 
 so that the food he eats is on his stomach and brain like feathers, 
 and not like lead. If she wishes him to degenerate into an ill- 
 tempered, exacting grumbler before forty, or to prefer "dining any- 
 where rather than at home, then let her devote herself wholly to 
 the drawing-room department of the house, and leave the kitchen 
 and the dining-room to hired servants. Good cooks quickly be- 
 come bad ones where the mistress neglects personal superintend- 
 ence, and just so long as ladies have a soul above cookery will 
 ill-temper and dyspepsia, with all their consequent train of ills and 
 discomforts, be the rule, and not the exception, in middle-class 
 English homes. We are a great people, no doubt, but there are 
 some things done better abroad ; and average English food fully 
 deserves the condemnation applied to it by an old French lady, 
 ''Ah/ Cuisine anglais /! Execrable 1 1 ! " — Yours, &c., 
 
 J. D. 
 
 Blackfriars, Sept. 15. 
 
 A Woman's Chief Weapon. 
 
 Sir, — In the interesting discussion which has been raised on 
 this question, none of your correspondents has touched upon one 
 of the most serious shortcomings of the fair sex after marriage, 
 and that is neglect of personal appearance. Men are, perhaps, 
 not altogether blameless in this respect, but women are the chief 
 offenders ; and in the ordinary walks of life it is the commonest 
 occurrence for a man to find that the smart, bonny little woman 
 whowon his heart by her personal attractions becomes, after a 
 few months of wedded existence, an untidy, dowdy creature, 
 leaving no cause for wonder that he loses that gallant respect and 
 admiration for her that existed in the happy courting days. Every 
 man likes to be able to admire and see his wife admired, and un- 
 questionably a woman surrenders the chief weapon for retaining 
 her husband's love when she begins to neglect her dress and 
 appearance, and lays.aside all those little niceties and vanities of 
 costume which are, and always ha\ e been, the delight of the lords 
 
Causes of Success and Failure. 209 
 
 of creation. A woman who has the good sense and taste to make 
 herself at all times attractive to her husband will seldom have 
 cause to complain of want of attention on his part ; and that so 
 many should think it the correct thing to degenerate into slovenly 
 sluts explains the devotion of a number of married men to away- 
 from-home pleasures, and is a constant source of wonderment to 
 
 AN OBSERVANT ADIVIIRER. 
 
 Mark Lane, E.G., Sept. 5. 
 
 Absolutely inaccurate. 
 
 Sir, — This interesting controversy has supplied the key to 
 many difficulties, for on careful investigation it will be found that 
 half the failures in marriage spring from loss of material wealth. — 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 A. R. 
 Streatham, S.W., Sept. 21. 
 
 Alas ! the '■^weakness of Ms character" . 
 
 Sir, — Half the unhappy marriages result from the fact that the 
 contracting parties do not care a Jot for each other, while 
 occasionally they do care for some one else. In this latter case it 
 is usually the woman. She is prevented by unwise parents from 
 giving her hand where she has irretrievably given her heart, and, 
 if she is at all open to influence, is induced to marry the first 
 " eligible " who presents himself. Such parents think that 
 poverty is a greater bar to married happiness than absence of 
 love would be. Unfortunately they go unpunished and uncon- 
 vinced, while their children have to pay dearly for their pride and 
 folly. I consider that no parents have a right to prevent a child's 
 marriage, unless they know of something radically wrong — 
 morally or physically. It is for the young couple to decide 
 whether their mutual affection will compensate for lack of worldly 
 goods, and permit them, even under apparently adverse circum- 
 stances, to be happy together. 
 
 I married, unthinkingly, a man whom I did not love. I 
 thought that perhaps I might grow to care for him, but I did not 
 
210 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 do so. For the first few months we got on fairly well. Then I 
 found out the weakness of his character, exhibited in countless 
 small but irritating ways, and there was no love to help me to 
 overlook this. He has no vices ; therefore, if I wished to take 
 such a step, I could get no divorce, and even did I separate from 
 him the world would perhaps cry " Shame ! " I wish to do 
 neither. I desire to do my duty. As I am his wife, I consider 
 that I ought to stay with him, but my whole soul revolts against 
 being tied to a man for whom I have no particle of love, and 
 who, in tastes, character, and pursuits, is my direct opposite. I 
 feel my character retrograding daily, and with infinite disgust I 
 reflect how much better a woman I should have been had love, 
 and not duty, ruled me. I am anxious to warn my spinster 
 sisters against the folly, nay, the iniquity, of marrying where they 
 do not truly love, however otherwise desirable it may appear. — 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 MATRIMONIAL ADVENTURER. 
 Norwood, Sept. 20. 
 
 Two Happy Botanical Students. 
 
 Sir, — I think the reason of a large number of unhappy marriages 
 lies in the fact that (generally speaking) the young people of both 
 sexes are so silly and frivolous. They care for little but pleasure, 
 and when that cannot be had, or when the desire for it begins to 
 wane, they have nothing in common between them, and the one 
 is no companion for the other. In many cases (either from an 
 inborn desire to be something better than a butterfly, or from a 
 certain amount of knowledge acquired by knocking more about 
 the world) the husband is superior to the wife in point of general 
 information and intelligence. He longs for a congenial companion, 
 but cannot find one in his wife, who sees far more in the first 
 signs of infantile dentition than in all the " 'ologies " put together. 
 The happiest pair I think I ever knew was one the constituents 
 of which took a warm interest in the science of botany. I do not 
 mean that they were simply primrose-grubbers or fern-uprooters, but 
 genuine scientific observers and students. Were it not for vulgar 
 
Causes of S?iccess and Failure. 211 
 
 ostentation and frivolity, many of us could live very well upon 
 half-incomes, and married life would not be the expensive state it 
 now is. 
 
 If I may be allowed to be a judge, I should say that marriage is 
 a failure as often as it is not. One thing is certain, to bring more 
 children into a country that contains about 30,000,000 inhabitants, 
 with an area about one-fourth that of France, looks very much 
 like a crime. — Yours, &c., 
 
 JAMES E. VENNING. 
 
 Shaftesbury, Sept. i. 
 
 A trifle difficult to cariy out. 
 
 Sir, — As one who has had many years' ministerial experience 
 in London and Bath, I feel deeply grateful to you for ventilating 
 a subject which will doubtless have the effect of deterring some, 
 at least, from contracting those early and imprudent marriages 
 which I am glad to see condemned by most of your correspondents, 
 and which cause so much misery. I could fill pages with instances 
 of the most painful character which have come to my notice as a 
 clergyman. 
 
 As far as I myself am concerned I am thankful to be able to 
 answer your question "Is Marriage a Failure ? " in the negative. 
 I rharried when twenty-eight years of age, with a small but 
 sufficient income, and a fair balance at the bank, and I ascribe 
 my twelve years of happiness (under God) to the following points : 
 
 1. Mutual sympathy and forbearance in duties and undertakings, 
 with frequent consultations thereon. 
 
 2. Non-interference in domestic affairs. 
 
 3. Income proportioned, and a fixed sum regularly paid to the 
 wife both for housekeeping and also for her own personal expenses. 
 
 4. Moderate family (three children in twelve years), and these 
 taught to respect and obey both parents, 
 
 5. No disputations or bickerings about trifles, although differ- 
 ences of opinion, and even disputes, have occasionally occurred 
 on important matters. 
 
 6. Mutual love and lover-like attentions, including frequent 
 
212 Is Marriage a Faihire ? 
 
 letters during enforced absences from home, little presents on 
 anniversaries, &c. 
 
 7. Each having sufficient and separate occupation either for 
 themselves or on behalf of others. 
 
 8. Careful avoidance of those " Platonic friendships " which are 
 so frequent a cause of disagreement. 
 
 A BATH INCUMBENT. 
 
 Bath, Aug. 27. 
 
 How to " treat '' Husbands. 
 
 Sir, — I beheve there is no reason why marriage should be a 
 failure. " That compound of frail mortality they call a man '' is 
 apt to look upon it as a lottery, but it is not altogether so from my 
 feminine point of view. What I say is this : Girls, pause before 
 you embark upon the sea of matrimony, and study men first, both 
 individually and collectively. Study their habits, manners (when 
 they have any), dispositions, tastes, and pursuits, and you will then 
 understand better the nature of the animal. Look about you and 
 take notes. There are not two men alike in the world excepting 
 in this particular — all have one weak point or particular vanity. 
 Find out what it is, and use your knowledge wisely. If you are 
 sensible, intelligent, and diplomatic women, and do not expect too 
 much of your husbands, you may be happy wives, as a rule. The 
 same modus operandi iox the management of the sex will not do for 
 all, mind ! The kind of treatment for one case may not suit 
 another. One man appreciates a wife-like and sweet submission 
 to his will ; with another it is necessary to tyrannise, and he 
 becomes your slave and revels in his bondage ; another must have 
 his vanity flattered ; another may be subdued by tears ; while a 
 fourth only requires intellectual sympathy and companionship from 
 his wife. But remember not to overdo the flattery or tyranny ; 
 don't be too abjectly submissive ; economise your tears that they 
 may not lose their effect by a too frequent use ; and in cultivating 
 your mind, that you may be well up in the subjects which interest 
 your husband, take care that you'd© not neglect his bodily com- 
 
Cmcses of Success and Faihire. 2 1 3 
 
 forts, especially his dinner. Generally the most direct route to a 
 man's heart is via his stomach. Use your own judgment in the 
 treatment of the particular specimen of the genus homo on whom 
 you bestow your affections. Above all, recollect that there must 
 always be something on both sides to put up with, so bear and for- 
 bear; and if you get a decent fellow, he will love, respect, and 
 appreciate you for it. If you find that your husband is at all in- 
 clined to go astray, give him a latchkey ; he will soon tire of a 
 hberty which is not disputed. Don't sit up for him. Go to your 
 rest contentedly, and meet him with a sweet, unsuspecting smile, 
 and no embarrassing questions on his return in the small hours of 
 the morning. A little mild interest in the committee meeting or 
 " all-night sitting '' which has been the cause of his being detained 
 will not be amiss. Under these circumstances your husbands will 
 find no sport at all, and, I warrant, will return home nightly at 
 regular and respectable hours less than a month after. It rests 
 with yourselves to a great extent whether your marriages turn out 
 failures or not. 
 
 EMILY COFFIN. 
 
 London, Aug. 14. 
 
 Luther's Marriage Prayer. 
 
 Sir, — Before you close your columns on this subject, permit 
 me to submit to your readers a few words uttered by Luther, 
 as recorded in the Table Talk. " First love is violent, it intoxi- 
 cates us, and takes away the reason. The intoxication once 
 passed away, well-disciplined and pious souls retain the honourable 
 part of love ; the wicked retain nothing. Gracious Lord ! if it be 
 Thy will that I live without a wife, sustain me against temptations ; 
 but if it be Thy will that I marry, grant me a good and pious 
 spouse, with whom I may pass my days quietly and happily, whom 
 I may love, and who will love me." Here, then, are two simple 
 texts for single and married. — Yours, &c., 
 
 C. H. COLLETTE. 
 2 Victoria Mansions, Victoria Street, S.W., Sept. 3. 
 
214 I^ Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 Utitrained Girls. 
 
 Sir, — Having had considerable experience, will you kindly let 
 me say a few words upon what I consider the root of the evil in 
 the matter of marriage. I believe it to be simply this, that girls 
 are hardly ever properly trained. Take, for example, a middle- 
 class household, of, say, four children, two boys and two girls. 
 The boys are usually sent to a good day-school. The girls, 
 probably, have a daily governess, who is expected to teach French, 
 German, music, and English. When they arrive at the ages of 
 seventeen or eighteen the governess is dispensed with, and the 
 girls are set free. They have never exerted themselves domesti- 
 cally. The mother, anxious that her daughters should marry 
 well, exerts herself to keep up a well-appointed establishment, so 
 that they may go out a great deal, and in return receive. Generally 
 marriage is the aim, and everything is directed to that end, so 
 that they spend all the better part of their time in a ceaseless 
 round of enjoyment. Very nice, of course, but actual domestic 
 experience alone can give the knowledge necessary to make inner 
 home-life really happy. Therefore 1 contend that a course of real 
 domestic education ought to be begun with the school training, and 
 persevered in, to bring about a reformation such as is desired. A 
 girl could then hardly make an injudicious marriage ; and if by 
 accident she did so, she would possess the means of " making the 
 best of it,'' and at least keep the domestic machinery in first-rate 
 order. 
 
 EXPERIENCE. 
 
 Richmond, Aug. ii. 
 
 Slightly Difficult. 
 
 Sir, — Let no man, or woman either, choose a partner with any 
 transparent defect of either person, character, or morals, nor, if 
 possible to ascertain, with any strong hereditary proclivity to the 
 same. When married let each one try to put up with occasional 
 nasty remarks — which are often the result of nervous tension or 
 irritability, and not seriously meant — and not to chew the cud 
 upon and magnify them. Spend less than you earn, for nothing 
 
Causes of Success and Failure. 2 1 5 
 
 sours the temper like debt and having HabiHties you cannot 
 provide for; and finally, in the language of St. Paul, "Be content 
 with such things as ye have ". Then, if your choice have been a 
 prudent and sensible one, I think you will join with those who 
 think that marriage is not only no failure, but one of the chiefest 
 earthly blessings. — Yours, &c., 
 
 A PHYSICIAN AND A MARRIED MAN OF 
 FIFTEEN YEARS' EXPERIENCE. 
 
 Preston, Aug. 24. 
 
 Workmen s Daughters. 
 
 Sir, — The rock upon which so many young couples become 
 shipwrecked appears to be domestic affairs; and no wonder either, 
 for I must say it is a great difficulty in this nineteenth century to 
 find a young woman of the middle-class society that is thoroughly 
 and genuinely domesticated. The great evil is in the daily 
 increasing numbers of lady-clerks, &c., who have been brought 
 up with a view of being seated at a desk in some counting-house, 
 instead of learning the more useful (though for them, perhaps, 
 rather humiliating) profession, if I may so term it, of housekeep- 
 ing. In my opinion, the young fellows of to-day who are in the 
 position to get married, and are anxious to do so, and at the same 
 time desire a happy future, would do well if they would just step 
 down a little in their selection of a partner, as I firmly believe the 
 time has arrived when the best wife will be found in the " honest 
 workman's daughter," who I often find not so very far behind our 
 boarding-school young lady in good sound education, although, 
 perhaps, not quite so polished in manners and general bearing. 
 Of course, this stepping down will grate very much on the ears of 
 some people, but more especially on parents who are everlastingly 
 persuading their sons to " look up " in their choice of a life-partner, 
 while at the same time they know full well their inability to support 
 such an one to be an absolute certainty. I consider there would 
 not be one-quarter of the failures in marriage if young men would 
 listen to good, sound, and reasonable advice, instead of being 
 
2i6 Is Marriage a Failure 2 
 
 over-persuaded by the clap-trap of supposed friends. For my 
 
 own part, I am choosing for a life companion one of the genuine 
 
 girls of a working man, who is poor but highly respectable, and 
 
 am looking forward to a happy result. No doubt I shall be run 
 
 down for it, because I am stepping slightly below my position ; 
 
 but I know how to go to work to make my future home happy. 
 
 As to Mrs. Mona Caird's ideas of "free love," I can only say I 
 
 shall be very sorry to see t"he day when " old England " stoops so 
 
 low. — Yours truly, 
 
 AN EXPERIENCED LOVER. 
 
 No Clubs for Married Men. 
 
 Sir, — This great and momentous question can be readily 
 answered by many a weary, anxious, and overburdened heart. 
 In many cases, homes and happiness have been destroyed, and 
 the wife's future and that of her children blasted, by clubs — one 
 of the greatest curses of our enlightened country. Men not only 
 spend their evenings there, but lose their money in gambling and 
 card-playing, when oftentimes it is sadly needed at home. I 
 think the various letters that have appeared in your columns must 
 have struck home in more cases than in that of my husband, who 
 designates them as " such rot," but who, I am sure, recognises 
 many a picture drawn by your correspondents. Every oppressed 
 and neglected wife should thank God for such a medium as this 
 correspondence for exposing their wrongs. — Yours, &c., 
 
 ANTI-CLUB. 
 
 Derby, Sept. 15. 
 
 The " Good Fellow's " Wife. 
 
 Sir, — The discussion as to whether marriage is or is not a 
 failure must prove of burning interest to the " failures ". The 
 happy married couples look down with scornful complacency on 
 the unfortunate ones, and generally ascribe the fault to the 
 woman. In my opinion the real cause of married unhappiness, 
 in the greater number of cases, is undoubtedly temper, and I 
 
Cmises of Success and Failure. 217 
 
 maintain that the bad temper is oftenest on the side of the man. 
 I was brought up in the old conventional idea that the husband 
 is the wiser half; that it is the wife's duty to submit to him in all 
 reasonable things; but how many years have I striven, bearing 
 with and hiding all, practising the soft answer that turneth away 
 wrath, hoping ever, by affectionate remonstrance in calm moments, 
 to exorcise the demon of bad temper, which, through no fault of 
 mine, has made our home hateful. 
 
 I have arrived at more than middle age, and, having travelled 
 much and come into contact vcith people in varied stations of life, 
 I have seen the same thing repeated ad nauseam. Is this right ? 
 Should a woman's life be wrecked on the altar of a man's selfish- 
 ness ? Emphatically I answer "No". To how many women 
 will my words come home ; and if they would speak, what a tale 
 could they not unfold of petty persecution, vile language, and bad 
 usage. I have noticed that it is more often the agreeable man in 
 society, the "generous, good fellow " amongst his chums, the man 
 who smokes the best cigars and drinks the best wines, who is the 
 greatest brute at home, making wife, children, and servants scurry 
 about with white faces as they listen to his violent language. Of 
 course there are bad-tempered and selfish women ; but there are 
 not so many of them in a position to make their idiosyncrasies 
 felt and to be the tyrants of households. How I have smiled 
 when I have read continually that a woman should cultivate her 
 mind and master domestic duties, in order to render herself a 
 meet companion to a man. Alas ! that is of no avail ; for the 
 kind of man I have been describing finds no merit in her virtues, 
 and I am sure that the majority of men look with jealous scorn 
 on the intellectual woman. Their own much-vaunted superior 
 mental attainments are the result of the advantages gained by the 
 abnegation and effacement of woman. 
 
 "Free love'' cannot replace marriage; but may we not make 
 marriage more bearable by recognising, legally and socially, that 
 both sexes have equal rights ? When we are all wise enough to 
 limit our families to the number of children we can provide for, 
 when improvident and early marriages are no longer so prevalent. 
 
2 1 8 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 when both bring their part to the common store, when public 
 opinion no longer throws most of the blame for an unhappy 
 marriage on the woman, when the same standard of purity is 
 required of man as of woman, and social ostracism shall be as 
 much his lot as hers for any lapse from virtue, when women no 
 longer look upon marriage as the sole end and aim of existence, 
 but accept it gladly when it comes in their way, resolved at the 
 same time to exact the respect and common courtesies of life — 
 then, I hope, will marriage really be more often than it is now not 
 a sacrament ordained in heaven, but a union contracted on earth of 
 mutual love and friendship, not only for their own happiness, but 
 for the future advancement of the human race. One of the first 
 legal reforms should be that a hopelessly ill-assorted couple should 
 be able, under proper restrictions, to dissolve their marriage by 
 mutual consent, without disgrace to either, instead of being 
 forced to drag their chain in misery for life. 
 
 Balham, Aug. 13. 
 
 A VICTIM TO BAD TEMPER. 
 
 The Maiden Aunt. 
 
 Sir, — Among my numerous relations I have a maiden aunt 
 who is rather religious. This good lady has certain ideas of her 
 own which are rather ancient, and is very fond of interfering with 
 other people's affairs. I was once in love with a nice young lady, 
 and everything went on smoothly until one day my worthy aunt 
 upset everything. Now, my firm belief is that if relations would 
 not meddle with things that do not concern them, the number of 
 marriage failures would be greatly diminished. What has my 
 choice of a wife got to do with my relations, I ask ? Are they 
 the contracting parties ? And if the marriage turns out a failure, 
 are they the sufferers by it ? I ought to use my own discretion in 
 the matter, and if I exercise my discretion wrongly, why, I must 
 put up with the consequences. Some of your correspondents 
 seem to think that the Marriage Service is all wrong, but I fail to 
 see what that has to do with the question. It is the people 
 
Causes of Success and Failure. 219 
 
 themselves that are at fault, only they will not own it. — Yours 
 truly, 
 
 J. W. J. H. 
 London, E., Sept. 13. 
 
 The "pore " Lady-clerk catches it. 
 
 Sir, — I am sorry to see that some of your correspondents have 
 fallen foul of " An Experienced Lover " for his (in my opinion) 
 very sensible and correct contribution to your discussion on 
 marriage. Like " Experienced Lover,'' I am of opinion that the 
 best way of ensuring success in marriage is to take for a helpmeet 
 an honest workman's daughter. I have known many men who 
 have done so, and I have no hesitation in informing the " Domes- 
 ticated Lady-clerk " of Woolwich, who is so indignant (in print) 
 at the action of young men who marry workmen's daughters in 
 preference to lady-clerks, that the majority of such marriages have 
 proved successful. It appears to me. Sir, that one of the chief 
 causes of unhappiness in married life is that men look for their 
 hfe partners in the ranks of the lady-clerks, who, while under- 
 standing perfectly well how to balance a ledger or keep a cash- 
 book in order, are quite at a loss when called upon to assume the 
 place for which women are better fitted, the " drudgery,'' as they 
 would doubtless term it, the true domain of woman — home 
 duties. The description given by your lady-clerk correspondent 
 of the workman's daughter, as brought up with the idea that a 
 little smattering of French, music, &c., constituted her a lady, 
 would, I think, be more correctly applied to the class of which 
 the " Domesticated Lady-clerk " has constituted herself a cham- 
 pion. With regard to early marriages, which many of your 
 correspondents have triumphantly seized upon as a prolific cause 
 of failure in married hfe, I most heartily decline to acknowledge 
 it as such. There are many failures among early marriages, no 
 doubt, but so there are among those made later in life. It is 
 more often that an early marriage turns out a failure from want 
 of the requisite means to carry on married life than from any 
 other cause. 
 
 15 
 
220 Is Marriage a Failure l 
 
 I am glad to find, Sir, that tlie majority of your correspondents 
 are against Mrs. Mona Caird on the question of " free love ''. I 
 believe marriage to be a divine institution, established with a 
 wise, a good, and a holy purpose. I believe free love, as I 
 understand it, to be the greatest snare and fraud into which any 
 person or any community of persons can fall. Marriage is 
 usually undertaken by both parties of their own free will, just as 
 free love would be ; and where marriage is a failure from incom- 
 patibility of temper or other causes, so would "free love " be. It 
 would not only be a failure, but its general adoption would mean 
 individual shame and national degradation. I have enough con- 
 fidence in men and women of all classes in this country to 
 know that this astounding proposal will never be adopted here, 
 but that marriage, altered perhaps in some respects, but still 
 marriage with divine sanction, with the sanction of the Church, 
 and the goodwill of all good and true men, will be preferred to a 
 system of what appears to me to be national immorality. — Yours 
 truly, 
 
 CLERICUS. 
 
 Lewisham, Sept. 13. 
 
 The Draper's ]'icthii. 
 
 Sir, — None of your scribes have hit the right nail on the head. 
 Marriage is a failure in many instances — that goes without saying 
 — but why? Cherchez la femme. Your modern devil is the 
 draper, and his apple all sorts of finery. For the acquisition of 
 this, foolitli woman will sell her soul and body, ditto her 'hus- 
 band's, ditto her children's. Drink is an evil, but a mild and 
 harmless one compared with drapery. Let me cite an example. 
 I wot of a reputable clergyman who has been sold up twice by 
 his wife's drapers, served with a judgment summons, and all but 
 incarcerated because he was Quixotic enough to accept liability 
 for his wife's debt to an eminent drapery firm. They rewarded 
 his Quixotism by trying to lodge him in Holloway after he had 
 paid three-fourths of this very debt, which he might have repudi- 
 ated ! And lastly, another firm of drapers inveigled his silly 
 
Causes of Success and Failure. 221 
 
 wife into running up a bill exceeding the total of the husband's 
 income. The worm at last turned and repudiated. He was 
 within his legal right, for they had carefully sent in the bills to 
 the wife and not to him. Now for the climax. The managing 
 partner of the firm called on the unfortunate man and politely 
 informed him that, unless he accepted liability, they would issue 
 a summons against his wife for obtaining goods under false pre- 
 tences. He caved in ; indeed, he had no alternative ; for no 
 clergyman worth his salt can stand up against disgrace. 
 
