A man who is conscious of jarring, who finds himself a little at cross-purposes with the woman he loves, and yet knows that the jarring is merely superficial and the love profound, may easily feel that to ask and offer once more the supreme expression of that love is the best way to transcend the temporary lack of sympathy and restore love to its right place and true proportion. Who shall say that he is wrong? Is it not certain that the expression of love does intensify and deepen love? Is not a sacrament the means of grace as well as its symbol.
Yet let him be warned. He may easily seem to his wife to be contenting himself with the symbol without the reality, the body without the soul. If she understands him, she may go with him. If she does not, no yielding on her part—no physical passion that he may arouse—will quite stifle the protest which tells her that she suffers spiritual violation. Do you remember the cry of Julie in "The Three Daughters of M. Dupont"? "It is a nightly warfare in which I am always defeated." That her physical nature is suborned to aid in the conquest only increases for her the sense of degradation.
This difference in point of view affects the relations of men and women far more widely than is realized, since it is apt to arise wherever the physical comes in at all—and where does it not? Not a touch only, or a caress, but all deliberate appeal to sexual feeling becomes more difficult to women as they grow more civilized. It is perhaps difficult for a man to realize, in the atmosphere of giggles and whispers with which sex is surrounded in the theatre, the novel and the press, how revolting it becomes to modern women to be expected to use such means for "holding" a lover, or extorting concessions from one who is "held." It was much easier, I suppose, when women did not understand what they were about. One sees that to such women it is comparatively easy to-day. And the position is complicated by inheritance of the age-old conviction that a woman is supremely woman when she can bend a man by precisely these means. But the revolt is here. And—for the sake of clearness—what I am concerned to show is that a woman is not necessarily asexual or cold because she will not use an appeal to sexuality in order to get what she wants. She may have all the "temperament" in the world, but she has also self-respect, and she revolts from the idea of exploiting for advantage what should be sacramental.
I believe that a better understanding on this point would save not only great disasters but an infinity of small jars and strains, and if I have put the woman's point of view at some length it is partly because I understand it better, but chiefly because it is comparatively "modern" to admit that she has a point of view to put.
Once understood, it becomes easier to understand also the startling successes and disastrous failures which attend the remarkable practice of "teaching a woman to love after she is married." The extent to which social tabus and prudery may actually inhibit a woman's natural sexual development makes it possible, as we have seen, for her to marry in ignorance of what marriage implies. When this happens, her love, though it may be noble, altruistic and spiritual, does not involve her whole nature. Her husband, if he respects her sufficiently, will be able to awaken that which sleeps, and in accordance with the undoubted truth that expression intensifies love, he does "teach her to love" him not only in one sense but in all.
On the other hand, if she does not already love him, he will not succeed in "teaching" her anything but disgust if he dreams that by compelling physical union he can create spiritual union.
Evidently it is a singularly dangerous attempt! It is to be hoped that in future no woman will run such risks out of ignorance, but that lovers will, before they marry, understand what each expects, what each desires to give, and at least start fair.
This is no less important with regard to other matters in which marriages are often wrecked. Surely people who propose to spend their lives together ought to know (for example) whether children are desired and whether many or few; and what the attitude of either is on the vexed subject of birth control. Imagine the case of a husband who thinks the use of contraceptives right and wishes to use them; and a wife who thinks them absolutely wrong and, being warned by the doctor that she must not have more children, cheerfully, and with perfect conviction that she is acting nobly, invites her husband to run the risk of causing her death! Yet I have known such cases.
I do not enter into the question of birth control, because it has been and is being discussed much more freely than in the past, and by married people who are much better able to estimate the difficulties and advantages on either side of the question than any unmarried person can possibly be. Since, however, I am continually asked at least to give my personal opinion, for what it is worth, and since it is true that I have heard a good deal (on both sides) from those who are married, I will say briefly that it seems to me of supreme importance (1) that every child that is born should be desired, and (2) that no mother's time and strength should be so far overtaxed as to prevent her giving to each child all the love and individual care that it requires.
This necessitates control of the birth-rate, for a baby every year means a too-hurried emptying of the mother's arms. But I disagree—very diffidently—with the majority of my friends and acquaintances who hold that the right and best method is the use of contraceptives. I do not think it the best; I do not think it ideal. Unlike some authorities who must be heard with respect, I can say with confidence that some of the noblest, happiest and most romantic marriages I know base their control of conception not on contraceptives but on abstinence. They are not prigs, they are not asexual, they do not drift apart, and they have no harsh criticism to make on those who have decided otherwise. These are facts, and it is useless to ignore them.