VI ‘Keeping Only to Her’: The Crux of Matrimony
‘We make gods of men and they leave us; others make brutes of them and they fawn and are faithful!’
—Oscar Wilde.
‘It is part of the curse of nature that a man ceases after a time to worship the body of a woman, and when after that there is nothing his mind and soul can revere—who shall remain true, as it is called?’
—Mary L. Pendered.
‘And keep thee only to her as long as ye both shall live.’ How many men have solemnly undertaken this exacting vow sincerely meaning to abide by it? I have no data for answering this question, but I have sufficient belief in the essential good in human nature to believe that most people start their married life meaning to be faithful. This belief was not even shattered by the shock of hearing a very modern bride remark the other day: ‘Max says he can’t promise to be faithful but he’ll do his best.’ The amazing complacency of the young woman was a thing to marvel at, though hardly to admire.
Schopenhauer asserts that ‘Conjugal fidelity is artificial with men, but natural to women.’ Judging by the Divorce Court returns, it would seem that this natural feminine trait has weakened somewhat, since this view was expressed some sixty years ago. According to the Society chroniclers—self-appointed—it certainly has in ‘London’s West End, littered with broken vows.’
It is dangerous to generalise on such a topic, but since people resist temptation far less often than moralists suppose, it is perhaps safe to state that when men are faithful, it is principally from lack of opportunity, or disinclination to be otherwise. This may disgust those of my feminine readers who refuse to acknowledge, with Professor Lester Ward, that man is essentially a polygamous animal, but the more experienced in the sorrowful facts of life will own the truth of this statement.
On the other hand, when women break their marriage vow, it is seldom for any merely frivolous or sordid reason (of course excepting the essentially wanton type, whom no man should be fool enough to marry), but nearly always either because they are under the spell of infatuation for the other man, or because they are utterly miserable in their marriage and seek to drug themselves to forgetfulness or indifference by means of the poison of some intrigue. Perhaps the Judge who is more merciful than men will count both these reasons as excuses and will pardon the sinners who have greatly loved or greatly sorrowed.
A doctor who is interested in the study of social questions once showed me some interesting statistics on this subject. From seventy-six men selected at random from his list of acquaintances, fourteen were childless, and all but two of these were much happier than most men, and gave their wives no cause for jealousy. This high percentage of happy though childless marriages is rather curious—I cannot account for it. Of the remaining sixty-two, all had families: five were fond of their wives, but not faithful; two lived apart with other women; three others were unhappily married, quarrelling bitterly and constantly. Of two others, my friend was doubtful. One other disliked his wife, but was too busy to bother about other women. The remaining forty-nine were comparatively happy and devoted: ‘Most of them are kept free from any great temptation by busy lives and regular hours,’ the doctor added, ‘and those who are especially appreciative or susceptible in regard to the fair sex have had enough love-making, and want no more outside their homes.’ I suspect this latter cause is applicable to a great many so-called ‘model’ husbands!
This list, however, can scarcely be considered representative, as it contained only two actors, three soldiers, one sailor, and no stockbrokers—four classes in which inconstant husbands are particularly numerous. The conditions of an actor’s life obviously tend towards infidelity; the unhealthy excitement and alternating depression of a stockbroker’s existence may have the same effect. Members of the services are popularly supposed to be less faithful than the rest of husbands, but possibly if the business and professional men had the same amount of opportunities and temptation, a similar excess of leisure and equally long intervals of separation from their wives, they would prove as inconstant as the country’s defenders are supposed to be. My doctor’s list also contains no members of the ‘Smart Set,’ a class containing practically no faithful husbands, according to Father Vaughan!
Although it is the little things that spoil conjugal happiness, it is the big things which separate husband and wife, and of these undoubtedly infidelity is the most frequent cause. It might truly be called the crux of marriage. Personally I think only three faults are bad enough to make it socially worth while for a woman to leave her husband: drunkenness with violence; misconduct with members of the household, temporary or permanent; and introducing a mistress under a wife’s roof. In the case of a woman with children, even these are not enough if she cannot take the children with her. For the last-named act alone a wife could obtain a divorce under the code of Justinian.
Lapses from the marriage vow on the part of one’s spouse are best treated, like all other troubles, in a philosophical spirit. It is, however, ‘easy to talk!’—one often hears that sexual jealousy is the most frightful of mental tortures: Men are more keenly affected by it than women, and the man whose wife has been unfaithful seems to suffer more acutely, even when he does not care for her, than the woman in the reverse circumstances. That is because his passions are stronger, a man will tell you, or because he looks up to the mother of his children as a being above the sins of the flesh. Probably the real reason is that man has generally had his own way since the ménage in Eden, and he resents having his belongings taken from him. Woman, however, can bear this deprivation better, being more accustomed to share her lord from the time when her sex began to multiply in excess of his—or is it that women have no instinctive antagonism to polygamy?
The world has become well accustomed to man’s polygamous instinct by now, and even its laws are framed accordingly. In novels, the discovery of a husband’s infidelity always causes a perfect cataclysm; the reader is treated to page after page of frenzied scenes; the wife almost loses her reason; her friends and relatives sit in gloomy council deciding ‘what is to be done’; the news is shouted from the housetops; and everybody cuts the man dead.
But in real life, women keep these tragedies to themselves, sometimes bearing them with a strange calmness and philosophy. Fortunately a man is seldom so lacking in worldly wisdom as to let his wife discover his misconduct, and, as a rule, a woman would rather die than reveal such a wound to the world. The burden of a husband’s infidelity is borne for years in silence with smiling face and head held high, by many a wife too proud to own herself incapable of keeping a man faithful. Only when years have accustomed her to the humiliation, and dulled the sharp edge of her grief, does she permit herself the relief of confidences.
Few women can understand why a husband, though fond of and devoted to his wife, should nevertheless seek elsewhere that which she has ceased to possess for him. She whose knowledge of the springs of life is deep enough to enable her to understand this, knows also that hers is the better part, that she represents to her husband the centre and mainspring of his existence, which remains steadfast long after his temporary amorous madnesses have burned away to ashes.
Nevertheless, after ‘Alone’—‘Unfaithful’ is perhaps the saddest and most awful word in human speech. One can imagine it written innumerable times, in flaming letters, across the confines of Hell.... Unfaithful!