Part 4 (1/2)
Sometimes the panting bridegroom has to run her down--no slight task if the adorer happens to be stout, and the adored one coquettish and fleet of foot. In marriage, this custom prevails only, we believe, among the savages, but visitors to the Crystal Palace may see how modern civilization has adapted it to courts.h.i.+p in the popular pastime of kiss-in-the-ring.
We have read of a savage tribe in which the bride is thought no better than she should be, if, on the day after the wedding, the bridegroom does not show signs of having been vigorously pinched and scratched.
This custom, again, is perhaps represented in civilized life by the kissing and struggling which are supposed every Christmas to go on under the mistletoe. It is not unworthy of remark, as regards these two points of comparison between civilization and barbarism, that, as the woman gets more civilized, she seems more disposed to meet her pursuer halfway. In the game of kiss-in-the-ring, for instance, although the lady does not run after the gentleman, but, on the contrary, shows her maiden modesty by giving him as hard a chase as she can, she still delicately paves the way for osculation by throwing the pocket-handkerchief. And, in the Christmas fights under the mistletoe (if we may take Mr. d.i.c.kens as an authority), slapping, and even pinching in moderation, are considered allowable--perhaps we ought to say proper--on the lady's part; but scratching--serious scratching, we mean, which would make her admirer's face look next morning as if he had been taking liberties with a savage bird or a cat--is thought not merely unnecessary, but unfair.
The difference between civilized and savage woman may perhaps help to indicate the reason why, now-a-days, match-making should, as a matter of fact, be a.s.sociated with husband-hunting in spite of the theory that it is the woman who has to be hunted, not the man. Popular phraseology has an awkward trick of making people unconsciously countenance the theories against which they most vehemently protest. Husband-hunting is a far more generally obnoxious word than even the much-injured match-making, simply because it flies in the face of the pet theory which we have described. But, if the theory really hold good in modern practice, why should man, not woman, be recognised as the professional match-maker's victim and legitimate game? Why does not wife-hunting, the word which this theory ent.i.tles us to expect, take its proper place in society?
Heiress-hunting, indeed, is well known, but this can scarcely be considered a form of wife-hunting, for it is not the woman who is the object of pursuit, but her money-bags. We have the word heiress-hunting for the very obvious reason that heiresses are recognised game. The word husband-hunting exists for the same reason.
Are we to infer from the non-existence, or at any rate the non-appearance in good society, of the word wife-hunting, that the practice is anything but common--that, since a hunt necessarily implies pursuit on one side and flight on the other, a man cannot well be said to hunt a woman who is either engaged in hunting him, or else only too ready to meet him halfway? Are we gradually tending towards an advanced stage of civilization in which woman will be formally recognized as the pursuer, and man as the pursued? We are not bold enough to take under our protection a view so glaringly heterodox, but still we think it only common justice to point out that there are difficult problems in the present state of society which the view helps materially to solve.
We fear, for instance, there can be no doubt that there is a good deal of truth in the Belgravian mother's lament that marriage is gradually ceasing to be considered ”the thing” among the young men of the present day; that girls of good families and even good looks are taking to sisterhoods, and nursing-inst.i.tutes, and new-fangled abominations, simply because there is no one to marry them.
It is not merely that the young men are getting every day rarer; though, unless there is some system, like Pharaoh's, for putting male infants to death, what can become of them all is a mystery. India and the colonies may absorb a good many, though these places also do duty in the absorption of spinsterhood. But this will not account for the alarming fact, that in almost every ball-room, no matter whether in the country or in town, there are usually at least three crinolines to one tail-coat, and that dancing bachelors are becoming so scarce that it is a question whether hostesses ought not, for their own peace of mind, to connive at the introduction of the Oriental nautch. Yet even the alarming scarcity of marriageable men is not so serious an evil as their growing disinclination to marry.
