Modern England has for many generations been a place so unhealthy for the young that a vast problem has grown up in our midst which seriously disturbs the normal adjustment of sex relationships. It would seem to have been Nature's intention that there should be slightly more men than women in the world, for boy babies outnumber girl babies [Footnote: The actual figures are 1052 boy babies to 1000 girl babies.] What it would mean if there were more adult men than women in the world it is hard to imagine. It would at once have enormous social consequences. No woman would remain a celibate except by her own choice. Men would have to behave themselves in order to win wives, and would cease to occupy the demoralizing position of being able to get wives whenever they want them. It would in fact mean a new world in many ways.
As things are, however, the unhealthy conditions of modern life produce a greater mortality among boy babies than among girl babies, and males come to be in a minority. This state of affairs has been greatly aggravated by the war, but it was serious even before 1914. It was then the case that the women outnumbered the men by about a million. The number must be nearer a million and a half to-day.
The result is that over a million women have to face the prospect of a life in which their most deeply implanted instincts—the instincts for wifehood and motherhood—cannot find their normal satisfaction, and the problem thus created is one of the most difficult in the whole of life. It is, of course, nothing less than insulting nonsense to talk about these women as "superfluous women." Behind the very phrase there lurks the old delusion that women are only needed in the world as wives and mothers. As a matter of fact a great deal of the work that is most needed in our civilization—work in education, art, literature, nursing, social service, and other departments of life—is being done by these women.
But while that is true it is also true that the personal life of the unmarried woman presents acute problems of a most intricate kind. Probably only a woman can truly understand those problems or justly estimate their urgency, but no man with any insight or sympathy can fail to know that the lot of the unmarried woman involves secret stresses, unsatisfied yearnings, and sometimes hours of dark depression. She may be unmarried because she has persistently refused to try to be satisfied with any second best. As a witty woman friend of mine once put it, she may be unmarried because "the attainable was not desirable and the desirable was not attainable." She may be unmarried because a very true lover of early days went on before, and she has never felt able to put anyone else in his place. Or she may have loved truly some man who loved another. Or nothing may ever have happened to awaken conscious love in her, in which case it is still possible that her nature may cry out at times for the satisfaction of its primary needs. And while all this is true, she is conventionally supposed never to show by any sign that she would have liked to be married. However much she may suffer it is held unseemly for her to show that she suffers, or to ask for sympathy. She is often, and I think quite indefensibly, denied by social convention the stimulus of any really intimate friendships with men. She is made the subject of uncounted third-rate jokes. And if, as life goes on, she develops peculiarities of manner or asperities of temper—if she begins to lose vitality and grace, these things are noted with contempt by people who little imagine how much real heroism may lie concealed in the object of their scorn. I believe, however, that I speak for a very large number of men when I confess that nothing kindles in me quite the same flame of resentment at things as they are, as just this fact that so many gracious and kindly women, plainly made for motherhood and fitted for a fine part in life, should find themselves held in the clutches of this insistent problem.
It may well help all such to realize the fact stated above, namely, that the problem is no part of the eternal and designed order of things, but one of the results of our social misbehavior. In a very real sense the women who suffer in this matter suffer vicariously for the sins of all society. It is not they who are guilty, but all mankind. For all who mean resolutely to face the problem and to win through to victory, it is first of all essential that they should realize the fact that their acute depressions and their restlessness of mind have really a quite well-defined physical and psychological cause. Somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five these depressions often become very acute, so that the whole horizon of life is darkened. Sensitive women often torment themselves by wondering what they have done that is wrong, for of course all depression is apt to take the form of a sense of wrongdoing. Further, at this period the religious sensibilities of many seem to suffer eclipse. They can no longer respond in feeling to any of the sublime religious truths. They find they cannot pray. Nothing seems to matter. The memory of earlier days when life seemed bright and religious faith was confident seems only to mock them. Many are beset by definite intellectual difficulties and so are tempted to a general cynicism. Envy of others will suggest itself, and though it be sternly repressed, it still adds to the general strain, while good advice from others will seem just the last straw which cannot be borne.
But one half of this problem has disappeared at once for many from the day when they faced the plain truth that the cause of trouble is physical. Physiological processes with certain inevitable psychological accompaniments are at the bottom of it. Because their natures have not received their natural fulfillment a complicated situation has arisen which cannot be easily lived through, though it may be in the end triumphantly controlled. And if it helps ordinary people to learn that sometimes when they seem to be suffering from a sense of sin they are really only being plagued by indigestion, it may very much more help women in this difficult period to know that they are only going through an inevitable physical readjustment. What is happening is that sexual desire—it may be in vague, unconscious, and very general forms—is asserting itself. Nothing could be more absurd than to suggest that there is anything wrong or immodest in that fact. It is quite inevitable. Indeed, the first step out of the trouble lies in accepting the fact and then in considering how it is to be dealt with.
