Modern marriage and how to bear it

by Maud Churton Braby

When your cook has managed, by that occult secret of her own, to get the locked tantalus open and it isn’t consequently convenient or possible to have any dinner at home, you remain calm, and break it to your lord on the telephone, for can he not feast royally—yet economically—at the club? And when you are away on a holiday he can do the same, and spend a pleasant evening there afterward, instead of moping about alone in the empty house. When you indulge in disagreements of a disturbing nature, if ever you do, the same friendly haven is open to him, surely a more comfortable thing for you than to have him maledicting about the house while the little difference is cooling off. In short, there is no end to the blessings and benefits of a man’s club, and why in the world you want to abolish them, dear ladies, I for one cannot imagine.

Of course the necessary moderation should be observed, as with all other good things, and club nights once or twice a week should suffice. On these occasions the wife can have a picnic dinner—always a joy to a woman—with a book propped up before her, can let herself go and let her cook go out. Or if she be of a strenuous turn she can utilise the free evening to get her accounts and correspondence up to date. Or be her habit gay she can go out on her own account and do a little dinner and theatre with a discreet admirer, or even with a friend of her own sex. Look at it how you will, a club, provided a man does not abuse it, is an unalloyed blessing in married life.

But perhaps it is the tragic fate of the wives in question not to be able to trust their husbands, and with cause. Perhaps their hearts hold sorrowful knowledge of betrayal, and they fear that the club may be used to shield an evening spent in company less desirable from the wifely point of view. Even so, the club is a blessing, for at least a woman can hope and try to believe her husband is really there, whilst if he has no club to go to, the transparency of his alternative excuse must give colour to her worst suspicions. If a man is resolved to do this sort of thing, nothing can stop him; should one pretext to spend his time away from home fail, he will put forward another, and the less chance his wife has of discovering the real state of affairs the better for her peace of mind.

That ignorance is bliss is a profound truth in married life and wives should strive to be guided by it. I believe women exist who actually make a practice of going through their husbands’ pockets when opportunity offers, presumably in the expectation of finding some incriminating letter or bill. What they expect to gain in the event of an unpleasant discovery, heaven alone knows! Nothing but a more or less hateful scene, and a consequent loss of all peace between them, without the real source of the trouble being affected in the least. Fortunately few husbands are fools enough to carry compromising documents on their persons. In any case this surveillance is revolting, and where mutual respect exists, for which I have so strongly urged the necessity, these lapses of taste could not occur.

In justice to those unhappy women who suffer the terrible affliction of a husband given to excessive drink or gambling, I must add that, when this is the case, a wife is right to try by every means in her power to keep her husband away from his club, which offers greater opportunities than the home circle for indulging in these vices.

And now for a special word to men. On a foregoing page I mentioned the possibility of a married woman going out to dinner and the theatre with a man friend. In London life this is so usual an occurrence that any explanation of it would seem homely and a little absurd to the initiated. But the initiated are a very small section of the community, and as this book is humbly put forward for anyone interested in marriage to read—in short, for everyone who will read it—I propose therefore to enlarge somewhat on this theme for the benefit of the uninitiated majority. A great many men would never dream of allowing their wives to go out at night alone with other men; why, I cannot pretend to know, since they surely cannot insult their wives and their friends by the idea of any impropriety in connection with them. Possibly it is due to the survival of some primitive masculine feeling that they cannot explain. (In former times husbands were even more exacting, and under the Justinian code a man could divorce his wife merely for going to a circus without his consent, or for going to baths and banquets with other men!) To me it seems equally as unreasonable as women’s disapproval of men’s clubs. Just as a sensible wife makes no objection to her husband’s club, so a wise husband allows his wife to be taken out by another man, if she desire it. If he knows anything of the feminine temperament—and no man should marry till he does—he realises that the admiration of other men is pleasing to his wife, and a little gaiety has a wonderful effect on her spirits.

I remember the time when Theodore and Amoret used to disagree violently on this point, but eventually Theodore gave way. ‘He used to think it so wrong of me to like having other men a tiny bit in love with me,’ Amoret said, ‘but I explained to him that I liked it because it gave me such a nice powerful feeling and was a kind of added zest in life. Then he always said it was very dangerous for a married woman to have any zest in life apart from her husband, and I used to answer that he had no end of zests apart from me, and what was I to do during the long evenings when he was eternally playing bridge. Finally I promised it would make me more contented and able to bear the monotony of marriage better, if only he would let me go. He thought it was awfully wicked of me to call marriage monotonous, and said his mother would have been horrified at such a remark. I told him it was no good expecting a young wife to behave like one’s mother, and he said he’d rather I didn’t. Then we laughed, and the dear old boy gave in, and said that Everard was a white sort of man, and might take me out once as a trial trip. Since then I’ve gone to theatres with them all, and I’m fonder of Theodore the more I see of other men, and ever so much more peaceful and contented.’

Which testimony speaks for itself.

Few seem to realise the many advantages of marrying a man of a silent habit. The ideal husband rarely talks; he realises that women prefer to do this themselves, and that there is not room for two talking people in one happy family. The loquacious man had better look out for a silence-loving woman, and marry her immediately he finds her. Such creatures are as rare as comets, and as a rule they are generally married already to equally silent husbands—another of Nature’s painful bungles. Nothing is more appalling than to have to entertain one of these speechless couples; an over-talkative pair is infinitely preferable, as at least one can listen peacefully and let them run on.

An endless source of trouble between married couples is the money question. Wives are often extravagant and generally sinfully ignorant of financial matters at the start. Undoubtedly, as Isolda says: ‘Money (and Menials) mar Matrimony.’ Of the second I cannot trust myself to write, but I know that money—the want of it, the withholding of it, and the mis-spending of it—is responsible for a great deal of conjugal conflict. Some men seem to imagine their wives ought to be able to keep house without means, and these unfortunate women have to coax and beg and make quite a favour of it before they can obtain their due allowance. Even then they are treated like children, and their use of the money is inquired into in a most insulting manner, as if there was such a royal margin for extravagance.