With the causes of this disinclination we are not now concerned. Some attribute it to the increase of luxurious and expensive habits among bachelors--habits specially fostered by ”those hateful clubs;” some to the ”sn.o.bbishness” which makes a woman consider it beneath her dignity to marry into an establishment less stylish than that which it has perhaps taken her father all his life to secure; some to the _demi-monde_--an explanation very like the theory that small-pox is caused by pustules. But, whatever may be the causes of the disinclination, there can be but little doubt that it exists, and the worst part of the matter is, that it is found among rich men no less than among poor. That really poor men should not wish to marry is, even the Belgravian mother must admit, an admirable arrangement of nature.
But it is too bad that so many men-about-town should seem rich enough for yachting, or racing, or opera-boxes, or even diamond necklaces--for anything, in short, but a wife. The fact is, that in the eyes of poor men a wife is a.s.sociated chiefly with handsome carriages, showy dresses, fine furniture, and other forbidden luxuries; and, inasmuch as there is not one law of a.s.sociation for the rich and another for the poor, this view spreads, until even rich men consider whether it is not possible to secure the luxuries without the wife.
Now, since marriage is, on the whole, an inst.i.tution with which society cannot very well dispense--at any rate not until some good subst.i.tute has been found for it--it is clear that rich men ought not to be allowed to treat it in this way. If modern civilization tends to beget a disinclination to marry, it ought also, on the principle of compensation, to provide some means for counteracting this tendency, or keeping it under control. Is the increase of husband-hunting--we ask the question in a respectful and, we trust, purely philosophical spirit of inquiry--calculated to supply this great and obvious want? What are its merits, in this respect, as compared with the old-fas.h.i.+oned theory that woman should be wooed, not woo? Even the most inveterate hater of husband-hunting must admit that, so far as the great end of matrimony is concerned, the two s.e.xes nowadays stand to each other in a most unnatural relation. It is alike the mission of both to marry, but whereas women are honorably anxious to fulfill this mission, men, as we have already seen, are too ready to s.h.i.+rk it. Yet, by a strange inversion of the usual order of things, to the very s.e.x which evades the mission is its furtherance and chief control entrusted.
Besides, not only does woman take more kindly to the duty of matrimony than man--or at least nineteenth-century man--but she has comparatively nothing else to think about. A dozen occupations are open to him, but her one object in life, her whole being's end and aim, is to marry.
Surely, if the art of marriage requires cultivation, it ought, like everything else, to be entrusted to those who can give their whole time to it, not to those who have so much else to do. Even when a bachelor is in a position to marry, and not unwilling to make the experiment, he is still far less fitted for the furtherance of matrimony than a woman. He, perhaps, meets a nice girl at a ball, is taken with her, and after a mild flirtation thinks, as he walks home in the moonlight, that she would make a charming wife. He dreams about her, and next morning at breakfast, as he pensively eats a pound of steak, resolves that on the same afternoon, or the next at the very latest, he will contrive an accidental meeting, or even find some excuse for a call. But then comes office-work, or the _Times_, or some other distraction, and later on perhaps a visit from some matter-of-fact friend with an unromantic taste for ”bitter,” or a weakness for the Burlington Arcade. One day slips away, and by the next the image of the evening's idol has waxed comparatively faint. At least it is not sufficiently vivid to inspire him with courage enough for a call, or a too suspicious-looking rencontre. In a week he bows to the image, as it is driven by, as coolly as if he had never had a thought of making his heart its shrine; and thus a golden opportunity for bringing together two young people, in whose auspicious union the whole community has an interest, has been cruelly thrown away.
How different might the case have been if fas.h.i.+on had allowed the lady to take the initiative, instead of compelling her to sit idly at home!
