CHAPTER XII
THE IDEAL HUSBAND
There are qualities which most women admire in men, and there are qualities which practically every man admires in all women; but if you were to ask of a hundred men, 'What is the ideal wife?' and of a hundred women, 'What is the ideal husband?' you would get a hundred opinions all different one from the other.
Quot capita, tot sensus, which, in the case of women, I should like to translate, 'So many pretty heads, so many different opinions.' This, however, is as it should be. Only there remains that terrible problem for every man and woman to solve: Find your ideal if you can, and when you think you have found it, see that you are not disappointed.
I have of late interviewed a good many Parisiennes on the subject, and I will give some of the answers which I have received.
One said to me: 'The ideal husband is the one who devotes his life to his wife, who makes her the first consideration in all his thoughts and acts, who understands that she is the aim of everything which he undertakes, and that he should use all the resources that Nature has placed in his mind and Fortune has put in his hands in order that she may be happy and remain long beautiful.'
I need not say that this was the opinion of a young girl who had only just made her début in society. Nor do I need say that the following came from the lips of a married woman – one, however, whom I guarantee to be in the possession of all the womanly virtues likely to make a husband most satisfied with his lot.
'The ideal husband,' she said, 'is the one who lets his wife alone, who does not interfere with her household duties or any of her little womanly fads, who is not always paying her compliments or besieging her with advice, and who is not always by her side or behind her back, who seldom addresses her reproaches, and never reminds her of what he has done to deserve her gratitude, who is not fussy, fidgety, or a bore of a model of propriety and virtue.
'When I was a young girl I dreamed of matrimony as a sweet state of slavery. Now I shout for liberty – liberty for him and liberty for me. I do not mean to say, of course, that man and wife should live apart and not care one what the other does. No, no; but I firmly believe that we should remain at a respectful distance from the objects which we want to see to advantage and admire.
'A woman should never allow even the most loving and beloved of husbands to be constantly making love to her. One may suffer from abundance of wealth. A great deal of discretion and a certain amount of respect between married people are sure to secure the duration and the solidity of their affection. Those who live at too close quarters are sure to part one day or the other.'
Here is another, with less philosophy, but a good deal of what I might call paradoxical psychology:
'The ideal husband,' said to me a woman married to a French painter on the road to celebrity, 'is the one who is not a man of genius. Nothing monopolizes a man like a great talent for writing, painting, or even business; he belongs to his muse, his art, or his figures. His thoughts are absorbed, and he has very few, if any, left for the little creature who lives with him, not in the clouds, but by his side on this earth.
'When he returns from his dreams, he throws at her – poor inferior being! – a glance of pity, if not of contempt. My ideal husband is a man who can live for me as I am ready to live for him, and who can do without a mistress, whether that mistress be called Literature, Art, or Commerce. I love great men, great poets, great painters or sculptors, but I would not have a great man for a husband; nay, furthermore, I should like to have a husband jealous of all the great men of my predilection in the world of fiction.'
A piquant little woman, not a bit beautiful, but absolutely charming and the embodiment of amiability and cheerfulness, said to me:
'The ideal husband shall not be a handsome man, but a gentlemanly one, with a keen sense of humour, cheerful, a laughing philosopher, and a man with a magnanimous turn of mind, who would never take advantage of a little trouble in which I might find myself entangled to say to me, "I told you so," but get me out of it quickly.'
Of course, all my fair friends, without exception, have insisted on the ideal husband being indulgent, generous, manly, sincere, loyal, and above middle height. Strange to say that none of them ask him to be handsome, much less insist on it. One of them even went so far as to say:
'A husband should not be handsome. First of all he is never very beautiful, since he is a man. But he might be worse; he might think he is beautiful, and then Heaven help his wife!'
'The ideal husband,' remarked a lady, 'is a man who should never be ridiculous, never make a fool of himself, and never for a moment believe that women took notice of him. A woman's love may survive any defect in her husband, but ridicule never.'
The fact is that words or acts of a man ridiculous enough to make his wife wish she were a mile deep under the floor will lower him so much in her estimation that she will never be able to look up to him again; and no woman has ever been known to drop her love – she sends it up always. I will conclude with the opinion of an American lady:
'The ideal husband should never part with any of his most refined manners in his home, where he should endeavour ever to appear at his best, in dress, language, and behaviour, in the presence of his wife, who is his queen.'
I expected as much from her supreme and magnificent majesty, Mrs. Jonathan, Queen of the United States.
CHAPTER XIII
MARRYING ABOVE OR BELOW ONE'S STATION
It is said in England that, of all men who occupy high positions in professional life, judges are those who oftenest marry below their station.
Many are even said to have married impossible women, and on these women many amusing stories are related in the smoke-rooms of London clubs – stories which, I have no doubt, are of the se non è vero, è ben trovato type, and as faithful to truth as the stories that are told on the feet of the Chicago women or the intellect of the Boston girls.