 Of course, a union where the wife has this drapery mania 
 largely developed cannot be very happy. What I want to know 
 is, how comes it to pass that the draper can turn the criminal law 
 to account? We punish garrotters with flogging. I should 
 suggest the same measure for that curse of domestic peace, the 
 purveyor of finery and panderer to human vanity, when he tries 
 to garrotte a husband. If only these traders understood that they 
 could not recover unless goods were supplied by the paymaster's 
 authority, and could not utilise the " summons " as a thumb- 
 screw, there would be peace at home. — Yours, &c., 
 
 NOT ME. 
 Hereford, Sept. 2. 
 
 ''Poor Mary-Jane!" 
 
 Sir, — I have read this correspondence daily in your columns, 
 and feel surprised that no one has put his finger upon a great 
 social evil, and one of the most fruitful causes of unhappiness in 
 middle-class married hfe. I refer to the question of servants. 
 Our comfort and happiness are greatly at the mercy of this class 
 of incompetents, and what is wanted is system and organisation 
 among mistresses. I firmly believe that the most dirty, dishonest, 
 and untruthful servant can easily pass from place to place, because 
 ladies are afraid to give the real characters of servants. Characters 
 are given by strangers to strangers, whereas there should be more 
 community of interest between ladies in this matter. — Yours, &c., 
 
 E. L. 
 Homerton, Sept. 11. 
 
222 Is Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 Inconsiderate Husbands and " Nagging" Wives. 
 
 Sir, — While agreeing with those who find fault with certain 
 portions of the Marriage Service, yet I am of opinion that one 
 reason why so many marriages prove failures is because so very 
 little attention is paid, either before or after marriage, to the very 
 plain instructions the service contains. 
 
 I certainly do not agree with the view held by " Unappropriated 
 Blessing " in to-day's issue, that the fault is all on the side of the 
 men. If some of the girls would give a quarter of the time to 
 the consideration of whom they should marry that they do to 
 the choice of a new dress or bonnet, there would be far fewer 
 marriages turn out to be the miserable failures that they now do. 
 I have not read Mrs. Caird's article, but I venture fo think that 
 things are quite bad enough as they are now without introducing 
 such a system. If any new laws are to be passed for the better 
 regulation of married life, let them be for the limiting of the 
 power and abolishing the evil influence of mothers-in-law, for this 
 is the rock on which so many couples are shipwrecked, their lives 
 blighted and their happiness blasted. When a fellow marries, he 
 does not expect that he has to keep the whole of his wife's rela- 
 tions, though he often finds out to his cost and sorrow that he 
 has to do so to keep the peace and avoid frequent scenes. An- 
 other reason why marriages prove failures is because some women, 
 as soon as they get married, become most abominably careless as 
 to the way they dress and the slovenly manner in which they keep 
 their homes, and they become cross and peevish, and are con- 
 tinually " nagging,'' and in some cases become veritable shrews — 
 a strange and a sad contrast to the angelic beings they appeared 
 to be before marriage. 
 
 On the other hand, if the husbands would show more con- 
 sideration, and bear in mind that their wives have feelings, and 
 that the lover-like attentions which were so acceptable, before will 
 be equally welcome now, they would find things go on much 
 more smoothly than they do now, and they should never neglect 
 their wives either at home or abroad. 
 
Causes of Success and Faihcre. 223 
 
 It has been said that marriages are made in heaven, but, from 
 the sad revelations made ahnost daily in our police and divorce 
 courts, at is only reasonable to conclude that many of them are 
 made somewhere else. 
 
 In conclusion, if people would only learn the important lesson 
 to "bear and forbear," and that "a soft answer turneth away 
 wrath,'' and that the best way to be happy is to try to make 
 others around them happy, I am sure we should hear much less 
 about marriages being failures. — I remain, Sir, yours truly, 
 
 A VICTIM TO A MOTHER-IN-LAW. 
 
 Retford, Sept. 11. 
 
 Examine he}- Relations. 
 
 Sir, — One of your correspondents to-day touches on the subject 
 of artificial beauty or healthy appearance. This aspect, I think, 
 deserves considerable prominence. As a very strong believer in 
 heredity, I desire to point out that more attention should be given 
 to the immediate relatives of the intended wife. Why should a 
 man be surprised if his wife's beauty soon fades, if in so doing 
 she merely become more like her plain and wrinkled mother? 
 Or why be surprised that his children grow up plain, if his wife is 
 the only handsome member of her family ? In my mind good- 
 looking and hearty parents and brothers and sisters add consider- 
 able wealth and interest to a young lady. We see such failures 
 on the neglect of such simple observations, that, taking a wider 
 view of the case, one almost wishes to see a medical certificate 
 made necessary to marriage. — Yours, &c., 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 Leytonstone, Sept. 3. 
 
 Influence of Sunday Schools. 
 
 Sir, — There is one prolific source of premature contracts to 
 which I think none of your writers have referred— I mean the 
 Sunday schools of our land. 
 
 Robert Raikes is generally supposed to have done a good 
 thing when he inaugurated the system of gathering in the 
 
224 ^^ Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 little ones on Sundays, and so he undoubtedly did. But the 
 system has grown to be not an altogether unmixed blessing. 
 Sunday schools have much to answer for in the case of early 
 marriages, and, in many instances, of what is worse. Let me 
 illustrate. Some years ago I attended a Sunday school as a 
 scholar. The school was a mixed one, boys and girls meeting in 
 the same room. In opposite corners were what were euphemis- 
 tically termed the "select classes,'' composed of some twenty 
 youths and maidens of from sixteen to twenty years of age. 
 During what was called the teaching halfhour, furtive glances 
 were freely exchanged between the occupants of each class, and 
 at the close of the school the sexes paired off and went goodness 
 knows where. The school was simply a rendezvous for amorous 
 swains and their sweethearts. During the week other oppor- 
 tunities were presented by singing classes, temperance gatherings, 
 and prayer meetings for further flirtation — an example, I regret to 
 add, either followed, or set, by the teachers themselves, most of 
 whom were scarcely beyond the age when they should have sat in 
 the classes instead of at the head of them. What was the result 
 of all this ? All, in the space of a year or two — with, I think, two 
 exceptions — took upon themselves the burdens of matrimony long 
 before they had either physical strength, experience, or pecuniary 
 means to justify such a proceeding. The two exceptions referred 
 to brought disgrace upon the school and themselves ; and of those 
 who married all proved, in one way or another, to be unequally 
 yoked, dragging out an existence marked by bitterness of soul 
 and empty stomachs. — Yours obediently, 
 
 ALDERTON. 
 
 Brixton, Sept. i8. 
 
 T/ie Office a Bad School for a Wife. 
 
 Sir, — In your issue of to-day I notice a letter from " Domesti- 
 cated Lady-clerk," who explains that lady-clerks are quite as 
 suitable for a wife as a working man's daughter. I, however, beg 
 to differ, as I am sure most of your correspondents will agree 
 that if a girl gives up her whole time to business, she cannot in 
 
Causes of Success and Failure. 225 
 
 the long run make a good wife. The office is not the place for 
 anyone but men, and if a woman goes out of her own sphere-, 
 namely, " the home," she cannot expect but that, if she marries, 
 her husband may some day be thrown out of employment by 
 
 lady-clerks. — Yours, &c., 
 
 M. S. W. 
 
 Peckham, Sept. 13. 
 
 Carlyle's Wise Words. 
 
 Sir, — Hear what Carlyle says upon the subject of permanent 
 as opposed to temporary contract. In his Fast and Present 
 he uses language which 1 venture to think may be applied with 
 advantage to the problem now being discussed in your columns, 
 and which has set so many men and women thinking, or, at any 
 rate, writing. "Let us here hint," says Carlyle, in Chapter 5, 
 "at simply one widest principle, as the basis from which all 
 organisation hitherto has grown up among men, and all, hence- 
 forth, will have to grow : The principle of permanent contract, 
 instead of temporary. . . . Permanence, persistence, is the first 
 condition of all fruitfulness in the ways of men. The ' tendency 
 to persevere,' to persist in spite of hindrances, discouragements, 
 and ' impossibilities ' : it is this that in all things distinguishes the 
 strong soul from the weak ; the civilised burgher from the no- 
 madic savage ; the species man from the genus ape. The nomad 
 has his very house set upon wheels. The nomad, and in a 
 still higher degree the ape, are all for ' liberty ' . The privilege 
 to flit continually is indispensable to them. The civilised 
 man lives not in wheeled houses. He makes life-long 
 marriage contracts. . . . Life-long marriage contracts ! — how 
 much preferable were year-long, or month-long, to the 
 nomad or ape ! . . . Once permanent, you do not quarrel 
 with the first difficulty in your path, and quit it in weak 
 disgust; you reflect that it cannot be quitted, that it must be 
 conquered — a wise arrangement fallen on with regard to it. Ye 
 foolish Wedded Two, who have quarrelled, between whom the 
 Evil Spirit has stirred up strife and bitterness, so that ' incom- 
 
226 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 patibility ' seems almost nigh, ye are nevertheless the Two, who, 
 by long habit, were it by nothing more, do best of all others suit 
 each other ; it is expedient for your own two foolish selves, to say 
 nothing of the infants, pedigrees, and public in general, that ye 
 agree again ; that ye put away the Evil Spirit, and wisely on both 
 hands struggle for the guidance of a Good Spirit." 
 
 How much shrewd common sense is here, what excellent 
 advice. Make divorce too easy, allow each man and woman to 
 make their own divorce law to apply to their own special ' ' living 
 and letting agreement," you can hardly call it marriage, and you 
 will, indeed, put a premium on their quarrelling " with the first 
 difficulty in their path ". Carlyle teaches us that your " Greatest 
 Happiness " principle is naught. It is your " Greatest Nobleness" 
 principle that will pay in the end. — 1 am, &c., 
 
 SPECIES MAN. 
 
 Reform Club, Pall Mall, Sept. i6. 
 
 " Une Vieilk Histoire'' 
 
 Sir, — I certainly think divorce should be granted more easily, 
 and that continuous drunkenness should be sufficient cause. Take 
 my case. Married eighteen years ago, myself twenty-seven years 
 old and wife twenty-one. Five children born ; one dead ; young- 
 est twelve years. There was no sign of intemperance until about 
 two years after marriage. I will not go through my miserable 
 history, but say that my wife has been intemperate, more or less, 
 for sixteen years, and that she gets worse each year. She has 
 signed the pledge many scores of times, and to-day I find myself 
 with pounds' worth of things in pawn, which I must redeem as 
 they become due. There is no prospect of relief until " death 
 us do part". 
 
 What can I do? Having to leave home at nine o'clock in the 
 morning, and not getting back till seven o'clock, my wife has the 
 entire day to get drink. I persuade her in the morning, before I 
 start, but it has little avail. Oftentimes she is in the pawnshop 
 by ten o'clock, and by five she has consumed two or three half- 
 pints of spirits. She has no cause for this; no infirmity, weak- 
 
Causes of Success and Failure. 227 
 
 ness, or trouble. Divorce will not stop drunkenness, but the 
 fear of it might deter some. At any rate, it is cruel that one's 
 life should be embittered by such wilfulness. My wife knows her 
 position, and says frequently, " I shall go out when I like, come 
 in when I like, and you have got to keep me". She is right; 
 but is it just that it should be so ? — I am, &c., 
 
 CITY CLERK. 
 
 London, Sept. 15. 
 
 Experience and Cotnmon Sense. 
 
 Sir, — Will you kindly allow an old maid to give her opinion as 
 to why marriage is so often a failure. Lookers-on always see 
 most of the game, and I, being one of those whose lot it is to 
 take care of other women's bairns^ have had some experience, 
 both of the homes where marriage is in every sense of the word 
 a success, and also of those houses (I will not call them homes) 
 where marriage has proved, as it so often does, a dead failure, 
 and I maintain that in nine cases out of ten it is neither the 
 smallness of the income nor the many children that causes the 
 unhappiness, but the wife who, neglecting to make her home 
 happy and cheerful, worries her husband's life out — ay, and her 
 children's, too — by fretting over trifles, If a girl were taught to 
 be womanly and true, and to understand that, married or single, 
 there will always be work to do and trials to endure, and that a 
 woman's lot is " loving and giving," then, I say, when she marries 
 there will be no fear of her degenerating into a selfish, wearying 
 woman; and her husband, finding in her a loving helpmeet, 
 ever ready to sympathise and comfort, will most assuredly treat 
 her with that honour and respect which all men, whether good 
 or bad, feel for a wife who strives to do her duty. — I am. Sir, 
 yours, &c., ^-^ qj ^ MAID. 
 
 Sept. g. 
 
 Happy because Childless. 
 
 Sir, — With twelve years of married life allow me to say I quite 
 agree with the statement of one of your correspondents that the 
 
228 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 family should be regulated to the income instead of vice versa, the 
 present system. My experience has been as happy as any reason- 
 able being could expect. We have no children, as we never have 
 considered ourselves to be in receipt of sufficient income to pro- 
 vide for any family without debarring ourselves a certain amount 
 of enjoyment which makes life worth living. A friend of mine 
 married about the same time as myself, on similar means. He 
 has now six children, and is perfectly miserable, and when for 
 a little quiet he calls upon me has repeatedly told me how he 
 envies our lot. 
 
 This fault of parents bringing more beings into the world than 
 they can conveniently afford to keep is not only a fruitful cause 
 of " marriage failures," but also a great amount of further misery 
 in the world. As " Impecunious '' says, money, or rather the 
 want of it, is the root of most "failures". And with only suffi- 
 cient means to keep two, how can six or eight be made happy. — 
 Yours truly, 
 
 23 Clyde Terrace, Nottingham, Aug. 28. 
 
 W. GREAVES. 
 
 The Duties of Marriage. 
 
 Sir, — I think that the generality of women marry too young to 
 realise the full meaning of what they do. They are undeveloped 
 and immature, both in mind and body, and rapidly become 
 callous and irresponsive to, if not actually disgusted with, the 
 physical side of matrimony. Consequently, when in a few years 
 they arrive at maturity, love is awakened by some other than the 
 husband, and the result is either a life of unnatural repression for 
 fear of consequences, an open defiance of all social laws, or 
 intrigue after intrigue. Many marriages would have a far greater 
 chance of happiness were the woman to wait till she is five-and- 
 twenty, and able to judge of her feelings towards the man she 
 has chosen. Mothers should also educate their daughters for 
 marriage, explain to them its duties in every way, and teach both 
 sons and daughters that true love is a reality, and is to be found " 
 
Causes of Success and Failure. 229 
 
 that it endures for a lifetime, ennobling every thought and act, 
 crowning every joy, sympathising in every trouble, and casting a 
 glory round declining years. Perhaps, then, a new generation of 
 husbands and wives, secure in mutual tastes and enjoyment of 
 sympathy, may come to the conclusion that under these circum- 
 stances marriage is not a failure. — Yours, &c., 
 
 MAVOURNEEN. 
 Cockspur Street, S.W., Aug. 23. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 THE REMEDIES PROPOSED. 
 
 George Henry Lewes' Opinion. 
 
 SIR, — I read with interest the instructive communication in 
 this morning's Daily Telegraph, explaining some of the 
 features of the divorce law in Germany. The letter of "Fiat 
 Justitia " shows how absolutely necessary it is that some alteration 
 should be made in our own legislation, and this, at all events, I 
 trust, will be one of the practical outcomes of a discussion which 
 has been not merely interesting, but highly important to the social 
 well-being. Without attempting to contribute anything myself 
 towards this greatly needed reform, will you permit me to recall 
 what was written by a well-known London solicitor who has the 
 reputation of having had the very best possible means of forming 
 a just estimate of the working of the Divorce Courts. I refer to 
 Mr. George H. Lewes, who wrote an able and exhaustive article 
 on the subject in the May number of the Fortnightly Review, 
 1885, from which, with your permission, I extract some of the 
 leading passages. The author remarks : 
 
 " One of the great faults of the English law is that it endeavours 
 to take on its shoulders the burden of the ' social law '. It affects 
 to regard divorce as a misdemeanour, whereas it is notorious that 
 in more than half the divorce suits that come into our courts the 
 respondent is as anxious that the case should succeed as the 
 petitioner. Another misconception of this legislation is the idea 
 that pervades the Divorce Act that adultery is the only matrimonial 
 offence of first significance, whereas, as Mr. Gladstone repeatedly 
 urged, the cruelty practised in a house by the husband on his wife 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 231 
 
 might be a more aggravating evil than repeated acts of transient 
 adultery. The Act in this respect displays a blind ignorance of 
 domestic tragedies such as any legal practitioner in the Divorce 
 Court is familiarly acquainted with. It is drawn in a spirit of 
 male 'grundyism,' with the selfish object of ministering to a 
 man's worst 'jealousies,' without attempting for one moment to 
 give the woman equal claims over the fidelity of her husband. 
 
 " It is said that if divorce were accorded to women for the 
 adultery of their husbands, or for cruelty or desertion without 
 adultery, no household would be safe, that children would be left 
 uncared for, and that we should resemble North Germany in our 
 domestic laxity. It is easy to assert these things, yet Scotland is 
 a proof to the contrary. Where there are no children to a marriage, 
 what grounds are there for refusing a divorce to a woman who has 
 an adulterous or cruel husband ? Do our labouring classes never 
 suffer in this respect ? It is fortunate for them that the Divorce 
 Court as it is to-day, with its antiquated machinery and costly 
 procedure, is not within their reach. 
 
 " The humanitarianism which we preach is false to the core so 
 long as the Legislature permits these abuses to continue, and so 
 long as the woman is left unequally weighted by the law, and so 
 long as the State takes upon itself the task of inflicting so-called 
 punishments, which are considered boons by the guilty parties. 
 In England we are day by day becoming more and more de 
 moralised by that false code of morality which the law dispenses. 
 The effect of making men and women equal before the law, in- 
 stead of increasing divorce and reducing the respect for marriage 
 and the ties of family, would preserve these virtues from contami- 
 nation. No woman would lightly break up her home. In the 
 words of Mr. Henley, it would be a weapon in her hand she 
 would be loth to use. Every woman would have her remedy in 
 her own hands, instead of being, as she is to-day, the day she 
 marries, simply the domestic ' chattel ' of her husband. 
 
 " In addition to their present rights, a woman ought to be en- 
 titled to a divorce : 
 
 "i. For actual cruelty, or cruelty endangering life. 
 
232 h Marriage a Failure ^ 
 
 " 2. For desertion without reasonable excuse for two years and 
 upwards. 
 
 " 3. For adultery committed by her husband in her home, or 
 under disgraceful or aggravating circumstances. 
 
 " 4. For the conviction and sentence of her husband to a term 
 of five years' penal servitude, or upwards, for crime. 
 
 " Either party should be entitled to a divorce on proof of incur- 
 able insanity, which has existed for two years. 
 
 "Our Divorce Court of to-day is as savage and barbarous an 
 institution, ethically, as the fixing up on spikes of the heads of 
 criminals was in old days on London Bridge. You have abolished 
 the one abomination ; is it not time that, in this nineteenth 
 century, you should abolish this other ? " 
 
 It will be no small service to the community if this correspond- 
 ence, by calling the public conscience to some of these anomalies 
 and wrongs, leads to an amendment of the law. — I am. Sir, yours 
 
 &c., 
 
 REFORMER. 
 
 London, Aug. 31. 
 
 The Shocked Priest ! 
 
 Sir, — As a clergyman, whose years amount to nearly half-a 
 century, I fully sympathise with the young bride as to her feelings 
 of shame when the Marriage Service of our Church is read in full. 
 I have never, when officiating, read certain objectionable passages 
 in the Marriage Service, and never intend to do so, though I have 
 been present when they have been read, and I must confess, as an 
 old married man, neither " squeamish nor mock-modest," that I 
 have felt most uncomfortable myself, which feeling has also been 
 shared by the majority of persons present. As the objectionable 
 portion can be omitted, without impugning the legahty of the 
 marriage, why do not parents or the bridegroom ask the officiating 
 minister to omit those passages. — I am, Sir, yours, &c., 
 
 ANTI-LEONARD. 
 
 Ipswich, Sept. 8. 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 233 
 
 Nine Injiiiidioiis to Married Follz. 
 
 Sir, — Assuming that marriage is sanctioned and prompted 
 alike by Nature and by Holy Writ, how strange and how sad that 
 the question should arise, " Is it a failure ? " If it be a failure in 
 many an instance, surely the fault must lie not with the institution 
 but with the contracting parties or surrounding influences. The 
 happiness of marriage bears, I think, a direct proportion to the 
 " naturalness " of those who wed. The working classes of our 
 country are, I contend, the freest from the veneer and the false- 
 ness that constitute the curse of their so-called " betters ". The 
 result is that, on the whole (despite many an obvious drawback), 
 the proportion of happy unions amongst them is larger than 
 among the middle and the higher ranks. I look at a provincial 
 town which I believe to be typical of its fellows. What of the 
 girls of the better classes? Giddy^ thoughtless, dressy to a 
 degree, the vast majority kill time in fancy amusements, know 
 next to nothing of domestic duties and responsibilities ; and their 
 small-talk, though it may fascinate men as foolish as themselves, 
 - disheartens and disgusts all sober-minded people. Thei ■ views, 
 in short, are as constricted as their waists. What is the natural 
 result ? Young men despise them, and either remain single till 
 they pick up a good girl, or, if they marry one of the giddy crea- 
 tures, treat her as a plaything, not as a companion and an equal. 
 And where lies the blame ? Of course there is another side to 
 the picture — the husband is not always innocent. Borne along 
 on the pinions of passion (which too often he mistakes for love) he 
 treats his sweetheart as an idol. After marriage passion declines 
 and gives way to selfishness, and all the mean tyrannies that a 
 small-minded man knows so well how to employ; the woman 
 sinks from an idol to a slave, and the paities, having ceased to be 
 en rapport, are peevish and sullen, or heart-broken and crushed. 
 No wonder, then, in cases like these marriage is a failure. Hasty 
 marriages I look upon as a fearful evil. Young women are 
 generally taught that marriage is the end and not the beginning of 
 life, and to use their attractions with the objects of trapping, not 
 
234 -^-^ Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 winning, a partner. What but misery can follow such a course. 
 Depend upon it, ignorance, selfishness, and meddling interference 
 are largely to blame for unhappy unions. Before there is any 
 attempt to tamper with the marriage institution, let the following 
 simple remedies be tried. Before marriage : (i) Let every young 
 woman receive a useful, practical, as well as ornamental education. 
 
 (2) Let those who contemplate matrimony look well before they 
 leap. (3) Let what one is, not what one has, be a prior considera- 
 tion. (4) Let other qualifications besides face and figure be 
 borne in mind. (5) Let the system of match-making be abolished. 
 After marriage: (i) Let the husband make of his wife a com- 
 panion and confidante, and the wife render herself worthy of the 
 privilege. (2) Let the wife be queen of the home, and the hus- 
 band regard his home as the centre of his joy and happiness. 
 
 (3) Let the closure be put on all interference from relatives or 
 friends. (4) Lastly, let the " golden rule " be the lode-star of 
 wedded existence. These are simple suggestions which everyone 
 can adopt ; but if adopted there would be fewer marriage failures, 
 fewer heart-breakings, and, as a consequence, fewer of those 
 miserable shipwrecks which abound along the coasts of human 
 
 existence. — Yours, &c., 
 
 A. B. P. M. 
 Llanelly, Sept. 10. 
 
 The Learned Woman's Humility. 
 
