'I admire this sentiment,' answered my father, 'and do not wish to dispute the fact upon which it is based. It may be that in Freeland conjugal fidelity is without exception the rule, and that unfaithfulness is regarded as a kind of mental aberration; but if it is so, then the men and women of Freeland are themselves exceptions, and to deduce a formal law of nature from their behaviour seems to me to be premature. Because in this country--it matters not from what causes--sexual morality has become exceptionally high, because to your delicate ethical sense polygamy and polyandry in any form are repugnant, it does not follow that the inconstancy which has marked men and women in all stages of civilisation is to be at once regarded as "contrary to human nature." It were well, madam, if you were right, for that would mean that the last source of vice and crime was stopped; but, alas! the experience of all ages shows that unfaithfulness and love root themselves by turns deeply in human nature. I can understand that you, as a woman, should be influenced more by moral than by sober scientific views; but I am afraid that results which are based less upon nature than upon--certainly very admirable--moral experiments, will prove to be not too permanent.'
A delicate flush passed over the face of my mother as she heard this. I noticed that she did not feel quite comfortable in having to reply to this in the presence of men; but as my father was not to be convinced in any other way, she answered, at first with hesitancy, but she was afterwards carried away by her interest in the subject. She said:
'I am a woman of Freeland, and my sentiments are those of Freeland. I would not ascribe to nature what is merely the outcome of my own moral views. When I said that man is a monogamous being, and that polygamy and polyandry were repugnant to the conditions of his existence, were contrary to his real nature, I referred--far from speaking from an ethical standpoint--simply to the animal nature of man. We belong, to speak plainly, to a species of animals which nature intends to be monogamous and monandrous. A species, whose progeny takes nearly twenty years to arrive at maturity, cannot thrive without the united care of father and mother. It is the long-continued helplessness of our children that makes the permanent union of a single pair natural to man. The moral sentiments--which, certainly, in a healthy condition of human society also gravitate in the same direction--are nothing more than the outcome of these natural conditions of existence. If a man reached maturity in a single year our moral sentiments would permit, would perhaps imperatively demand, a change of partner after every child; for, without exception, we hold that alone to be beautiful and good which is requisite to the thriving of the species. Now the genus homo categorically demands, in order that it may thrive, that father and mother should foster the young for twenty years; in the meantime fresh offspring arrive; the natural command to rear children--you see I make use of the crassest expressions of natural history--therefore keeps the male and the female together until there ceases to be any reason for a separation. It would be simply contrary to nature if the natural sentiments and instincts of man were not in harmony with this command of nature. Conjugal attachment and fidelity must be and are natural instincts of man; all phenomena that appear to indicate the opposite are simply consequences of transitory excrescences of civilisation. It was social inequality which gave rise to sexual vices as to all the other vices. The same relation of mastership which gives the employer control over the labour of other men also gives him power over other women than his wife; and the same servitude which deprived the slave of his right to the produce of his own labour robs the woman of her right to herself. Love becomes an article of merchandise, sold in order to appease hunger and to cover nakedness, bought in order to gratify inconstant desires. You think I hold that to be unnatural because it is immoral? On the contrary, I hold it to be immoral because it is contrary to nature. That, your highness, is what I would impress upon you. A better acquaintance with this land of freedom will show you that fidelity and honour between husband and wife are here no rare exceptions, but the universal rule; but you must know at once that we do not therefore exercise any superhuman virtue, but simply act in conformity with the real nature of man.'
I could plainly see, by the warm admiration expressed in the way in which he gallantly lifted Mrs. Ney's hand to his lips, that my father was already convinced; but, in order to mask his retreat, he threw out the question whether there were not, in this country, any other disturber of conjugal peace?
'You mean harshness, love of domination, wrangling? Even these cannot occur in a really free society based upon perfect equality of rights. It is the lack of freedom and of legal equality which elsewhere sows discord between the sexes and makes them like enemies by nature. The enslaved woman, robbed of her share of the goods of the earth, is impelled, by inexorable necessity, to trade upon the sexual desires and the weaknesses of man; she finds herself in a constant state of war with him, for she has no alternative but to suffer wrong or to do wrong. What the other sex has wrongly obtained from her sex the individual woman must win back for herself from the individual man by stratagem and cunning, and the individual man is forced into a continuous attitude of defence by this injustice of his sex, and by the consequently necessary attempts at re-vindication by the woman. In this respect, also, Schopenhauer is not altogether wrong: there is no other sympathy between man and woman than that of the epidermis; but he forgets here also to add that this is not the natural relation of the sexes, but one resulting from the unnatural subjection of the woman--that not man and woman as such, but slave and master, are reciprocally opposed as strangers and foes. Remove the injustice which this disturbance of a relation so consonant with nature has called forth, and it will at once be seen that the sympathy between husband and wife is the strongest, the most varied, and the most comprehensive of all. The woman possesses those very excellences of heart and intellect which most charm the man, and the excellences of the man are just those which the woman most highly prizes. Nature, which has physically adapted the sexes to each other, has also psychically formed them as complementary halves. Nature, to accomplish whose purposes it is necessary that man and wife should remain faithful for life, could not have acted so inconsistently as to endow them with psychical attributes which would prevent or render difficult such lifelong fidelity. The instinct that preserves the race and is the occasion of so much passionate physical enjoyment, this instinct must also inspire the sexes with the strongest conceivable mutual sympathy with each other's mental and ethical character. In Freeland every disturbing discord is removed from the natural relation between the sexes; what wonder that that relation shows itself in its perfect harmony and beauty! Every Freeland man is an enthusiastic worshipper of the women; every Freeland woman is a not less enthusiastic worshipper of the men. In the eyes of our men there is nothing purer, better, more worthy of reverence than the woman; and in the eyes of us, the women of Freeland, there is nothing greater, nobler, more magnanimous than the man. A man who ill-uses or depreciates his wife, who does not make it his pride to screen her from every evil, would be excluded from the society of all other men; and a wife who attempted to rule over her husband, who did not make it her highest aim to beautify his life, would be avoided by all other women.'
My father made no further objection. He was content that I should take my Bertha according to Freeland customs and without any formal ceremony. Only one condition he insisted upon: there should be a fortnight's interval between betrothal and wedding. I consented reluctantly to this delay; had I followed my own desires, we should have flown off together to the Victoria Nyanza that same day, and my betrothed also--for prudery is unknown here--did not hide the fact that she shared in my impatience. But during the last few hours my father had made such superhuman concessions that we owed him this--truly no small--sacrifice. On the 3rd of September, therefore, Bertha will become my wife; but from to-day you must look upon me as a citizen of Freeland.
Ungama: Aug. 24.
''Twixt cup and lip...'
When I finished my letter four days ago, and kept it back a little while in order to put in an enclosure from Bertha, who declared herself under an obligation to send to my friend a few words of apology for having stolen me, I had not the slightest presentiment that momentous events would come between me and the fulfilment of my ardent desires. The war in which we are engaged produces remarkably little excitement in my new fatherland; and if I were not in Ungama, I should not suspect that we were at war with an enemy who has repeatedly given serious trouble to several of the strongest military States of Europe. But I have not been a Freelander long enough not to be keenly sensible of the bitter disgrace and the heavy loss which my native land has lately suffered; and on all grounds--in my character of Freelander and also of quondam Italian--I held it to be my duty to take part personally in the war. Until this war is ended, there can of course be no thought of a wedding. In the meantime, the chance of war has brought me away from Eden Vale to the coast of the Indian Ocean. But I will tell my story in order.