The relegation of the married flirt to her proper sphere and duties is beyond the power of any single individual. Society could make the necessary protest, but it does not; for if Society is anything, it is non-interfering. It looks well to it that the outside, the general public appearance of its members is respectable; with faults not found out it does not trouble itself. A charge must be definitely made before it feels any necessity to take cognizance of it. And Society knows well that these married sirens draw like magnets. Besides, each entertainer declares: “I am not my sister’s keeper, nor am I her Inquisitor or Confessor. If her husband tolerates the pretty woman’s vagaries, what right have I, what right has any one, to say a word about her?”
But it is a fact that, if Society frowned on wives who arrogate to themselves the privileges both of young girls and of wives, the 85 custom would become stale and offensive. If it would cease to recognize young married women who are on the terms with their husbands described by Millamant in “The Way of the World,”—“as strange as if they had been married a long time, and as well bred as if they had never been married at all,”—young married women would behave themselves better. It is generally thought that Mr. Congreve wrote his plays for a very dissolute age; in reality, they seem to have been written for a decorous, rather strait-laced generation, if we compare it with our own.
Mothers-in-Law
Mothers-in-Law are the mothers for whom there is no law, no justice, no sympathy, nor yet that share of fair play which an average American is willing to grant, even to an open adversary. Every petty punster, every silly witling, considers them as a ready-made joke; and the wonder and the pity of it is that abuse so unmerited and so long continued has called forth no champions from that sex which owes so much to woman, in every relation of life.
The condition of mother-in-law is one full of pathos and self-abnegation, and all the reproach attached to it comes from those whose selfishness and egotism ought to render their testimony of small value. A young man, for instance, falls in love with a girl who appears to him the sum of all perfections,—perfections, partly inherited from, 87 and partly cultivated by, the mother at whose side she has lived for twenty years. She is the delight of her mother’s heart, she fills all her hopes and dreams for the future; and the girl herself, believes that nothing can separate her from a mother so dear and so devoted.
While the man is wooing the daughter, this wondrous capability for an absorbing affection strikes him as a very pretty thing. In the first place, it keeps the mother on his side; in the second, he looks forward to supplying this capability with a strictly personal object. At this stage his future mother-in-law is a very pleasant person, for he is uncomfortably conscious of the Beloved One’s father and brothers. He is then thankful for any encouragement she may give him. He gladly takes counsel with her; flatters her opinions, makes her presents, and so works upon her womanly instincts concerning love affairs that she stands by his side when he has to “speak to papa,” and through her favor and tact the rough places are made smooth, and the crooked places plain. Until the marriage 88 is over, and the longed-for girl his wife, there is no one so important in the lover’s eyes as the girl’s mother.
Suddenly all is changed. When the young people return from the bridal trip there is a different tone and a different atmosphere. The young husband is now in his own house, and spreading himself like a peacock in full feather. He thinks “mamma” too interfering. He resents the familiarity with which she speaks to his wife. He feels as if her speculation about their future movements was an impertinence. He says without a blush that her visit was “a bore.” And the bride, being flattered by his desire for no company but her own, admits that “dear mamma is fussy and effusive.” Both have forgotten the days in which the young husband was a great deal of a bore to his mother-in-law,—when indeed it was very hard for her to tolerate his presence; and both have forgotten how she, to secure their happiness, sacrificed her own wishes and prejudices.
How often does this poor mother go to see her child before she realizes she is a bore? 89 How many snubs and heart-aches does she bear ere she comprehends the position? She hopes against despair. She weeps, and wipes her tears away; she tries again, only to be again wounded. Her own husband frets a little with her, and then with a touch of anger at his ungrateful child, advises the mother “to let her alone.” But by and by there is a baby, and she can no longer keep away. She has a world of loving cares about the child and its mother. She is sure no one can take her place now. She is very much mistaken. The baby is a new kind of baby; there has never been one quite such a perfect pattern before; and the parents—exalted above measure at the perfection they alone are responsible for—regard her pride and delight as some infringement of their new honors and responsibilities. Happiness has only hardened them; and after a little, the mother and the mother-in-law understands her loss, and humbly refrains from interfering. Or, if she has an imprudent tongue, she speaks unadvisedly with it, and her words bite home, and the “mother” is forgotten, and the “in-law” remains, to 90 barb every ill-natured word and account for every selfish unkindness.