What is the way out of this difficult bit of life? All said that can be said about the physical and psychological causes, a very real problem remains. There must be a way of meeting it which ends in complete victory, for women who have come through it victoriously are to be found on all hands. What has been the secret of their victory? I prefer to let a woman begin the answer. "I think," writes one, "that the only possible thing for such women to do is to have their eyes fixed on God, and to know that in some mysterious and wonderful way He understands and meets all our needs. I think it needs a definite act—of our wills, our intellects, and our emotions—an act of consecration and self-offering to God, and until that is done there will be no peace." And then, after expressing her conviction as to the insufficiency of the policy of mere sublimation she continues, "I really believe that for women a real act of surrender—a joyful offering to God—is the only way."
I am sure the ultimate wisdom about this whole matter is contained in those sentences, and I am sure because there are numerous other departments of life in which similar problems assail both men and women, and in relation to which the way of self-surrender is the only possible way to life.
After all, it is not only unmarried women who have to face the experience of wanting passionately something which they cannot have. In various forms that challenge comes to most men and women whether married or not. Our desires demand one thing, and life with its imperious authority offers something different; and it is perhaps in that way that most of us come to the crisis of our lives. It is easy to break oneself against a situation of that sort. It is easy to spoil life completely by an obstinate concentration on the object that is being withheld—to lose life by insisting on finding it in one's own chosen way. Men and women alike make shipwreck of their lives in that way every year.
But there is another way. Our real life is life in God, and the way into it is always the way of surrender. To say with utter sincerity and absence of self-will, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" is to begin to find deliverance at once. We could not and should not surrender thus to anybody else. He alone perfectly understands. But when we have put ourselves into His hands without reserve, immediately life begins to arrange itself. With such surrender there comes a peace which nothing else can bring. I say it with acute sympathy for all strong-willed, high-spirited people, for whom surrender is very difficult. But I say it with an assurance that is based upon the unanimous verdict of the souls of all history who have found life. "I have learned," said one much harassed and persecuted man, "in whatsoever state I am therein to be content." He was content because in whatsoever state he might be he was always in the fellowship of God, and therefore in enjoyment of his essential life. He knew himself secure whatever life might bring, and even though life itself should end. He was inwardly in a state of profound peace and spiritual freedom, and that is why all the gracious powers of his humanity were able to find free and beautiful expression.
So it must be with all of us. We find our real life, and we become masters or mistresses in life only when we have given in and allowed the love of God to direct and sustain us. For the particular problem dealt with in this chapter and for all other painful and pressing problems of life, the way of victory is to seek and find the life that is hid with Christ in God.
* * * * *
No doubt at this point two questions will arise in the minds of some. Firstly, some will want to say, "All that is very well for those who are religious, but how about the people who are not religious?" I have no answer to that question, because I believe there is none. Religion is not a sort of hobby that just seems to suit certain peculiar people. It is a prime necessity for all of us. In a great many other connections it becomes increasingly plain to all who have eyes to see that there is no solution for the problem of life except the one which God Himself offers to all seeking souls. We may refuse to seek Him, but in so doing we close the prison doors against ourselves. I am not surprised that in studying the problems of sex I find no answer to the most acute of them apart from religion. That is what I should expect. Is it likely that men and women who were made for God should ever find any lasting satisfaction or any way to victory in life apart from Him? And indeed, in the particular connection I am now writing about, it is the fact that not a few women have lived to be almost thankful for the problem of involuntary celibacy that once confronted them in so menacing a way. It threw them back on God, and their experience of Him has been so rich that they are thankful for the compulsion that drove them into His fellowship.
There is no mysterious hunger in the inner life of any woman—no restless longing ever torments her—no painful stresses ever make her life seem difficult—no weary loneliness ever makes the world seem desolate, but He understands—perfectly and utterly. And if it be love that a woman longs for, there is no love like unto His love—perfect in tenderness, in understanding and in power. Yes, God Himself is the final answer to the problem of all lives that here seem to be unfulfilled, whether they be lives of men or women.
