Edward Carpenter - Marriage In Free Society

OF the great mystery of human Love, and that most intimate personalrelation of two souls to each otherperhaps the firmest, most basicand indissoluble fact (after our own existence) that we know; ofthat strange senseoften, perhaps generally, instantaneousof longprecedent familiarity and kinship, that deep reliance on and acceptationof another in his or her entirety; of the tremendous strength of thechain which thus at times will bind two hearts in lifelong dedicationand devotion, persuading and indeed not seldom compelling the personsconcerned to the sacrifice of some of the other elements of their livesand characters; and, withal, of a certain inscrutable veiledness fromeach other which so frequently accompanies the relation of theopposite sexes, and which forms at once the abiding charm, and thepainsometimes the tragedyof their union; of this palpitating wingedliving thing, which one may perhaps call the real MarriageI would saybut little; for indeed it is only fitting or possible to speak of it byindirect language and suggestion, nor may one venture to rudely drag itfrom its sanctuary into the light of the common gaze.

Compared with this, the actual marriage, in its squalid perversity aswe too often have occasion of knowing it, is as the wretched idol of thesavage to the reality which it is supposed to represent; and one seemsto hear the Aristophanic laughter of the gods as they contemplate man'slittle clay image of the Heavenly Lovewhich, cracked in the fire ofdaily life, he is fain to bind together with rusty hoops of law, andparchment bands, lest it should crumble and fall to pieces altogether.

The whole subject, wide as life itselfas Heaven and Helleludesanything like adequate treatment, and we need make no apology fornarrowing down our considerations here to just a few practicalpoints; and if we cannot navigate upward into the very heart of thematternamely, into the causes which make some people love each otherwith a true and perfect love, and others unite in obedience to but acounterfeit passionyet we may fairly, I imagine, and with profit,study some of the conditions which give to actual marriage its presentform, or which in the future are likely to provide real affection with amore satisfactory expression than it has as a rule to-day.

Yet the subject, even so limited, is one on which it is extremelydifficult to get a calm audience. Marriage customs (however much theymay differ from race to race) are at any one time and among any one folkremarkably tenacious, being sanctioned by almost a violence of publicopinion; and as in the case of theology or politics, their merediscussion is liable to infuriate peopleperhaps from the very factthat the subject is so complex and so deeply rooted in personal feeling.Neverthelesssince alterations have to take place in these as in othercustoms, and since, as many things indicate, we are moving towards adistinct period of change in matters matrimonialit would seem that themore rationally we can survey these questions beforehand, the better.

It will probably be felt that certain present difficulties in themarriage-relation are not merely casual or local, but are deeplyintertwined with a long series of historical causes, which have led upto that exaggerated differentiation, and consequent misunderstanding,between the sexes, of which we have spoken in a former paper. Behindthe relation of any individual man and woman to each other stands thehistorical age-evolved relation of the two sexes generally, spreadinground and enclosing the former on all sides, and creating the socialenvironment from which the individuals can hardly escape. Two youngpeople in the present day may come together, but their relation isalready largely determined by causes over which they have no control.

As a rule they know but little of each other; society has kept the twosexes apart; the boy and the girl have been brought up along differentlines; they hardly understand each other's nature; their mentalinterests and occupations are different; and as they grow up theirworldly interests and advantage are seen to be different, often opposed;public opinion separates their spheres and their rights and theirduties, and their honor and their dishonor very sharply from eachother. The subject of sex is a sealed book to the girl; to the youthit is possibly a book whose most dismal page has been opened first; ineither case with its very mention is probably connected a painful andirrational sense of wickedness.

In this state of confusion of mind, of mutual misunderstanding, andoften of suffering, the Sex-glamor suddenly descends upon the twoindividuals and drives them into each other's arms. It envelopes in agracious and misty halo all their differences and misapprehensions. Theymarry without misgiving; and their hearts overflow with gratitude tothe white-surpliced old gentleman who reads the service over them. It isonly at a later hour, and with calmer thought, that they realise thatit is a life-sentence which he has so suavely passed upon themnotreducible (as in the case of ordinary convicts) even to a term of 20years.

The married life, in so strange and casual a way begun, or driftedinto, is hardly, one might think, likely to turn out well. Sometimes, ofcourse, it does; but in many cases, perhaps the majority, there followsa painful awakening. A brief burst of satisfaction, accompanied,probably through sheer ignorance, by gross neglect of the law oftransmutation; satiety on the physical plane, followed by vacuity ofaffection on the higher planes, and that succeeded by boredom, and evennausea; the girl, full perhaps of a tender emotion, and missing thesympathy and consolation she expected in the man's love, only to findits more materialistic side"This, this then is what I am wanted for."The man, who looked for a companion, finding he can rouse nomortal interest in his wife's mind save in the most exasperatingtrivialities;whatever the cause may be, a veil has fallen frombefore their faces, and there they sit, held together now by the leasthonorable interests, the interests which they themselves can leastrespect, but to which Law and Religion lend all their weight. Themonetary dependence of the woman, the mere sex-needs of the man, thefear of public opinion, all form motives, and motives of the meanestkind, for maintaining the seeming tie; and the relation of the twohardens down into a dull neutrality, in which lives and characters arenarrowed and blunted, and deceit becomes the common weapon which guardsdivided interests.

A sad picture! and of course in this case a portrayal deliberately ofthe seamy side of the matter. But who shall make light of the agoniesoften gone through in those first few years of married life?

It may be saidand often of course is saidthat such cases as theseonly prove that marriage was entered into under the influence of apassing glamor and delusion, and that there was not much real devotionto begin with. And no doubt there is truth enough in such remarks.Butwe may say in replybecause two young people make a mistake inyouth, to condemn them, for that reason, to lifelong suffering andmutual degradation, or to see them so condemned, without proposing anyhope or way of deliverance, but with the one word "serves you right" onthe lips, is a course which can commend itself only to the grimmest anddullest Calvinist. Whatever safe-guards against a too frivolous viewof the relationship may be proposed by the good sense of society inthe future, it is certain that the time has gone past when Marriagecan continue to be regarded as a supernatural institution to whosemaintenance human bodies and souls must be indiscriminately sacrificed;a humaner, wiser, and less panic-stricken treatment of the subject mustset in; and if there are difficulties in the way they must be met bypatient and calm consideration of human welfaresuperior to any law,however ancient and respectable.