It may here perhaps be argued on the other hand, that to give wives professions would tend to separate them from their husbands by throwing them into a society of their own, and leading them to set up a distinct set of independent interests,—that whereas a wife now throws herself into her husband’s concerns, losing sight of herself in her sympathy with him, she would, if she had a pursuit of her own, be led astray by ambition, occupied with her own aims, absorbed in a current of life apart from his. Here again it may be admitted that the danger might, in very rare cases, possibly exist. But, on the whole, the risk seems to be much more than counterbalanced by a very strong tendency in an exactly opposite direction. In many cases, the profession of both would be the same, judging by present experience. Artists marry artists, clergymen’s daughters marry clergymen, literary women often, though not always, marry literary men, medical women would probably marry medical men, and so on. It is likely that a man who chose to marry a professional woman at all would marry in his own profession. But supposing it were otherwise, a woman who had work similar, though not in all respects identical with that of her husband, would be more able than one whose occupation was of an entirely alien character, to sympathise with him in his difficulties and in his successes. She would understand them and enter into them with a first-hand kind of interest, fuller and more intelligent, if not more genuine, than a merely reflected interest could be. On the other hand, it would be at least as easy for a husband to enter into interests somewhat akin to his own, as into the small domestic worries which fill so large a space in the thoughts and imaginations of women who have nothing else to occupy them. There are many wives who really have very little to talk to their husbands about, except the virtues or the crimes of servants, and the little gossip of the neighbourhood. If their husbands will not listen to what they have to say on these subjects, they are obliged to take refuge in silence.
The enormous loss to general culture entailed by the solitude of the male intellect is very little thought of. Yet it would seem obvious enough that children brought up in a home where the everyday conversation is of a somewhat thoughtful and literary cast, have an immense start as compared with those who learn nothing unconsciously, and are obliged to gather all their knowledge laboriously from books. Social and domestic intercourse is an educational instrument largely used in cultivated circles. In the great mass of English society it is scarcely used at all, for this obvious reason, that education is in great part onesided, and the easy interchange of thought is therefore impossible. A slight infusion of an intellectual element would go far to expel the gossip and the microscopic criticism of one’s neighbours, which forms so large and so degrading a part in the domestic talk of the middle classes. The mental effort need not be a severe one. Talk may be very small, and yet have a certain dignity, if it touches even but lightly on elevating subjects. It is the effort to draw up conversation from empty wells that wearies the spirit, and drives even goodnatured people into scandal and slander. Contrast the forced and insipid small talk of ordinary society, resorted to by way of recreation, but in the last degree unrefreshing in its nature, with the spontaneous overflowings of a cultivated mind.
‘She spake such good thoughts natural, as if she always thought them—
She had sympathies so rapid, open, free as bird on branch,
Just as ready to fly east as west, whichever way besought them,
In the birchen wood a chirrup, or a cock-crow in the grange.
In her utmost lightness there is truth—and often she speaks lightly,
Has a grace in being gay, which even mournful souls approve;
For the root of some grave earnest thought is under-struck so rightly,
As to justify the foliage and the waving flowers above.’
It is in fact as a means of bringing men and women together, and bridging over the intellectual gulf between them, that a more liberal education and a larger scope for women are chiefly to be desired. It has been pointed out by a well-known essayist, that ‘the purpose of education is not always to foster natural gifts, but sometimes to bring out faculties that might otherwise remain dormant; and especially so far as to make the persons educated cognisant of excellence in those faculties in others.’ And even supposing it could be proved that the separate systems are eminently successful in developing certain peculiarly masculine or feminine gifts, the result would be dearly purchased by the sacrifice of mutual understanding and appreciation.
Oddly enough, it is often assumed that the only way of getting husbands and wives to agree is to keep them well apart. Common ground, it is taken for granted, must of course be a battle ground. If the theory of the peculiarly receptive character of the female intellect has any truth in it, it might be expected to be rather the other way, and that wives would, as a rule, be only too ready to adopt their husbands’ opinions. In any case, contact has an undoubted tendency to produce unanimity, and the chances are therefore in favour of agreement. And that there should be intelligent agreement, a community of thought and feeling, on all matters of importance, is surely the first necessity for the healthy and harmonious development of family life. M. Simon has drawn a vivid picture of the influence on children of discordance between fathers and mothers, even when there is nothing like an open rupture.
‘Cette femme qu’une religieuse a formée et cet homme nourri des doctrines de tolérance, peut-être d’indifférence, mariés ensemble, sont un vivant anachronisme. La femme est du dix-septième siècle et l’homme de la fin du dix-huitième. Admettons qu’ils vivent en bonne intelligence, elle le croyant damné, lui la jugeant fanatique. Qu’arrivera-t-il, quand à leur tour, ils enseigneront? Et ils enseigneront; être père, être mère, c’est enseigner. La mère répétera sa doctrine, puisée au couvent; le père, par prudence, se taira. Se taira-t-il? Si même il prend cela sur lui, son silence sera commenté par ses actes. Et que pensera l’enfant de cette contradiction, aussitôt qu’il pensera? Il condamnera l’un ou l’autre, peut-être l’un et l’autre. Plus il aura l’esprit puissant, plus vite il perdra respect.... Il semble à des esprits sans portée que l’indifférence et la foi vivront bien ensemble, parce que l’une exige et l’autre céde; mais céder à une croyance sans l’accepter, c’est ne pas être. La paix entre deux âmes est possible quand elle est fondée sur l’identité de foi; elle est encore possible quand elle est fondée sur le respect réciproque d’une foi diverse et sincère; mais appeler paix cette absence de lutte qui naît de l’indifférence, c’est confondre la paix avec la défaite et la vie avec le néant.’
The author of ‘Vincenzo’ has given in that remarkable story a view too painfully lifelike to be disbelieved, of the conjugal misery resulting from a profound dissonance between a husband and wife on religious and political questions, and asserts that the wreck of domestic happiness so graphically pictured represents a reality far from uncommon. ‘Would to God,’ he exclaims, ‘that the case were an isolated one! But no; there is scarcely any corner in Italy, scarcely any corner in Europe, that does not exhibit plenty of such and worse.’ Such a state of things could scarcely exist in England. The counteracting influences are too many and too strong. But it cannot be said that we are exempt from danger. In how many English families wives and sisters are clinging blindly to traditional beliefs and observances, from which husbands and brothers are turning away with indifference or dislike. How natural the transition from the theory which assigns ‘to the one the supremacy of the head, to the other that of the heart’—to that further division which attributes to the one Reason, to the other Faith. Heartless Rationalism and imbecile credulity! Is it in the union of these feeble and jarring tones that we shall find the full chord of family harmony? Ought we not rather to turn with suspicion from these artificial attempts to apportion attributes and duties? May we not welcome, as at least a step in the right direction, a change in our conventional habits, which may extend, though in ever so small a degree, the region of common thoughts and aims, common hopes and disappointments, common joys and common sorrows?
FOOTNOTES:
[5] On the occasion of a recent vacancy in the secretaryship of a benevolent society several of the candidates were married women. One gave, as her reasons for applying, ‘loneliness and want of employment.’ In another case, the application was made by a husband on behalf of his wife.
