Thrasymachus

by C. E. M. Joad

On the other hand it is unlikely that those who are happily married will rush to the Registrar with the object of making themselves miserable by separating, simply because reasonable divorce laws give them the opportunity to do so. It would be an interesting experiment, and one which would enable us to estimate the extent of marital unhappiness, to proclaim a day of conjugal amnesty at recurring intervals. We might, for example, celebrate the coronation of every new king by giving to all married couples the right to dissolve their marriages, and seek other mates. If advantage were not taken of the facilities offered within twenty-four hours, there would be a compulsory reversion to the status quo ante. Or it might be better to fix definite periods between the days of amnesty, so that they would recur at regular intervals. Each general election might serve as a signal for a conjugal General Post, so that couples would have the chance of gaining their freedom every five years. I myself would advocate the institution of such amnesties, although I believe that the amount of conjugal dislocation they would cause would be surprisingly small. It is difficult to avoid feeling sentimental at the prospect of parting even from those whom we dislike, and the fact that couples were no longer bound in law would only tighten the bonds of sentiment. A would feel that, unpleasant as B had been, he could not very well let her down, and B would shrink from leaving A with no one to look after him, even when she had herself looked after him very badly. You cannot, in short, live with any one for a number of years without dreading the prospect of their loss. The knowledge, moreover, that quinquennial escape was possible might lead to married people treating their partners with at least the degree of civility they at present reserve for their acquaintances. I do not think, therefore, that the changes caused by a conjugal amnesty would be very extensive.

For the above reasons I conclude that the social results of the changes I have been describing will amount to little more than a diminution in the number of unhappy marriages, and an increase in the number of experimental unions.

But it is not to be supposed that the herd will see the matter in this light. Nothing exceeds the license taken by the imaginations of very rigid people, and there is little doubt that the vast mass of respectable citizens, appalled and horrified by what they will insist on regarding as the prospect of growing and unlimited license, will rise to meet the situation with panic and persecution. And since, for the reasons already given, morality in a modern community is that kind of conduct which suits the stronger, we may expect a revival of Puritanism expressing itself in a new robustness and acerbity in the moral sense of the herd.

Symptoms of this revival are not wanting in this country. If, however, we wish to see the clearest portents of what is coming we must, as I have hinted above, look to America. America, as I have already pointed out, leads the world in morals as in everything else. That American citizens set great store by morality is notorious. With their constant Purity Crusades, Puritan pogroms, Vigilance Committees, and popular juries of selected citizens, who visit surreptitiously and report upon the moral tone of New York plays, they put our more decadent civilization to shame. On what sort of lines do these engines of American morality take action? One instance must suffice. In April of this year, one Miss Jewell Barker went bicycling in white knickers. Her outraged neighbours showed their sense of this vicious act by proceeding to seize and flog Miss Barker’s father. This is at once to usurp and to invert the divine privilege of visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children.

America is, of course, pre-eminently the Land of Liberty, and we cannot hope to emulate her highest feats. Efforts are, however, not wanting of our endeavours to live up to the standard our cousins set.

I will quote at random one or two American examples with their British parallels.

America. There is sumptuary legislation designed to check the license of the stage. “There is”, we are told, “a rule in some American towns that the chorus girls must wear stockings, although the principals are allowed to appear with bare legs”.

England. In recent months there has been a strong provincial movement against the indecency and unpleasantness of the plays produced in London. Respectable citizens complain that they never can tell what salacious beastliness may not be sprung upon their protesting eyes and ears, what searchlight cast upon the Augæan stables of high society. Actors and actresses have expressed their views, pointing out that a pure stage is as good a paying proposition as a nasty one, and invoking the case of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas to bear witness to the truth of their contention. These operas, a notorious commercial success, have never been known to bring a blush to the most bourgeois cheek. A number of London women have accordingly banded themselves together vowing to purify the stage. Protests are to be made nightly in theatres at which plays to which objection is taken are performed. “We shall stick at nothing,” said the leader of the campaign, “to make our protest effective”.

Concurrently with this development there has arisen a demand for a stricter censorship. I think it probable that we are on the threshold of a period resembling the early seventeenth or middle nineteenth centuries, when life as it is will be driven off the stage by the Puritans’ demand for life as it ought to be, love will give place to sentiment, and reality to romance.

America. A new teetotal version of the Bible is promised from America. The festive passages are all dry, the words ‘raisin cake’ taking the place of the word ‘wine’ wherever the latter occurs in the Authorized Version. Thus we have “And he dealt to everyone of Israel, both men and women, to everyone a roll of bread, a portion of meat and a cake of raisin”.