CHORUS-GIRL MARRIAGES
However, it must be admitted that fools are not the only men who marry women that are greatly inferior to them in manner, education, and social standing; the cleverest men and the most aristocratic ones have often been known to do the same.
Dukes, marquises, and earls have married chorus-girls and shop-girls; great literary men and artists have married uneducated girls, and have led very happy lives with them. Of course, I pass over the aristocracy who marry among the common people in order to get their coats of arms out of pawn. If they are poor and marry rich girls, you can hardly call this a case of mésalliance, since the superiority of birth in the man is compensated by the superiority of fortune in the woman.
Of course, mésalliances appeal to people, because they always suggest marriages for love, and novelists of all countries have worked this theme for all it is worth. In real life they very seldom work well, for the simple reason that matrimony places a man and a woman on absolutely equal footing, and that happiness for them, in the case of a mésalliance, is only possible on condition that one goes up to the level of the superior, or the other comes down to the level of the inferior.
EDUCATING ONE'S WIFE
Marriages that have the greatest chances of success are those in which the two partners bring the same amount of capital in social position, in education, in fortune, in character, and I will even add in stature and in physical beauty, with perhaps a slight – a very slight – superiority to the credit of the man in all these conditions, except that of beauty, which is an attribute that woman can possess in any degree without making the happiness of her husband and herself run any risk.
Mrs. Hodgson Burnett, in one of her novels, makes a barrister fall in love with a girl who works in the coal-mines of Lancaster (another case of the legal profession going wrong). The man has the girl sent to school to learn manners and get educated, then marries her, and all is smooth ever after.
I have heard of this being done in real life with less success. The behaviour of the man in a case like this should create gratitude in the heart of the woman, and gratitude does not engender love. On the contrary, Cupid is a little fellow so fond of his liberty and so wilful that anything that tends to influence him – worse than that, to force him – has on him the contrary effect to that which should be expected.
Yet, I say, it is the only way to bring an uneducated woman to the level of an educated man – before matrimony. After marriage the woman is acknowledged, proclaimed the equal of her husband, and she will stand no hint as to her being inferior to her husband in any way.
If she loves him and is not conceited, any act on his part, however kindly performed, that would suggest to her that she might improve herself in language, behaviour, etc., would cause her unhappiness and even pangs of anguish.
If, on the other hand, she did not love him and was conceited, or even only of an independent character, she would soon give him a piece of her mind on the subject of her improvements, and let him hear the great typical phrase of democracy, 'I'm as good as you.'
DANGEROUS EXPERIMENTS
No, no; he must put up with the situation, and make the best of it. In that case men console themselves with the thought that their wives are pretty, or that they are good housekeepers, good cooks. After all, a man gets married to please himself, not for what the world has to say of his wife.
Still, you have to succeed in the world, and if you despise the opinion of the world the world turns its back on you. And you must remember this: however big you are, or you think you are, the earth can go on running its course round the sun without your help.
French and American women have a keen power of observation and native adaptability. Better than any other women in the world, they can soon adapt themselves to new surroundings and new ways, and learn how to talk, walk, dress, and behave like the leading women of any new social circles they may have entered. Witness the American women that are to be seen at the courts of Europe.
However, the experiment of a mésalliance is always a dangerous one to make. Nine times out of ten the rabbit will always taste of the cabbage it was brought up on.
CHAPTER XIV
PREPARE FOR MATRIMONY, BUT DO NOT OVERTRAIN YOURSELVES
I'll tell you what the trouble is with most women in connection with matrimony – they expect too much out of it. Not only do they expect too much, but, in their goodness, they prepare themselves to do too much, to give too much; in fact, they overtrain themselves.
The moment a woman is in love and becomes a fiancée she cultivates the growing of her wings, and orders a halo for her head – in fact, she sets herself to rehearse the part of an angel.
But see the 'cussedness' of things! Man is a strange animal, who prefers women to angels, and the result is that things go wrong. The dear soul is persuaded that she is going to marry a hero, a demi-god, and very soon she discovers that, after all, she has married only a man. How few of us can stand comfortably and long on the pedestals that our admiring friends have erected for us!
When that woman engaged herself she did not go straightway to her parents, as she should have done, and ask them for information on man and matrimony. Her father might have gently disabused her on the subject of many illusions. Certainly her mother would. No, she did not do that. She kept to herself, read poetry, invented poetry, filled herself with poetry.
Boys dream of military life. To them it means gorgeous uniforms, a sword, a life of adventure, battle and glory. Girls dream of married life. To them it means beautiful dresses and jewels and a life of love-making. But soldiers do not always fight, and husbands do not always make love, and that is why military life and married life are often so sadly disappointing.
The dear little woman has prepared herself to be loving and devoted every minute of her life. She has stored provisions of all the best resolutions and virtues under the sun and above. She arrives in her new home ready to yield in everything, even ready to run the house and dress on nothing a year. How she loves that man! Her whole being is given up to love. By-and-by she discovers that the most loving couples require one or two meals a day, and that fig-leaves are much more expensive than they were when they were first worn. Her husband, who, like all men, is an idiot as far as the knowledge of housekeeping is concerned, begins to grumble when she asks for a reasonable sum to allow her to keep things going decently. Remarks pass, lectures are delivered, faces frown, and frowning faces don't go well with halos.