 Sir, — We are suffering from the effects of the third-rate boarding- 
 schools fashionable some fifteen years ago, where the one aim set 
 before scholars was to be ladylike — not ladies, and genteel — not 
 gentle. I speak from experience. I shall never forget the insults 
 from the other girls when it became known that when at home 1 
 had to help our one servant in the lighter work, such as dusting, 
 making beds, &c. There is a change now for the better in public 
 opinion. I may add that my companions brought up in this 
 doubly-distilled gentility are holding no better positions than I 
 am — scarcely so good. Another great mistake is to think that 
 the girl with capabilities for the higher branches of learning does 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 235 
 
 not make a good wife. Authors are very fond of drawing charac- 
 ters of the blue-stocking in various lights, but the deeper a 
 woman's learning the deeper her humility. A bright girl of 
 fifteen invariably hopes to set the world right, but the same girl 
 at twenty-five will know that if she succeeds in doing each day's 
 duties well it is as much as she can hope to do. 
 
 I believe that many women who are best fitted for the duties 
 of wife and mother are . the very ones whom God, in His provi- 
 dence, destines to the single life. And there are many women 
 who, being able to earn their living, and above the sarcasm of 
 would-be wits, care little about the term of " old n-»ids," go quietly 
 on, neither growing morose and sour, nor yet making themselves 
 ridiculous by aping the ways of sixteen. 
 
 Let your young men improve themselves, and when they are 
 perfect it will then be time enough to hurl at our heads all the 
 blame for what goes wrong in the world. — I have the honour to 
 remain, Sir, yours respectfully, 
 
 M. A. C. 
 
 P.S. — The letters about domestic dulness are worth paying 
 attention to. Some worthy folks seem to think that prayer 
 meetings three nights in the week and Bible classes the other 
 three, with two of each on Sunday, are all the diversions young 
 women need. I beg to differ. 
 
 London, Sept. 12. 
 
 Why Brand the Guiltless Child 'i 
 
 Sir, — You have performed a great public service by allowing 
 the free breath of public opinion to blow round the marriage and 
 divorce laws at present in vogue ; but pardon me for saying that 
 if nothing is done beyond the writing of letters, the correspondence 
 might just as well not have been started. The whole question 
 seems to be — Are there real abuses which need remedying ? If 
 we grant that there are, then for goodness' sake let the matter be 
 taken up in a practical manner, and a law be speedily passed to 
 redress those grievances ! Deeply interesting as are many of the 
 
 16 
 
236 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 letters and suggestions which you have published, there is a real 
 danger lest in the multitude of counsellors we forget the few and 
 simple points on which redress is possible by Act of Parliament at 
 this moment. I will leave on one side the divorce question, 
 because I wish to direct attention to another point ; but I would 
 submit that a very clear case has already been made out for such 
 an alteration of the law as would allow a dissolution of the marriage 
 bond in cases of hopeless drunkenness, idiocy, or conviction for 
 felony, and which would give to a woman the same right as a man 
 enjoys, to gain divorce for simple adultery even when uncombined 
 with cruelty. I believe that such provisions would really shock 
 nobody but the most hopeless ecclesiastical obstructives, and that 
 a bill of two or three clauses would be sufficient to meet the 
 requirements of the case. 
 
 But there is another branch of the same question which your 
 correspondents have left rather severely alone, possibly because it 
 is a delicate subject, possibly because of the power of law and 
 custom to blind the eyes of even good men and women to horrible 
 injustice. Let me quote just a few sentences from a popular hand- 
 book of the law, and 1 think that what I mean will be pretty plain. 
 " In law, an illegitimate child is the child of nobody, and 
 previously to its own marriage can have no legal relatives. An 
 illegitimate person has, legally, no name ; but as regards all 
 questions of property acquired by him he is entitled and liable, in 
 respect of his registered name, if that is defined. If an illegitimate 
 person without wife or children dies without leaving a will, his 
 property is by law forfeited to the Crown.'' And further on we 
 read that "illegitimacy bars all claims under the Statute of Distri- 
 butions'". Now here we have the law, in order to encourage 
 marriage and discourage vice, punishing in the most awful manner, 
 not the vicious, not the unmarried, but the absolutely innocent 
 offspring. The monstrous unfairness of these arrangements must 
 surely strike all non-legal minds ; and our English law is more 
 unmerciful even than the Scotch, because in Scotland if parents 
 marry subsequently to the birth of a child the child is legitimated ; 
 but here in England a filius nnllii(s rernains so to the end of his 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 237 
 
 career, bearing on his own shoulders the penalty of others' 
 ofiFences, the helpless and hapless victim of a perfectly savage code. 
 I would say no word that would seem to palliate vice ; but this 
 branding of the guiltless with a legal and social stigma is a thing 
 against which mercy and justice alike protest. I wish to be 
 severely practical in this letter, and I therefore suggest that we 
 need some simple and straightforward alterations of the law with 
 regard to illegitimacy, and also with regard to the kindred topic of 
 affiliation. How utterly ridiculous is the present maximum 
 amount of five shillings a-week which a man can be forced to pay 
 for the support of his illegitimate offspring ! Five shillings a-week 
 to a rich or prosperous man — and even that payment can be 
 avoided by the father absenting himself from the country for 
 twelve months, so that proceedings against him cannot be begun. 
 I submit to my imaginary tribunal, consisting of fair-minded Eng- 
 lish men and women, that a father ought, whether he is married 
 or not, to bring up a child for whose birth he is responsible in a 
 manner befitting his station in life. Why should the " foundlings '' 
 of rich people be a tax, as they often are, on the public exchequer? 
 Why should even that pittance of five shiUings a-week cease after 
 an illegitimate child has attained the age of thirteen, or, as a limit, 
 sixteen? What should be done is to pass a law, also quite a brief 
 one, permitting magistrates before whom affiliation summonses 
 come to adjudge to the mother a weekly sum, out of the father's 
 pocket, proportioned to his proved income, and so that the mode 
 of his child's bringing up shall to a certain degree conform to the 
 position which the father occupies in life. Let the child also bear 
 the father's name, not the mother's ; let it come in under the 
 " Statute of Distributions," where there is an intestacy — for, after 
 all, an illegitimate child is at least a " poor relation," and should 
 be treated as one of the family. Then we could make a beginning, 
 too, by adopting the Scotch law of the post legitimation of infants 
 by the subsequent marriage of their parents. 
 
 But let us. Sir, at all events try to evolve something practical 
 from all this discussion. Let it not all be frittered away in talk. 
 There are grievances crying for a remedy, and I can conceive of 
 
238 h Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 no worthier work for an " unattached '' and philanthropic Member 
 of Parliament to take up than the righting of the wrongs of help- 
 less women or men, or innocent injured babes. — Yours obediently, 
 
 A LAWYER. 
 The Temple, Aug. 31. 
 
 7%e Schxiol of Cookery and — Lovers ! 
 
 Sir, — Over an afternoon cup of tea, my friends and I (six 
 charming young ladies, not too good-looking) have been dis- 
 cussing the question " Is Marriage a Failure ? " We were much 
 interested in " Noch Einsam's " letter of to-day. We quite agree 
 with him that there should be more opportunities for the sexes to 
 meet. How about a school of cookery, attended by ladies, with 
 music and dinners provided, to which all large-hearted, noble men 
 should be invited ? We have none of us as yet tried matrimony 
 — not that we have not had the chance ; but we have not yet 
 found the kindred spirit who would prove good-tempered, brave, 
 honest, tender, and true. Now, if we could only come across 
 some of those splendid, large-hearted, and noble men " Noch 
 Einsam " mentions, we should be only too glad to seize the 
 chance and swallow the bait. — Yours, &c., 
 
 CLEAR GRIT. 
 
 London, Sept. 12. 
 
 A Brutal Husband. 
 
 Sir, — Though but a working man, I have followed the discussion 
 on the failure of marriage in your columns carefully, with a view 
 to discovering a remedy for some of the worst consequences of an 
 unhappy married life, which I grieve to see so frequently among 
 people of my own class. I think it simply ridiculous to say that 
 the Marriage Service is in any way responsible for these evils, and 
 I ask Mrs. Caird or anyone else if they ever knew or heard of a 
 failure in married life in which the service was taken to heart and 
 acted upon. The exact reverse is my opinion, and I venture to 
 assert that nothing but a reformation of human nature will be a 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 239 
 
 sure preventive of unhappy wedlock. The only thing that we can 
 do is to bring these means, now confined to the richer classes, 
 well within the reach of such as I. I will briefly give one instance 
 which comes under my notice almost every day. A wretched 
 hypocrite of a man gains the confidence and loving affection of a 
 woman who is honest and hard-working, and worthy of any station 
 in life. Shortly after marriage this brutal being comes out in his 
 true colours, and twenty years after has brought the tortures he 
 inflicts upon her almost to a science. For years he has not earned 
 enough to buy the tobacco he smokes, and his wife works regularly 
 from early morn until midnight, and often well into the next morn- 
 ing, while he sits drinking in bed, which he never leaves night or day 
 perhaps for a week together. He sends his children into factories 
 that he may use their wages for his evil habits, before they are legally 
 permitted to leave school. Now the only release from this horrible 
 life is by separation order, which cannot be obtained until the wife 
 has been brutally assaulted, perhaps maimed for life. This the 
 man knows, and has schooled himself, even in his most frantic 
 moods, to bear in mind ; and as a result he is careful to leave no 
 signs upon her in the shape of bruises and cuts to which she could 
 point as evidence of ill-treatment. 
 
 Now for a case of this and many other kinds. I think it would 
 not be unreasonable that the man should be forcibly put away from 
 his wife and not be allowed to marry again, under pain of imprison- 
 ment. I would also suggest that the disgrace and publicity 
 consequent on divorce proceedings be entirely done away with, by 
 private trials ; for many a one who has borne incredible sufferings 
 in silence shrinks from the exposure of her miseries to a careless 
 world. I repeat that our service need not be touched. If we 
 stand by it honestly there is no cause for fear as to the result ; and 
 though many women object to say they will " love, honour, and 
 obey " any man, yet it must be borne in mind that the man 
 undertakes to " love and cherish," and surely love includes honour 
 and a desire to do the wishes of one another. Cheapen divorce, 
 render its proceedings private, make it unlawful for the one against 
 whom the divorce is obtained to marry again, and our society 
 
240 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 will gradually purify itself of some of the worst evils God ever 
 looked down upon. — Yours truly, 
 
 SHATTERED NERVES. 
 
 Leicester, Sept. 3. 
 
 Dotit choose a Wife for her Cooking. 
 
 Sir, — It often surprises me to hear men of good education and 
 fair income say that the girl they marry must be a good cook and 
 housekeeper, as if that was the one thing to be looked for above 
 all others. These sentiments are very well for a working man, 
 and there is no greater blessing for him than a woman who can 
 cook and keep house ; but when such ideas are held by a well- 
 educated middle-class man with a moderate income, I think it 
 would be better if he looked a little higher in the social scale. 
 I am not speaking enviously of these desirable young ladies, for I 
 am thoroughly domesticated, and considered a good cook, but 
 still I do think it would be better if men were to choose girls who 
 were accomplished in something more than cooking. If those 
 desirous of obtaining cooks for their wives would advertise for a 
 cook and housekeeper, they would get everything they desired, 
 as most of these women thoroughly understand their duty, having 
 had many years' experience. I think that while well-educated 
 men persist in choosing wives who have nothing but their cooking 
 to recommend them, their marriages at least have a good chance 
 of becoming a most miserable failure. Suppose young ladies were 
 to suddenly insist that their sweethearts must be good gardeners, 
 so as to be able to cultivate flowers for their use and pleasure ? 
 Surely it would not be more inconsistent than for men to expect 
 well-educated girls to do the work of an upper servant. I am not 
 engaged, but I hope that fate will keep me from the man who 
 thinks a good dinner of more importance than anything else. — 
 Yours, &c., ^ YOUNG GIRL. 
 
 Plaistow, Essex, Sept. 11. 
 
 Free Marriage in Practice. 
 Sir, — We do not need to go to America or to Japan to study 
 the system of free marriage. Wherever women have the ability 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 241 
 
 and the opportunity to support themselves in what they consider 
 comfort, there free marriage can be practised, unless prevented 
 by public opinion. The woman is not then bound to the man by 
 the necessity of obtaining her daily bread from his earnings ; and 
 should the matrimonial yoke become too galling it can be thrown 
 off by either party, or by mutual consent, without entailing any 
 great suffering on the woman. 
 
 Now, in Lancashire we find a state of affairs which renders 
 women of the working classes practically independent of the men. 
 The boys and girls go to the mills together, and acquire a skill 
 which never leaves them. When they have become adept, the 
 women earn from 12s. to 22s. a-week, and the men from 20s. to 
 50s. They marry young, and often both remain in the mill, the 
 children being " minded " by a relative or a neighbour during 
 working hours. As might be expected, a good many of the 
 children die under this treatment ; hence families are small. 
 
 It is evident that under these conditions the woman is only 
 bound to the man by affection and the marriage oath. She can 
 get on nearly as well without him as with him. But the instinct 
 of marriage is strong in the human breast, and is not satisfied by 
 mere concubinage, consequently the units of a separated couple 
 frequently marry again with other men and women, the ceremony 
 being duly performed in church. This involves bigamy, of course, 
 but not one case in a hundred finds its way into the police court. 
 When a man has deserted his wife he cannot well attempt to 
 restrain her future action, while the wife seldom interferes with 
 the husband. I once knew three men join amicably at the 
 funeral of a woman to whom each had been married ; and I have 
 known a girl be married twice in three years, the last husband 
 having already a wife and family. 
 
 I do not mean that the cotton operatives are generally given to 
 free marriage, but the practice is very common. In some neigh- 
 bourhoods it would be easy to find two or three examples in nearly 
 every street of cottages. These people are an intermediate class 
 between the truly virtuous and the wholly abandoned, and if they 
 behave discreetly they receive the credit of having good intentions, 
 
242 Is Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 If Mrs. Caird wishes to know how free marriage will work on a 
 large scale, she may gather some facts to help her in Lancashire. 
 She will find that it remedies some evils and aggravates others, 
 that it provides an escape for the victims of boy and girl marriages ; 
 but that, on the other hand, it enables the fickle man or the deceitful 
 woman to ruin several lives instead of only one. — Yours, 
 
 R. 
 
 Streatham Hill, S.W., Aug. 16. 
 
 The '^ HaU-marked'' Husband. 
 Sir, — Why should the husband not wear a wedding ring as wel. 
 as his wife ? The adoption of the custom would, I am persuaded, 
 often prevent much unhappiness and many misunderstandings. 
 Married men often pass themselves off as single now, and would, 
 I suppose, continue to do so even if the wearing of the wedding 
 ring were made obligatory. I would therefore have any married 
 man seen without this mark of matrimony fined for the first 
 offence, and afterwards imprisoned without the option of a fine ! 
 Many foreigners, especially Germans, do wear a wedding ring, and 
 I have read that some of our own Royal Princes have set an ex- 
 cellent example in this respect. If any of your correspondents 
 can name any objections to my scheme, I shall be glad to hear 
 them ; but I feel sure that most of my own sex will be on my 
 side ; and I can speak strongly on the subject, having known 
 three men who passed themselves off as bachelors merely for 
 the sake of amusing themselves, and not in the least caring for 
 the unhappiness their conduct caused to others. — I remain. Sir, 
 yours faithfully, ^ SPINSTER. 
 
 Dorset, Aug. 24. 
 
 " Clear Grit " necessary. 
 Sir, — I daresay it has often occurred to many of your readers 
 that there would oftener be happier marriages if there were more 
 opportunities for the selection of husbands and wives. How many , 
 of us unwilling bachelors there are who do not number among our 
 acquaintance any girl for whom we can feel that sympathy of 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 243 
 
 mind and purpose so necessary for a happy life together, nor yet 
 sufficient confidence to trust them with the rearing of our chil- 
 dren. There are many, as I know, in this dilemma, including my- 
 self. They are fairly well-to-do and in good social positions, but 
 they do not happen to have met a girl that they have anything in 
 common with. In my case, having no sister and being far from 
 home, I have scarcely had a chance. Many a man in such cir- 
 cumstances marries just any girl who comes in his way — a desire 
 for marriage being an instinct of his species. He marries her 
 faute de inieux, weary of a single life, and wanting some one to 
 care for and make happy. Besides, he hates a lonely dinner 
 every day. So he takes his chance of happiness, and too often 
 loses it because the spirit of the thing is wanting. Now, are we 
 to take such a risk or remain in single blessedness for ever ? I 
 only wish that there were means (I care not how or what) by 
 which I could find some cheery, healthy girl, with broad views 
 and generous sympathies, of intelligence and refinement, a sweet 
 disposition and a gentle heart, not too good-looking, but instinc- 
 tively a gentle-woman in the truest sense of the word. Clear grit, 
 as the Yankees call it. If she has tastes musical and artistic, so 
 much the better ; but these are not necessaries. If she had a 
 httle income of her own — to provide for accidents — for her pin- 
 money, or to give a better education to her children than I could, 
 perhaps, afford, again, so much the better. But it is of no con- 
 sequence if she be content, and, having nothing, she is welcome 
 still. For such a woman is a priceless treaure in herself, no 
 matter what her means. I expect there are many men searching 
 for such as 1 liave mentioned; but I am afraid they are very rare, 
 and that many of the best of them, by that contrariety which is so 
 common in the world, too often throw their hearts away on some 
 good-for-nothing scamp, with neither honour, industry, nor prin- 
 ciple. In the same way I have known and read of many splen- 
 did fellows, large-hearted and noble men, mated with some 
 Megsera who simply makes their lives a horror. How can this 
 be remedied ? — I am, Sir, yours faithfully, 
 
 , ^ NOCH EINSAM. 
 
 Weymouth, Sept. 10. 
 
244 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 The Voice of Experience. 
 
 Sir, — It was during the ten years of my married life that I 
 discovered, from timely observation and intuition, that much or 
 most depends upon the wife to make or to mar married happiness. 
 How I wish all other wives could be as happy as I was. It is 
 quite simple and easy. 
 
 1. You must always be bright. Take great pains to make 
 yourself, your dress, your rooms, and everything about you 
 bright, pretty, and cheerful. 
 
 2. Make yourself agreeable and cordial to your husband's 
 friends. You will please him very much by this. 
 
 3. Be lenient to his faihngs, and don't attempt to reform him 
 all at once. 
 
 4. Don't keep him waiting for his meals. Let them be well 
 cooked and tasty. 
 
 5. If possible, have separate accounts. 
 
 6. Take care to dress as well and to look as nice as you did 
 before you married. 
 
 7. When he talks of his work or his hobbies, never by any 
 chance appear bored. Try to make his interests your interests 
 and his tastes your tastes. All men require sympathy, and if 
 they do not get it from their wives they will seek it elsewhere. 
 When a wife ceases to sympathise with her husband half the charm 
 of home is gone for him. 
 
 8. Let him be happy in his own way, and not in yours. Let 
 him please himself, and do not thwart him. 
 
 9. Do not let your children come between you. It is hard for 
 a man or a woman to see all the love and affection which they used 
 to receive withdrawn from themselves and lavished upon their 
 grown-up sons and daughters. — Yours truly, 
 
 A PHYSICIAN'S WIDOW. 
 
 Buxton, Sept. 10. 
 
 Some Restrictions and PrecaiUions. 
 Sir, — Allow me to express the sense of gratitude which, in 
 common with thousands, I feel for the publicity you have afforded 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 245 
 
 to the growing feeling against the existing marriage laws. It is 
 generally admitted that ' ' something is rotten in the State of 
 Denmark," and the significance of this fact is not diminished by 
 the eulogies of matrimony emanating from isolated couples. 
 Monogamic marriage is no more a " divine " institution than 
 polygamy or free union, a fact which even a Christian super- 
 naturalist may discover on referring to the pages of the Old Testa- 
 ment. The marriage pact seems originally traceable to the selfish 
 monopoly of captured women by the primeval savage tribesmen of 
 the Stone Age and " Bronze " period. It is assuredly of no "celes- 
 tial " origin, and varies with race and climate. Sociology, in fact, 
 reveals marriage to us as a mere civil contract, primarily based on 
 selfishness, and the question before us is simply — How are we to 
 modify the semi-barbarous contract now in vogue to meet the 
 necessities of today ? Free love seems faulty, owing to the 
 complication arising out of the maintenance of the children — the 
 probability being that the State would have to extend its functions 
 to baby-farming on a colossal scale. Reverting, however, to the 
 original query, we may group any suggested emendations of the 
 marriage law under two heads; — i. The legal; comprising (a) 
 statutory interference, restricting, as in France, the age at which 
 marriage is lawful ; (b) preventionof the transmission of diseases ; 
 (c) facilitation of divorce on violation of a contract laid down by 
 the parties themselves, &c. 
 
 Under the second head I group the very important prudential 
 rules to be enforced in the education of young men. These must 
 embody two ideas, which great thinkers, such as Mill and 
 Fawcett, perseveringly maintained. The Malthusianism of Mill 
 is really the only remedy of the future to counteract that appalling 
 pest, over-population. To the latter is traceable three-parts of the 
 misery and wretchedness which disgrace European civilisation. 
 It is, as all students of political economy know, the main cause 
 which has prevented Free Trade from permanently bettering the 
 condition of the working classes^ wages being determined by the 
 ratio between capital and population. My own relations are, I 
 grieve to say, disgraced by a clerical whose family numbers 
 
246 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 fifteen souls, supported on an entirely inadequate income. Such 
 selfishness and intemperance merit the most severe condemna- 
 tion. — I am, &c., 
 
 BACHELOR. 
 Devon, Sept. 2. 
 
 Tke J?edor's Mild Remedies ! — i.e.. Hard Labour, Transportation, 
 and Hanging. 
 
 Sir, — I shall be most thankful if you can find space in your 
 columns to insert what I have to say respecting release from the 
 marriage contract. I shall be glad if you can do so, because my 
 view of the case suggests a remedy — the only remedy — that would 
 do away with nine-tenths of the difficulty. I quite agree with 
 Mrs. Mona Caird that if a man cannot agree with the wife of his 
 choice he should be separated from her. I only differ with her 
 as to the means to be employed to bring about the desired end. 
 
 If, for instance, a man cannot live happily with the wife of his 
 bosom because he has a bad temper and is tyrannous, or because 
 he is a drunkard, or is unfaithful, I would release him from her 
 society. In the one case I would release him by imprisonment 
 and hard labour until his temper had improved, in the other by 
 transportation, and in the third case by hanging. I would never 
 turn him loose in the world to ruin the happiness of dozens of 
 other innocent lives. He would have a fine time of it if you did. 
 Herein lies Mrs. Mona Caird's mistake. No wonder, therefore, 
 that an appalling number of Blue Beards should have taken 
 advantage of Mrs. Mona Caird's mistake by writing to you 
 clamouring to be free to do their devastating work. I have 
 shown you how I would free them, and I leave some one else to 
 deal with the remaining tenth part of the difficulty, namely, what 
 is to be done with a woman who will persist in henpecking a meek 
 and submissive husband. — I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 JOHN O. HARRIS. 
 
 Rector of Walton West and Talbenny. 
 Walton West, Haverfordwest, Aug. 27. 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 247 
 
 Penal Servitude a Reason for Divorce. 
 
 Sir, — Without in the sHghtest degree trenching on the sanctity 
 of marriage or questioning its divine origin, all must agree that 
 in its many environments it has been, and must continue to be, a 
 subject for human legislation, and that when any proved grievance 
 is fairly and convincingly brought forward, it is the duty of the 
 Legislature to redress that grievance in matters connected with 
 marriage as well as with any other subject. Some few years ago 
 the Legislature did act most justly in passing the Married Woman's 
 Property Act. Surely if her property is worthy of protection, her 
 person should be so likewise. And yet, if the dictum of one of 
 your contributors be true, a convicted felon who has been in penal 
 servitude for many years, for embezzlement, fraud, and forgery, 
 may, at the termination of his sentence or on receipt of a ticket- 
 of-leave, force himself on his unfortunate wife, and compel her, 
 against her will, to debase herself to cohabit with him again. 
 Surely if ever legislation was called for it should be to redress 
 such monstrous iniquity as this. I am a father who, through 
 false representations, gave his consent to the union of his daughter 
 to a man who has passed his whole life in deception and fraud, 
 until he got within the clutches of the law and was sentenced to a 
 long term of penal servitude, which he is now undergoing. — 
 Yours, &c., 
 
 FATHER. 
 
