The Intelligence of Woman

3

This picture of pain is the rule where two strangers wed, but there are some who, taking a partner discover a friend, many who develop agreeable acquaintanceship. Passion may be diverted into a common interest, say in conchology; if people are not too stupid, not too egotistic, they very soon discover in each other a little of the human good will that will not die. They must, or they fail. For whereas in the beginning foolish lips may be kissed, a little later they must learn to speak some wisdom. In this men are most exacting; they are most inclined to demand that women should hold up to their faces the mirror of flattery, while women seem more tolerant, often because they do not understand, very often because they do not care, and echo the last words of Mr. Bernard Shaw's Ann: "Never mind her, dear, go on talking;" perhaps because they have had to tolerate so much in the centuries that they have grown expert. One may, however, tolerate whilst strongly disapproving, and one must disapprove when one's egotism is continually insulted by the other party's egotism. There is very little room for twice "I" in what ought to have been "We", and we nearly all feel that the axis of the earth passes through our bodies. So the common interests of two egotisms can alone make of these one egotism. The veriest trifle will serve, and pray do not smile at Case M 4, who forgive each other all wrongs when they find for dinner a risotto à la Milanaise. A slightly spasmodic interest, and one not to be compared with a common taste for golf, or motoring, or entertaining, but still it is not to be despised. It is so difficult to pick a double interest from the welter of things that people do alone; it is so difficult for wives truly to sympathize with games, business, politics, newspapers, inventions; most women hate all that. And it is still more difficult, just because man is man and master, for him really to care for the fashions, for gossip, for his wife's school friends, and especially her relations, for tea parties, tennis tournaments at the Rectory, lectures at the Mutual Improvement Association, servants' misdeeds, and growths in the garden. Most men hate all that. People hold amazing conversations:

She: "Do you know, dear, I saw Mrs. Johnson again to-day with that man."

He: (Trying hard) "Oh! yes, the actor fellow, you mean."

She: (Reproachfully) "No, of course not, I never said he was an actor. He's the new engineer at the mine, the one who came from Mexico."

He: "Oh! yes, that reminds me, did you go to the library and get me Roosevelt's book on the Amazon?"

She: "No dear, I'm sorry I forgot. You see I had such a busy day, and I couldn't make up my mind between those two hats. The very big one and the very small one. You know. Now tell me what you really think – " and so on.

It is exactly like a Tchekoff play. They make desperate efforts to be interested in each other's affairs, and sometimes they succeed, for they manage to stand each other's dullness. They assert their egotism in turns. He tells the same stories several times. He takes her for a country walk and forgets to give her tea, and she never remembers that he hates her dearest friend Mabel. Where the rift grows more profound is when trifles such as these are overlooked, and particularly where a man has work that he loves, or to which he is used, which is much the same thing. In early days the woman's attitude to a man's work varies a good deal, but she generally suspects it a little. She may tolerate it because she loves him, and all that is his is noble. Later, if this work is very profitable, or if it is work which leads to honour, she may take a pride in it, but even then she will generally grudge it the time and the energy it costs. She loves him, not his work. She will seldom confess this, even to herself, but she will generally lay down two commandments:

1. Thou shalt love me.

2. Thou shalt succeed so that I may love thee.

All this is not manifest, but it is there. It is there even in the days of courtship, when a man's work, a man's clothes, a man's views on bimetallism are sacred; in those days, the woman must kowtow to the man's work, just as he must keep on good terms with her pet dog. But the time almost invariably comes when the man kicks the pet dog, because pet dogs are madly irritating sometimes – and so is a man's work. There is something self-protective in this, for work is so domineering. I should not be at all surprised to hear that Galatea saw to it that Pygmalion never made another statue. (On second thoughts it strikes me that there might be other reasons for that.)

It is true that Pygmalion was an artist, and these are proverbially difficult husbands: after an hour's work an artist will "sneer, backbite and speak daggers." Art is a vampire, and it will gladly gobble up a wife as well as a husband, but the wife must not do any gobbling. She does not always try to, and there are many in London who follow their artist husbands rather like sandwichmen between two boards, but they are of a trampled breed, indigenous, I suspect, to England. I think they arise but little in America, where, as an American said to me, "women labor to advance themselves along a road paved with discarded husbands." (This is an American's statement, not mine, so I ask the Reverend John Bootfeller, President of the Kansas and Nevada Society for the Propagation of the Intellect, to spare me his denunciations.)

