The physical sympathy between a man and woman is a road which may lead to paradise, but how often may one lose one’s self on the road before entering the field of affection and thought.
The only logical people in the world are those savages who, before giving themselves forever, make a trial on both sides, and separate or marry, according to the result of the experience. But such moral and modest people as we are, must content ourselves with guessing; and woe to us if we make a mistake.
Fortunately, the sympathy which is awakened by a mere study of the woman’s outward form nearly always agrees with that deeper one which arises from the agreement of the temperaments, by reason of the solidity which unites the different offices of an organism.
But it happens only too often that the interior is different from the exterior, and a man of ice has taken for his own a woman of fire, or vice versa.
In many codes of law incompatibility of temper is a sufficient cause for divorce, but is not incompatibility of temperament a more prolific cause for domestic discord? Legislators and theologians have for some time raised this last veil which hides the shrine of love, but in their verdict or the clauses of their laws, have they contributed or not to the happiness of matrimony?
I believe not, for in modern codes the duties and genital rights of two married people are only confined to the preservation of the race. Beyond that they say nothing, and they do well. But of that other unwritten code which guides our individual conduct, do they say nothing, do they teach us nothing? They do not even give us a guide-book, or even only time-tables of fifteen centuries, like those of the railway. After having studied man and woman for nearly half a century, after having dared to raise every veil, to sound every cavity, to feel every pulse that beats, every nerve that vibrates, as physician, anthropologist, and psychologist, this is all I have learnt.
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The ideal of physical harmony between two married people is, that each one should feel the same hunger, and feel it for the same thing.
But as this occurs tolerably seldom, it is better that the man, who is always the leader of the orchestra of two, should give the la; that is, raise or lower the tone so that there shall be perfect harmony. The thing is not so difficult; for if the great masters succeed in making the hundred instruments of an orchestra keep time and tune, should it not be easier to tune two instruments only?
Above all, remember that the music has to last many long years, and it is better to accustom your companion from the very beginning, so to proceed that she may not tire, but may reach the end unscathed. If you begin with quavers and semi-quavers, poor you! Your companion of the orchestra will accustom herself to that tempo, which will become a necessity for her—for you it may be a catastrophe.