 Harrow-on-the-Hill, Aug. 20. 
 
 The Prayer-booli^ s " Hideous Candour ". 
 
 Sir, — In your remarkable correspondence concerning marriage 
 there have been several references to our Marriage Service — to its 
 " hideous candour ". I am a clergyman, and never hesitate when 
 officiating at a wedding to cut the service down, and leave out 
 these allusions. If the authorities will not revise this aspect of 
 the Prayer-book for us, we can do so for ourselves. — Yours, 
 
 NOVUS CURATUS. 
 
 London, S.E., Sept. 5. 
 
248 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 By Fear of Breach of Froinise. 
 
 Sir, — However we may differ as to the causes of " marriage 
 failures/' we shall, I think, all admit that one of them is hit by 
 " Lost beyond Redemption ". I wish it could be discovered how 
 many of the miserable couples to be found amongst us were 
 married against the wish of one of the contracting parties. It 
 certainly is not fair to blame marriage as an institution because it 
 is a failure where one of those who enter it only does so under 
 fear of an action at law. I know personally a young lady who, 
 against the wish of her friends, became engaged to a young man 
 who was by no means a good match for her in any way. He 
 afterwards tried every means to escape from his engagement, but 
 the girl would not let him escape, and threatened to bring an 
 action against him. The marriage day was fixed, and the company 
 waited for the bridegroom. A telegram was brought to the church 
 to say that he really could not do it, and would sooner face an 
 action. However, further pressure was brought to bear, and a 
 few months after the marriage took place. It is not, I hear, a 
 success. He hates and ill-treats the woman he was compelled to 
 marry, and she has, I fancy, by this time found that getting the 
 husband she wished for has not been the success she hoped. 
 
 If actions for breach of promise to marry were abolished, except 
 so far as they were claims for actual loss incurred — as when a 
 young woman has given up a situation, or bought things that had 
 to be sold at a loss when no marriage took place — there would be 
 far fewer unhappy wedded couples. — Yours, &c., 
 
 SALOPIAN. 
 
 Shropshire, Sept. i. 
 
 Away with the "Mashers" f 
 
 Sir, — I wish that Mrs. Mona Caird would wield her able pen 
 in teaching humanity how to make marriage a world-wide success. 
 Let her enlist our sweet English girls in a crusade against those 
 big shams called " Mashers '' — things with an eye-glass and a 
 plentiful display of cheap jewellery, with no manners and less 
 heart. Let her tell the girls to choose their husbands from among 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 249 
 
 the good, the pure, and the true-hearted. Surely there are plenty 
 of frank, genial, warm-hearted lads left, so that girls can afford to 
 pass by the " howling swells " Let the latter be free to marry 
 with " elective affinities " if they will, and I venture to affirm their 
 race will soon die out. I am a believer in the survival of the 
 iittest. — YourSj &c., M \TER 
 
 Spurstowe Road, Aug. 17. 
 
 Seme Practical Suggestions. 
 
 Sir, — As one deeply interested in this subject, I hope you will 
 kindly favour me with the insertion of these few lines. Most of 
 the writers seem to agree that some alteration in the laws relating 
 to marriage is desirable, but, without some established institution 
 to press the matter home, I fear there is great danger of the sub- 
 ject being allowed to drop after your columns have been closed to 
 the correspondence, and I write to say that I, for one, am willing 
 to subscribe my guinea to start a Society or League (as suggested 
 by " Solicitor ") for the purpose of reforming our marriage laws. 
 
 The lines on which to work might be : 
 
 1. The abolition of actions for breach of promise. 
 
 2. The prevention of very early marriages. 
 
 3. The granting of divorce for other reasons than adultery, 
 especially where a deed of separation has been entered into and 
 faithfully kept for some years. 
 
 4. The legalisation of marriage with a deceased wife's sister. 
 
 5. The bringing of children born out of wedlock within the pale 
 of legitimacy. 
 
 If " Solicitor " will state address with the view of starting a 
 society, I have no doubt that he will soon be favoured with ample 
 support. — I am. Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 A SEPARATED HUSBAND. 
 
 London, Sept. i. 
 
 The Wife should Pay her Share. 
 Sir, — Some of your correspondents' letters on the failure of 
 marriage are most amusing. For instance, " Spinster ' wants to 
 
250 Is Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 have men fined and imprisoned for the crime of not wearing a wed- 
 ding ring. Perhaps she would like men to be branded like animals. 
 Why should not women also be fined and imprisoned for the same 
 " offence " .' Another correspondent, who signs himself " T. W. 
 W.," and writes in a very dictatorial manner, wants to have all 
 bachelors heavily taxed. Now, why should a man be taxed for 
 not marrying ? I can conceive no tax so monstrous or iniquitous, 
 nor anyone but a lunatic suggesting it. You might just as well 
 tax a man for not keeping a horse, or for not being a house- 
 holder, as for not being a married man. Men are getting wary of 
 marriage now that laws are all made in favour of women, and 
 when, if anything goes wrong — even if it is the woman's fault — 
 the husband's pocket has to suffer for it. Men who work hard 
 and earn good incomes do not care to incur the liabilities of 
 marriage with impecunious women. The contract is not a fair 
 one in any way. And to fine and tax a man because he refuses 
 to mix up his legal identity by marriage and have his property 
 confiscated is absurd. How it is that so many of your male 
 correspondents can be in favour of the marriage tie is a mystery 
 to me. In previous ages, when women were the slaves of their 
 husbands, it was quite right for men to keep them. But now, 
 when they give themselves social airs over the heads of men 
 many years older than themselves, take the lead in society, 
 expect men to wait and dance attendance on them like flunkeys, 
 and call them the ' ' vulgar sex " for their pains, they should be 
 compelled to pay their own share of the expenses of matrimony. 
 As many of your female correspondents have said ill-natured 
 things of men, I trust you will allow me this opportunity of 
 replying to them. — I am. Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 VV. G. TAUNTON. 
 Devonshire Club, S.W., Aug. 30. 
 
 Too much Proximity. 
 
 Sir, — Would you allow me to point out an important factor in 
 the conversion of ante-nuptial bliss into post-nuptial misery. This 
 is the too close and constant intimacy in which the couples, 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 251 
 
 according to custom, live in this country. It is unnatural, 
 insanitary, and if boldly looked into will be found to be obviously 
 destructive of every particle of that sentiment and respect which 
 form the basis of all true happiness. The truth is that the 
 method of married life as practised in the British Isles has not 
 advanced with civilisation ; it remains in a barbaric condition 
 worthy only of the Esquimaux or other equally uncivilised race. 
 This custom of continual contact, as it may be called, could only 
 have originated in prehistoric times, when the hut of the simple 
 savage was limited in accommodation. There is no excuse for it 
 in these days of modern houses. — Yours truly, 
 
 HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE. 
 
 Southampton, Aug. 26. 
 
 " Take away the children of drunken fathers." 
 
 Sir, — With the desire to bring about some practical good in 
 
 regard to the important question raised by your journal, " Is 
 
 Marriage a Failure ? " might I be permitted to suggest as bases of 
 
 action : ist, that the marriage laws be immediately reformed so that 
 
 proof of insanity, habitual drunkenness, or brutality on either side, 
 
 be sufficient for a divorce ; 2nd, that no parent, or person who is 
 
 a criminal offender, insane, or an habitual drunkard, be permitted 
 
 to rear children ; but that such parents, or persons, be compelled 
 
 to pay for their children being brought up by the State. — Your 
 
 obedient servant, 
 
 DEEDS NOT WORDS. 
 
 St. John's Wood, Sept. 8. 
 
 The State should Veto and Encourage. 
 
 Sir, — Mrs. Caird is right in her statement in your columns, 
 that " most of the letters are written by people who have 
 evidently not read '' her article in the Westminster Review. But 
 most of them appear to have no intention of attacking her article, 
 or to write with any direct reference to it. The subject has 
 opened out into the broadest lines which can be suggested by the 
 
-52 Is Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 words " Is Marriage a Failure ? " and it is neither necessary nor 
 desirable in the public interest that the discussion should be kept 
 within the limits prescribed by the writer of the article out of 
 which it arose. Much as I have been interested in the great 
 variety of opinions evoked, one thing has astonished me, viz., that 
 no one has come forward to defend the rights of the State in 
 all matters so important as the relations between the sexes and 
 the growth of population. Nearly all the letters are written from 
 the point of view of private happiness rather than public welfare, 
 which includes, of course, the former, but involves many things 
 besides. 
 
 From the private point of view, of course, there are many 
 marriages which are mistakes, and would be better dissolved with- 
 out one of the parties being compelled to take the course which 
 is as present necessary in order to obtain a divorce. Divorce 
 should be easier, but not too easy, for its very difficulty acts as a 
 constraining motive to the two parties to try and bring about 
 better relations. I do not think that the difficulty about the 
 children of a divorced couple ought to be postponed for future 
 discussion, since it is one of the most important elements of the 
 question at issue. 
 
 One thing is quite certain — viz., that we are not yet ready to 
 substitute for the " barbarous " institution of matrimony a contract 
 such as that entered into by the young lady who signed herself 
 " Twenty-five ''. I sincerely hope that she will find her union as 
 happy and secure at sixty as at twenty-five ; but I should say that 
 the mind of average manhood is not yet so framed upon the 
 "eternal principles of justice" that young women could safely 
 trust themselves and their happiness to the unwritten contract of 
 a thing so fleeting as love. 
 
 Think of a number of young ladies with good looks, but no 
 money, incapable of earning their own living, uniting themselves 
 with young men, without any legal provision for the future — each 
 being a' union which would too often be dissolved when the good 
 looks of the lady had passed away or her health broken down ! 
 The " barbarous" institution of marriage affords a kindlier security 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 2^3 
 
 — though not perhaps a surer one — than the workhouse, the lunatic 
 asylum, or the grave. 
 
 With regard to the public question, may we not say that mar- 
 riage is a failure, when it fills the world with children who ought 
 never to have been born, who can not be properly supported by 
 their parents when young, or cannot support themselves when 
 grown up, and when it crowds town and country alike with 
 citizens who, whether they be good or bad, are absolutely de trap. 
 
 I would say, therefore, that the State ought — 
 
 1. To have the power of vetoing every individual marriage. 
 
 2. To restrict still further than it has yet done the limits of age. 
 
 3. To prevent criminals and diseased persons from ever be- 
 coming parents. 
 
 4. To interest itself in providing, as far as possible, for the 
 most desirable combinations, so that the children born into the 
 world shall be fit to live in it. — I am. Sir, yours obediently, 
 
 A MARYLEBONE CURATE. 
 Grove Road, N.W. , Aug. 27. 
 
 The Unwilling Lover. 
 
 Sir, — In my humble opinion, the gravest error arises, not from 
 wedlock itself being unduly binding, but from the fact that before 
 the final knot is tied it is generally considered too late to revoke 
 the often regretted words which formed the first bond. Women 
 are almost always to blame for this. I do not say so without due 
 consideration. With very few exceptions, they are so determined 
 to be married that they keep an evidently unwilling " lover " to 
 his former word, even when the most obtuse can see that he is 
 anxious to be free. I fancy that engagement was originally insti- 
 tuted as a prelude to matrimony, in order that people might obtain 
 an intimate knowledge of each other's dispositions before they 
 were irrevocably bound. Now-a-days this is impossible, for an en- 
 gaged man is considered by his fiande and her friends to belong 
 to her as much as if he were already married. — Yours, &c., 
 
 A MAID OF EIGHTEEN. 
 Southampton, Aug. 20, 
 
254 -^•f Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 Legitimacy from the Mother. 
 
 Sir, — I have long wondered why some social reforming M.P. 
 like Mr. Bradlaugh has not yet brought in a bill to enact that 
 every child born shall be legitimate of its mother. The present 
 bastardy laws are barbarous in the extreme, and are the cause of 
 a large amount of crime, and also of an appalling amount of 
 misery to the mothers and their unoffending offspring. If such 
 an Act as I have suggested were passed, a child born out of wed- 
 lock would inherit its mother's property, and preserve the chain 
 of title to property on its mother's side in case of intestacy. It 
 would also occupy the same position as a child born in wedlock, 
 while there would be no social or other disgrace. — Yours, &c., 
 
 SOLICITOR. 
 
 Clififord's Inn, E.G., Aug. 20. 
 
 Breach of Promise. 
 
 Sir, — I agree with " Scriptum " that greater facilities should be 
 allowed to young people for thoroughly making each other's 
 acquaintance, and that the breaking off of courtships should not 
 be looked upon as such a dreadful crime. Surely it is very much 
 better for a girl to lose a lover than to persist in fostering a dead 
 affection. For the same reason, I think that actions for breach 
 of promise, except in very exceptional cases, should not be en- 
 couraged, as the amusement which they afford to the British 
 public does not, to my mind, outweigh the evil lesson taught 
 to young people that an engagement to marry, once made, is 
 Medo-Persian law. — Yours, &c., 
 
 JACQUES. 
 
 Manchester, Aug. 23. 
 
 Baron Humboldt s Opinion. 
 
 Sir, — In your issue of the 20th inst. " Dore " proposes a plan 
 that he thinks would meet the wishes of most of your correspon- 
 dents, as to which, with your permission, I should like to say a 
 few words. "\\^ith the plan itself for annulling marriages contracted 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 25 S 
 
 before the registrar I have no fault to find, and I entirely concur 
 in the grounds on which he supports that proposal ; but is he 
 speaking consistently with the truth when he states that Roman 
 Catholic marriages are " indissoluble, Parliament having no 
 power to contravene the laws of the Church, because they are the 
 laws of God " ? If a Roman Catholic husband or wife, married 
 according to the rites of that Church, were to sue for dissolution 
 of marriage in the Divorce Court, would not their petition be 
 heard and adjudicated on just the same as that of anyone else ? 
 I may be wrong, but this is certainly the view which I have 
 always entertained. Then, again, by the laws of the Church of 
 Rome, which, according to your correspondent, are " the laws of 
 God,'' the legitimisation of children by subsequent marriage is 
 not only enjoined but enforced ; yet Parliament has always 
 refused to incorporate that provision in the law of England. 
 
 But the plan of your correspondent, even if adopted, would not 
 meet the views of those who, with Mrs. Mona Caird and Baron 
 Wilhelm von Humboldt, believe in free marriage. I hope 
 before this correspondence closes you will allow me to quote 
 the words of the last-named distinguished German diplomatist, 
 who, writing on the subject of contracts in his Sphere and 
 Duties of Government, says: "When such a personal relation 
 arises from the contract as not only to require certain single 
 actions, but, in the strictest sense, to affect the person and influ- 
 ence the whole manner of his existence; where that which is done 
 or left undone is in the closest dependence on internal sensations, 
 the option of separation should always remain open, and the step 
 itself should not require any extenuating reasons. Thus it is with 
 matrimony." 
 
 In my letter, which you were good enough to publish on Aug. 
 28 last, I proposed that all children registered as their offspring in 
 the names of father and mother should be deemed legitimate. I 
 have not observed that my proposal has been objected to, in the 
 course of the subsequent correspondence, or that any arguments 
 against it have been offered ; and I still submit it is the only 
 system that would meet the requirements of those who conscien- 
 
256 Is Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 tiously believe in, and elect to practise, free marriage. Such a 
 provision might be conceded in their case, without in any way 
 interfering with the present state of the law relating to marriages 
 contracted under the sanction of the State. — Yours, &c., 
 
 REFORMER. 
 
 Westminster, Sept. 22. 
 
 Two Kinds of Marriage Contracts : Dissoluble and Indissoluble. 
 
 Sir, — A plan has occurred to me which I think would meet 
 the wishes of most of your correspondents. 
 
 Let all marriages contracted before the registrar, either at his 
 office or at Dissenting chapels, be made terminable at any time 
 by the mutual consent of the parties, for it is plain that those 
 whom the law has bound together the law has the power to put 
 asunder. 
 
 Marriage in the Church of Rome being a Sacrament is indis- 
 soluble. Parliament having no power to contravene the laws of 
 the Church, because they are the laws of God. 
 
 People would then be able to choose for themselves, either to 
 
 make a civil contract, which, from due cause and mutual consent, 
 
 might legally be terminated, or to be ecclesiastically married. 
 
 — Faithfully yours, 
 
 J. R. DORE. 
 
 Huddersfield, Sept. 19. 
 
 Six Restrictions and Alterations necessary. 
 
 Sir, — I trust that this most interesting and useful correspondence 
 will not be allowed to cease without a genuine effort being made 
 to act upon some of the suggestions thrown out by your corre- 
 spondents. I would propose that an association be formed for 
 the purpose of bringing prominently before the Houses of Lords 
 and Commons, and the public generally, the following suggested 
 alterations in our, at present, faulty marriage system ; 
 
 1. No man under the age of twenty-five, or woman under the 
 age of twenty, to be permitted to marry. 
 
 2. Before any marriage can take place the contracting parties 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 257 
 
 to produce a certificate of birth and a doctor's certificate, 
 showing that both are fit physically and mentally to enter upon 
 the marriage state. 
 
 3. If either of the contracting parties be subsequently found to 
 be suffering from hereditary or other disease, insanity, consump- 
 tion, or incurable intemperance, the marriage to be at once 
 declared void, and the offending party to be punished with 
 imprisonment. 
 
 4. A sentence of penal servitude to at once dissolve a marriage. 
 
 5. Legal separation and divorce to be made easier and cheaper. 
 
 6. The marriage service to be revised. 
 
 CONSERVATIVE. 
 
 Dorset Square, Aug. 20. 
 
 A Twelve Months' Probation. 
 
 Sir, — I would suggest that early marriages should be forbidden 
 by law, and that twenty-one years for both, or nineteen for the 
 woman and twenty-one for the man, should be fixed as the 
 minimum age for contracting marriages in any shape or form. 
 The same Legislature should require a certificate that the parties 
 have kept company at least twelve months previous to marriage, 
 and either party should be at liberty to break off the engagement 
 without being hable to an action for " breach of promise ". But 
 I would further suggest a formal betrothal at the end of, or 
 towards the end of, the twelve months' courtship to marry within 
 a fixed or at a fixed date; and that betrothal should not be 
 annulled without heavy penalties. 
 
 As to those who, notwithstanding the twelve months given 
 them to study one another's habits and temper, fail to learn the 
 lesson let them live separate, or even get divorced " by mutual 
 consent " as " A Wise Old Maid " says, rather than lead unhappy 
 and unprofitable lives, or go back to the "free marriages" of 
 savages and heathens. — Yours, &c., 
 
 COMMON-SENSE PARSON. 
 
 Bromley, Aug. 20. 
 
2S8 Is Marriage a Failure i 
 
 The "dear old" Queen' s ■ Proctor. 
 
 Sir, — Some of your correspondents have, I think, hit the right 
 nail on the head when they urge that marriage should be dis- 
 soluble by mutual consent. Few or none of them, however, have 
 given the most urgent reason for this argument, which is surely to 
 be found in the undoubted fact that most, or very many, divorces 
 are procured by collusion, the man frequently being forced to sin 
 and the woman to commit perjury to procure the freedom which 
 both crave. I know of three, at least, which have been so pro- 
 cured within the last four or five years, without the dear old 
 Queen's Proctor being a bit the wiser, and it seems to me 
 monstrous that such things should be. Surely divorce by mutual 
 consent would be far preferable, and could injure neither so much 
 as enforced union. If there were thus some hope for the wretched 
 and unhappily-united ones, instead of only for the wicked, there 
 would be an increased number of marriages, and even I should 
 not, perhaps, be obliged to sign myself 
 
 A WISE OLD MAID. 
 
 Westminster Palace Hotel, S.W., Aug. 17. 
 
 " Hand-fasting ". 
 
 Sir, — I do not notice that any writer has yet touched upon the 
 Welsh system of "hand-fasting," or, in other words, probation- 
 ship in marriage. Judging by the very few complaints that reach 
 our ears from Wales, there must be some merit in the system 
 obtaining amongst the natives. — Yours, &c., 
 
 W. MORRELL. 
 
 Stratford, Aug. 23, i888. 
 
 U'kat Mr, Justice Hannen thinks. 
 
 Sir, — It is marvellous how every one of your correspondents 
 overlooks the point. They are discussing the accidents and 
 environments of particular marriages, but not one of them has so 
 much as mentioned the vital essence of the institution of marriage 
 itself. Voluntary cohabitation is possible under other systems. 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 259 
 
 The first and last principle of marriage is compulsory cohabitation 
 for life ; therefore, it is only when compulsion comes into play 
 that the institution is operating. Your correspondent " Blue 
 Ensign,'' who derives such happiness from the spectacle of the 
 consumption of raspberry jam by his son Johnny, will perhaps be 
 surprised to hear that he is practically living a life of free love ; 
 but such is the melancholy fact. All couples who are living 
 together because they like to Uve together are living in a state of 
 free love. Marriage has no more to do with their happiness than 
 has Tenterden steeple. It is only when a couple are not happy 
 and are not permitted to separate that the machinery of marriage 
 is working. Those who confound free love with licentiousness 
 ought to listen, not to speak. They have nothing to teach, and 
 everything to learn. Every atom of the happiness that is 
 attributed to marriage is the sole and exclusive property of love. 
 
 " Upon my word," once remarked Mr. Justice Hannen — "Willis 
 V. Willis," Dec. 7, 1882 — " I am not astonished at anyone 
 assisting a woman in resisting this jurisdiction, which only exists 
 here, and which I wish did not exist here, namely, the power to 
 commit a woman to prison because she will not live with a man 
 she does not care for.'' In other words, reduce marriage to its 
 logical elements, and it is so inexpressibly revolting that it shocks 
 even Mr. Justice Hannen out of his judicial propriety. 
 
 The question " Is Marriage a Failure ? " has been answered by 
 events. The principle of divorce is flatly inconsistent with the 
 principle of marriage. When divorce was permitted the failure of 
 marriage was confessed. 
 
 A melancholy feature of this correspondence is the smug 
 selfishness displayed by nearly all those who represent themselves 
 as having married happily, and their callous — in some cases, 
 insolent — indifference to the fate of those who are less fortunate. 
 Charity they will never learn, for that is the offspring of sorrow ; 
 but at least let them refrain from shaking in the ears of wiser 
 men their tinkling cymbal. — Yours, &c., 
 
 THE SIBYL. 
 Cums, Aug. 15. 
 
26o Is Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 Legitimacy by Registration. 
 
 Sir, — The only valid and reasonable objection which I have 
 ever heard to a system of free union between intelligent and 
 educated persons of opposite sexes is the disability entailed upon 
 the children of such unions from their being deemed illegitimate 
 under our present laws. Why should not an Act be passed to 
 legitimise all children duly registered by the father and mother as 
 their offspring ? One of your correspondents proposes to make 
 all children legitimate of their mother, but I do not see why his 
 idea should not be extended as I have suggested. — Yours, &c., 
 
 REFORMER. 
 
 Westminster, Aug. 25. 
 
 " Let the Registrar judge !" 
 
 Sir, — In all the interesting correspondence you have published 
 on this subject there are few practical proposals that could be 
 turned to a beneficial account. The law of divorce, as it at 
 present exists, is a law for moneyed people only, and I venture 
 to say for every case that is brought into court 200 or 300 
 " sweat and groan under a weary life " simply through lack of 
 means to avail themselves of our expensive legal machinery. 
 What avails the law of divorce to men and women who are without 
 means to make known the cruel wrongs they sacrifice their lives 
 to ? The number in society is comparatively few who can afford 
 to deposit ;^So or ;^ioo in the hands of a lawyer in hope of 
 redress. This bars the great bulk of our population from the 
 remedy. Marriage by registration is simple enongh. Why not 
 the dissolution of it in some equally simple manner, on production 
 of sufficient proof ? If, after marriage, a couple cannot decently 
 tolerate each other, let them make a declaration to that effect 
 before the registrar, such declaration to be taken as a notice of 
 divorce. If both parties are in the same temper and disposition, 
 say, six or twelve months after, let them again appear and ask and 
 get a final separation : this appears to me a simple and practical 
 proposition. The case of the children, if any, can be mutually 
 
The Remedies Proposed. 261 
 
 arranged, and the public can be saved at least a vast amount of 
 fetid reading of nauseous details ; while the rich, who often want 
 to wash their linen in public, should be made to pay the entire 
 cost of law proceedings — so much per day for the salary of judge, 
 officials, rent of court, &c. — for I do not see why these heavy 
 expenses should be borne by ratepayers, who, in addition to being 
 mulct in this particular, have to listen to the revolting details of 
 the contending parties. 
 