The other question that will be raised will be put in these words: "You have said that in the dark hours that come to so many women religious feeling seems to be suspended, and yet you go on to say that the way of escape lies in religion," I know that what I have written may seem for this reason utterly tantalizing to some. I know that in general it is in times when we most need religion that it is apt to seem most remote from us. Most of us have been in that dilemma. But there is a way out. It consists partly in remembering that religion is not only a matter of feeling, and that when feeling fails us the mind and will remain. But it consists still more in remembering that religion is not so much our affair as God's. God does not only answer the prayers of people who are feeling religious. If religion be what the experience of thousands declares it is, then we have reason to expect that our seeking of God will have results even when our emotions seem dead. We can at least direct our thought life. We can set ourselves towards Him by the deliberate direction of attention. We can think the true and right thoughts. And in that way a religion begins to come into life that is tenfold more abiding and sustaining than any religion that is a mere matter of feeling. It may need rigid self-discipline and really hard work thus to direct attention and attain to a regulated thought life. But then, I am not suggesting that there is an easy way through this problem. There is a way, and a way that leads to real victory; but it is no more easy than any other path that leads to a great goal.
I should like further to draw on the experience of women themselves to add some additional suggestions born of common sense and experiment. A very wise woman once supplied through me some hints to one who was going through this difficult period, and I am sure her hints are worth passing on to others. She insisted that no woman at this stage should attempt to live alone. Healthy friendship with other women is one of the greatest possible helps to success. As I have noted in a previous chapter, there is a danger that lurks not far away in this connection. But too much cannot be said of the helpful and bracing influence of friendships that are kept really healthy. Then, it is a mistake for women to live in institutions when that can be avoided. It really helps to have some room or rooms in the care of which the home-making instinct can find expression, and which may thus become a means to self-expression. More important still, my friend insisted that it is better at this period to work with people than with things. Other people always tend to draw us out of ourselves, if we will allow that to happen. They make demands on our affections. They keep us in touch with real life and its vast variety of emotions and interests. They make self-forgetfulness possible. Further, it is important for such women—as important as for all other people—to learn the truth that the way to win love is to give it. When people suffer tortures of loneliness it is essentially loneliness of heart. Like all other normal persons they long to be loved. But nothing is more futile in such a situation than simply to sit down and wait for someone to come along and love us. That way lies despair. What we can do is to awaken to the fact that all around us are people who also long to be loved, and that we have love to give them if we will but be generous. They may not seem very attractive people, but in that case they only need our love the more. Is it not being loved that makes people lovely! And when women rouse themselves to use their own love generously for others, they begin—always—to find the doors of deliverance opening.
A further very great step will have been taken when it is realized that the life force which is not going to have its normal and natural outlet need not on that account be wasted. It can be directed to other ends with enormous benefit to the world. I cannot hope to say anything on this point one-half so adequate or so helpful as the chapter Miss Royden has already written inSex and Common Sense. Out of the fullness of knowledge she has gained by an amazingly sensitive sympathy she has there written the best account I have ever seen of how thwarted sex emotion can be sublimated to other ends, and made an immensely effective force for the progress of the race. In both men and women sexuality is just life force. If the natural method of expression be denied to it, it will still seek out ways in which to express itself. If it has been merely repressed unwillingly and incompletely the results, as the psychologists are telling us, are apt to be disastrous. But if the situation is openly faced, and honestly accepted—if a conscious surrender of the normal sex career be achieved—then it is possible to utilize the life force that springs from our sex natures for great physical, mental, or emotional activities, and that without any of the evil results that follow from mere repression. In fact by living an abundant life in natural, useful, and absorbing ways the problem becomes capable of a truly happy solution.
I have written the word "happy" deliberately. But I am not sure that at first this way out will seem happy. Useful it certainly will be, but all said and done I fancy that some residue of regret will be apt to remain, and that because of it women will be tempted to indulge in self-pity. And self-pity both for men and women is the most enervating of all emotional luxuries. Therefore, I wish to insert here a word of grateful testimony. If the sublimation of sex instinct seems to some women a poor and pale substitute for the normal career of marriage and motherhood, I am at least sure that for society at large it is a very blessed substitute. My chief experience of life has been in those places called slums, where life is always seen in its most drab and pitiful guise, and I can speak with certainty about this problem in relation to them. In the districts in which I have worked there have always been at least a few unmarried women who were spending with lavish generosity their whole life force in practical service and sympathy for needy children, harassed mothers, wayward men, and the sufferers of the district in general. No members of the human race are living anywhere with greater effect. No other women are called blessed with greater sincerity. Half a dozen in particular I can think of who in this way have done more for the redemption of society in such places than a score of happily married mothers could have accomplished. I do not know whether they feel that the sublimation of their instincts has been a complete success, but I do know that hundreds of grateful people have no doubt about it whatever. The whole world in its modern guise is crying out for such services as women alone can render, and if, on the one hand, women are the chief sufferers through the confusions of human affairs, they have at least a wonderful chance of finding and applying the remedy. The world can never make good to them the wrong it has done them; yet they may, if they will, put the world inexpressibly in their debt. No doubt mankind does not deserve it, but the one perfect lover in history was willing to die for an undeserving world. It can never be other than a great calling to follow where He leads the way.
