An enormous section of the public, and almost all women it would seem, are of opinion that divorce should be granted for the same reason to women as it is now to men. But surely those who hold this view cannot understand that fundamental difference in the instincts of the sexes which I tried to show as forcibly as I could in my former articles upon Marriage. Infidelity in man cannot be nearly such a degradation to his own soul as infidelity in woman must be to hers, because he is following natural impulses and she is following grafted ones. A woman must feel degraded in her body and soul when she gives herself to two men at the same time, a husband and a lover; but a man, when he strays, if it has any moral effect upon him at all, probably merely feels some twinges on account of breaking his word, and the fear of being found out. The actual infidelity cannot degrade him as much as it generally degrades a woman, and may be only the yielding to strong temptation at a given moment, and have no bearing upon the kind home treatment he accords his wife and children, or the tenor of his domestic life. The eventuality of what this law would bring should be looked at squarely. And it is rather a pitiful picture to think of the entire happiness of a home being upset because a wife, without judgment or the faculty of making deductions, discovering a single instance of illicit behaviour in her husband, sees fit to, and is enabled by law, to divorce him. It may be argued that the fear of this would make him mend his ways; but did fear ever curb strong natural instincts for long?—instincts as strong as hunger, or thirst, or desire to sleep? Fear could only curb such for a time, and then intelligence would suggest some new and cunning method of deceit, so as to obtain the desired end. The only possible way to ensure fidelity in a man is by influencing him to wish to remain faithful, either by fond love for the woman or deep religious conviction or moral opinion that not to do so would degrade his soul. The accomplishment of this end would seem to be either in the hands of the woman or in the teaching of the Church—and cannot be brought about by law. Law can only punish offenders; it cannot force them to keep from sin. When a man is unfaithful habitually, it amounts to cruelty, and even with the present law the woman can obtain relief on that ground.
In looking at a single case of infidelity in a woman, a man would be wise to question himself to see if he has not been in some measure responsible for it—by his own unkindness or indifference, and in not realising her nature; and if his conscience tells him he is to blame, then he ought never to be hard upon the woman. He ought also very seriously to consider the circumstances, and whether or no his children or his family will be hurt by the scandal of public severance, as they should be more important to him than his personal feelings. Tolerance and common sense should always hold wounded vanity and prejudice in check. How often one sees happy and united old couples who in the meridian of their lives have each looked elsewhere, but have had the good taste and judgment to make no public protest about the matter, and thus have given each other time to regain command of vagrant fancies and return to the fold of convention!
With so many different individual views upon the right and wrong of divorce, it is impossible for either side—the divorce reform or the divorce restriction supporters—to state a wholly convincing case against the other. The only possible way to view the general question is, as I said before, to keep the mind fixed upon the main issue, that of what may possibly be best for the nation, having regard to the ever-augmenting forces of luxury and liberty and democracy and want of discipline which are holding rule.
Lack of space prevents me from trying to touch upon the numerous other moot points in divorce, so I will only plead that, when each person has come to a definite and common-sense conclusion, unclouded by sentiment or prejudice, he or she may not hesitate to proclaim his or her conviction aloud, so that the law of the land may be reorganised to the needs of present-day humanity and help it to rise to the highest fulfilment.
VI
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MOTHERHOOD.
As far as the necessities for it go in the animal world, nearly all animals have a very strong sense of the responsibility of motherhood—unless they have become over-civilised, or live under unnatural circumstances. A striking example of the consequences of the latter state of being is shown by “Barbara,” that thrillingly attractive Polar bear in the Zoo, whose twelfth and thirteenth infants were only the other day condemned to follow their brothers and sisters to an early grave through their parents’—and especially their mother’s—gross stupidity about their bringing-up and welfare. And we who are human animals, given by God conscious souls, ought to realise the fact that civilisation and pampered environment have enormously blunted our natural instincts in this respect, just as they have Barbara’s, and so we should try to restore the loss by consciously cultivating our understanding of the subject and deliberately realising the tremendous responsibilities we incur by bringing children into the world. When we think about the matter quietly, the magnitude of it is almost overwhelming, and yet there are hundreds and thousands of women who never give it a serious thought! They have some vague idea that to have children is the inevitable result of matrimony, and that if they pay others to feed and clothe the little creatures, and give them some instruction in the way that they should go, their own part of the affair is finished. That, until a child is grown to an age to judge for itself, the parents will be held responsible for their stewardship of its body and soul at the great tribunal of God does not strike them, and it is only perhaps when the boomerang of their neglect has returned to them and blasted them with calamity that they become conscious of their past negligence.
In this article I do not propose to touch upon the father’s side of the question, important as it is, but shall confine myself to the mother’s, because this has always been one of my deep preoccupations to think out the meaning of it all, and how best to fulfil the trust. Obviously the sole aim of true motherhood is the moral and physical welfare of the child, and to accomplish this end we should understand that it is quite impossible to lay down any set rule, or go by any recognised and unchangeable method. For in one age certain precepts are taught which are obsolete in the next, because science and the improvement of mechanical aids to well-being advance with such giant strides. But if we keep the end in view it is simple enough to see that common sense and discrimination, unclouded by custom or sentiment or superstition, can accomplish miracles. The circumstances of the particular case must always govern the method to be used in order to obtain the same given end, no matter what the station in life of the parents. Thus every mother, from the humblest to the highest, ought to think out how she can best procure her child moral and physical welfare according to her means.
In the lives of the very poor the only thing to be done for the betterment of the understanding of the responsibility of motherhood seems to be to teach the simplest rules of hygiene which animals know by instinct, and after that for the State to take care of the children as much as possible. For this very strange fact is in operation, namely, that while Nature leaves an insatiable desire to create life, she allows civilisation to rob human beings of instinctive knowledge of how to preserve it in its earliest stages, and that the human mother is of all creation the only one entirely at the mercy of imparted knowledge as regards the proper treatment of her offspring.