Formerly the fortunes of the individual were bound up with those of his family and to some degree with those of the community. He had his security, recognition, response, and new experience in the main as group member. He could not rise or fall greatly above or below the group level. Even the drunkard and the “black sheep” had respect in proportion to the standing of his family. And correspondingly, if a family member lost his “honor”, the standing of the whole family was lowered.

Individualism, on the other hand, means the personal schematization of life,—making one’s own definitions of the situation and determining one’s own behavior norms. Actually there never has been and never will be anything like complete individualization, because no one lives or can live without regard to a public. Anything else would be insanity. But in their occupational pursuits men have already a degree of individualization, decide things alone and in their own way. They take risks, schematize their enterprises, succeed or fail, rise higher and fall lower. A large element of individualism has entered into the marriage relation also. Married women are now entering the occupations freely and from choice, and carrying on amateur interests which formerly were not thought of as going with marriage. And this is evidently a good thing, and stabilizes marriage. Marriage alone is not a life, particularly since the decline of the community type of organization. The cry of despair in document No. 37 is from a woman who limited her life to marriage, probably by her own choice, and is now apparently too old to have other interests. But on the other hand document No. 49 is a definition of marriage as exclusively a device for the realization of personal wishes and the avoidance of responsibility. This may be compared with No. 71 (p. 122) where a girl organizes her life similarly without marriage.

49. Girls, get married! Even if your marriage turns out badly, you are better off than if you had stayed single. I know half a dozen women whose first marriages were failures. They got rid of their first husbands easily and have made much better marriages than they could have made if they had stayed single. Their new husbands idolize them. One of my women acquaintances who has been married four times is the most petted wife I know.

My own marriage has turned out well. Everything seemed against it. I was well known in my profession, and when I married I was making as much money as my husband. We were of different religions. He drank.

But he had one big quality. He was generous. Since our marriage he has refused to let me work. Girls, be sure the man you pick is generous. Look out for a tightwad. If a man is liberal with his money he is sure to be easy to get along with. Liberal men in money matters do not annoy their wives in the other concerns of life....

But even if my marriage had turned out badly, I would have been better off than if I had neglected the opportunity to become married. I met new friends through my husband. If I had divorced him at any time, I know many of his men friends would have courted me. There is something about the magic letters “Mrs.” that gives a woman an added attraction in the eyes of men. There is a middle-aged widow in our apartment house that has more men taking her to theatres and dances than all the flappers and unmarried young women....

I often wonder what men get married for. They take heavy financial responsibilities. They mortgage their free time to one woman. What a wife’s clothes cost them would enable them to enjoy expensive amusements, extensive travel and better surroundings generally. Then, too, a bachelor, no matter what his age or social position, gets more attention socially than a married man. Children, too, give less pleasure and service to a father than a mother.

But for women, marriage is undoubtedly a success. It raises their position in the community. In most cases, it releases them from the danger of daily necessary work and responsibility. It brings them more attention from other men. Even when incompatibility intervenes, alimony provides separate support without work. In such cases, it also provides a more strategic position for a new and better marriage.[[51]]

In the same connection, the following cases show the growing tendency toward individualized definitions of sexual relations outside of marriage. In case No. 50 an immigrant girl explicitly organizes her life on the basis of prostitution instead of work. In No. 51 the girls commercialize a series of betrothals. In No. 52 the girl has worked out her own philosophy of love and calls herself a missionary prostitute.

50. [When I left Europe] my little sister’s last words were, “Here, in hell, I will dream through the nights that far, far, across the ocean, my loving brother lives happily.” And my last words were, “I shall forget my right hand if I ever forget you.”