A woman of great experience tells me that here I ought to suggest that in that minority of cases where it is possible, an unmarried woman may with great advantage adopt a child. There are many children in the world to-day without parents, and these children have a greatly lessened chance of life. But when one of these children is adopted in the way suggested a great benefit is brought firstly to the child, secondly to society, and thirdly to the woman herself, who thus acquires a worthy object for all the passionate devotion she possesses. Having known this plan adopted in several instances, I have wondered why it is not more common, at least when financial considerations make it a possibility.
No doubt to take this course or any of the other courses here suggested will need courage. But all successful ways of life need courage. Life itself is a challenging summons to courage. There is no happy way through for those who sit down in fear or who give in to their own distresses. Fate is a tyrant only to those who will not face him with spirit. A full and satisfying life has to be snatched from under the enemy's guns, but it can be so snatched. Neither men nor women need give in though often defeated. "Unconquering but unconquered" may be the best motto that we can hope to deserve, but for all those who inscribe it on their banners a strange happiness does creep into the soul.
I have the greatest sympathy with married couples who never read any books or pamphlets containing advice to married people, and are determined that they never will. Once a man and a woman have left their respective homes and set up in one of their own their common life is so entirely their own affair, and they have such a clear right to resent all intrusions into it, that the policy of rejecting all advice beforehand has clearly something to be said for it.
And yet, because no one need read this chapter unless he or she likes, I put it in; and if any wife or husband does read it, I hope that in that case both husband and wife will do so. I really write it not so much for those who are already married, as for those still unmarried. It matters so much—so very very much—with what preconceptions and assumptions we approach wedded life.
Of course Mother Nature teaches the great art of living in the married state to thousands. Two sensible people endowed with some patience, some common sense, and a great deal of affection have every right to expect that without much difficulty they will find for themselves the right way in marriage. Uncounted couples who read no books and never heard of psychology have made a lifelong success of it simply by being natural, brave, unselfish, and really loving. Many such simply wonder when they hear others talk about the difficulties, dangers, and painful experiences connected with marriage. They never found these things in their marriages. The last thing I would like to suggest to the young is that they need be afraid. Personally I agree with the man who said that on his wedding day he had entered a new and splendid country for which he felt quite unworthy and that he had never since ceased to wonder and thank God for its beauties, its interests, and its delights.
Yet there are other couples—couples who have made mistakes, and now talk rather bitterly about marriage; and it is because I believe that even a little more knowledge and a little more patience might have prevented those mistakes that I offer the following pages with my congratulations and good wishes to all who are about to marry.
There are no absolute rules for the conduct of married life. There are only truths to be recognized. We are all apt at times to wish for absolute rules. We think they would make life easier. We even wish sometimes that Jesus had given us absolute rules and not simply principles. But in fact rules always turn out to be galling things. They are not for free personalities who differ enormously in constitution and temperament. The right way for A and B might prove to be just the wrong way for C and D. The problem is one which has to be worked out by each couple afresh. It is a problem of mutual accommodation between two persons each of whom is an original creation of God. It is the problem of taking two different life themes and working them into one harmony.
Nor do I think that we achieve much by thinking or speaking of "rights" in this connection—about "his" right to rule here, and "her" right to be considered there. No doubt husbands and wives have rights— inalienable and august rights. But married life is part of love's domain, and in that region the language of the law courts is out of place. When either of the two begins to think about enforcing or claiming rights something has already gone wrong.
And this I think is chiefly a point for men to consider. The conception of a husband as a sort of Czar within his own home still lingers, though it may not be openly proclaimed. Men still grow up with the idea that a wife should be a sort of submissive and very charming slave, honored by occasional demonstrations of affection, and that the whole household should be ordered to suit his lordship's convenience. Such men will protect their wives, give them money, make love to them, humor them, and honor them in public; and in return will expect something little short of sheer submission. Behind all this lurks the half-conscious idea that woman is man's inferior, and that idea really does remain hidden even in the minds of some who would repudiate it. The fact is that the ultimate value of marriage—the thing that makes it good fun, as well as a noble thing—lies in the fact that men and women are so different; that they have not the same powers, and can alternately take the lead in their common life. It is comradeship, and not mere occasional love-making, that they must achieve in order to be permanently happy, and comradeship is a relation in which each must be free to be his or her natural self.