She has no office-work, nor _Times_, nor any business but that of bringing last night's flirtation to a practical issue. a.s.suming her to be satisfied as to the eligibility of her partner, there is nothing to prevent her giving her whole time and attention to his capture. She is as little likely to throw away any chance of an interview calculated to help in bringing about this result as he is to neglect an opportunity for winning the lawn sleeves or silk gown. Marriage is of as much importance to her as either of these to him. It is, perhaps, not impossible that the mere notion of a woman's thus taking the initiative in courts.h.i.+p may to some appear outrageously immodest. But with this point we have nothing to do, as we have been discussing the theory of husband-hunting, not with any reference to its modesty, but solely and exclusively in its connexion with the great question, how marriage is to be carried on. We put together the three facts that nineteenth-century civilization makes men indisposed to marry, that it gives women no object in life but marriage, and yet that it a.s.signs the furtherance of marriage, which we a.s.sume to be an inst.i.tution deserving of careful cultivation, not to those whose interest it is to promote it, but to those who are comparatively averse to it. Modest or immodest, husband-hunting obviously tends to remedy this misdirection and waste of force.
We take this to be the right explanation--and we have endeavored to make it an impartial one--of the charge not uncommonly brought against the young ladies of the present day, that, as compared with their mothers and grandmothers, they are rather forward and fast, and that husband-hunting in their hands, is gradually being developed to an extent scarcely compatible with the old-fas.h.i.+oned theories about maidenly modesty and reserve. The change may be considered the effort of modern civilization to remedy an evil of its own creation. The tide advances in one direction because it recedes in another. If the men will not come forward, the women must. It is all very well for satirists to call this immodest, but even modesty could be more easily dispensed with than marriage. Besides, without quitting our position as impartial observers, we may point out that it is only fair to the professor of husband-hunting to remember that there are two kinds of immodesty, and that some actions are immodest merely because it is the custom to consider them so. It would, no doubt, be immodest for a young lady to ride through Hyde Park in man's fas.h.i.+on. Yet what is there in the nature of things to make a side-saddle more modest than any other? The Amazons were positive prudes, and would never have even spoken to man if they could have contrived to carry on society without him; yet they rode astraddle. And if fas.h.i.+on could make this practice feminine, why should it not some day do as much for husband-hunting?
THE PERILS OF ”PAYING ATTENTION.”
We have elsewhere a.s.serted that the art of match-making requires cultivation. We are told, however, that, on the contrary, match-making is so zealously studied and skillfully pursued that it bids fair to be the great social evil of nineteenth-century civilization. The growing difficulty of procuring sons-in-law has called forth a corresponding increase in the skill required for capturing them, just as the wits of the detective are sharpened to keep pace with the expertness which the general spread of useful knowledge has conferred upon the thief.
Eligible bachelors complain that scarcity of marrying men has much the same effect upon the match-making mother as scarcity of food upon the wolf. It makes her at once more ferocious and more cunning. Her invitations to croquet-parties and little dinners are so constant and so pressing that it is scarcely possible for her destined prey to refuse them all without manifest rudeness, and yet it is equally hard for him to go without being judiciously manoeuvred into ”paying attention” to the one young lady who has been selected to make him happy for life.
This chivalrous and graceful synonym for courts.h.i.+p in itself speaks volumes for the serious nature of the risk which he runs. The truly gallant a.s.sumption which underlies it, that an Englishman only ”pays attention” to a woman when he has a solid businesslike offer of marriage to make her, not only puts a formidable weapon into the hands of the match-maker, but also leaves her victim without a most effectual means of protection. The national gallantry towards women upon which a Frenchman so plumes himself may be, as your true Briton declares, a poor sort of quality enough; a mere grimace and trick of the lips--not genuine stuff from the heart; having much the same relation to true chivalry that his _biere_ has to beer, or his _potage_ to soup. But at any rate it has this advantage, that it enables him to pay any amount of flowery compliments to a woman without risk of committing himself, or of being misunderstood.
If an Englishman asks a young lady after her sore throat, or her invalid grandmother, and throws into his voice that tone of eager interest or tender sympathy which a polite Frenchman would a.s.sume as a matter of course, he is at once suspected of matrimonial designs upon her. He is obliged to be as formal and businesslike in his mode of address as the lawyer's clerk who added at the end of a too ardent love-letter the saving clause ”without prejudice.” We have heard of a young lady who confided to her bosom friend that she that morning expected a proposal, and, when closely pressed for her reasons, blus.h.i.+ngly confessed that the night before a gentleman had twice asked her whether she was fond of poetry, and four times whether she would like to go into the refreshment-room.
