The Professor turned quickly toward me. “Not,” she said, “that I think that marriage has been, relatively, unsuccessful with us. The American marriage has come nearer, in my opinion, to being a happy marriage than any yet invented. The very development of the divorce system, monstrous as that is, shows that nowadays and hereabouts people are beginning to insist that marriages must be happy. Both before and after marriage the American girl is asking fair play.”
“Fair play!” It was like the Professor. It was the Anglo-Saxon of her. Fair play—even in marriage. Applause to the sentiment! If Miss America stands for anything, if she personifies anything, I suppose it is social fair play. Sometimes woman seems to be asking a great deal, like the politicians, on the theory that nature is a reform administration and will cut down the appropriation. But whatever we may think of this, Miss America certainly is showing the influence of large concessions. I scarcely think that investigation will indicate that she is at all sordid. If her personal jurisdiction has thrown upon her the need to know about a man’s income, we must not despise the candor of her investigation. She may not agree with Perdita that “prosperity’s the very bond of love,” but she has seen the miseries engendered in marriages for money by lack of love, and in marriages for love by lack of money, and she perceives that money has caused the trouble in either case.
If marriage is a lottery, we may note that this is one of the reasons for its popularity. The gambling instinct is strong in the human family, and I suppose that if marriage were a sure thing it would appeal to many with inferior force. It was a pretty Texas girl who said: “This lottery suggestion introduces a sort of sporting element into marriage that makes it fascinating. Marriage is the greatest game of all.” And quite plainly she was no cynic.
But women are not such good gamblers as men. I fancy that is one of the reasons why they turn to the last page first. They do not like uncertainties, though they can create them. They will even marry to get at the end of the story.
It is plain enough that Miss America is not losing her sentiment. She can never lose her sentiment while she retains her superstitions. I do not mean to say that she countenances the cheaper superstitions. When I see a woman get off a street car because it is numbered thirteen, or witness the spectacle of a hundred busy shoppers, eager to get somewhere, held at a corner by an interminable funeral, because they dare not cross between the carriages, I accept that safe inference, dear to all patriots, that the victims are foreign. In what we might call the higher superstitions she is versed and even proficient.
Speaking of superstitions, no better name belongs to that prejudice by which it sometimes is held that Miss America is often too tall to pair well, that the bride is not exemplifying a proper proportion. Who shall challenge the processes of evolution? Who shall say that in a wiser era folks may not like the new proportions better? Probably there is no occasion to worry. In this Darwinized era we cannot be persuaded that she very well can get to be taller unless she wants to be, or unless she is preferred that way. If gallantry lags, patriotism will insist that the more we see of her the better we like her.
Did you ever see a bridal scrap-book? A Tennessee girl, wedded a year, unfolded one for me, and it proved to be a wonderful affair. In the early pages were pasted invitations, dancing cards, concert and theatre programs, tinfoil from bouquets, ribbons from gifts, valentines and a curious miscellany of souvenirs. Then came the cover from the box that had held the engagement-ring, a copy of the wedding invitation, newspaper comments on the engagement and the wedding. Later pages held a railroad map showing the wedding journey, Pullman car vouchers, express labels, hotel menus, miniature camera “views,” with much more that I cannot remember. And on a certain page of this scrap book, reserved somehow, for the purpose, all of the guests at the wedding had written their names. A few months after the wedding the husband fell ill, and at the crisis his young wife chanced to find that the list of names in the book omitted, among all of those who were at the wedding, his alone. She was not superstitious, but the absence of that name filled her with a new terror. The thing preyed upon her, and in the still of night she slipped into the sick-room with book and pen, and taking her husband’s unconscious hand, she traced his name there upon the right page. He did not die, and when, one day, he came upon the tremulous lines of that grotesque autograph, he did not chide the forger.
We may have changed the names of some things, the cool breath of realism may have touched the habits of our modern life, but probably the heartbeat of sentiment to-day is not greatly faster or slower than in the long ago. There was a noble tenderness and dignity in some of the formalities of the past, as when John Winthrop began his letter with: “Most kinde Ladie, Your sweete lettres coming from the abundance of your love were joyefully received into the closet of my best affections.” We do not say, “My only beloved Spouse, my most sweet friend & faithful companion of my pilgrimage,” but let us hope that nothing of the intrinsic beauty of love and marriage has suffered any real loss.