Marriagecanbe made a cramping thing, and then in time it becomes almost an insufferable thing. But if each will give the other room to grow it can be an enlarging experience. It may contain the sum of the interests of two different people. If mutual learning is brought into it, it dignifies the lives of both. I believe in obedient wives. But then I also believe in obedient husbands. If I did not follow my wife's lead in some departments of life, I should be neither more nor less than a fool. And I believe that she is quite wise to follow my lead in some other connections.
What all this really points to is that the element of liberty is worth conserving within marriage with very great care. When a wife has no private means it is an essential thing for the husband to give her regularly a stated allowance and to ask no questions as to how it is spent. It is a good thing—a very good thing—to make certain that, if possible, a wife has a holiday now and then from the heavy bondage of housekeeping. It is even a good thing that she should have a holiday now and then from the charms and joys of family life. For we men are very like children in the way we come to depend on our wives. All our little woes must be brought to them—from buttonless shirts to the pitiful tale of our last defeat at golf. The children consult them daily about a hundred things as of right, and their husbands must often seem to them the biggest bairns of the lot. I quite see why women like it. But it must get very wearing at times. It surely is a good thing that now and then a wife should turn her back on it all, meet old friends, have days in which to enjoy herself without any bothers, and even for a few hours forget her exacting if charming dependents.
It is equally important not to forget a husband's liberty.
No doubt a great deal of cruelty lies to the charge of husbands who are out night after night, leaving their wives—already weary after a day's heavy work—to sit bored and alone, while they enjoy the company of their male friends, or hunt after their favorite pleasures. It is quite right that wives should refuse to tolerate such treatment. But the entire reversal of that policy is apt to work badly also. A husband should not drop all the masculine interests of his life, nor give up his old friends, nor resign from all the responsibilities that will take him sometimes out at nights. And a wise wife will not allow him to do it. Somewhere between the two extremes I have indicated lies the wise path in this connection.
Then is it not time that somebody boldly said that husbands ought to do some of the housework? I have no time to discuss the ethical problem raised by the households where paid servants do it all. They are a very small minority of modern households, and in all the rest the wives do a great deal of the housework—generally all of it. Some of it is heavy muscular work, such as carrying coals or moving furniture. The rest makes up an employment which is more constant, needs more brains, and calls for more administrative capacity than any man can imagine till he has tried to do it. Of course men say they cannot do such work. Which is plain rubbish. It only means that they do not like doing it. Neither do many women. And men can do most of it perfectly well if they will only take the trouble to learn how it is done. I do not mean that I propose for men such jobs as matching wools, or making babies' clothes, or arranging the drawing-room. There are limits to our powers. But I do seriously mean that setting fires, cleaning grates, carrying coals, making beds, washing dishes, cooking, scrubbing floors, cleaning brass and silver, etc., etc. are things which the average man can do quite as well as the average woman. Why then should they all be piled upon the weary back of the woman? Because, you probably say, the man must hurry off to business in the morning, and comes home too tired at night. Yes! most of us really believed all that before the war, and then we began to make discoveries. One was that there can be a lot of time before a man goes off to business, and another was that the man is not more tired by 6.30 p.m. than the woman, and can do a lot of useful things if he has the will. And I urge this point not only because it is in the clearest sense only fair, but because until a man does in this way take his share of the home burden he cannot understand his wife's life, and cannot give her intelligent sympathy.
The instinctive male attitude to household details is often expressed in the phrase that they are "bally nonsense," or something else equally picturesque. But when a little experience has taught a man howveryuncomfortable he would be if the details were not right, he is forthwith able to be a much more intelligent friend to his wife. I do not think fathers ever really know their little children till they have helped in looking after them at bedtime, in the early morning, and at meals. And I am sure that no man ever knows what a crowded and terrific thing life can be till he has been left at home alone for a whole evening to look after two or three. When he has undergone that searching experience he will forthwith respect his wife with a new sincerity.
It is extraordinary too what a jolly business housework can be when two people go at it together and get all the possible fun out of it. On the other hand, when it is all done by lonely people it can be vilely tedious. Thousands of husbands have no idea of this. If they searched their own minds they would find that their idea of their own homes is that they are places to be kept clean and comfortable for them, and their idea of their own wives is that they are women whose first duty is to minister to their comfort. Any suggestion that this may mean a very dull life for wives is met by a snort, and some muttered murmur about "poisonous modern nonsense." But in spite of that or any other more brilliant adjectives that may be employed the suggestion is unalterably true, and if, having made life as dull as that for their wives, such men find that marriage itself is not turning out well, it is high time they should wake up to the fact that they themselves are to blame.
