Married Love | Page 3

accentuated, become mystical, alluring,
enchanting in their promise. Their differences unite and hold together
the man and the woman so that their bodily union is the solid nucleus
of an immense fabric of interwoven strands reaching to the uttermost
ends of the earth; some lighter than the filmiest cobweb, or than the
softest wave of music, iridescent with the colors not only of the visible
rainbow, but of all the invisible glories of the wave-lengths of the soul.
However much he may conceal it under assumed cynicism, worldliness,
or self-seeking, the heart of every young man yearns with a great
longing for the fulfilment of the beautiful dream of a life-long union
with a mate. Each heart knows instinctively that it is only one's mate
who can give full comprehension of all the potential greatness in one's
soul, and have tender laughter for all the child-like wonder that lingers
so enchantingly even in the white-haired.
The search for a mate is a quest for an understanding soul clothed in a

body beautiful, but unlike our own.
In the modern world, those who set off on high endeavors or who
consciously separate themselves from the ordinary course of social life,
are comparatively few, and it is not to them that I am speaking. The
great majority of our citizens -- both men and women -- after a time of
waiting, or of exploring, or of oscillating from one attraction to another,
"settle down" and marry.
Very few are actually so cynical as to marry without the hope of
happiness; while most young people, however their words may deny it
and however they may conceal their tender hopes by an assumption of
cynicism, reveal that they are conscious of entering on a new and
glorious state by their radiant looks and the joyous buoyancy of their
actions. In the kisses and the hand-touch of the betrothed are a zest and
exhilaration which stir the blood like wine. The two read poetry, listen
entranced to music which echoes the songs of their pulses, and see
reflected in each other's eyes the beauty of the world. In the midst of
this celestial intoxication they naturally assume that, as they are on the
threshold of their lives, so too they are in but the antechamber of their
experience of spiritual unity.
The more sensitive, the more romantic, and the more idealistic is the
young person of either sex, the more his or her soul craves for some
kindred soul with whom the whole being can unite. But all have some
measure of this desire, even the most prosaic, and we know from
innumerable stories that the sternest man of affairs, he who may have
worldly success of every sort, may yet, through the lack of a real mate,
live with a sense almost as though the limbs of his soul had been
amputated. Edward Carpenter has beautifully voiced this longing:
"That there should exist one other person in the world towards whom
all openness of interchange should establish itself, from whom there
should be no concealment; whose body should be as dear to one, in
every part, as one's own; with whom there should be no sense of Mine
or Thine, in property or possession; into whose mind one's thoughts
should naturally flow, as it were to know themselves and to receive a
new illumination; and between whom and oneself there should be a

spontaneous rebound of sympathy in all the joys and sorrows and
experiences of life; such is perhaps one of the dearest wishes of the
soul."
-- Love's Coming of Age.
It may chance that some one into whose hands this book falls may
protest that he or she has never felt the fundamental yearning to form a
part of that trinity which alone is the perfect expression of humanity. If
that is the case, it is possible that all unconsciously he may be suffering
from a real malady -- sexual anesthesia. This is the name given to an
inherent coldness, which, while it lacks the usual human impulse of
tenderness, is generally quite unconscious of its lack. It may even be
that the reader's departure from the ordinary ranks of mankind is still
more fundamental, in which case, instead of sitting in judgment on the
majority, he would do well to read some such books as those of Forel,
Havelock Ellis, Bloch, or Krafft-Ebing, in order that his own nature
may be made known to him. He may then discover to which type of our
widely various humanity he belongs. He need not read my book, for it
is written about, and it is written for, ordinary men and women, who
feeling themselves incomplete, yearn for a union that will have power
not only to make a fuller and richer thing of their