Marriage and Love | Page 2

to dig down
deeper into the very life of the sexes to know why marriage proves so
disastrous.
Edward Carpenter says that behind every marriage stands the life-long
environment of the two sexes; an environment so different from each
other that man and woman must remain strangers. Separated by an
insurmountable wall of superstition, custom, and habit, marriage has
not the potentiality of developing knowledge of, and respect for, each
other, without which every union is doomed to failure.
Henrik Ibsen, the hater of all social shams, was probably the first to
realize this great truth. Nora leaves her husband, not--as the stupid
critic would have it--because she is tired of her responsibilities or feels
the need of woman's rights, but because she has come to know that for
eight years she had lived with a stranger and borne him children. Can
there be anything more humiliating, more degrading than a life-long
proximity between two strangers? No need for the woman to know
anything of the man, save his income. As to the knowledge of the
woman--what is there to know except that she has a pleasing
appearance? We have not yet outgrown the theologic myth that woman
has no soul, that she is a mere appendix to man, made out of his rib just
for the convenience of the gentleman who was so strong that he was
afraid of his own shadow.
Perchance the poor quality of the material whence woman comes is
responsible for her inferiority. At any rate, woman has no soul--what is
there to know about her? Besides, the less soul a woman has the greater
her asset as a wife, the more readily will she absorb herself in her
husband. It is this slavish acquiescence to man's superiority that has
kept the marriage institution seemingly intact for so long a period. Now
that woman is coming into her own, now that she is actually growing
aware of herself as a being outside of the master's grace, the sacred
institution of marriage is gradually being undermined, and no amount
of sentimental lamentation can stay it.

From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her
ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed
towards that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is
prepared for that. Yet, strange to say, she is allowed to know much less
about her function as wife and mother than the ordinary artisan of his
trade. It is indecent and filthy for a respectable girl to know anything of
the marital relation. Oh, for the inconsistency of respectability, that
needs the marriage vow to turn something which is filthy into the
purest and most sacred arrangement that none dare question or criticize.
Yet that is exactly the attitude of the average upholder of marriage. The
prospective wife and mother is kept in complete ignorance of her only
asset in the competitive field--sex. Thus she enters into life-long
relations with a man only to find herself shocked, repelled, outraged
beyond measure by the most natural and healthy instinct, sex. It is safe
to say that a large percentage of the unhappiness, misery, distress, and
physical suffering of matrimony is due to the criminal ignorance in sex
matters that is being extolled as a great virtue. Nor is it at all an
exaggeration when I say that more than one home has been broken up
because of this deplorable fact.
If, however, woman is free and big enough to learn the mystery of sex
without the sanction of State or Church, she will stand condemned as
utterly unfit to become the wife of a "good" man, his goodness
consisting of an empty brain and plenty of money. Can there be
anything more outrageous than the idea that a healthy, grown woman,
full of life and passion, must deny nature's demand, must subdue her
most intense craving, undermine her health and break her spirit, must
stunt her vision, abstain from the depth and glory of sex experience
until a "good" man comes along to take her unto himself as a wife?
That is precisely what marriage means. How can such an arrangement
end except in failure? This is one, though not the least important, factor
of marriage, which differentiates it from love.
Ours is a practical age. The time when Romeo and Juliet risked the
wrath of their fathers for love, when Gretchen exposed herself to the
gossip of her neighbors for love, is no more. If, on rare occasions,
young people allow themselves the luxury of romance, they are taken

in care by the elders, drilled and pounded until they become "sensible."
The moral lesson instilled in the girl is not whether the man has
aroused her love, but rather is it, "How much?" The important and only
God