But leaving aside such important things as personal pettinesses, which too few think important, it must be acknowledged that women seldom conceive the passion for art that can inflame a man. They very seldom conceive a passion for anything except passion, – an admirable tendency for which they blush as one does for all one's natural manifestations. They hardly ever care for philosophy; they generally hate politics, but they nearly always love votes. They are quite as irritating in that way as men, who almost invariably adore politics and detest realities, sometimes love science and generally prefer record railway runs. But where such an interest as a science or an art has reigned supreme in a man, and reasserts itself after marriage, she recognizes her enemy, the serpent, for is he not the symbol of wisdom? Invariably he rears his head when the love fever has subsided. Woman's impulse is more artistic than man's, but it seldom touches art; her artistic impulse is not yet one of high grade; she is the flower arranger rather than the flower painter, the flower painter rather than just the painter. But this instinct that is in all women and in so few men avails just enough to make them discontented, while the great instinct that is in a few men is always enough to make them wretched.

It would not be so bad if they had not to live together, but social custom has decided that couples must forsake their separate ways and evermore follow the same. Most follow the common path easily enough, because most follow the first path that offers, but many grumble and cast longing eyes at side tracks or would return to the place whence they came. They cannot do so because it is not done, because other feet have not broken paths so wide that they shall seem legitimate. When husband and wife care no longer for their common life, the only remedy is to part: then the contradictory strain that is in all of us will reassert itself and make them rebound towards each other. If the law were to edict that man and wife should never be together for more than six months in the year, it would be broken every day, and men and women would stand hunger and stripes to come together for twelve months in twelve. If love of home were made a crime, a family life would arise more touching than anything Queen Victoria ever dreamed. But from the point of view of a barbarous present, this would never do, for the very worst that can happen to two people is to reach the fullness of their desire. The young man who raves at the young woman's feet: "Oh! that I were by your side day and night! Oh! that ever I could watch you move! I grudge the night the eight hours in which you sleep!" – Well, that young man is generally successful in his wooing and gets what he wants; a little later he gets a little more. For proximity is a dangerous thing; it enables one to know another rather well: full knowledge of mankind is seldom edifying. One sees too much, one sees too close; a professional Don Juan who honors me with his friendship told me that he has an infallible remedy against falling in love more often than three times a day: "Stand as close to your charmer as you can, look at her well, very well, at every feature; watch her attitudes, listen to every tone of her voice; then you will discover something unpleasant, and you will be saved." That is a little what happens in marriage; for ever and ever people are together, hearing each other, watching each other. Listen to M 14:

"I really was very much in love with him and only just at the end of the engagement did I notice how hard he blew his nose. After we were married, I thought: 'Oh! don't be so silly and notice such little things, he's such a splendid fellow.' A little later – 'Oh! I do wish he wouldn't blow his nose like that, it drives me mad.' Now I find myself listening and telling myself with an awful feeling of doom: 'He's going to blow his nose!'"

(She never tells him that he trumpets like an elephant. She fears to offend him. She prefers to stand there, exasperated and chafed. One day he will trumpet down the walls of her Jericho.)

There are awful little things between two people. Here are some of them:

M 43. When tired, the wife has a peculiar yawn, roughly: "Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo!" The husband hears it coming, and something curls within him.

M 98. Every morning in his bath the husband sings: "There is a fountain fill'd with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins," always the same.

M 124. The wife buys shoes a quarter size too small and always slips them off under the table at dinner. Then she loses them and develops great agitation. This fills her husband with an unaccountable rage.

M 68. The wife is afflicted with the cliché habit and can generally sum up a situation by phrases such as: "All is not gold that glitters." Or, "Such is life." Or, "Well, well, it's a weary world." The husband can hear them coming.

There are scores of these little cruel things which wear away love as surely as trickling water will wear away a stone. (Observe how contagious clichés are!) The dilemma is horrible; if the offended party speaks out, he or she may speak out much too forcibly and raise this sort of train of thought: "He didn't seem to mind when we were engaged. He loved me then, and little things didn't matter. He doesn't love me now. I wonder whether he is in love with some one else. Oh! I'm so unhappy." If, on the other hand, one does not speak out forcibly, or does not speak at all, the offender goes on doing it for the rest of his or her life, and there is nothing to do except to wait until one has got used to it and has ceased to care. But by that time one has generally ceased to care for the offender.

