Part 6 (2/2)
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 s.e.xual desire--it may be in vague, unconscious, and very general forms--is a.s.serting 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d--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 a.s.sail 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 pa.s.sionately 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 s.h.i.+pwreck of their lives in that way every year.
But there is another way. Our real life is life in G.o.d, 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 a.s.surance that is based upon the unanimous verdict of the souls of all history who have found life. ”I have learned,” said one much hara.s.sed 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 fellows.h.i.+p of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d.
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 G.o.d 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 s.e.x 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, and their experience of Him has been so rich that they are thankful for the compulsion that drove them into His fellows.h.i.+p.
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, G.o.d 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 G.o.d's. G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sing on to others. She insisted that no woman at this stage should attempt to live alone. Healthy friends.h.i.+p 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 friends.h.i.+ps that are kept really healthy. Then, it is a mistake for women to live in inst.i.tutions 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 in _s.e.x 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 s.e.x emotion can be sublimated to other ends, and made an immensely effective force for the progress of the race. In both men and women s.e.xuality 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 s.e.x career be achieved--then it is possible to utilize the life force that springs from our s.e.x 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 s.e.x instinct seems to some women a poor and pale subst.i.tute for the normal career of marriage and motherhood, I am at least sure that for society at large it is a very blessed subst.i.tute. 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, hara.s.sed 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 pa.s.sionate 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed from under the enemy's guns, but it can be so s.n.a.t.c.hed. 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.
CHAPTER X
THE ART OF BEING MARRIED
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