"But such a one!"
"The old moral philosophers were grand, certainly, but not grander than our own men are, of whom we only hear less because there are so many more of them."
"But do you mean to say society is less sinful than it was?"
"There is one section of society at the present day, they tell me, which is most desperately wicked. It is worse than any class was when the world was young, because it knows so much better. But I believe the bulk of the people like right so well that they only want a strong impulse to make them follow it. I feel sure sometimes that we are all living on the brink of a great change for the better, and that there is only one thing wanting now—a great calamity, or a great teacher—to startle us out of our apathy and set us to work. We are not bold enough. We should try more experiments; they can but fail, and if they do, we should still have learnt something from them. But I do not think we shall fail for ever. What we want is somewhere, and must be found eventually."
"They tried some experiments with the marriage laws in France once,"
Lorrimer observed, tentatively.
"Yes, and failed contemptibly because their motive was contemptible. They did not want to improve society, but to make self-indulgence possible without shame. I think our own marriage laws might be improved."
"People are trying to improve them," he said, with a slight laugh. "A friend of mine has just married a girl who objected to take the oath of obedience. How absurd it is for a girl of nineteen to imagine she knows better than all the ages." "I think," said Ideala, "that it is more absurd for 'all the ages' to subscribe to an oath which something stronger than themselves makes it impossible for half of them to keep. Strength of character must decide the question of place in a household as it does elsewhere; and it is surely folly to require, and useless to insist on, the submission of the strong to the weak. The marriage oath is farcical. A woman is made to swear to love a man who will probably prove unlovable, to honour a man who is as likely as not to be undeserving of honour, and to obey a man who may be incapable of judging what is best either for himself or her. I have no respect for the ages that uphold such nonsense. There was never any need to bind us with an oath. If men were all they ought to be, wouldn't we obey them gladly? To be able to do so is all we ask."
"Well, it is a difficult question," he answered, "and I don't think we need trouble ourselves about it any way. Do you like flowers?"
"Yes," she burst out in another tone; "and easy chairs, and pictures, and china, and everything that is beautiful, and all sensual pleasures."
She said it, but she knew in a moment that she had used the wrong word, and was covered with confusion.