The Husband's Story: A Novel

by David Graham Phillips

I had hoped to satisfy them to the uttermost with the aid of Mary Kirkwood. That hope had fallen dead. I must search on—not for the best conceivable, but for the best possible.

You are not surprised at my lack of sentiment, gentle reader. By this time, I am sure, I could not surprise you with any exhibition of that or other depravity. But it confirms your conviction of my utter sordidness. So? Then you imagine, do you, that there are many love marriages in the world, leaving out of the count those in novels and in the twaddling gossip men and women repeat as the true heart stories of this and that person? Yes, I should say your intelligence was about rudimentary enough to give you such a false notion of life as it is lived. Marriages of passion there are a-plenty. Rarely, indeed, does a man become bill-payer to a woman for life—not to speak of the insurance—without having been more or less agitated by her physical charms; and usually the woman, eager to be married, whips up for him a return feeling that looks well, convinces the man and herself, and makes you, gentle reader, sigh and wipe your sloppy eyes. But love-marriage—that’s a wholly different matter. I should say it almost never occurs. Where love, a sentiment of slow and reluctant growth, does happen occasionally to come afterwards, because the two are really congenial, really mated—where love does come afterwards, it did not exist when the wedding bells rang. And I doubt not that love has grown as often, if not oftener, where the motives that led to the marriage were practical and even sordid than where they were the bright, swift fading, and in death most foul-smelling, flowers of passion.

I was willing to buy a wife, if I could find a woman who promised to wear well, to improve on acquaintance, or, at least, not to deteriorate. And, beyond question, with my money I could have taken my pick. Almost any girl anywhere, engaged or unengaged, would have fallen in love with me as soon as she discovered my charms—of person and of purse. Yes, would have fallen in love, gentle reader. Don’t you know that a nice, pure girl always makes herself, or lets herself, fall in love, before she gives herself? And don’t you know that, except falling out of love—out of that kind of love—there’s nothing easier, especially for an inexperienced girl, than falling in love—in that kind of love?

But where was I to find a woman with enough solid quality to give me a reasonable hope that she would aid me in my quest for family happiness?

Do not denounce me, gentle reader. Epithet and hiss are not reply. Answer my question.

You say there are millions of such girls. Yes? But where?

You say there are millions of pure, sweet, charming girls, intelligent and domestic. Yes. No doubt. But how long would they remain so if tempted by wealth, by the example of all the money-mad, luxury-mad, society-mad women about them?

Mind you, I did not want a stupid rotter, a cow, a sitter and lounger and taker on of fat and slougher off of intelligence. I did not want the lazy slattern who poses as domestic, who is fond of home in exactly the same way that a pig is fond of an alley wallow.

You laugh at me. You say: “He is a conceited fool!—to think that he could attract and absorb an intelligent woman with a complex woman’s soul!” Not so, gentle reader. I did not wish to attract and to absorb her. As for the “complex woman’s soul,” the less I saw or heard of it, the better pleased I’d be. I simply wanted a woman who would join me in being attracted by and absorbed in family life.

You are still smiling mockingly. But let me tell you a few secrets of wisdom and happiness. First—Friendship is divine, but intimacy is the devil himself—unless it is the intimacy of the family. Second—To love your neighbor as yourself, he must be and must remain your neighbor, that is to say, within hail, but not within touch. Third—Husband, wife, and children are the only natural intimates—intimate because they have the bond of common interest. The family that looks abroad for intimates has ceased to be a family. Finally—A man who has his wife and children for intimates has neither need nor time for other intimates; and unless a man’s wife and children are his intimates, he has, in fact, no wife and no children. Let me add, for the benefit of—perhaps of you and your husband, gentle reader—that the only career worth having is built upon and with efficient work; careers made with friendships, gaddings, pulls, and the like would better be left unmade.