Woman and Womanhood: A Search for Principles

by C. W. Saleeby

This is only to preach once again the simple doctrine that a girl is to marry a man not for what he has but for what he is. If, as a eugenist, I am thinking at this time as much of the future as of the present, the advice is none the less trustworthy. It is certain that this advice is no less necessary than it ever was. Everyone knows how the standard of luxury has risen during the last few decades, both in England and in the United States. All history lies if this be not an evil omen for any civilization. It means, among other things, that more effectively than ever the forces of suggestion and imitation and social pressure are being brought to bear, to vitiate the young girl's natural judgment, deceiving her into the supposition that these things which seem to make other people so happy are the first that must be sought by her. If only she had the merest inkling of what the doctor and the lawyer and the priest could tell her about the inner life of many of the owners of these well-groomed and massaged faces! We hear much of the failure of marriage, but surely the amazing thing is its measure of success under our careless and irresponsible methods. For happily married people do not require intrigues nor divorces, nor do they furnish subject matter for scandal. It is because people do not marry for their personal qualities, but for things which, personal qualities failing, will soon turn to dust and ashes in their mouths, that their disappointed lives seek satisfaction in all these unsatisfactory and imperfect ways. As we all know, social practice differs in say, France and England, in such matters as this; and there are those who tell us that the method whereby natural inclinations are ignored is highly successful, and has just as much to be said for it as has the more specially Anglo-Saxon method of allowing the young people to choose each other. It is incomprehensible how any observer of contemporary France, its divorce rate and its birth-rate, can uphold such a contention. On the contrary, we may be more and more convinced that Nature knows her business, and that marriage, which is a natural institution, should be based, in each case, upon her indications.

There is need here for a reform which is more radical and fundamental than any that can be named, just because it deals with our central social institution, and concerns the natural composition and qualities of the next generation. I mean that reform in education which will direct itself towards rightly moulding and favouring the worthy choice of each other by young people, and especially the worthy choice of men by women. It will further come to be seen that everything which vitiates this choice—as, for instance, the economic dependence of women, great excess of women in a community, the inheritance of large fortunes—is ultimately to be condemned on that final ground, if on no other.

But whilst these sociological propositions may be laid down, let us see what can be said in the present state of things by way of advice to the girl into whose hands this book may fall. Perhaps it may be permitted to use the more direct form of address.

You may have been told that where poverty comes in at the door, love flies out at the window.[15] You may have heard it said that so and so has made a good marriage because her husband has a large income. You may be inclined to judge the success of marriage by what you see. I warn you solemnly that the worth or unworth of your marriage, the success or failure of your life will depend, far more than upon all other things put together, upon the personal qualities of the man you choose.

If these be not good in themselves, your marriage will fail, certainly; even if they be good in themselves your marriage will fail, probably, unless they also be nicely adapted to your own character and tastes and temperament and needs. There are thus two distinct requirements; the first absolutely cardinal, the second very nearly so. You are utterly wrong if you suppose that the first of these can be ignored: if your husband is not a worthy man, you are doomed. And you are almost certainly wrong if you suppose that lack of community in tastes and in interests, in objects of admiration and adoration does not matter. But let us consider what are the factors of the man for which a girl does choose.

For what, if it comes to that, does a man choose? Here is Herbert Spencer's reply to that question:—"The truth is that out of the many elements uniting in various proportions, to produce in a man's breast the complex emotion we call love, the strongest are those produced by physical attractions; the next in order of strength are those produced by moral attractions; the weakest are those produced by intellectual attractions; and even these are dependent less on acquired knowledge than on natural faculty—quickness, wit, insight." It will probably be agreed that, on the whole, this analysis, which is certainly true in the direction it refers to, is also true in the converse direction. The girl admires a man for physical qualities, including what may be called the physical virtues, like energy and courage. She rates highly certain moral attractions, such as unselfishness and chivalry, but perhaps she attaches far more value to intellectual attractions than the man does in her case, doubtless because they are more distinctively masculine.

No doubt, in this order of importance both sexes are consulting the eugenic end if they knew it, as Spencer, indeed, pointed out nearly half a century ago. The passage from which we have quoted he thus continues:—

"If any think the assertion a derogatory one, and inveigh against the masculine character for being thus swayed, we reply that they little know what they say when they thus call in question the Divine ordinations. Even were there no obvious meaning in the arrangement, we may be sure that some important end was subserved. But the meaning is quite obvious to those who examine. When we remember that one of Nature's ends, or rather her supreme end, is the welfare of posterity; further that, in so far as posterity are concerned, a cultivated intelligence based on a bad physique is of little worth, since its descendants will die out in a generation or two: and conversely that a good physique, however poor the accompanying mental endowments, is worth preserving, because, throughout future generations, the mental endowments may be indefinitely developed; we perceive how important is the balance of instincts above described."

But here it will be well to consider and meet a possible criticism. This is none the less necessary because there is a very common type of mind which listens to the enunciation of principles not in order to grasp them, but in order to point out exceptions. Such people forget that before one can profitably observe exceptions to a principle or a natural law it is necessary first of all to know rightly and wholly what the principle is. Now in this particular case our principle is that the cause of the future must not be betrayed, and the essential argument of this chapter is that faithfulness to the cause of the future does not involve, as is commonly supposed, any denial of the interests of the present, since, as I maintain, he who is best worth choosing as a partner for life is in general best worth choosing as a father of the future.