We do not mean to say that this tendency to look upon every ”attention”
as a preliminary step to an offer is entirely, or even princ.i.p.ally, due to British want of gallantry. Our national theory of courts.h.i.+p and marriage has probably much more to do with it. We say ”theory”
advisedly, for our practice approaches every day nearer to that of the Continental nations whose mercenary view of the holy estate of matrimony we righteously abjure. Our system is, in fact, gradually becoming a clumsy compromise between the _mariage de convenance_ and the _mariage d'amour_, with most of the disadvantages, and very few of the advantages, of either. Theoretically, English girls are allowed to marry for love, and to choose whichever they like best of all the admiring swains whom they fascinate at croquet-parties or b.a.l.l.s. Practically, the majority marry for an establishment, and only flirt for love. They leave the school-room, no doubt, with an unimpeachably romantic conception of a youthful bridegroom who combines good looks, great intellect, and fervent piety with a modest four thousand a year, paid quarterly.
But they are not very long in finding out that the men whom they like best, as being about their own age or still young enough to sympathise with their tastes and enter heartily into all their notions of fun, are rarely such as are p.r.o.nounced by parents and guardians to be eligible; and so, after one or two attacks, more or less serious, of love-fever, they tranquilly look out for an admirer who can place the proper number of servants and horses at their disposal, while they in return magnanimously decline to make discourteously minute inquiries as to the condition of his hair or teeth. A marriage made in this spirit, even where no pressure is put upon the young lady by parents or friends, and she is allowed full liberty of action, is open to all the charges ordinarily brought against the Continental _mariage de convenance_. Yet, on the other hand, it has not the advantage of being formally arranged beforehand by a couple of elderly people, who are in no hurry, and who have seen enough of the world to know thoroughly what they are about; nor, we may add, does it usually take place in time to avert some one or more of those troublesome flirtations with handsome, but penniless, ball-room heroes which are not always calculated to improve either temper or character.
Still, whatever our practice may be, we nevertheless do homage to the theory that, in this favored country, young ladies choose whatever husbands they like best, and marry for love; and although this theory is in some respects a serious obstacle to marriage, and often stands cruelly in the way of people with weak nerves, it places a powerful weapon in the hands of the dauntless and determined match-maker. If young people are to marry for love, they must obviously have every facility afforded them for meeting and fascinating each other. It is this consideration which reconciles the philosopher to some of our least entertaining entertainments, although, at the same time, it makes so much of our hospitality an organized hypocrisy.
It is, indeed, a hard fate to be obliged to leave your after-dinner cigar and George Eliot's last novel in order to drive four miles through wind and snow to a party which your hostess has given, not because she has good fare, or good music, or agreeable guests, or anything, in short, really calculated to amuse you, but simply and solely because she has a tribe of daughters who somehow must be disposed of. Yet even a man of the Sir Cornewall Lewis stamp, who thinks that this world would be a very tolerable place but for its amus.e.m.e.nts, may forgive her when he reflects that business, not pleasure, is at the bottom of the invitation. If marriage is to be kept up, we must either abandon our theory that young ladies are allowed to choose husbands for themselves, or we must give them every possible facility for exercising the choice.
Bachelors must be dragged, on every available pretext, and without the slightest reference to the nominal ends of amus.e.m.e.nt or hospitality, from the novel or cigar, and made to run the gauntlet of female charms.
From the Sir Cornewall Lewis point of view, with which nearly all Englishmen over thirty more or less sympathise, it is the only sound defence of many of our so-called entertainments that they are virtually daughter-shows--genteel auctions, without which a sufficiently brisk trade in matrimony could not possibly be carried on. The consciousness of this is doubtless in one way somewhat of an obstacle to flirtation, and gives the frisky matron a cruel advantage over her unmarried rival.