 Let the law fix the age of the woman at twenty, the man at 
 twenty-five. 
 
 Let there be a heavy tax on bachelors from this age. 
 
 Marriage is the gauge glass of our civilisation, and ever must be. 
 Uon't talk of legalising free love. Heaven must shed a tear over 
 the victims of that who now exist in this country. 
 
 T. W. W. 
 
 Ludgate Hill, Aug. 25. 
 
 A long required Law. 
 
 Sir, — You would earn a heartfelt blessing from many a mother 
 with aching heart if your ably supported paper, with the help of 
 your numerous correspondents, should lead to passing a long 
 required law, viz., making illegitimate children legitimate on their 
 mother's marriage with the father. Why should the sins of the 
 parents be visited upon the innocent children ? If not, indeed, 
 marriage in our case must remain a failure. 
 
 INWARD GRIEF. 
 
 Kensington, S.W., Sept. 6. 
 
CHAPTER VIII.— APPENDIX. 
 
 A SURVEY OF THE LAWS OF MAR- 
 RIAGE AND DIVORCE. 
 
 WE suppose that no such mass of evidence on the success 
 or the reverse of matrimony as a social institution has 
 ever been presented to inquirers as that which is by this little 
 work rendered available. It certainly invites the attention and 
 serious consideration of all who are concerned in the study of 
 Sociology ; but its interest extends to the many who are less 
 ambitious in their mental exercises, and as we are commonly 
 reputed to be a practical nation, our readers will probably expect 
 the evidence thus furnished to be followed up by some reliable 
 information as to the various ways into and out of the marriage 
 state which are provided by the laws of divers nations. Incidental 
 allusion to these has already been made in the course of the 
 correspondence itself, and those who have studied it can scarcely 
 need any further information as to our own laws on the subject ; 
 but as regards those of other countries a more specific treatment 
 of the subject may possibly be of service to any adventurous 
 readers who may wish to apply the information they have 
 received. 
 
 A history of the Law of Marriage might perhaps be made more 
 interesting to the general public than most matters relating to 
 jurisprudence ; a detailed analysis and comparative presentment 
 of the various marriage laws at present in force among the civil- 
 ised might perhaps be a useful contribution to social science ; 
 but of course we cannot here attempt either the one or the 
 other. The limits of the work only permit of a brief survey of 
 the subjects thus suggested. 
 
A Survey of the Laws of Marriage and Divorce. 2,61 
 
 One can scarcely treat of any aspect of comparative law with- 
 out making more or less reference to the celebrated Roman juris- 
 prudence, which has exercised paramount influence on the laws of 
 all Western nations, and which was the very fans et origo of the 
 greater part of continental law. From it, on the one hand, and 
 the Christian religion on the other, have sprung almost all the 
 laws and customs respecting marriage which practically concern 
 us. And though they have acted simultaneously and with many 
 an interaction and counteraction, it is comparatively easy to dis- 
 tinguish the influence of each. In short, it is by such distinc- 
 tion that we are best able to classify the laws of modern Europe. 
 
 From the jurisprudence of Rome we derive that view of 
 marriage which now particularly distinguishes the law of Scotland, 
 and of those continental nations which have to a greater or less 
 extent adopted the Code Napoleon. With these the primary 
 aspect of marriage is that which regards it as a consensual civil 
 contract. It is true that this conception respecting it was only 
 reached by the Roman lawyers as the result of a long historical 
 development, and after a vast amount of learned discussion. In 
 the early stages of civilisation, while it was still distinguished 
 by the severe doctrines of patria potestas and the tutelage of 
 women, there was certainly very little of a contractual element 
 about it. 
 
 Time was when the amorous bridegroom, in far too great a 
 hurry to collect or consider evidence as to whether marriage 
 was a failure or not, helped himself to the possession of the 
 damsel of his choice by the summary process of stealing her — 
 
 Convey, the wise it call. 
 And as long as a procedure more or less resembling this obtained, 
 the transaction was not inaptly classed by the learned under the 
 head of conveyances rather than of contracts. 
 
 One would scarcely expect to find surviving amongst us still 
 any relic of this primitive matrimonial procedure ; but old cus- 
 toms, as Sir Henry Maine has shown us, often contain in them 
 curious fossilised fragments of ancient history ; and it is quite 
 possible that the time-honoured practice of hurling shoes and 
 
264 Is Marriage a Faihwe ? 
 
 other articles of household .stuff after the newly-wedded, though 
 now deemed to be a token of good-will, had its origin in a far 
 different motive; that in it we see surviving a symboUcal por- 
 trayal of the rage of the deceived or defrauded parents, and of an 
 attempted pursuit. 
 
 But the days of the rape of the Sabine women lie in the very 
 dim distance ; and in the early times of reliable Roman history 
 the transaction of marriage certainly had more of a contractual 
 character. Such contract as there was, however, was entered 
 into, not between the bridegroom and bride, but was in the 
 nature of a purchase from the bride's father ; and the effect of it 
 was the transfer of the wife from the potestas of the father to that 
 of the husband. There were, indeed, two other species of 
 marriage in use contemporaneously with this co-emptio, or bargain 
 and sale. The ceremony of confarreatio was a religious cejebra- 
 tion, of which a flour offering formed a part, and with it, perhaps, 
 are connected those libations of rice still associated with the 
 English wedding and the Roman carnival. In the more plebeian 
 marriage by usus, the property in the wife was transferred to the 
 husband by a kind of prescription, unbroken possession for a year 
 sufficing to effect a transmutation of right. But the effect of all 
 the three methods was much the same as regards the woman's 
 status : in any event, she practically became in law the daughter 
 of her husband. By a gradual process, however, and under in- 
 fluences which we need not stay to specify, all three kinds of civil 
 marriage fell into desuetude ; and in the later days of the 
 Republic, and from thenceforward, a form of marriage was 
 adopted by which the wife remained a member of her parents' 
 familia, and subject only to their family rights. The tendency 
 was towards the disappearance of the conveyancing character of 
 thp transaction, and the substitution of a more personally con- 
 tractual character. 
 
 The natural effect on marriages of this kind of the relaxation of 
 the once oppressive doctrines of family right was to confer on the 
 Roman matrons of later days an extraordinary degree of personal 
 and proprietary freedom. And further, the dissolution of such 
 
A Survey of the Laivs of Marriage and Divorce. 265 
 
 unions was almost as easy a matter as their establishment. As 
 far as the law was concerned mere consent suiSced to effect a 
 divorce ; nay, more than this, by the will of the husband alone 
 the connexion might be completely severed, and as long as this 
 legal power was unrestrained by extra-legal influences, there was 
 certainly little to distinguish such marriages from what would now 
 be styled concubinage. Juvenal testifies to the fact that, in his 
 day at least, there was every disposition to take full advantage of 
 the facilities offered by the law : 
 
 Sic crescit numerus, sic fiunt octo mariti 
 Quinque per autumnos. — {Sat., I. 6, 228). 
 
 A more reputable character was impressed upon Roman marriages 
 at a little later period by the circumstance that there was an ever- 
 growing disposition to treat cruel or capricious separations with 
 moral opprobrium. What the Praetors could not prevent the 
 Censors could and did effectually discountenance. Their inter- 
 ference, moreover, was of much greater authority and effect than 
 are the frowns and headshakings of the modern Mrs. Grundy. 
 They had and they exercised the power to inflict punishment, 
 even on senators who rendered themselves obnoxious to their 
 informal equity. 
 
 It is not surprising that when the influence of an ascetic 
 Christianity began to make itself felt, a powerful assistance was 
 added to the moral feeling in favour of the stability of the 
 marriage tie, and of reducing the extreme personal freedom 
 enjoyed by married women. The ancient power of the family 
 could not, indeed, be restored ; but the ecclesiastical law suc- 
 ceeded in attributing to the husband in its place a marital right 
 scarcely inferior to that which, in the early days, he had been 
 wont to secure by purchase. The liberty of consensual divorce 
 soon became, under this same influence, replaced by enactments 
 specifying the legal conditions on which alone it could be 
 obtained. Some of these are curious in themselves, and still 
 more so in the light which they throw on the social conditions of 
 the time. For instance, under Constantine, a wife might be 
 divorced on any one of three grounds : adultery, the preparing of 
 
266 Is Marriage a Failure .? 
 
 poisons, or acting as a procuress. Three grounds also availed as 
 against a husband : his conviction of murder, the preparing of 
 poisons, and, strange to say, the violating of tombs. By the time 
 of Justinian the law had been considerably changed and amplified. 
 Under his code a husband might be divorced for conspiracy 
 against the empire, for attempting his wife's life, for attempting 
 to induce her to commit adultery, for wrongfully accusing her 
 of adultery, and for taking a paramour into his home. Similar 
 relief might be obtained against a wife on the grounds of her 
 concealing plots against the empire, adultery, attempting her 
 husband's life, going to baths or banquets with other men, 
 remaining away from her home against her husband's wishes, 
 and, lastly, forsooth, going to a circus or theatre without his 
 consent ! 
 
 It would be impossible to trace in detail the long-continued 
 conflict between the canon and the civil lawyers, the vestiges of 
 which are still apparent enough. Apart altogether from the 
 theological controversy which arose as to the sacramental character 
 of the ceremony, of which more anon, the merely legal incidents 
 of the marital relation are found to vary just in proportion to the 
 greater or lesser influence of the canonists. Where they prevailed, 
 the status of the wife became one of extreme subordination. From 
 them the English common law derived the greater number of its 
 fundamental principles on the subject; and nowhere were the 
 harsh logical consequences of the husband's marital rights more 
 rigorously enforced than in our courts of law, so long as they were 
 untouched by the interference of equity and by legislation. On 
 the contrary, on the continent generally the more generous 
 principles of the Roman secular jurists prevailed, at last to find 
 expression in the Code Napoleon and the other codes based 
 thereon. 
 
 In other regions, such as Denmark and Sweden, which 
 remained until a comparatively late period untouched by 
 European civilisation, the archaic rules as to female subjection 
 led to results somewhat resembling those effected by the influence 
 of the Canon law amongst us. In Scotland also, notwithstanding 
 
A Survey of the Laivs of Marriage and Divorce. 267 
 
 the great deference paid to the Roman jurisconsults, the dis- 
 abilities of wives remained in great force. And thus, though not 
 in all cases by the same process, it came about that the harsher 
 forms of marital right were, in the middle ages, much more 
 conspicuous in Northern than in Southern Europe ; and the 
 contrast, though being continually reduced by remedial and 
 beneficent legislation, is still far from being extinguished. 
 
 But to pass from the antiquarian aspect of the subject, it is 
 apparent enough that in these days when women certainly will 
 not with impunity suffer themselves to be regarded or treated as 
 chattels, marriage, whatever else it may be, is indisputably a 
 contract. On the Continent, indeed, the old Roman way of 
 treating it rather as a bargain between families than as one 
 between individuals, is still more than traceable, but everywhere 
 the institution now rests on the basis of free and equal agreement 
 either between the principals or their parents. Most important 
 considerations, however, arise when it is asked whether, though in 
 one sense a contract, it is or is not at the same time something 
 more than a contract. Here the sacramental question arises, with 
 the effect of again dividing the marriage laws of Europe into two 
 distinct systems. We spoke above of the laws as they affected 
 the personal and proprietary rights of husband and wife ; the 
 point now in question is the ethical character of the union set up 
 between them. Where the churchmen had their way and 
 successfully asserted its claim to be deemed a Christian sacra- 
 ment as well as a consensual bargain, marriage has naturally been 
 placed on a higher status than that of mere municipal law. A 
 divine element has been ascribed to it, and the prudential 
 reasonings of earthly-minded jurists have been more or less 
 successfully kept at a distance by a power claiming a weightier 
 authority than theirs. By this power the sanction of the Church 
 was held necessary in addition to the consent of the parties in 
 order to effect a binding marriage, and, when once effected, the 
 bond was declared indissoluble. Quos Deus conjunxit, homo non 
 separet was its final answer to those who too late repented of an 
 unhappy assortment. On the other hand, where the interference 
 
 18 
 
268 Is Marriase a Failure ? 
 
 of the theologians was ineffectual, mere consent, more or less 
 satisfactorily evidenced, came to be all that was essential to the 
 constitution of a valid marriage. In no civilised modern society, 
 however, has a mere agreement of the parties been deemed 
 sufficient to dissolve the contract. The power to carry out such 
 an important purpose has always been reserved to itself by the 
 State. But whereas in those countries in which ecclesiastical 
 authority prevailed the indissolubility of the marriage status is the 
 starting point from which to trace the development of the Law of 
 Divorce, where the purely secular view of marriage has prevailed 
 the power to dissolve the marriage contract has always been 
 recognised, and all that law reformers have had to do has been to 
 determine the conditions and the procedure of carrying the 
 separation into effect. 
 
 We may take France and Scotland as two typical instances of 
 the contrast in question. As is well known, the French, notwith- 
 standing the backsliding of their government in religious matters, 
 have the advantage of many safeguards against hasty experiments 
 in matrimony which are quite unknown amongst us, cautious as 
 we are sometimes reputed to be. For instance, in the first place, 
 marriages cannot be legally celebrated until the parties have 
 respectively attained the ages of eighteen and fifteen years. 
 Here the limits of age, inconsiderately adopted from the laws of 
 a very different latitude, are so ridiculously low as fourteen and 
 twelve. Again, the Frenchman is an "infant" up to the age of 
 twenty-five ; and until then he cannot marry without the formal 
 consent of his parents, or, in the case of their death, of his grand- 
 parents, or failing them, of the " family council ". If between the 
 ages of twenty-five and thirty, he may not " change his condition " 
 until he has twice, at intervals of a month, formally asked the 
 " respectful advice " of his parents, grandparents, or the council, 
 as the case may be. Even if over the somewhat mature age of 
 thirty, one such "act of respectful advice,'' as it is called, is neces- 
 sary. In the case of the woman, the corresponding limits of age 
 are twenty-one and twenty-five respectively. Further, the identity 
 of the parties must be fully proved before a state official ; the 
 
A Survey of the Lazvs of Marriage and Divorce. 26g 
 
 contract must be twice publicly announced at the town-hall ; and 
 although he may please himself (if the bride will let him) as to 
 whether he invokes clerical assistance or not to complete the 
 ceremony of subjugation, he must at least follow the dry formali- 
 ties of solemnly ratifying the contract in the presence of two 
 notaries and two witnesses. In Italy and Spain the course of 
 procedure is practically the same. Moreover, non-compliance 
 with these requirements of the law is, generally speaking, much 
 more serious in its consequences than a corresponding neglect or 
 contumacy would be amongst us. In England, the publication 
 of banns in a false name, if with the knowledge of both the 
 parties, does not affect the validity of the union ; and English 
 law cares precious little about the sentiments of parents and 
 famihes. But woe to the French lady if every jot and tittle of the 
 regulations has not been complied with, even though her marriage 
 may have been celebrated in England and fully in accordance 
 with English law. More than one has, through some inadvertence 
 or inattention to legal procedure, found herself the unconscious 
 heroine of a tragedy of " Wife and no wife". 
 
 And where the laws of union are thus strict, it is not surprising 
 that to undo what has taken so much trouble to effect is pro- 
 portionally difficult. Until 1792 the disappointed inart or mariee 
 might repent at as much leisure as the remainder of his or her 
 miserable life might afford. But holy Church had uttered its 
 Quos Deus, &c., and there was no help for them but death. 
 Under the revolutionary government and the first empire the 
 indulgence of divorce was allowed on very easy terms, the 
 formally declared desire of both parties being sufficient to give 
 jurisdiction to a court of law to annul the contract. In 18 16, the 
 power of divorce was abolished, but a judicial separation might be 
 secured on terms which previously warranted the application of 
 the more drastic remedy. Of recent years the power of divorce 
 has been revived, and now a husband may claim this relief on the 
 ground of the wife's adultery ; and a wife on the ground of the 
 husband's adultery, whether or not aggravated, as the Code 
 Napoleon required, by the circumstance of his bringing his 
 
270 Is Marriage a Failure i 
 
 concubine into his house. Either may seek the reUef on the 
 ground of outrageous conduct or ill-usage, or on that of itijure, a 
 term scarcely capable of translation and of very elastic import, 
 the judicial interpretation of which can scarcely be said to be yet 
 fixed. Lastly, they may claim separation by common consent, 
 providing the same is supported by the parents if living, and that 
 the marriage has not subsisted more than twenty years. The 
 laws of Italy and Spain do not sanction divorce, but permit of 
 judicial separation for practically the same reasons as those 
 sufficing in France for a decree of divorce. In Ireland, in 
 which the Roman Catholic influence has been still more potent, 
 divorce is on no ground available for a wife ; and a husband can 
 only obtain it by a complicated series of legal processes, winding 
 up with the expensive luxury of an Act of Parliament. 
 
 Now we may turn to Scotland as presenting an example of a 
 marriage law which, in its extreme liberality, contrasts remarkably 
 with the above. The law of Scotland recognises three distinct 
 modes of constituting marriage, one called "Regular" and two 
 called "Irregular''. Of "regular" marriages it is scarcely neces- 
 sary to speak at length. The procedure by publication of banns 
 and so forth is sufficiently similar to the hum-drum, every-day 
 practice which everyone knows to pass without particular com- 
 ment. The one important point of difference is that the presence 
 of a minister of religion at the time of the solemnisation suffices 
 to give the marriage the character of having been celebrated in 
 fade ecdesice, wherever and whenever the celebration may have 
 taken place ; and, as a matter of fact, marriages are commonly 
 solemnised in private houses. The consent of parents or guardians 
 is not necessary even in the case of minors. 
 
 It is, however, the irregular procedure which has conferred such 
 celebrity upon Scotch marriage law. This fully recognises the 
 principle that "consent makes marriage". "No form or cere- 
 mony, civil or religious, no notice before or pubUcation after, no 
 consummation or cohabitation, no writing, no witnesses even are 
 essential to the constitution of this, the most important contract 
 which two private parties can enter into." Such are the words of 
 
A Survey of the Laws of Marriage and Divorce. 271 
 
 Lord Deas in his judgment in Leslie v. Leslie (Court of Session 
 Report, 2nd Series, xxii., p. 993). The application of this broad prin- 
 ciple has given rise to two forms of irregular marriages : first, Per 
 verba de praesenti, that is, by some present interchange of consent to 
 become immediately and thenceforth man and wife. Such an agree- 
 ment in public or in private, whether subsequently acknowledged or 
 not, whether followed or not by the performance of marital duties, 
 constitutes a valid marriage. The second class is constituted by 
 a promise of future marriage followed by marital intercourse ; but 
 in order to render a marriage of this kind effectual, the promise 
 must be proved by writing under the hand of the party, or by his 
 or her confession on oath. A common notion has been enter- 
 tained that a marriage may be constituted by mere " habit and 
 repute," or the reputation of being married persons acquired 
 amongst friends and acquaintances by living together as man and 
 wife. But such reputation merely establishes a presumption or 
 admissible evidence in favour of marriage. It does not of itself 
 effect any binding relation between the parties. 
 
 It was this state of the law which, for a long time, conferred 
 such notoriety on the celebrated blacksmith of Gretna Green, a 
 personage who, in days when novel-readers and play-goers took 
 more interest in the making than in the breaking of hymeneal 
 vows, was of inestimable service to writers of fiction, dramatic 
 and otherwise. His lucrative occupation was sadly restricted by 
 Lord Brougham's Act, which, in 1855, enacted that no irregular 
 marriage should thenceforward be valid unless one of the parties 
 had at the date thereof his or her usual place of residence in 
 Scotland, or had lived there for twenty-one days next preceding 
 such marriage. The benefit (or otherwise) of Scotch facilities 
 was thus lost to impatient fugitives from England, but though a 
 recent statute by a simplification of procedure has given a very 
 desirable encouragement to regular marriages, the Scotch prin- 
 ciple of marriage by consent still continues in full force and 
 application. 
 
 Under these circumstances it is not surprising to find that on 
 the question of divorce the Scotch lawyers have been less tram- 
 
272 Is Marriage a Failure 
 
 melled by the influence of the doctors of divinity than their 
 brethren in more ecclesiastically-guided nations. Two grounds of 
 divorce are recognised — Adultery and Desertion ; and, herein 
 differing from English law, the same treatment is applied to the 
 husband as to the wife. Mere adultery, for instance, is sufficient 
 ground for a wife to obtain divorce a vinculo. No such half-way 
 house as judicial separation need be resorted to. Moreover, 
 desertion, or, as the Scotch call it, non-adherence for a period of 
 four years, is a ground per se for procuring an absolute dissolution 
 of the contract. Cruelty, on the other hand, as long as there 
 is adherence, is of no avail as a plea for relief It is observable 
 that while three weeks' residence suffices to bring one within the 
 privileges to the marriage law of Scotland, the divorce jurisdiction 
 does not arise until a residence of forty days has been completed. 
 Thus any English readers who may be disposed to invest their 
 fortune in a Scotch marriage may be assured of at least nineteen 
 days of married life. 
 
 Where there exist such striking differences between the mar- 
 riage laws of two nations so nearly connected and in such con- 
 tinual intercourse with one another as the English and Scotch, it 
 is not surprising that occasional inconveniences result therefrom. 
 It is, to say the least, awkward to find yourself a bachelor on 
 one side of a road and a Benedict on the other ; your children 
 legitimate here, illegitimate there ; and this may the more easily 
 be so, inasmuch as marriage legitimises previously-born issue in 
 Scotland, while here it has no such humane effect. But few, how- 
 ever, have been victimised so severely by the conflict of laws as 
 was one Lolley some seventy years ago. This unfortunate, having 
 first been married in England, so far found that transaction a fail- 
 ure as to find himself shortly afterwards compelled to submit to a 
 decree of divorce absolute pronounced in Scotland on the ground 
 of his own adultery. Being divorced, and, as he naturally thought, 
 free to marry again in any free country, he did so marry in Eng- 
 land — whereupon a prosecution for bigamy, and v hat was worse, 
 conviction. Adultery alone was no sufficient ground for divorce 
 absolute in English law, and it was then held that an English 
 
A Survey of the Lmvs of Mari-iage and Divorce. 273 
 
 Court would not recognise a divorce pronounced elsewhere on a 
 ground insufficient here to support such a decree. The first mar- 
 riage thus remained valid in England, and an imprisonment for 
 some years was the penalty for an insufficient knowledge of a 
 rather knotty point of private international law. It is satisfactory 
 to note that a very recent decision of the House of Lords has 
 now established the contrary principle, that a divorce pronounced 
 by a competent tribunal on whatever grounds, is to be deemed 
 valid to all intents and purposes, provided the parties were bona- 
 fide domiciled within the jurisdiction of the tribunal {Harvey v. 
 Farnie, 8 App., c. 43). The proviso effectually prevents the ob- 
 taining of a Scotch divorce by the means of a six weeks' tour in 
 the country, taken with the purpose of founding the necessary 
 jurisdiction ; but it saves a bonafde resident from finding himself 
 in such an awkward strait as poor Lolley. 
 