There are ideal marriages where both parties aim at perfection and are willing to accept mutual criticism. But there is something a little callous in this form of self-improvement society. People who are too much together are always making notes, adding up in their hearts bitter little adverse balances with which they will one day confront the fallen lover. Some slight offense will bring up the bill of arrears. A quarrel about a forgotten ticket will give life to the cruel thing he said seven years before about her mother's bonnets, or her sudden dismissal of the cook, or the dreadful day when he sat on the eggs in the train. (Clumsy brute!) All these things pile up and pile up until they form a terrible, towering cairn made up of tiny stones, but of great total weight, just as an avalanche rests securely upon a crest until a whisper releases it. Nearly all marriages are in a state of permanent mobilization. There is only one thing to do, to remember all the time that one could not hope to meet one quite great enough to be one's mate, and that this is the best the world can do. The thought that nobody can quite understand one or quite appreciate one arouses a delicious sorrow and an enormous pride.

4

Too much together is bad, and too much apart may be worse. As I suggested before, there is no pleasing this institution.

It is easier to live too separate than too close, for one comes together freshly, and marriage feels less irremediable when it hardly exists. There really are couples who care for each other very well, who meet in a country house and say: "What! you here! How jolly!" That is an extreme case. In practice, separateness means conjugal acquaintanceship. Different pleasures, different friends, perhaps different worlds; indeed, one is mutually fresh, but traveling different roads, one may find that there is nothing in common. Of two evils, it is better perhaps to be too intimate than too distant, because there are many irritating things that with reminiscence become delightful. The dreadful day when he sat on the eggs in the train is not entirely dreadful, for he looked so silly when he stood up, removing the eggs, and though one was angry, one vaguely loved him for having made a fool of himself. (There are nine and sixty ways of gaining affection, and one of them is to be a good-tempered butt.)

Separateness, naturally, cannot coincide with the sense of mutual property. This is perhaps the cause of the greatest unhappiness in marriage, for so many forget that to be married is not to be one. They do not understand that however much they may love, whatever delights they may share, whatever common ambitions they may harbor, whatever they hope, or endeavor, or pray, two people are still two people. Or if they know it, they say, "He is mine." "She is mine." If one could give oneself entirely, it would be well enough, but however much one may want to do so one cannot, just because one is the axis of the earth. Because one cannot, one will not, and he that would absorb will never forgive. He will be jealous, he will be suspicious, tyrannical, he will watch and lay traps, he will court injury, he will air grievances, because the next best thing to complete possession is railing at his impotency to conquer. That jealousy is turned against everything, against work, against art, against relatives, friends, dead loves, little children, toy dogs: "Thou shalt have none other gods but me" is a human commandment.

Men do not, as a rule, suffer very much from this desire to possess, because they are so sure that they do possess, because they find it so difficult to conceive that their wife can find any other man attractive. They are too well accustomed to being courted, even if they are old and repulsive, because they have power and money; only they think it is because they are men. Beyond a jealous care for their wives' fidelity, which I suspect arises mainly from the feeling that an unfaithful wife is a criticism, they do not ask very much. But women suffer more deeply because they know that man has lavished on them for centuries a condescending admiration, that the king who lays his crown at their feet knows that his is the crown to give. While men possess by right of possession, women possess only by right of precarious conquest. They feel it very bitterly, this fugitive empire, and their greatest tragedy is to find themselves growing a little older, uncertain of their power, for they know they have only one power; they are afraid, as age comes, of losing their man, while I have never heard of a husband afraid of losing his wife, or able to repress his surprise if she forsook him.

It would not matter so much if the feeling of property were that of a good landlord, who likes to see his property develop and grow beautiful, but mutual property is the feeling of the slave owner. Sometimes both parties suffer so, and by asking too much lose all. Man seldom asks much: if only a wife will not compromise his reputation for attractiveness while maintaining her own by flirtation, if she will accept his political views, acquire a taste for his favorite holiday resorts, and generally say, "Yes, darling", or "No, darling", opportunely, she need do nothing, she has only "beautifully to be." He is not so fortunate, however, when she wants to possess him, for she demands that he should be active, that the pretty words, caresses, the anxious inquiries after health, the presents of flowers and of stalls should continue. It is not enough that he should love her; he must still be her lover. When she is not sure that he still is her lover, a madness of unrest comes over her; she will lacerate him, she will invent wishes so that he may thwart them, she will demand his society when she knows it is mortgaged to another occupation, so that she may suffer his refusal, exaggerate his indifference. Here are cases:

M 21. She: "He used to take me to dances. The other day he wouldn't come, he said he was tired. He wasn't tired when we were engaged."

The Investigator: "But why should he go if he didn't want to?"

She: "Because I wanted to."

The Investigator: "But he didn't want to."

She: "He ought to take pleasure in pleasing me."

(The conversation here degenerates into a discussion on duty and becomes uninteresting.)

