The world speaks of him as “unselfish,” “devoted,” “self-sacrificing,” “good-natured,” etc., and his children are reared, sometimes by their mother, but always by strangers, in the belief that he is entitled to all these epithets, because there are so many men who have not acted as he has. He himself, however, accepts these epithets with a mild pretence of modest deprecation, for in his heart of hearts he realizes that somehow they ring strangely by the side of his intimate knowledge of the deep satisfaction he has derived from the whole business.
Now statistics and legal authorities tell us that this kind of marriage is the best, the most lasting, and the happiest kind of marriage. The judges say that it is because “children strengthen the union” or “keep the home together.” We have seen in what way a growing family effects this end. We have seen that it has very little to do with the attitude of the parents towards each other. Now we have to discover how it is that, according to statistics, divorces are more frequent where there are only one, two, or three children, and where child-birth may be said to have stopped.
(2) UNHAPPINESS IN THE HOME OF THE POSITIVE COUPLE
In another chapter the positive woman has been called “the custodian of Life”; we have already seen that Schopenhauer has graphically described her unconscious insistence on experiencing the whole physical cycle from the coitus to the weaning of the child as the Will of the Species (Wille der Gattung) demanding more Life and thus achieving human survival. We have also spoken of the voice of nature in her, clamouring not only for Life, but also for Life’s multiplication.
These are only different more or less successful attempts at describing that instinct which in the positive woman is paramount—the instinct to employ her elaborate reproductive equipment effectively. The fact that when this equipment remains idle the existence of the species is imperilled, evidently led Schopenhauer to discern the unconscious will of the species in the positive woman’s restlessness in awaiting fertilization. But we should always be careful in using these descriptions of woman, to remember that in her the end, which is the multiplication of life, is quite unrealized by her conscious mind. She acts in a way that brings about the multiplication of life; her instincts impel her to achieve that end; but she is not intelligently concerned with anything so remote as the will of the species or its preservation.[78] She is much more concerned with her own personal wishes, her own personal notion of pleasure, and her own sensations. When once these are gratified, the fact that the demands of the species are also satisfied is, as far as woman is concerned, merely a happy coincidence, in which she can have but an academic interest.
Nevertheless, in judging of her conduct, and in drawing moral conclusions from it, we must be careful to allow her the full benefit of the view that, in acting as she does, she is securing the survival of the species in ultimate fact. More than nine-tenths of the abuse to which women have been subjected throughout the ages has been due precisely to man’s omission to allow her the full benefit of this view. The gratification of woman’s passions serves her own end, inasmuch as it affords her pleasure—Yes!—but it also serves the purpose of the race. That is the fundamental fact to remember.
In another chapter I have described how Life itself is woman’s hardest taskmaster, and that her first impulse in all circumstances is to be faithful to this taskmaster, even at the cost of infidelity to human pledges.
(a) Adultery of the positive spouse through absence of the mate.
Long absences of husbands, therefore, during wars, transoceanic voyages, explorations, etc., should always be viewed in the light of a rebuff to woman’s hardest taskmaster. The prolonged absence of the male imposes idleness on the female’s reproductive organs, and, since the best women are primarily faithful to Life itself, and only secondarily so to their mates, it must follow that in all cases in which husbands are absent for long periods, that the call of Life in positive women becomes too imperious to be ignored—hence the thousands of wives who were unfaithful to their husbands during the last war, both in England and on the Continent.[79]
Ignorant, pious people, and even experienced Divorce-Court judges expressed their horror at the thought that while their men were nobly risking their lives in defence of “King and Country,” these women in their thousands calmly sought fertilization elsewhere. But a woman’s character as a woman would be almost forfeited if she did not act in this way![80] Where else would you have her transfer her allegiance? Would you invite her to break the whole valuable tradition of her sex which has been consistently devoted to the multiplication of life, in order to show allegiance—say to an oath, or to an ideal, or to a moral precept? But even Schopenhauer himself, with all his detestation of women, would defend them here, and say, “Surely the species is more important than your trumpery moral codes, your ephemeral oaths, and your pretentious ideals!”