 But if complaint is not altogether unreasonable of the incon- 
 veniences (to use a mild term) which are sometimes suffered owing 
 to the diversity of the English and Scotch marriage laws, what, 
 then, may not be. said of the difficulties staring in the face of 
 those on matrimony bent in the United States of America ? Of 
 course, to persons who stay at home and do not trouble them- 
 selves with the affairs of their neighbours, the sailing is plain 
 enough. But just imagine the state of mind of a man or woman 
 whose lot it has been to wander about among the different States 
 of the Union, and who has been sufficiently curious to try to 
 ascertain what his matrimonial rights and obligations may be 
 here, there, and elsewhere. Qiiot homines tot sententice ; quot civi- 
 tates tot leges. In no two States out of the forty or thereabouts are 
 the laws of marriage and divorce alike. It would be impossible 
 to do more here than generally illustrate the confusion which 
 exists. A volume would scarce suffice to elucidate the matter in 
 detail. 
 
 For instance, as to the age at which a lawful marriage can be 
 celebrated : in one State the old English limits of fourteen and 
 twelve years respectively are adhered to ; another postulates the 
 attainment of sixteen and fourteen ; in another the husband must 
 
274 ^-f Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 be at least seventeen ; in another eighteen and the wife fifteen ; 
 while in Washington the limits are so abnormally high as twenty- 
 one and eighteen respectively. Sometimes the consent of parents 
 is required with something more or less approaching the strictness 
 of the French law ; sometimes the parents are deemed as little 
 worthy of consideration as they are in England. 
 
 Again, as to the degrees of consanguinity or affinity which may 
 amount to a ban of marriage, it would be tedious to specify the 
 variety of opinion. The poor deceased wife's sister is, we believe, 
 everywhere entitled to the consolation of marrying her brother-in- 
 law, if she can get him to the same way of thinking as herself; 
 but in New Hampshire, Ohio, and Indiana, first cousins may not 
 marry ; in Nevada and Washington no relations nearer in blood 
 than second cousins. In many States affinity in the ascending or 
 descending scales only prevents the alliance, while in Vermont 
 and elsewhere some very cautious jurists have thought it worth 
 while to solemnly enact that a man shall not marry his mother-in- 
 law. We can well imagine an astonished Yankee exclaiming 
 " Great Scott, I reckon I should never have thought of that ". 
 
 Most alarming perplexities might arise in case of an amorous 
 attachment between persons of different races. For instance in 
 Nevada and Arizona marriage with a full-blooded Chinese is 
 illegal ; in Indiana and Oregon the disability extends to one who 
 is half Chinese, whilst in Oregon a strain of Chinese extraction to 
 the extent of a quarter is sufficient. In many southern States 
 negroes are in the same position as the Chinese in Nevada ; but 
 here again there is no uniformity. On one side of a river a man 
 may marry a consort as black as he can find one ; on the other 
 negro blood, even to the extent of one-eighth, suffices to prevent 
 the legal union. Now, as negroes and Chinese are not wont to be 
 very exact in the preparation and maintenance of their pedigrees 
 and armorial bearings, as the very existence of half-castes, quarter- 
 castes, octoroons, and other combinations only expressible in 
 vulgar fractions in a community where marriages between black 
 and white are unsanctioned suggests frequent difficulties in the 
 way of tracing paternal descents, it may be well imagined that if 
 
A Survey of the Laws of Marriage and Divorce. 275 
 
 Cupid is as full of pranks as he was of old he may easily involve 
 his victims in inextricable legal toils. And especially so when we 
 add that, by way of further variety, it is sometimes a penal offence 
 to marry a negro, while the question as to the legal efficacy of the 
 contract, when entered into in defiance of the penalty, is left an 
 open question. 
 
 Perhaps, however, one of the greatest curiosities of marital law 
 is that which, in Pennsylvania and Tennessee, provides for an 
 Enoch Arden case. In the event of the disappearance of a 
 spouse for the space of two years, if the abandoned consort 
 bona fide believes in the death of the absent one, he or she may 
 contract a valid second marriage, is not punishable as for 
 bigamy, and may have legitimate offspring. ' So far, though the 
 time limit is very short, one might recognise a beneficent attempt 
 to meet a hard case. But it is a pity that when the Laureate 
 wrote his story he had not the advantage of concluding it in the 
 way which the laws referred to would warrant. They go on to 
 say that in case of such a second marriage it shall be open to 
 the party who has remained single (and presumably, we suppose, 
 faithful) to reclaim his (or her) former consort, or at his (or her) 
 option to leave her (or him) to the enjoyment of her (or his) 
 second choice. One is almost tempted to write a soliloquy for 
 Enoch, in which he weighs the pros and cons of the matter. His 
 wife's and Philip's suspense as to which way the decision will 
 turn would be a fine subject for pen or pencil. 
 
 Supposing a woman to have a penchant for men with migratory 
 instincts abnormally developed, it is obvious that in the space of 
 a moderate lifetime she might well have as many husbands as the 
 Samaritan herself, and all of them lawful in the bargain, without 
 any assistance from Death, and then might after all return to her 
 first choice. The family relationships arising in such a case 
 would give fine scope for the ingenuity of the corner-man 
 conundrum-inventor of negro minstrelsy. 
 
 Naturally the views as to the proper mode of celebrating 
 marriage are just as various as those respecting its other inci- 
 dents. Usually it is treated as a civil contract only, and in 
 
276 Is Marriage a Failure 
 
 Georgia, California, and elsewhere a freedom of process almost 
 equal to that of Scotland prevails. But we would advise any one 
 bent on experiment to carefully seek professional advice before 
 attempting to carry any impressions into practice. 
 
 Such contrasts as to the creation of the marriage contract are 
 tolerably striking ; but when we come to reverse the incantation, 
 when we proceed to enquire how to unravel the silken bonds, our 
 difficulties are perhaps greater still. 
 
 It is comforting to know that, with the exception of South 
 Carolina, an absolute divorce a vinculo is everywhere obtainable 
 for some reason or other, and by some process or other. It is 
 significant that in South Carolina, the lawyers, though refusing 
 divorce, have thought fit to provide for the disposition of a hus- 
 band's property amongst his concubines. On the whole, however, 
 the relief is very much more easily secured than it is on this 
 side of the ocean. In the great majority of the states there are 
 six general grounds on which a husband or wife whose own con- 
 duct is not impugned may lay claim to an absolute divorce. 
 Adultery is, of course, the most important. On this head, and 
 on the second, proved physical incapacity for marriage, there are 
 few differences worth specifying. In North Carolina, Kentucky, 
 and Tennessee, adultery on the part of the husband must, as in 
 England, be coupled with desertion or cruelty in order to entitle 
 a wife to relief. Desertion is a third general ground of action ; 
 but it is viewed with very different degrees of strictness. Some- 
 times a period of five years is specified, sometimes three, never 
 less than two, unless, of course, the desertion is joined with some 
 other source of complaint. There are some slight differences as 
 to the evidence required of the wilfulness or unreasonableness of 
 the desertion, but none that call for special notice. Nor, under 
 the next head, cruelty, is there any necessity to particularise, 
 though we may remark that, in Florida, the mere habit of violent 
 temper is sufficient in itself; but it is very noticeable how uni- 
 \'ersal is the consent to treat intoxication, apart froin any charge 
 of cruelty, as a sufficient plea for a divorce. The various statutes 
 differ in their description of the degree of drunkenness which will 
 
A Survey of the Laws of Marriage and Divorce. 277 
 
 suffice to call forth legal interference ; but the phenomena of 
 alcoholism are so irregular and undefinable that a precise refer- 
 ence to the language used would fail to serve as a reliable guide 
 to those who might be disposed to test its efficiency. Again, most 
 states provide that a criminal conviction for offences more or less 
 serious shall constitute a ground for a dissolution of the bond ; 
 but the differences in detail are very great. Some require the 
 infliction of a life sentence, others draw the line at three years, 
 others at one year ; in Minnesota it seems that any criminal 
 sentence will suffice. Wisconsin and Nebraska enjoy a very 
 economic mode of procedure, the mere fact of a sentence to three 
 years' imprisonment in the state prison operating ipso facto as a 
 sentence of divorce without further ado. Certain offences which 
 the law describes as " not to be named among Christians,'' and 
 which are therefore presumably only capable of being discussed 
 by lawyers, are, as in England, sufficient to found a decree. 
 
 These six general grounds of divorce are, as we have said, 
 practically common, in one form or another, to all the states ; it 
 is when we get beyond them that the most interesting compari- 
 sons present themselves, comparisons of the greatest value to the 
 historical student from the illustrations they afford of the origin 
 of the several colonies. The cause of action most commonly 
 recognised, after those already dealt with, is a failure on the part 
 of the husband who has means to properly support his wife. 
 This avails in a suit by a wife in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, 
 Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, Indiana, Michigan, Tennessee, 
 Washington, Delaware, and a few others ; and in some of these 
 it suffices for the wife to prove that the husband's lack of means 
 arises from his own profligacy or idleness. In California and 
 Dakota wilful neglect in an aggravated form is a good ground for 
 petition ; in Missouri and Wyoming the vagrancy of the husband 
 is of similar effect. In New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Ken- 
 tucky, if either party joins a soi-disant religious sect which believes 
 marriage unlawful — the Shakers, for instance — the other may 
 claim divorce ; a provision which we should imagine would be of 
 some service in assisting the proselytism of the sects in question. 
 
2/8 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 We have mentioned one or two pleas available from their very 
 nature to the wife only ; others are sometimes recognised which 
 can only assist the husband. The primitive Puritanism of Mary- 
 land is recognisable in the fact that it permits a husband to 
 divorce his wife on the discovery that she had been guilty of 
 fornication before marriage. In Kansas, Iowa, Virginia, West 
 Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Wyoming, Alabama, 
 Georgia, a wife discovered to have been enceinte at the time of 
 marriage may be forthwith put away; in Virginia and West 
 Virginia her conviction of previous prostitution, unknown to her 
 husband at the time of marriage, renders her equally liable to a 
 decree. On the other hand. West Virginia is so scrupulously 
 virtuous that even a husband is not safe if his record " prior to 
 marriage " proves to have been licentious ? " Quis ergo poterit 
 salvus esse 1 " 
 
 After considering all these paths out of the wood of matrimony, 
 one would have thought that the married state had been rendered 
 sufficiently precarious, but the legislators of Connecticut, Wis- 
 consin, Washington, and Arizona have judged otherwise. In 
 these states there is added a kind of omnibus clause, empowering 
 a judge at his own discretion to liberate the parties from their 
 bargain, for any reason which seems to him to render such a 
 course desirable. 
 
 When we have reviewed the above variations in the conditions 
 precedent of divorce, we are still far from having exhausted the 
 intricacies and difficulties of the American marriage jurisprudence. 
 There remain to be considered the differences of procedure and 
 the variety of defences which may be set up in case the law is 
 set in motion. Into these questions we cannot go. It suffices to 
 illustrate the numerous conflicts of law by remarking that con- 
 nivance at a marital offence when committed or condonation 
 thereof afterwards, though usually so, are not always sufficient 
 to bar the remedy. The same may be said of recrimination, 
 or the bringing home of guilt to the complaining party. There 
 are different time limits within which a suit must be commenced 
 after the discovery of the offence ; there are all sorts of conflictini^ 
 
A Sjirvey of the Laws of Marriage and Divorce. 279 
 
 laws as to the necessity or otherwise of the parties being resident 
 in the State in which they seek relief, and as to the locus in quo 
 the alleged offence has been committed, while as to rules of 
 evidence, we need only say that they are by no means simpler 
 than those which astonished the English lay mind by admitting 
 the decision that C was guilty of adultery with D, but that D was 
 not only innocent of adultery with C, but might leave the Court 
 sans peur et sans refroche. 
 
 Further, we must take account of the contrasted laws as to the 
 effects of the sentence when once it has with or without difficulty 
 been secured. Generally the parties are allowed to marry a 
 second time, after periods varying from six months to five years. 
 But in New York and Dakota no proved adulterer is permitted a 
 second participation in the status which he has dishonoured ; in 
 Maine he may only do so when so permitted by decree of the 
 Court ; in Missouri, Virginia, and Minnesota, the decree of the 
 Court may declare him incapable of remarriage ; in Delaware, 
 Tennessee, and Louisiana he may not marry his paramour, while 
 in Georgia the function of determining the effect of the decree 
 rests with the jury. We must also bear in mind that all the 
 States admit on one ground or other of a limited divorce or 
 judicial separation ; but the differences on this head are neither 
 so numerous nor so suggestive as to call for comment. 
 
 Behind all arises the moot point of international law as to 
 whether a divorce pronounced in one State for some given cause 
 should or should not be recognised as valid in another State in 
 which the cause in question would be insufficient ground for such 
 a decree. It has been mentioned already that the case of Harvey 
 v. Farnie (8 Appeal Cases, 213) has quite recently answered this 
 question affirmatively as regards England. The laws of Mas- 
 sachusets, Maine, Indiana, and Delaware are to the same effect ; 
 but elsewhere some uncertainty prevails, and, as in Lolley's case, a 
 man may perhaps some day be convicted of bigamy on one slope 
 of a hill after having been quite legally married on the other, or a 
 son may inherit in latitude 40° who would be deemed filius 
 miltius in latitude 39° 59'. But we dare not enter on the task of 
 
28o Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 working out the possibilities of relationship and of status which 
 might conceivably result from the chaos of laws of which we have 
 tried to give a rough idea. It would stretch the imagination of a 
 Gaboriau to weave such a web as might there gather round the 
 steps of an American Don Juan, and it would kill his readers to 
 try to unravel it. We leave the subject with the suggestion that 
 they may find here the means of inventing problems as to. how to 
 mate in five moves compared with which Morphy's chess nuts 
 would be child's play. 
 
 The laws of marriage and divorce in the various British 
 colonies, though they of course practically affect us more than the 
 divergence of views so fully displayed in America, do not call for 
 treatment at the same length, for the simple reason that, generally 
 speaking, the resemblance to our own law is very close. Wherever 
 we have set up a purely British colony, the laws of England have, 
 ipso facto, been planted on the new soil ; and even when the 
 growth of the several States has warranted their receiving a 
 Constitution and the setting up of local legislative machinery, we 
 find that few changes have been made beyond a somewhat more 
 formal expression of what had previously been recognised custom. 
 Where wc found other legal systems already in existence, they 
 have, at least on such social questions as those before us, been 
 little interfered with ; and all such cases require separate con- 
 sideration. Of course, India is a study in itself, many different 
 juristic systems being there collaterally administered. Roman 
 Dutch law prevails in Ceylon, in British Guiana, and at the Cape 
 of Good Hope ; French law rules in Mauritius and Lower 
 Canada ; Spanish law in some of the AVest Indies. These we may 
 presently glance at. The one subject of perennial interest, which 
 calls for mention in connexion with purely English Colonial law, 
 is that of marriage with a deceased wife's sister. 
 
 It is not within the scope of our present purpose to consider 
 this well-threshed subject on its merits. Search would have to be 
 made in some other world than this for anyone who could say 
 anything new about it, and it is a relief to be suffered to let it 
 alone. But the histor)' of the question is not without some interest. 
 
A Survey of the Laws of Marriage and Divorce. 281 
 
 The Americans seem to have led the way, or rather set the 
 example, of admitting these marriages. We have seen that the 
 States of the Union are, though in scarcely anything else, 
 unanimous on this point. Whether American experience pointed 
 to the fact that there was something exceptionally advantageous 
 in such marriages we cannot say ; but somehow or other English- 
 speaking people have almost everywhere come to their way of 
 thinking respecting it. South Australia was, we believe, the first 
 of our colonies to attempt the change, but for some considerable 
 time the Crown refused to assent to the proposal. Not until the 
 local legislature had on four successive occasions passed the bill 
 was the home opposition withdrawn. In 1870 the necessary 
 assent was given, and sisters-in-law rejoiced. 
 
 When once the barrier was opened the progress of the cause 
 was rapid enough. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, and 
 Western Australia soon followed suit, and in Canada, Ceylon, and 
 the principal islands of the West Indies the same change has since 
 been effected. In New Zealand and Natal the measure has quite 
 recently come into operation. It is observable that only in South 
 Australia has provision been made for the marriage also of a man 
 with his deceased wife sister's daughter. In colonies where 
 foreign laws prevail, the question of affinity is regulated by various 
 principles ; generally speaking, under French, Dutch, and Spanish 
 law, any impediment of affinity may be removed by special 
 dispensation. 
 
 Every one is more or less alive to the practical difficulties which 
 often arise owing to the conflict of home and colonial law on this 
 point, difficulties of the more frequent occurrence inasmuch as a 
 considerable proportion of our own public is impatient of the 
 restraint laid upon it. Few legal questions are of greater social 
 importance that those which concern the legitimacy of children. 
 Both sentiment and interest are liable to be at the same time 
 cruelly provoked by any surprise or disappointment on this head. 
 Whether then the English or the colonists are right, the fact that 
 they differ is an extremely unfortunate one. It is true that a 
 marriage recognised by local law between persons legally domiciled 
 
282 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 within its jurisdiction is deemed valid at home as well as abroad ; 
 but it is idle to expect amongst the classes who most largely avail 
 themselves of this law, an acquaintence with, or even the dimmest 
 notion of, the law of domicile. And even where the law is so far 
 complied with as to validate the marriage, a curious anomaly may 
 still arise owing to a doctrine specially affecting real property. 
 Whatever law may determine the right of marriage, it is well estab- 
 lished that the rules as to the descent of land depend solely on the 
 lex loci rei sitce. Hence if a colonist, who has married and had 
 issue by his deceased wife's sister abroad, having " made his pile," 
 comes home, invests in real estate and dies intestate, his wife and 
 children will find that, though quite legitimate enough to be able 
 to take the deceased's personal property, none of them can claim 
 as heir of the land ; a brother, a nephew, a remote cousin, even 
 the Crown might come in and disappoint the just expectations of 
 all the issue. Whatever may be said as to the reasonableness of 
 the complaint of those who marry in well-understood defiance of 
 the laws which are binding on them, the hardship will surely be 
 admitted where the marriage has been perfectly regular, and, this 
 notwithstanding, the children lose their status. 
 
 But we are getting dangerously near the controversy which we 
 determined to avoid. We shall be far enough away from the temp- 
 tation in considering some of the very foreign customs as to 
 marriage and divorce which prevail in our Indian Empire. In 
 speaking of India, it is hardly necessary to say that we are speak- 
 ing rather of a continent than of a nation. Laws, languages, 
 customs, and all the phenomena of social life present far more 
 striking contrasts within the limits comprised under that general 
 title than are to be found in the survey of Europe or of America. 
 Of the English Christian population we need scarcely speak ; as in 
 the Colonies, more strictly so-called, tliey have imported their own 
 laws for their own use, and with them, of course, the familiar 
 matrimonial procedure of our own churches and courts. Those, 
 however, whose lot it is to enter the judicial service of the Crown 
 in that great Empire, have to administer justice according to 
 principles of very different texture from those under which we live 
 
A Siut'ey of the Latvs of Marriage and Divorce. 283 
 
 and though, from the operation of certain elements of Hindu 
 character which may be alluded to, native matrimonial law rarely 
 comes under their cognisance, occasions do arise in which a 
 certain amount of acquaintance with the Vedas and laws of Manu 
 becomes essential. 
 
 We cannot, of course, do more than touch the fringe of the in- 
 tricate subject of Indian marriage laws and customs. We must 
 leave entirely out of view the multitude of local practices, varying 
 from the grossest polyandry, scarcely distinguishable from pro- 
 miscuous intercourse, to a pure and scrupulous monogamy ; but 
 there is so much of interest and of instruction attaching to the 
 subject of the general Hindu law . of marriage, as well from a 
 historical and ethnical as from a juristic point of view, that a 
 mention of some of its more important features can scarcely need 
 excuse. 
 
 In the treatment of Hindu law, it is first of all observable that 
 we here again have to deal with a sacramental view of marriage. 
 Marriage is with the Hindus pre-eminently a matter of religion. 
 Seeing that the lawful begetting of at least one son is in their view 
 an essential condition to the escaping of the tortures of hell or 
 put, it is not surprising that a ceremony, which necessarily 
 precedes the fulfilment of this condition, should be esteemed one 
 of the most solemn of the ten sanskars or mysteries. Indeed so 
 great is the importance attached to it that at a very early period in 
 the life of a child it is thought desirable for parents to bestir them- 
 selves with a view to his matrimonial settlement. It is true that 
 in certain castes there are prior ceremonies to be gone through, 
 the conditions of which may postpone the sacrament of marriage 
 until the age of eight, ten, or even twelve years ; but scarcely the 
 same importance is ascribed now, as formerly, to these preli- 
 minaries, and, strictly speaking, there is no limit of age necessary to 
 the assumption of marital obligations. Under the age of fifteen 
 years, however, no Hindu has the power of taking the matter into 
 his own hands. After that age it is rarely that he does so. Sufficient 
 remains of the principles of what, to us, seems ancient law to 
 make marriage in India pre-eminently s. family concern. 
 
 19 
 
284 is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 In accordance with ancient ideas also, the juristic aspect of the 
 transaction is that of a conveyance rather than a contract. 
 Marriage is essentially either the gift or the sale of the bride to 
 the bridegroom. Whether gift or sale depends upon which of the 
 several forms of the ceremony presently referred to is adopted. 
 Owing to the prominence of the family organisation, the personal 
 restrictions affecting the marital relation are numerous and far too 
 complicated for investigation here. It must suffice to mention 
 but a few particulars. Blood relationship to the sixth degree 
 operates as a bar, but the calculation of the degrees is by no 
 means a simple matter. Affinity is in no case an impediment ; 
 though it frequently happens that the cross relationships of 
 families interpose to prevent a marriage in a manner very 
 similar to the operation of affinity amongst Europeans. An: 
 important and characteristically Oriental rule is that which 
 forbids the marriage of a younger brother or younger sister 
 before an elder — a rule the inconvenience of which was pain- 
 fully experienced by Jacob in the tents of Laban. There 
 seems to be no lawful impediment to the second marriage of 
 widows, but when we remember how slowly and hardly prejudices 
 disappear in the E^st, and that up to 1829 widows were sacer- 
 dotally encouraged, if not enjoined, to immolate themselves on 
 their husband's pyre, it will be readily understood that the 
 practice is all but unknown. It is, moreover, a rigid rule that 
 the wife must always be younger than her spouse, and this alone 
 would bear hard on the prospects of second marriage in a com- 
 munity in which all men are supposed to make it a point of duty to 
 marry young. 
 
 We spare our readers the names and descriptions of the eight 
 forms of marriage which are or have been practised, notwithstand- 
 ing the great archaeological interest which attaches to them as 
 illustrating the manners of different periods in the development of 
 the nation. Suffice it to say that the more honourable forms 
 consist in the gift of the bride to the husband, expressed in sacra- 
 mental formulae which more than remind us of the early procedure 
 at Rome : that in other forms the transaction partakes of the 
 
A Survey of the Laws of Marriage and Divorce. 285 
 
 nature of a sale, in others portrays by symbol capture by violence, 
 in others seduction by deceit. The modern tendency naturally is 
 in the direction of favouring the simpler procedure. 
 
 But even yet the requisite ceremonies would be deemed uncon- 
 scionably tedious to western impatience. First of all comes the 
 celebration of betrothal, the principal feature of which seems to 
 be that the bride and bridegroom take seven steps with clasped 
 hands, reciting together a sacred hymn. Jurists have disputed 
 whether or not the ceremony of betrothal amounts in itself to a 
 valid marriage ; but the better opinion seems to be that it amounts 
 to no more than an executory contract, the specific performance 
 of which may be insisted on by the bridegroom. That the ritual 
 of marriage is by no means such a simple affair will at once be 
 seen when we say that two or three days are required for its full 
 performance. Its commencement is the solemn ablution or 
 bathing of the bride, during which are sung certain hymns which 
 it would be rather risky to quote ; but when we remember the 
 exordium of our own wedding service, and ask ourselves how the 
 same sentiments would sound if framed in verse by a classic poet 
 — Martial, for instance — we shall forbear to throw stones about 
 this. Then follows the bridegroom's procession to the home of 
 the bride, a feature reminding us much of the Gospel parable of 
 the marriage. Water is then presented for his ablution, and a 
 sacramental meal of cakes with butter and honey is partaken of 
 The hands of the happy pair are then joined and tied, and a hymn 
 to love is recited, this poem being quite decorous and full of 
 beauty. The joining of hands not being deemed sufficiently sym- 
 bolical of the completeness of the union, the skirts of the pair are 
 tied together, and a cow is first bound and then released. On the 
 following day the nuptial fire is kindled and oblations offered 
 thereat; then again the seven solemn steps of betrothal are 
 repeated, significant, it is believed, of the deliberation called for 
 by the contract. With the seventh step the validity of the marriage 
 is established ; but there remain further washings and recitals, and 
 the curious ceremony of pointing out the pole-star to the bride as 
 an emblem of stability ; finally the procession to the- bridegroom's 
 
286 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 home and a feast or breaking of bread, which reminds us again of 
 the Roman confarreatio. 
 