M 4. The husband is a doctor with a very extended city practice. He is busy eleven hours a day and has night calls. His marriage has been spoilt because in the first years the wife, who is young and gay, could not understand that the man, who was always surrounded by people, in houses, streets, conveyances, should not desire society. She resented his wish to be alone for some hours, to shut himself up. There were tears, and like most people she looked ugly when she cried. She was lonely, and when one is lonely, it is difficult to realize that other people may be too much surrounded.

5

A great deal of all this, however, might pass away if one could feel that it would not last. Nothing matters that does not last. Only one must be conscious of it, and in marriage many people are dully aware that they have settled down, that they have drawn the one and only ticket they can ever hope to draw, unless merciful death steps in. There will be no more adventures, no more excitements, no more marsh fires, which one knows deceptive yet loves to follow. It will be difficult to move to other towns or countries, to change one's occupation; it will even be difficult to adopt new poses, for the other will not be taken in. One will be for evermore what one is. True there is elopement, divorce; in matters of art, there is the artist courage that enables a man to see another suffer for the sake of his desire. But all this is very difficult, and few of us have courage enough to make others suffer; if one had the courage to do no harm at all, it might not be so bad, but not many can follow Mr. Bernard Shaw: "If you injure your neighbor, let it not be by halves." They almost invariably do injure by halves: he that will not kill, scratches. There is no refuge from a world of rates, and taxes, and bills, and houses overcrowded by children, and old clothes, dull leaders in the papers, stupid plays, the morning train, the unvarying Sunday dinner. It is so bad sometimes that it causes willful revolt. I sincerely believe that a great many men would be model husbands if only they were not married. Only when everything is respectable and nice there is a terrible temptation to introduce a change; the wild animal in man, that is in a few a lion, in most a weasel, reacts against the definite, the irremediable, the assured. He must do something. He must break through. He must prove to himself that he has not really sentenced himself to penal servitude for life. That is why so few of the respectable are respectable, and why reformed rakes do make good husbands. (Generally, that is, for a few rakes feel that they must keep up their reputation; on the other hand, a really respectable man knows no shame.)

Curiously enough, children seem to act both against and in favor of these disruptive factors. It is difficult to deprive children of influence; they must part, or they must unite. They are somebody in the house; they make a noise, and it depends upon temperament whether the noise exasperates or delights. Parents are divided into those who love them, and those who bear their children; generally, men dislike little babies, unless they are rather strong men whom weakness attracts, or unless they feel pride of race, while women, excepting those who live only for light pleasures, give them a quite unreasoning affection. Children are a frequent source of trouble, for the tired man's nerves are horribly frayed by screams and exuberances. He shouts: "Stop that child howling!" and if his wife assumes a saintly air and says that "she would rather hear a child cry than a man swear," the door opens towards the club or public house. Likewise, a man who has given so many jewels that the mother of the Gracchi might be jealous, will never understand the appalling weariness that can come over the mother in the evening, when she has administered, say, twelve meals, four or eight baths, and answered several hundreds of questions varying between the existence of God and the esoterics of the steam engine. Loving the children too much to blame them, she must blame some one, and blames him.

People do not confess these things, but the socio-psychologist must remember that when a man quietly picks up a flower pot and hurls it through the window, the original cause may be found in the behavior of the departmental manager six hours before. The irritation of children can envenom two lives, for it seems almost inevitable that each party should think the other spoils or tyrannizes. It is not always so, and sometimes children unite by the bond of a common love; very much more often they unite by the burden of a common responsibility. Indeed, it is this financial responsibility that draws two people close, because tied together they must swim together or sink together, until they are so concerned individually with their salvation that they think they are concerned with the salvation of the other. That bond of union is dangerous, because marriage is expensive, and because one tends to remember the time when bread was not so dear and flesh and blood so cheap. There is affluence in bachelordom; there is atrocious discomfort too, but when one thinks of the good old times, one generally forgets all except the affluence. Of the present, one sees only that one cannot take the whole family to Yellowstone; of the past, one does not see the sitting room, or the hangings on which the landlady merely blew. The wife thinks of her frocks, garlands of the sacrificial heifer, the husband of the days when he could afford to be one of the boys. And, as soon as the past grows glamorous, the present day grows dull; always because one must blame something, one blames the other. It is so much more agreeable to spend a thousand dollars than to spend a hundred, even if one gets nothing for it. It is power. It is excitement. One thinks of money until one may come to think of nothing but money, until, as suggested before, a husband turns into a vaguely disagreeable person who can be coaxed into paying bills. In the working class especially there is bitterness among the women, who before their marriage knew the taste of independence and of earned money in their purses. It is a great love that can compensate a woman for the loss of freedom after she has enjoyed it.