And yet may some kindly Providence save us all from the women who never forget the house—whose domestic possessions seem to constitute mere extensions of their nervous systems, so that if you kick the fender you give them the jumps—who cannot sit still once they have seen a speck of dust, and cannot turn with free minds to any wider interest. They help to fill clubs and pubs. But they ruin homes. I want husbands to share the housework chiefly because in that way it will get done the sooner, and give both husband and wife some free time. If they want really to live they must take care to get away at times from all such merely domestic concerns. If need be let the supper dishes lie dirty, but out of sight, until to-morrow—if need be, let your husband wear a sock with a hole in it—put off cutting out baby's trousers, and even let your new blouse go without that alteration in the meantime, but on most evenings at all costs get some time to read, or enjoy music, or go out, or talk, or dream, or do nothing. The problem of civilization is unsolved for those who let the house tyrannize over them, and the problem of marriage also. All of which may seem rather trivial and unimportant to some men, but in my belief it is connected in a strangely intimate way with the success of life.
Of course the converse to all this is that wives do well to enter into their husbands' interests. It is often done with amazing success. I can think at the moment of doctors, lawyers, engineers, shopkeepers, scholars, writers, financiers, teachers, and ministers whose wives have entered keenly and with intelligence into all their cares, plans, and labors. And in every such case the friendship between man and wife has been very close, and the marriage truly happy. When this is not done, I often wonder why. I suppose some wives do not understand their husbands' affairs at first, and cannot be bothered trying to understand. I suppose that some husbands are too impatient to explain, and that others really cannot. If so it is a pity. Possibly some would rather not explain. I have often wondered what the wives of many modern business men think of modern business methods; and I suspect that generally they simply do not know the truth. But I repeat it is a very great pity when a wife has no relation to her husband's business. It means that he has a life quite apart from her. And if it be said that many a man wants to forget his business and all its worries as soon as he gets inside his own front door, it is equally true that often such men have worries they cannot forget, and that they would be stronger and happier men if they only knew what a woman's sympathy is.
All of which seems to me so very important—so inevitably important— that I cannot but think it should be remembered when young men and women are deciding about their marriages. Have you noticed the lines on the face of that greatest of men—Abraham Lincoln? They were there in large measure because he married a woman who could not or would not share his real life.
It is beyond all question that in many cases where marriage is not turning out happily the real cause lies in some failure to achieve real and true adjustment of the sexual relationship which marriage involves.
Here again there are no absolute rules. Miss Royden, for instance, has written a most notable chapter called "The Sin of the Bridegroom" in which with fine candor she points out how cruel it may be for a husband to suppose that on the first night of his marriage, and after a day of great fatigue, his wife will necessarily be emotionally attuned for her first experience of intimacy, and how fatal the results may be if he imposes himself upon her in an unresponsive hour. I am sure that every word in that chapter is true and important. I agree with the suggestion that every man should read it before he marries. But it is also true that many couples who did then experience intimacy can look back upon the first night of marriage as on a sacred occasion which they recall with wonder.
Yes, there are no absolute rules. But there are unalterable facts. And the supremely important one here is that sexual intimacy is only a perfect experience when it is a mutual experience. I think the delusion is nearly dead that woman is a passionless creature, who will never actively desire her husband but who ought to be willing to receive him whenever he desires. Happy marriages can only be built upon the grave of that misconception. It was held to be a view honoring to women. As a matter of fact it led to a great deal of cruelty. No doubt women differ greatly, but in every woman who truly loves there lies dormant the capacity to become vibrantly alive in response to her lover, and to meet him as a willing and active participant in the sacrament of marriage. And till that dormant capacity has been stirred into life sexual intimacy may be actually repulsive, with the result that children may be born who are not in the full sense the product of creative love, and that the relations of husband and wife may remain difficult and unsatisfying to both.
This is not what God ordained. There is an art of wooing which Nature teaches to many men, and would, I think, teach to all men if they were patient and willing to learn. It consists in a love-making that appeals to the mind, the heart, and ultimately the body, and through it alone can a woman be attuned for her natural part in marriage. It is her inalienable right thus to be wooed before sexual intimacy is asked for, and husbands who are too impatient to offer such wooing do her a real wrong.
There are times when a woman cannot respond, and a true husband must learn to recognize such times. Some of them are perfectly obvious. When a woman is not well, or is fatigued—when pregnancy has advanced beyond its early stages—when full health has not been recovered after childbirth—at these and at other times the conditions are not present for a true sexual experience, and in the name of his love a man must learn not to ask for what cannot be freely given.