 It should not be supposed that the whole of this programme of 
 ordinances is essential to the valid celebration ; the use of the 
 more significant rites and recitals suffice for this, and doubtless 
 the modern tendency is in favour of abridgment ; but to those for 
 whom apt and expressive symbolism has not lost its charm, the 
 ritual presents many beauties, while as a historic study it is 
 invaluable. 
 
 We always find that the more elaborate the provision for the 
 celebration of marriage, the less are the facilities, the more intricate 
 the procedure for divorce, even where it is permitted at all. 
 Hindus differ from Mohammedans in knowing no such transac- 
 tions as time bargains in matrimony. The union is always in 
 contemplation life-long, and though, as we shall see, there are 
 expedients available which to some extent serve the same purpose, 
 divorce in our sense of the term has no place in Hindu law. 
 The fact that polygamy, though strongly discountenanced, is not 
 deemed illegal of course operates to render such a remedy as 
 divorce in an important sense unnecessary to the husband ; while 
 the strong prejudice against any second marriage by a woman 
 would render it practically useless to the wife. At the same time, 
 among the lower castes especially, there are recognised by custom 
 and utilised in practice certain methods of getting rid of objection- 
 able consorts which, though falling short in effect of a complete 
 discharge of all marital obligations, amount to something more 
 than what we call judicial separation ; but it must always be borne 
 in mind that no such steps can be insisted upon by a wife. The 
 husband may give a letter of release, or may consent to a wife's 
 demand for separation ; but he cannot be compelled. 
 
 The supersession of a wife in this manner is justified not only 
 on the ground of her infidelity, but by her addiction to the 
 drinking of spirits, by her being incurably diseased, by her 
 barrenness, by the lapse of eleven years without male issue, and 
 even by her use of unkindly language. A wife may, moreover, be 
 lawfully deserted who proves to be self-willed or disobedient, or 
 
A Survey of the Laws of Marriage and Divorce. 287 
 
 who commits sin in the first degree (whatever that may mean). 
 A husband may be lawfully deserted on the ground of incapacity 
 for marital intercourse, or of madness, or of incurable disease, or 
 if he proves to be "a deadly sinner" It is only when her 
 husband so transgresses all Hindu notions of right as to change 
 his religion that a wife can get what practically amounts to a 
 complete divorce. An abandonment of the faith on either side, 
 indeed, is deemed equivalent in its effects to death. 
 
 Such are some of the salient features of the law of marriage 
 which covers a wider area than any other in India. Space fails 
 to give any idea of the innumerable local practices and customs 
 more or less connected therewith, or of the many other systems 
 which are recognised by less extensive communities. Nor can we 
 enter into the intricate subject of the effects of marriage on rights 
 of property, a matter which lies beyond our present purview. 
 
 We should not, however, turn away from the region of India 
 without a glance at the Mohammedan views of the subject, espe- 
 cially when we remember the extensive regions beyond in which 
 the same prevail. These we shall find to be comparatively simple. 
 One need scarcely say that the practice of polygamy is the most 
 important feature to consider. The Mohammedan regards mar- 
 riage as an institution almost the sole design of which is to render 
 sexual intercourse lawful. The same high importance is not 
 assigned to the begetting of children as we commonly find in 
 very ancient juristic systems. The attainment of an age of 
 discretion is necessary before the relation can be established, 
 and freedom of contract is assumed. The ceremony of marriage 
 is informal and rather of the nature of a civil contract than of a 
 religious rite. The juristic effect is to transfer the dominion of 
 the wife to her lord for so long as the marriage lasts. Consider- 
 ably more latitude is permitted as to marriage between relations 
 than is common amongst Orientals ; but it is observable that though 
 a freeman may lawfully possess four wives and a slave two, mar- 
 riage of two women related by blood to each other is not allowed. 
 Great as is the honour paid to the Jewish patriarchs, the example 
 of Jacob may not be lawfully followed to-day. Better illustration 
 
288 Is Marriage a Failure i 
 
 could scarcely be afforded of the looseness of the marriage bond 
 amongst Mohammedans than the statement that a husband has 
 virtually unrestricted power to put away his wife at will ; and that 
 a wife may, if she has the means, purchase her divorce. A 
 greater contrast we could scarcely present than that between the 
 formality and rigidity of the Hindu law, and the lax doctrines of 
 the Mohammedans in operation alongside of it. 
 
 We have more than once in the course of our excursus drawn 
 attention to the fossilised history which may be found in marriage 
 customs ancient and modern. Nowhere is this aspect of the 
 subject more conspicuous than in China ; for this, if for no other 
 reason, we could scarcely pass them by ; it would be the more 
 inexcusable to do so, since it would be to ignore the case of 
 a quarter of the human race. Repeat this as often as we will, 
 familiar though the figures are, it will be a long while before we 
 come within a measurable distance of realising the proportion. 
 Notwithstanding, however, that one might have thought China- 
 men plenty enough, the faith seems more firmly planted there 
 than anywhere that to beget children, at any rate male children, 
 is the greatest blessing in life. The precept which Noah received, 
 to be fruitful and replenish the earth, seems to have echoed far 
 and wide amongst ancient nations, and to have persisted far down 
 into history. The Hebrew psalmists gave expression to it ; and 
 in the early laws of the Western world we find the same prevaihng 
 thought. In this, as in many respects. Oriental nations have 
 always remained ancient. Mighty must be the revolution before 
 the preacher of Malthusianism in those regions will gain a 
 hearing. If the need of a remedy for over-population is felt, a 
 summary one is found on the other side of marriage in infanti- 
 cide ; and, as far at least as female infants are concerned, it is "a 
 remedy which they are by no means slow to apply. 
 
 Chinese parents, then, like Hindus, commence betimes to 
 provide for the matrimonial disposal of their children, and in their 
 case even more conspicuously than the other the making of the 
 engagement is a family afifair. The anxiety of parents to conduct 
 their enterprises with all possible expedition and success has given 
 
A Survey of the Laws of Marriage and Divorce. 289 
 
 flourishing existence in China to a class which, though represented 
 everywhere, we suppose, has nowhere else that we know of 
 attained the status of a distinct profession. Match-makers have 
 figured considerably in comedies ancient and modern, and have 
 often provided acceptable roles for mummers, if without infringe- 
 ment of copyright or trade-mark we may venture to use the term. 
 In China the match-maker's efforts are conducted on strictly 
 business principles ; records are kept of the marriageable or 
 approximately marriageable of both sexes, with all necessary 
 information duly tabulated, and by reference to such parents may 
 learn where best to negotiate for the disposal of their issue. These 
 preliminaries being arranged, recourse is next had to an astrologer, 
 who for a consideration forecasts the fortunes of the pair, a 
 practice often deemed expedient in India also, and especially 
 observed amongst the Parsis. If the stars speak favourably, 
 pictorial cards respectively portraying a dragon and a phcenix, 
 emblematical, it is thought, of fidelity, are exchanged between the 
 families, and are finally sewn together with red silk, to the 
 accompaniment of slow music, a practice whereby hangs a curious 
 tale, which is unfortunately too long to quote. After an exchange 
 of presents follows the ceremony, almost universal in the East, of 
 the solemn procession. The bride, closely veiled, is conducted by 
 her friends towards the bridegroom's house, is met half-way by the 
 bridegroom and his retinue, and is delivered over to his care. In 
 this part of the procedure customs differ, but all more or less 
 illustrate the primeval marriage by capture. Sometimes bride and 
 bridegroom are mounted on horseback, arid there is enacted a 
 feigned pursuit and arrest. Sometimes in the less civilised regions 
 the bride is hidden in her parents' tent and has to be sought for 
 by the bridegroom, while her friends try to trip him up, or mis- 
 lead him, or otherwise hinder him in his quest, but the spirit of 
 the scene is always the same. 
 
 On reaching the husband's house there follows an extremely 
 curious game. The happy pair, clothed in robes and preserving 
 strict silence, for some time try each to sit on some portion of the 
 clothing of the other. It is supposed that the fortunate one who 
 
290 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 best succeeds in this trial of agility will rule the roast in the 
 future household. This settled, we fain would hope finally, 
 though Christians are wont to carry on the game in anything 
 but silence and far into married life, the friends assemble at the 
 family altar and worship heaven and earth and their ancestors. 
 Up to this point it often happens that the lover has never seen 
 his lady's face ; but now, and none too soon one would think to 
 satisfy a somewhat reasonable curiosity, the veil is removed, and 
 the nuptials conclude with feastings and rejoicings. 
 
 It is observable that the religious element is far less prominent 
 here than in the Hindu function, and, in accordance with the 
 usual rule, the fixity of the marriage relation is proportionately 
 less regarded. Amongst the higher orders, at least, polygamy is 
 commonly practised, the mandarins often having well-stocked 
 harems ; and, as usual in such circumstances, the power of the 
 husband to retain or dismiss his wife at pleasure is scarcely at all 
 restrained. The law of divorce as far as he is concerned is 
 caprice. For the wife there is neither relief or remedy. 
 
 But the subject of Oriental customs might be made an almost 
 endless one ; and in spite of the temptation one feels to linger on 
 it, we must make our way back to regions with which we have a 
 more practical concern. There is perhaps no more appropriate 
 connecting-link between old and new. East and West, than the 
 ever- and everywhere-present race of the Jews. In tracing the 
 laws of Europe to the combined influences of the Roman jurists 
 and Christian doctors, we might well have added a word as to the 
 effect of Hebrew antiquities on the latter. But Jewish law exists 
 as a living system, as well as having served as a formative in- 
 fluence on Christian ideas, and as such it deserves more than an 
 indirect reference. 
 
 In speaking of Jewish law as a living system, it is of course 
 understood that wherever it operates it does so subject to the 
 overriding authority of the municipal law of the place in question. 
 A Jew in England may not emulate Solomon in all the glory of 
 his marital establishment, nor may he enjoy the luxury of stoning 
 an adulterous consort to death. In a juristic sense, then the 
 
A Survey of the Laws of Marriage atid Divorce. 291 
 
 term " laws " as applied to the Jewish precepts is inapt ; they 
 amount to no more than religious rules of practice, operating 
 under the permissive sanction of the civil authority, Where, 
 therefore, there is a conflict between the local law and the 
 religious commands, those who feel themselves bound by the 
 latter are in fact subject to a double set of rules ; the one they 
 must obey for conscience' sake, the other is enforced by the 
 sanctions common to them and their gentile fellow-citizens. 
 
 For instance, as regards the prohibited degrees of blood or 
 affinity, the English Jew lies under a double disability. The law 
 of the land requires his adherence to the table of restrictions 
 appended to the Prayer-book so that he may not marry his 
 deceased wife's sister, or his niece, which unions Moses, as they 
 interpret him, would not interdict. On the other hand, certain 
 marriages are forbidden him by his religion, particularly if he has 
 the honour or the misfortune of a lineal descent from Aaron, to 
 which the Prayer-book makes no objection. Practically, then, the 
 only operative portion of the religious precepts is that which 
 regulates the rites and ceremonies of the celebration of the 
 marriage. These, with the ceremonies, if they can be so called, of 
 Quakers, are in England expressly excepted from the Marriage Act, 
 except in so far as provision is made for the due registration of 
 the contract. The mode of the celebration then has the sanction 
 of our law, always presupposing first an adherence to the lawful 
 rules as to prohibited relationships, and secondly, proper evidence 
 that the marrying parties are in fact Jews. 
 
 The ceremony in modern use is of a simple character, admitting 
 of very brief description. From it has passed into Christian use 
 the practice of symbolising the union by use of the ring. With 
 the Jews as with us this is the central feature of the celebration ; 
 the accompanying declaratory formula of acceptance being thus 
 expressed in Hebrew : " Thou art wedded unto me by this ring, 
 according to the law of Moses and of Israel ". Following this and 
 the mutual execution of the marriage covenant is the benediction 
 of the officiating rabbi, alluding to Genesis xxiv. 60, and Ruth iv. 
 1 2 ; and the publication of the contract, a practice referred to in 
 
292 Is Marriage a Failure 1 
 
 Tobit vii. 13, 14. A second and final sj'mbolic act is the breaking 
 of a glass, in token, as is supposed, of the transitoriness of human 
 happiness, a practice this not unknown perhaps amongst Chris- 
 tians, only that with them the breaking up of friable household 
 utensils is usually postponed until some little while after matrimony, 
 and figures rather as a practical illustration than as a symbol of 
 the fleeting nature of its joys. 
 
 Were the Jews free to live after their own hearts' desire, divorce 
 would be much more easy of accomplishment than they usually 
 find it to be. Based on Deuteronomy xxiv. i, their law would 
 admit of separation a vinculo on the mere ground of mutual dislike 
 or mere incompatibility of temper, the remedy, however, being 
 only available for a husband. The procedure would be the simple 
 delivery to the wife of a writing of divorcement in the presence of 
 two witnesses, the ecclesiastical authorities seeing to it that every- 
 thing was effected in proper form. But as we have seen, this 
 simple process is of no avail in modern Christian states, the law of 
 which, though tolerant as to the modes of entering into connubial 
 bonds, asserts itself strongly in every matter relating to their 
 severance, and which alone, moreover, determines the civil 
 obligations as to mutual support, and the effect of the relation on 
 the properly rights of the married. 
 
 There now remains but one system of law affecting any con- 
 siderable number of English subjects at which we need look, 
 namely, the Roman-Dutch law, operative in Ceylon and at the 
 Cape, a few at least of the particulars of which deserve attention. 
 But when we speak of these laws as now in operation, it will of 
 course be borne in mind that they are so only in the sense that 
 they form the groundwork of the system actually in force, being 
 continually subject to statutory modification, the tendency of 
 which is decidedly in the direction of a uniformity with the 
 English laws and those of other colonies. An instance of the 
 disappearance of one of the original features of the Dutch juris- 
 prudence is seen in the fact that whereas formerly a facility of 
 procedure similar to that .of the Scotch law was admissible, mere 
 cohabitation as man and wife with public knowledge being suf- 
 
A Survey of the Laws of Marriage and Divorce. 293 
 
 ficient evidence of marriage, the present law requires the publica- 
 tion of banns in church after the English fashion, or notification 
 before a court of justice, and insists on a strict compliance with 
 these conditions. Survivals of Roman-Dutch institutions may, on 
 the other hand, be seen in the facts that the consent of parents is 
 necessary for the marriage of a man up to the age of twenty-five and 
 of a woman to that of twenty years ; that parents are empowered to 
 veto even an adult marriage between persons of different religions, or 
 on the ground of the immorality of one or other of the parties, or 
 (rf an irreconcilable enmity between the respective families. Still 
 more original and peculiar is the provision made for the marriage 
 of an absent person by proxy, and the principle by which the fact 
 of a previous betrothal operates as a bar to marriage. It may be 
 be added that marriage with a deceased wife's sister, or with her 
 daughter, is discountenanced, and is only permissible after judicial 
 dispensation. 
 
 The grounds on which divorce is obtainable are the usual ones 
 of adultery, conviction of an unnatural crime, sentence to im- 
 prisonment for life, and desertion ; cruelty, such as to make 
 cohabitation unbearable, entitling only to judicial separation a 
 mensd, et thoro. 
 
 Were it our province to supply a complete and universal guide 
 to the marriage and divorce laws of the world, we should, of 
 course, even yet be very far from the completion of our task. It 
 is no small matter to travel from Dan to Beersheba in this world 
 of multitudinous customs and opinions, and to exhaust even the 
 minutest subject of public interest. But when the subject in 
 question is one in which generations of lawyers and generations of 
 priests have busied themselves burrowing pit-falls, making plain 
 places rough, and straight places crooked, and so preparing the 
 way of the devil after their wont, it is a hopeless business to 
 attempt to delineate on paper a course which may, semper ubiqiie 
 et ab omnibus, be relied on. The matrimonial tourist must submit 
 to be " personally conducted " by experts familiar with each land 
 which he may be disposed to traverse. The utmost that our 
 limits permit of is the presentation of a small-scale Mercator's 
 
294 I^ Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 projection of the globe, with a liberal use of the geographer's 
 prerogative of writing "unknown land," or leaving a blank 
 where information fails. 
 
 We should not, however, be excused if we were to conclude 
 without some particular mention of the very Tom Tiddler's ground 
 of the unhappily married — the Empire of Germany. Of German 
 marriages there is almost as little need to speak as of our own. 
 Every year or so our Royal Family enters into some alliance 
 which fills our newspapers with special correspondents' informa- 
 tion respecting the " scene in the church " or elsewhere, and with 
 full-page illustrations of the tableaux vivants of matrimony ; all of 
 which it may, of course, be assumed that the loyal subjects which we 
 address peruse with due care and attention. Happily these 
 instructive alliances have rarely afforded any evidence of the 
 failure of marriage, and it therefore happens that German divorce 
 law is by no means equally familiar to us. The expression, 
 " German divorce law,'' must, however, not be so interpreted as to 
 lead to the supposition that any one system uniformly prevails 
 in that great empire. A minute exposition would necessarily lead 
 us into the consideration of many differences of detail which 
 distinguish one state from another. Saxony and Baden and 
 Wurtemberg and the rest would all require separate treatment. 
 But this notwithstanding, the same general influences have been 
 at work in greater or less degree in all of them, and for the pre- 
 sent purposes, local peculiarities may without inconvenience be 
 ignored, the Prussian code being on the whole fairly representa- 
 tive of the German methods of dealing with the thorny subject. 
 
 Historically speaking, there is no doubt that the severe views 
 held by Luther as to the criminality of adultery, an offence which 
 he and Calvin also would have punished with death, had much 
 to do with the preparing of public opinion for a drastic law of 
 divorce; but though the Lutheran ecclesiastical authorities 
 sanctioned the severance of the marital union on the grounds of 
 adultery, malicious desertion, and impotence arising from any 
 cause, even subsequent to the marriage, and thus widely departed 
 from the sacramental permanence imputed to the relation by 
 
A Survey of tlie Laws of Marriage and Divorce. 29S 
 
 Roman Churchmen, it was under the very free-thinking regime of 
 Frederick the Great that the great strides were taken in the 
 direction of an easy dissolution of the bond, the effect of which 
 has been to impress on German marriages the character of extreme 
 instability, still so conspicuous, and which has since been pro- 
 tested against by Savigny and other jurists with but little effect. 
 
 The grounds on which divorces are granted in Prussia are 
 classed under three heads : first, those which imply the fault of 
 one or other of the parties ; secondly, those which arise from 
 some accident rendering the perpetuation of the union in the 
 view of the law undesirable ; and, thirdly, those which warrant a 
 mutual agreement to separate being carried into legal effect. 
 
 Under the first head fall adultery, the commission of unnatural 
 crimes, a charge of suspicious intercourse (which amounts to 
 about the same thing as strong, though not conclusive, evidence 
 of adultery), malicious desertion (including a persistent refusal of 
 marital intercourse), sentence to a disgraceful punishment, failure 
 on the part of the husband to support his wife (where such failure 
 is due to his own crime or profligacy), and drunkenness or extra- 
 vagant and loose living on the part of the wife ; to which must 
 be added such conduct, by either consort, as may tend to 
 endanger the life or health of the other. 
 
 The second head coiiiprises the insanity, lasting for a year, of 
 either party ; and the fact of either becoming, from any cause, 
 incapable of marital intercourse. 
 
 I^astly, mutual consent suffices if there is satisfactory evidence 
 that it results from an incompatibility of temper prejudicial to 
 health, or, to speak generally, of a hopeless alienation of feeling. 
 In all such cases, however, the judges are required to take the 
 utmost pains to reconcile the parties, and they are enabled to 
 delay the sentence for a year in the hope of effecting a recon- 
 ciliation. In some States, indeed, mutual consent is no sufficient 
 cause of divorce where there is issue of the marriage, or where the 
 parties have been married less than four years. 
 
 From a civil point of view, these laws are operative on Protes- 
 tants and Catholics alike, and any divorced person may, if con- 
 
296 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 science allows, marry a second time, subject, however, to a proviso 
 which we have already met with in some of the American States, 
 prohibiting marriage of an adulterous person with his or her 
 paramour, or with anyone against whom the charge of suspicious 
 intercourse has been sustained. 
 
 With such abundant facilities within their reach for the disso- 
 lution of marriage, it redounds to the credit of the German people 
 that they make such a comparatively little use of their oppor- 
 tunities ; and this is a fact which suggests matter for consideration 
 in any discussion of these and kindred laws. There is a pretty 
 numerous school of social and political reformers who seem to 
 suppose that all the evils and troubles which infest mankind are 
 susceptible of meliorative treatment, or even of entire remedy, 
 through a judicious use of legislation ; who assume that, given 
 this or that reform of legal principles and procedure, the way 
 would be opened to a land of Beulah, and what is more, that 
 people would be willing to proceed therein. Over and over again 
 have jurists and social scientists of sounder judgment pointed out 
 and demonstrated, by reasoning and illustration, the extremely 
 narrow limits within which really radical changes may be effected 
 by any such means. The statute-books of our own and other 
 lands are full of examples of enactments clamoured for in their 
 day, and of which all sorts of delightful consequences were pre- 
 dicted, but which have soon been found in practice to be either 
 inoperative, or productive of new and unexpected evils, or both. 
 Yet, often as this phenomenon has been presented to view, and 
 often as the warning has been given, the enthusiasm of the 
 impatient still leads them to build hopes on foundations as 
 treacherous as any that have failed in the past ; and in the 
 correspondence which forms the bulk of, and gives its name to, 
 this volume, there are many evidences of the continuing pre- 
 valence of the old fallacy. 
 
 Now if such remedy as legislation affords is ever liable to over- 
 estimation, if on any class of subjects we should refrain from very 
 sanguine hopes when we resort to it, we should be especially 
 cautious when we are dealing with such matters as those before 
 
A Survey of the Laivs of Marriage and Divorce. 297 
 
 us, which involve many of the best and many of the worst 
 impulses of human nature, the effects of which go to the very 
 roots of human society, and which invoke sentiments of long 
 historic growth and of the most ineradicable character. Nearly all 
 the excellencies, and nearly all the evils attendant on marriage as 
 a social institution, arise from deeply set moral habits of thought 
 and action, which can be only be very lightly and superficially 
 affected within any moderate limits of time by any efiforts of 
 legislation. Of course to a certain extent moral habits and legal 
 institutions act and react on one another ; but this, notwith- 
 standing no folly could be greater than the attempt to force the 
 former in any direction through the agency of the latter. 
 Attempts to interfere with Nature's distribution of the flora and 
 fauna of the world in the endeavour to promote the well-being of 
 man, have often enough given evFdence of ten parts of folly to 
 one of wisdom ; and we have no great hopes of a more successful 
 result from an eclectic attempt to transplant legal institutions 
 locally successful into regions of widely different moral atmo- 
 sphere. 
 
 We have abundantly illustrated the variety of prevailing mar- 
 riage laws ; and it would be equally easy to show that the legal 
 differences in all cases are based on ethical differences. To go no 
 further, for instance, than a comparison of English law with 
 French, it is obvious that the main contrasts between the two 
 systems arise from the different points of view from which the 
 subject is approached. With us the fundamental idea is to 
 discountenance, discourage, and punish all irregular sexual 
 relations. The personal moral evil of licentious intercourse 
 is so abhorred and feared that we are disposed to give every 
 encouragement to those who are willing to legalise their 
 relations by matrimony. Hence the low limits of age which 
 our law prescribes, the litde prominence given to the desires of 
 parents or famiUes. Hence the harsh disabilities attendant on 
 illegitimacy, and the refusal to admit to the status of legitimacy 
 those whose parents may subsequently marry. As a consequence 
 of the facilities of our marriage law, there is a proportionate dis- 
 
298 Is Alarriage a Failure! 
 
 position to find a remedy for unfortunate marriages by providing 
 means for their dissolution. That the remedy has been some- 
 what tardy in reaching its present position, and that it even now 
 falls short of that of many surrounding nations, are facts which 
 admit of easy explanation by reference to historical considerations. 
 