None the less it is not always and only the husbands who make mistakes in this part of life. A woman must be at least willing to be awakened and made responsive, and many women have a strange power of controlling themselves in this matter. They can repress their natures even when desire has begun to stir. They can remain cold at will. And they do it for many and varied reasons. Sometimes their reasons are purely selfish—they cannot or will not be bothered. Sometimes they allow a sense of pique over some trifling grievance to inhibit their natural instincts. Sometimes because they shrink from the labors of motherhood they acquire a distaste for this whole side of married life. And meantime their husbands are men in whom ardent love naturally, inevitably, and rightly produces a desire for intimacy. They may be willing to be patient. They may study their wives' moods, and try to learn to be chivalrous lovers. But if day after day they meet with no response—if on the contrary they find their wives deliberately checking all response, is it not clear that a situation is created that cannot but threaten married happiness? Is it not inevitable that husbands so treated should begin to wonder whether their wives really love them? For love makes people unselfish, and equally it makes them understanding. On the other hand, when wives do understand, and learn in this respect to be generous, they bind their husbands to them in new chains of affection. In some husbands almost the strongest emotion they have towards their wives is a sense of profound gratitude for a generosity that made those wives willing to meet them again and again in love's high places, and allow them that ultimate expression of their passion through which nature is restored to balance and peace. And surely it might help wives to attain to that generosity if they would but remember that it is love for them that kindles passion, and that it is an ever-renewed sense of their lovableness that keeps their husbands so eager.
But there is another strange reason that keeps some wives physically unresponsive, and so prevents any perfect sexual experience. It is a reason that only operates with refined and spiritually minded women, and though its results may be very serious it seems to them a right reason. What I am thinking of is a sense that it is not quite right or quite seemly or quite refined to allow the primitive instincts of the body to awaken. In other words, such women are afraid of passion in themselves, and suspect that it is not quite consistent with their moral and religious ideals to allow it to have sway. And so they never frankly and openly accept their own sexuality. It may be natural enough in view of the terrible ways in which men and women have misused and degraded passion. It is almost inevitable when women have been brought up to believe that morality consists chiefly in self-suppression. None the less it is a mistaken, and ultimately an irreverent as well as a fatal misconception. It was Jesus who said, "He which made them at the beginning made them male and female and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh." There is a place in the holy life for the free, happy, and full expression of the instincts and desires that are rooted in our sex natures. The assumed inevitable opposition between bodily and spiritual functions has no real existence. We cannot spiritualize the body away. To neglect or simply to repress it is a course that comes to no good. What we can do is to accept, understand, and then use it rightly. And when we do so it turns out that the free and happy exercise of bodily function will harmonize with all the rest of our life till body, soul, and spirit attain to harmony and unity. I think this reluctance to accept our real natures is wrong and unreasonable, but my chief feeling about it is a sense of pity that women for reasons which seem to them good should none the less miss the joy and exaltation which might be theirs, and should compel their husbands to suffer also.
It is strange but it is true that the two commonest reasons for the failure of marriage in this aspect of it are a lustful view of it and a mistakenly spiritual view of it. A lustful view of it will lead people to be content with merely physical unity, though they are attaining to no union of their mental and spiritual lives. And that means that marriage is a very poor affair. But on the other hand this falsely spiritual view will lead to an attempt to leave the body out. And that is a course of folly for incarnate spirits. The real end of marriage is a unity in which body, soul, and spirit will all play a part, and nothing else really satisfies. It has been wisely said that "there are liberating and harmonizing influences which are imparted by sexual union and which give wholesome balance and sanity to the whole organism provided that union is the outcome of psychic as well as physical needs. . . . Through harmonious sex relationships a deeper spiritual unity is reached than can possibly be derived from continence either in or out of marriage."
The waiting-rooms of specialists in nervous disease are crowded by men and women suffering from nerve trouble through failure to attain harmonious sexual relations in married life. But many of them might have escaped that fate had they only been able to take the simple Christian view of themselves and their natural functions. It was a God of love who made us as we are, and we only interfere with His plans for us when we try on this earth to live as if we were out of it, or call that unclean which in His wisdom He has set in the center of our life.
Not only because the subject of Birth Control occupies a very great place in the public attention just now, but also because it does raise very important and real questions for married persons I wish to speak shortly of it here.
Some day, perhaps, the medical profession will do the public the great service of issuing some authoritative statement about the physical aspects of the matter, for there are issues with which only medical men can deal wisely.
And yet it is far from being only or even mainly a medical question.The moral and social issues involved in it are of great importance.
It is now a matter of common knowledge that it is possible for two persons to live together in sexual intimacy and yet avoid having children. And this has created new problems for the married and new dangers for the unmarried. Probably it has had a great deal to do with the recent increase of irregular sexual relationships outside marriage. The women whose sole motive for chastity was the fear of having children and so of being openly disgraced are now set free to sin against the truth without fear of that particular penalty.