 In France the great aim which society has before it in its 
 regulations respecting marriage is the conservation de la famille. 
 If, as we are informed by M. Emile Girardin, himself one of the 
 unfortunate number, the number of illegitimates in France 
 amounts to one-fifth of the population, one might well doubt 
 the wisdom of the restrictions thrown in the way of marriage, and 
 question whether even the preservation of family authority may 
 not be purchased at too high a price. Be this as it may, it is 
 pretty certain that the experiment of grafting French laws on 
 English habits, or English laws on French habits, would have 
 little promise. There are evils on both sides ; but if we would 
 deal with them we must do so by purifying the issues, of moral 
 thought, not by attempting to constrain it by legal impediments. 
 Some will perhaps doubt whether the most hopeful way of en- 
 couraging moral reformation is to drag to light, for indiscriminate 
 pubUc review by old and young, all the spots and sores of social 
 corruption. 
 
 But to moralise is not our metier, and we must resist the 
 temptation to go so far beyond our last. The reader has before 
 him abundant evidence as to matters of fact; we have tried to 
 supplement it by adding some general information as to matters 
 of law. If the result is to leave his hopes and fears as to matri- 
 mony more confused than they were before, the more the pity. 
 But if there is one thing of which we are more certain than 
 another, it is that no amount of evidence and no amount of 
 information is likely to affect in the smallest degree the course of 
 those who have bent their sails to enter on the uncertain sea. 
 And, by the way, what simile more complete than that into which 
 we have here stumbled. Its exceeding aptness will excuse its 
 repetition. Marriage is indeed a sea — sometimes smiling 
 smooth, and alluring beyond resistance, sometimes anory and 
 
A Survey of the Lmvs of Marriage and Divorce. 299 
 
 destructive beyond remedy, always liable to disturbance and 
 change, whereby " some are sick and some are sad " ; but on the 
 whole, after all, healthgiving and beautiful, strengthening and 
 bright. The comparison also suggests a quotation which may, 
 perhaps, bring something of consolation to some hapless one who 
 has willed to make an embarkation but has been disappointed 
 in his guest, who has, perhaps, sadly seen the chosen one borne 
 away in another's bark, " youth at the prow, pleasure at the 
 helm ". Let him wait a while, and a change of scene may cause 
 him at last to rejoice that he missed the fruition of his desires, 
 and he may yet exclaim with another who escaped such a ship- 
 wreck of life — 
 
 Me tabula sacer 
 Votiva paries indicat uvida, 
 
 Suspendisse potenti 
 
 Vestimenta maris deo. 
 
 For those whom the consolations of Horace cannot reach, there 
 is no sounder counsel than that of another of the ancients, who 
 travelled much and saw men and things : " Art thou bound unto 
 a wife ? — Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife ? 
 — Seek not a wife." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Chapter I.— THE CASE FOR THE PLAINTIFF. 
 
 Arts of Dress and the Realitic-s of Life, 
 The, . . . . 
 
 Brutalised by Drink, 
 
 Deceased Wife's Sister Difficulty, The, . 
 
 "De Profundis," .... 
 
 Divorce Question, The,. 
 
 Divorce too Expensive, . 
 
 Drunken Wife, The, 
 
 " Funny Man's " Opinion, The, . 
 
 " He dabbles in amateur operatic sing- 
 ing," 
 
 Lucretia's Husband, 
 
 Lunacy Question, The, . 
 
 Monogamy a Modern Institution, . 
 
 Mrs. Caird's First Reply, 
 
 " Not good enough to make doormats 
 of," . . . . 
 
 Our Marriage Laws a Mass of Anoma- 
 lies, .... 
 ■ Playwright's Theories, A, 
 
 " Ruined Life, A,'' 
 
 Should Religion forbid Divorce ? 
 
 " When t'other dear charmer's away," . 
 
 Wife's Experience, A, . . 
 
 Woman's " Deliberate Fraud," 
 
 An Ex-Royal British Artist, . 
 
 31 
 
 A Matrimonial Failure, 
 
 26 
 
 A Lover of Justice, 
 
 27 
 
 M. S., . 
 
 3S 
 
 A Sailor, 
 
 35 
 
 A Working Woman, 
 
 36 
 
 Cornubin, 
 
 23 
 
 Gipp, . 
 
 • 30 
 
 J. T., 
 
 35 
 
 Lucretia, 
 
 • 37 
 
 R. Davis, 
 
 21 
 
 A Physicist, . 
 
 27 
 
 Mona Caird, 
 
 • 39 
 
 A Widow, . . 22 
 
 A. B. Bassett, rg 
 
 Jerome K. Jerome, . 25 
 
 Lost Beyond Redemption, 34 
 
 Edith Maxwell, . 22 
 
 The Dog, . . 36 
 
 W., . . . 37 
 
 A Crusty Bachelor, ... 30 
 
 Chapter IL— THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE. 
 
 " Bob is to be good for the future," 
 Bohemia in fault, 
 
 Counter-jumper's Experience, The, 
 Emphatic " No," An, . 
 Glorified Spinster, The, 
 
 A Maid with a Mind of her Own, . 57 
 
 An Old Bohemian, . 72 
 
 A Counter-jumper, . . 81 
 
 A Successfully Married Man, 87 
 
 A Glorified Spinster, . 53 
 
302 
 
 Is Marriage a Failure . 
 
 ' ' He does not put his heels on the table 
 
 now," ...... Winny Jones, 
 
 How "The Telegraph" started the Controversy, . 
 
 Independence plus Common Sense, 
 
 Is he right ? . . 
 
 Jack's Wife, . 
 
 Man of Judgment, A, . 
 
 Marriage a Success, 
 
 Marriage for Woman's Protection, not 
 
 Man's Pleasure, 
 Marriage is a Compromise, 
 Marriage on Lease, 
 Men " are the choosers," 
 Respect as well as Affection, . 
 
 " Scripture saith. The," 
 
 Seeking the Life of the "Twain-one," 
 
 She "would rather live with a Tartar," 
 
 Solid Advantages, 
 
 Some General Reflections, 
 
 "Then every boy had his sweetheart," . 
 
 " There is no magic in marriage," 
 
 The Ugly Ones would have no Chance, . 
 
 "Till death do them part," . 
 
 What Archdeacon Blunt thinks, . 
 
 What is to become of the Wife ? 
 
 What my Cousin says, . 
 
 What the " Ingenue " thinks. 
 
 A Truly Happy Husband, 
 
 T. Foundry, 
 
 A Sailor's Star, 
 
 One who has been Married Three 
 
 Times, . 
 Engineer, 
 
 X., 
 
 Common Sense, . 
 A Lover, 
 
 An Unappropriated Blessing, 
 A Believer in the Sanctity of Mar- 
 riage, 
 H. C. Mitchenson, 
 E. W., . 
 
 Fresh from School, 
 Faith and Hope, 
 A Retired Physician, 
 .■\ Workman's Wife, 
 A Working Furrier, 
 Evacustes, 
 Archibald T. Miller, . 
 
 A Plain Man, 
 
 Letty S , 
 
 A Young American Actress, . 
 
 52 
 93 
 8S 
 92 
 
 7S 
 
 69 
 44 
 
 63 
 60 
 62 
 71 
 
 80 
 75 
 67 
 49 
 68 
 76 
 SO 
 88 
 
 56 
 86 
 
 93 
 81 
 66 
 
 ■55 
 
 Chapter III.— MARRIAGES ABROAD. 
 
 Another American View of the Question, 
 Domestic Married Life in Germany, 
 How other Nations manage, . 
 Italian's Opinion, An, . 
 Japanese View, The 
 Knickerbocker's Happy Wife, 
 Marriage Customs of India, The, . 
 Marriage in Scotland, . 
 M. Dumas is puzzled, . 
 Military Marriages. — How they Manage 
 them in Austria, .... 
 Statistics of Irish Marriage, . 
 Views of Emile Zola, .... 
 
 Another American Wife, 
 
 Anglo-German , 
 
 A Travelled Englishman, 
 
 A Son of Italy, 
 
 Kioto, .... 
 
 The Wife of a Knickerbocker, 
 
 B. C. S 
 
 The Wife of a Scotch Factor, 
 -■Alexandre Dumas _A/j, . 
 
 Anglo-Austrian, 
 Anna Liffey, 
 
 117 
 
 122 
 128 
 112 
 no 
 
 99 
 126 
 
 131 
 III 
 
 104 
 119 
 102 
 
Index. 
 
 303 
 
 Chapter IV.— AMICI CURIA:. 
 
 Absence and Exercise 
 
 Basis of Happiness, The, 
 
 Born Celibate's History and Advice, A, 
 
 Common-sense Answer, A, . 
 
 Curate who Restrains his Feelings, The, 
 
 "Curate Worship," .... 
 
 "Difficult" Parent, A, . 
 
 Divorce for Nothing, 
 
 " Don't wait for better times," 
 
 ' ' Eight ' unappropriated blessings ' 1 " . 
 
 How she "won him back," . 
 
 How the Clergy Marry, 
 
 How the " Happy Wife " escaped hear- 
 ing the Marriage Service, 
 
 " I am in the beautiful prime of life," . 
 
 " I am not sorry," .... 
 
 Indignant Hebe, An, 
 
 " In vain is the snare set in sight of any 
 bird," 
 
 Meek Wife's Ascendency, The, 
 
 " Men and women expect too much," . 
 
 " Mrs. Bardie's" husband! 
 
 " My husband has a liver," . 
 
 " No end of nerve," 
 
 " Nothing to say against it," 
 
 Not so bad after all, 
 
 "looi Little Duties," 
 
 "Our fine old Marriage Service," 
 
 " Poor" Scottish Widow, The, 
 
 Quakers' Formula, The, 
 
 Rash Alfred. 
 
 " She meets the case," . 
 
 " She simply ordered a cab," 
 
 South Shields Man's Dry Humour, The, 
 
 Statistics with regard to Crime and Mar- 
 riage, . . ... 
 
 " Still and deep," . 
 
 Successful Early Marriage, A, 
 
 The Child, the Barmaid, and the Heiress, 
 all Failures, . . . . 
 
 " Thompson's sihgle blessedness," 
 " Till the right one comes along," . 
 Wanted, " A Congenial Mate," 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Amicus Curiae, 
 
 160 
 
 An Impecunious 1-iireui, 
 
 181 
 
 A Lost Life, 
 
 176 
 
 Lehtea, 
 
 IS9 
 
 A Curate who would like to Marry, 
 
 157 
 
 A Perplexed Curate, 
 
 144 
 
 One who Loves, , 
 
 169 
 
 Fred. A. Stroulger, 
 
 I7S 
 
 A British Maiden, 
 
 174 
 
 A Maid of Kent, 
 
 151 
 
 Middle-class Woman, . 
 
 17s 
 
 H., 
 
 151 
 
 A Happy Wife, 
 
 153 
 
 Perplexed Bachelor, 
 
 16S 
 
 Left in the Lurch, 
 
 14s 
 
 A City Barmaid, 
 
 139 
 
 A Young Observant Bachelor, 
 
 146 
 
 Ellen Court, ... 
 
 140 
 
 A City Merchant's Wife, 
 
 143 
 
 A. A 
 
 174 
 
 A Tired Wife, 
 
 137 
 
 Constance D. , 
 
 152 
 
 Caroline, 
 
 165 
 
 Bonos Mores, 
 
 IS7 
 
 An Engaged Lady-clerk, 
 
 168 
 
 Conservative, 
 
 134 
 
 Scottish Widow, . 
 
 168 
 
 H. W., 
 
 171 
 
 A Woman of 67, 
 
 156 
 
 Taraxacum, 
 
 150 
 
 A Parent, 
 
 149 
 
 Jingling Geordie, 
 
 138 
 
 Rev. J. M. Easterling. 
 
 iBi 
 
 Fiancee, 
 
 163 
 
 One of the Successes of Early Mar- 
 
 
 riage, . . . ; 
 
 140 
 
 Old and Lonely, . 
 
 170 
 
 Nanson Rivers, 
 
 IS4 
 
 Marguerite, . 
 
 173 
 
 A Victim to Etiquette, . 
 
 13s 
 
304 
 
 Is Marriage a Failure ? 
 
 What a Man requires in his Wife, 
 What an " Old Maid " thinks, 
 " When Lubin is awa-a-a-a-y," 
 "Who shall decide when Barmaids dis- 
 agree? " . .... 
 Why not Advertise ? 
 
 Esprit, . 
 
 A Trained Nurse, 
 
 A Young Girl in the Country, 
 
 Another Barmaid, 
 Jno. C. K., 
 
 PAGE 
 
 158 
 141 
 147 
 
 MS 
 171 
 
 Chapter V.— THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARRIAGE. 
 By Mrs. Lynn Linton. 
 
 Chapter VI.— CAUSES OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 
 
 Absolutely inaccurate, 
 
 Alas ! the " weakness of his character/' 
 
 Carlyle's Wise Words, . 
 
 "Cuisine anglaise ! E.x&rable ! ! " 
 
 Draper's Victim, The . 
 
 Duties of Marriage, The, 
 
 Examine her Relations, 
 
 Experience and Common Sense, 
 
 "Good Fellow's" Wife, The, 
 
 Happy because Childless, 
 
 Happy Botanical Students, Two, 
 
 Happy Family, A, 
 
 How to "treat" Husbands, 
 
 Inconsiderate Husbands and "Nagging" 
 
 Wives, 
 Influence of Sunday Schools, 
 " Let the wife have three or four hours 
 
 every day to herself," 
 Luther's Marriage Prayer, 
 Maiden Aunt, The, 
 Men and Women do not carry out their 
 
 Agreement made at the Altar, 
 No Clubs for Married Men, 
 Office a Bad School for a Wife, The, 
 " Poor Mary-Jane," 
 "Pore" Lady-clerk catches it. The, 
 Slightly Difficult 
 
 Trifle difficult to caiTy out, A, 
 " Une Vieille Histoire, " 
 Untrained Girls, . 
 Woman's Chief Weapon, A, 
 Workmen's Daughters, 
 
 A. R., 
 
 209 
 
 Matrimonial Adventurer, 
 
 209 
 
 Species Man, 
 
 22s 
 
 J. D., . 
 
 207 
 
 Not Me, 
 
 220 
 
 Mavourneen, 
 
 228 
 
 Science, 
 
 223 
 
 An Old Maid, 
 
 227 
 
 A Victim to Bad Temper, 
 
 216 
 
 W. Greaves, 
 
 227 
 
 James E. Venning, 
 
 210 
 
 C. I. S., 
 
 206 
 
 Emily Coffin, 
 
 212 
 
 A Victim to a Mother-in-Law, 
 
 222 
 
 Alderton, 
 
 223 
 
 R. S. T., 
 
 205 
 
 C. H. Collette, 
 
 213 
 
 J. W.J. H., . . . 
 
 218 
 
 An East-end Clergyman, 
 
 203 
 
 Anti-Club 
 
 216 
 
 M. S. W., 
 
 224 
 
 E. L., . 
 
 221 
 
 Clericus, . ... 
 
 219 
 
 A Physician and a Married Man of 
 
 
 fifteen years' experience. 
 
 214 
 
 A Bath Incumbent, 
 
 211 
 
 City Clerk, . 
 
 226 
 
 Experience, . 
 
 214 
 
 An Observant Admirer, 
 
 208 
 
 An Experienced Lover, 
 
 215 
 
Index. 
 
 30s 
 
 Chapter VII.— REMEDIES. 
 
 Away with the "Mashers"! 
 
 Baron Humboldt's Opinion, . 
 
 Breach of Promise, 
 
 Brutal Husband, A, 
 
 By Fear of Breach of Promise, 
 
 "Clear Grit" necessary, 
 
 "Dear old" Queen's Proctor, The, 
 
 Don't choose a Wife for her Cooking, . 
 
 Free Marriage in Practice, 
 
 George Henry Lewes' Opinion, 
 
 "Hall-marked" Husband, The, 
 
 "Hand-fasting," ..... 
 
 Learned Woman's Humility, The, 
 
 Legitimacy by Registration, 
 
 Legitimacy from the Mother, 
 
 " Let the Registrar judge ! " 
 
 Long required Law, A, 
 
 Nine Injunctions to Married Folk, 
 
 Penal Servitude a Reason for Divorce, , 
 
 Prayer-book's "Hideous Candour," 
 
 The 
 
 Rector's Mild Remedies, The, 
 School of Cookery and Lovers, The, 
 Shocked Priest, The, 
 Six Restrictions and Alterations neces- 
 sary. 
 Some Practical Suggestions, 
 Some Restrictions and Precautions, 
 State should Veto and Encourage, The, 
 ' ' Take away the children of drunken 
 
 fathers," 
 Too much Proximity, . 
 Twelve Months' Probation, A, 
 Two kinds of Marriage Contracts ; Dis- 
 soluble and Indissoluble, 
 Unwilling Lover, The, . 
 Voice of Experience, The, 
 What Mr. Justice Hannen thinks. 
 Why Brand the Guiltless Child > 
 Wife should Pay her Share, The, 
 
 Mater, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 248 
 
 Reformer, 
 
 254 
 
 Jacques, 
 
 • 254 
 
 Shattered Nerves, 
 
 • 238 
 
 Salopian, 
 
 248 
 
 Noch Einsam, 
 
 242 
 
 A Wise Old Maid, 
 
 258 
 
 A Young Girl, 
 
 240 
 
 R., 
 
 240 
 
 Reformer, 
 
 • 230 
 
 A Spinster, 
 
 242 
 
 W. Morrell, . 
 
 258 
 
 M. A. C, . 
 
 234 
 
 Reformer, 
 
 260 
 
 SoUcitor, 
 
 254 
 
 T. W. W., 
 
 260 
 
 Inward Grief, 
 
 261 
 
 A. B. P. M., 
 
 233 
 
 Father, 
 
 247 
 
 Nevus Curatus, . 
 
 247 
 
 John 0. Harris, 
 
 246 
 
 Clear Grit, 
 
 238 
 
 Anti-Leonard, 
 
 232 
 
 Conservative, 
 
 256 
 
 A Separated Husband, . 
 
 249 
 
 Bachelor, 
 
 • 244 
 
 A Marylebone Curate, 
 
 251 
 
 Deeds not Words, 
 
 • 251 
 
 Honi Soit qui Mai y Pense, 
 
 250 
 
 Common-sense Parson, 
 
 • 257 
 
 J. R. Dore, 
 
 • 256 
 
 A Maid of Eighteen, 
 
 253 
 
 A Physician's Widow, 
 
 244 
 
 The Sibyl, 
 
 258 
 
 A Lawyer, 
 
 ■ 235 
 
 W. G. Taunton, 
 
 249 
 
 Chapter VIIL— APPENDIX. 
 A Survey of the Laws of Markiage and Divorce, 
 
NOW READV rj-own 8vo., Clolli, Ss. 
 
 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 
 
 Including Religious, Practical and Political Aspects of the Questions. 
 By AP KICHARD, M.A., Cantab. 
 
 Westminster Eeview.— "Our author's work consists of thirteen chapters, to 
 which is appended an instructive and able paper, entitled, ' The Laws of England 
 and Scotland, as regards Marriage and Divorce, their Assimilation and Beform,' by 
 Mr. J. B. Davidson. Eleven of these chapters discuss the questions of marriage and 
 divorce ' by the light which the Scriptures throw upon them.' The twelfth and 
 thirteenth discuss the same questions as questions of ' moral and social expedi- 
 ency ' ; and notwithstanding that the writer denounces the movement of the 
 present day ' to put the wife on a level with the husband ' as ' against nature, against 
 universal history, against the true well-being and happiness of married life;' we 
 must signalise these chapters as a decidedly valuable contribution towards the 
 elucidation of the subject which they treat— indeed, we beUeve the work as a whole 
 will prove of great service to the cause on behalf of which it was written. It is a 
 compendious and accurate summary of Scriptural precedents in respect both to 
 marriage and divorce. It is calm and moderate in tone, eminently respectful to all 
 forma of religious and social prejudice, and throughout the author's treatment of 
 his important subject, while loyal to the Scriptural doctrines he has expounded, he 
 is thoroughly tolerant and practical, and advocates a reform likely, in our opinion, 
 to conduce largely to the well-being and happiness of mankind." 
 
 PaijL Mall Gazette.—" It is safe to predict that it will be read, and that it 
 XriU draw upon its author the privileges of indignant attack." 
 
 Scotsman.—" The book is written in a calmly-argumentative tone. The 
 author Is throughout respectful of opinion. There is not a word in the book which 
 ought to ofEend an opponent. Mr. Ap Bichard, however, can hardly expect that his 
 arguments will make Europe in the nineteenth century take as its models the 
 marriage customs of Turkey, and of the Old Testament ; nor that polygamy will — aa 
 Mr. Ap Bichard seems to believe— become recognised as the only cure for the 
 immorality of our cities." 
 
 LONDON :— TRUBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL. 
 
 OuF CelebFities. 
 
 A PORTRAIT GALLERY. 
 
 ^ovtraitie; by E. walery. 
 
 /tlonograpJS by Dr. LOUIS EN GEL. 
 
 Vol. I. Now Eeady, containing— 
 
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 THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE 
 THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY 
 SIR FREDERICK LEIGHTON 
 THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLAD- 
 STONE 
 SIR ALGERNON BORTHWICK 
 MR. GEORGE LEWIS 
 
 LORD STANLEY OF PRESTON 
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 SIR PHILIP CUNLIFFE OWEN 
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 MR. EDMUND YATES 
 
 Large Folio, Tasteful Boards, 12/6. 
 
JNOWJEADY^ 
 
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 Edited by HARRY QUILTER. 
 
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 (600 Pages Royal Octavo, Price 12/6.) 
 
 Contains 
 
 Articles tj) tlje follntoiitg (icmimnt %ni\pxs :— 
 
 WiLEiB Collins, Sir Edwin Aenold, Samuel Butlee, Heney 
 James, The Bael op Pembbokb, Mrs. Lynn Linton, Dr. A. W. 
 Veeeall, Sir Chaeles Dilke, Lewis Moeeis, Canon MacColl, 
 Professor Feeeman, Geoegb Fleming, Eev. Llewelyn Dayies, 
 Louis de Fouecaud, "William Abchbe, Wyke Bayliss, 
 Alphonse Daudet, W. E. Henley, Eev. H. E. Haweis, 
 Mrs. Emily Cbawpoed, Fbank Hill, Geant Allen, Alfeed 
 GiLBBET, A.E.A., the Editor, and Others, 
 
 %uti llkstrations h^ 
 
 HuBEET Hbekomee, A.E.A., G. H. Boughton, A.E.A., Waltee 
 Ceane, Debat-Ponsan, Felix, W. P. Feith, E.A., Hennbb, 
 Feank Holl, E.A., Alpebd Hunt, Andb^ Beouillet, Sir 
 Feedeeick Lbighton, P.E.A., W. Logsdail, A. Michelina, 
 Heney Moobe, A.E.A., David Mubbay, G. E. Peeugini, 
 Eenouabd, Dante Gabbiel Eossetti, Feedeeick Sandys, 
 toudouze, mouat loudan, m. e. coebett, "xumoniee, a. 
 DuBST, Blaie Lbighton, Albeet Mooee, Chapeeon, E, 
 CoEYLAs, Gbolleeon, W. Q. Oechaedson, E.A., E. J. 
 PoYNTEB, E.A., Beiton EiviflJEB, E.A., Dbndy Sadlbe, 
 Nanteuil, Pelouse, J. W. Watebhouse, A.E.A., Eoll, 
 Eapin, Colin Hunteb, A.E.A., Wyke Bayliss, P.E.B.A., 
 
 RiCHEMONT. GeLHAY.