I am not, however, in the meantime concerned with them. It is the problem raised for married persons that concerns me. About two main points I am quite clear.
In the first place, for two healthy young persons to marry with the definite intention of having no children is, I believe, an unchristian thing. If they cannot afford to have children they cannot afford to marry. If at the beginning they interfere with nature they spoil their first experiences of sexual intimacy, which should be spontaneous and untrammelled. I even believe that artificial attempts to postpone the arrival of a first child are a deplorable mistake. The first consummation of love should be closely followed by parentage. Some couples having followed the plan of postponing parentage have, when it was too late, found that by this course they had forfeited the possibility of that great privilege. Of course children mean very hard work. Of course they restrict the freedom of parents to pursue their own pleasure, and use up a large proportion of the family income. But these things are a blessing in disguise. Comparative poverty for young couples is a bracing and a useful discipline. Probably the cream of the nation consists of men and women reared in families of four or five, where the parents gave much individual attention to each child, and by self-denial helped them to a good start in life. When birth control is resorted to in order to avoid the labors of family life it is a purely selfish and quite indefensible thing.
I am thinking of course of healthy parents. Unhealthy parents probably ought not to have children at all.
The second point I am clear about is that for most couples to have as many children as is possible is equally indefensible. Most healthy couples could have far more children than they can do justice to. In fact the plan of unrestricted families results in a threefold wrong. It is nothing less than cruel to women. The overburdened mothers who were confined once a year or once in eighteen months, never allowed to regain full strength between confinements, and made prematurely old, are, I hope, a thing of the past. Marriage on those terms did mean servitude. Further, the plan is cruel to children. They cannot on these terms receive sufficient attention. They are not given a fair start in life, and in many cases do not even receive sufficient healthy nourishment. These things are of course in part due to the artificial conditions of modern life. But the conditions are there and cannot be ignored. And thirdly, the plan involves a wrong to society. We have great need of healthy well-trained children, but society as a whole suffers when children are brought into the world who cannot be properly cared for.
About this point I conceive there really cannot be any doubt whatever.And thus the problem of birth control forces itself upon our attention.It is a duty to women, to children, and to the state. The reallydifficult question is, "How is it to be achieved?"
One great Church in Christendom replies, "By continence, and by no other method." And there are many who arrive at the same position because they hold that sexual intimacy is only justified, and is only holy, when the deliberate purpose of producing children enters into it. As I see the matter we come here to the central ethical issue of this whole matter. Is it true that sexual intimacy is only right and beautiful when it is entered upon with a creative purpose, or is it also right and sacramental as an expression of mutual affection? Or put differently—granting that two persons have allowed their love to lead to parentage, and have loyally accepted the burdens of family life, may they rightly continue to live in intimacy after the point has been reached at which they know they ought not to have any more children? It is at this point that people of unquestionable moral earnestness differ acutely, I am compelled to take my stand with those who believe that sexual intimacy is right and good in itself as an expression of affection. It has, as a matter of fact, a good many other consequences than the production of children. It constitutes a bond of very great worth between two persons. It is in many interesting ways beneficial to a woman's physical system; and it brings to men a general balance and repose of being which is of enormous value. I believe, in fact, that in actual experience it does justify itself as a method of expressing affection.
The alternative for thousands of couples is not merely the cessation of sexual intimacy, but also abstinence from all the endearing intimacies which are natural and spontaneous in married life. They must not only sleep apart, but in many ways live apart. And this not only means pain of heart such as would take a very great deal to justify it, but also often leads to serious nervous trouble because of the strain which it involves. I have insisted again and again in these pages that continence is perfectly possible for unmarried men. But continence for a man living in the same house with a woman whom he loves, and with whom he has had experience of sexual intimacy, is a very different thing. It is possible for some—perhaps for many, and without serious loss. But for many others it is not possible except on terms which lead to serious nervous trouble. And for such persons, and on the terms I have indicated, I believe conception control to be the better way.
As to how that control should be achieved I have no special fitness to speak. I would advise any couple, faced by the problem, to consult some doctor of repute till they understand the matter, and then to find out for themselves what is for them the right course to adopt.
I know that for some people what is called the sublimation of sexual desire provides a successful way of dealing with the situation. They find themselves able without any emotional loss to divert to other directions and uses the energy of their sex natures. But it is a mistake to imagine that what is possible for one couple is necessarily possible for all. Attempts at sublimation often result in mere repression, and on the heels of that come serious troubles.