Why will young girls leave it to their imagination to find out what married life is? Why do they not consult and listen to the advice of married lady friends, choosing those who are happy, of course?
They would hear the voice of common-sense.
'If you want your husband to love you and be happy, my dear,' some old stager will tell her, 'follow Punch's advice – feed the brute. Never expect him to be loving while he is hungry. The way to his heart is through the portion of his anatomy that lies just under it.'
Another will say to her: 'Don't start married life by keeping your house on nothing a year, because your husband will find it quite natural, and will get used to it.'
Let that girl frankly confess to her sweetheart that she is not an angel, and the probability is that, if he is a man, he will say to her: 'Never mind the angels, dearie; be a woman: that's quite good enough for me.'
CHAPTER XV
ACTRESSES SHOULD NOT MARRY
'Are you married?' once asked an English magistrate of an actress who had been summoned for assault. She had flung a pot of cold cream in the face of her manager.
'No, sir,' replied the lively lady, 'nor do I wish to be.'
'That is fortunate for your husband,' remarked the judge, who probably had Irish blood in his veins.
The actress – I do not mean the mere woman on the stage – is made by her profession unfit for matrimony. If she is fit for it, she is not, and never will be, a great actress.
I know that you will at once tell me that Mr. and Mrs. Kendal and Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Maude (Winifred Emery) have been married a good many years and lived most happy lives together. I even imagine that you will easily be able to name others, but I will still maintain that they are only exceptions, and you will please remark that in the exceptions I have named the husbands have, as actors, quite as high a reputation as their wives, which may be the very explanation of those exceptions.
The actress is a heroine, partly owing to the rôles that she plays, and partly to the talent which she displays in them, and no heroine can be a good wife to a man unless he be a hero himself. A woman can never drop her love, and she never does; she gives it only to a man she can look up to.
But there are a great many other reasons. An actress wants perfect freedom of action. She cannot be bothered by household duties, hampered by the bringing up of children, mindful of the attentions required, or at least expected, by a husband.
Her soul and her very nervous system have to be stirred by the whole gamut of sentiments, sensations, and even passions, or she will never be able to stir the soul of her audience.
Can you imagine Lady Macbeth, Camille, Fedora, Phedre, La Tosca, Brunnehilde, played by young innocent virgins or by attentive and devoted wives who mend their husbands' stockings and make the puddings? Perhaps you will tell me that Mrs. Kendal does all that, and if you do, my reply will be, 'Will you please leave me alone with Mrs. Kendal?'
However, since we have mentioned the name of that great actress, I will quote her, and repeat what she said to me one day: 'It is a general rule with me never to engage married couples in my company; whenever I have done so I have had trouble. I want both men and women to act in my plays without having to mind what their wives or husbands may look like in the wings while they are making love on the stage.'
The husband of an actress is nine times out of ten an intolerable bore. He is jealous when she rehearses, he is jealous when she plays, he is jealous when the audience applauds her, he is jealous when she receives bouquets, he is jealous and suspicious if the manager increases her salary, he is jealous during the intervals, he makes scenes to her when she returns home, and, if he does not, he sulks, which is worse, because the man who consumes his own smoke is far less bearable than the one who 'has it out' and has done with it. Even if he is not all that, he has that feeling, which we can quite understand, that his wife belongs to the authors of the play, to the manager of the theatre, to the public, to the critics – in fact, to everybody except himself.
No, actresses should certainly not marry unless they marry actors, but as a rule they do not, and will not.
The actor may be a hero to the susceptible matinée girl, who sees him as Othello, Hamlet, Romeo, Henry V., d'Artagnan, or some other romantic swashbuckler, but he is no hero to the woman who dwells in the dressing-room next to his, and who knows that he is putting on his wig, smearing his face with grease-paint, making-up his eyes, and covering his face with violet-powder with a puff, which he handles in ladylike manner. The actor loses in the eyes of an actress all the prestige which is due to mystery and imagination, and which constitutes the primary and fundamental element of the attraction of one sex for the other. I have never met actresses of standing who had admiration for actors as men, much as they might praise them as members of their profession.
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the marriage of an actress is a mistake, a remorse, or an act of folly. An actress, in order to interpret the works of dramatists, should love, love passionately, dream, suffer even terribly, in order to be able to incarnate love, voluptuousness, suffering, and despair. The drama is the reflection of humanity; the art of the actress should be the reflection of all the different passions that have stirred her own heart and soul.
Another thing: The public takes a greater personal interest in a woman who is not married than in one who is. Actresses know this so well that, when they are married, they insist on having their names put on the bills as Miss So-and-So. When they do not, managers make them do it.
For art's sake, for her own sake, and, remembering the remark of the magistrate, I will add, for her husband's sake, an actress should not marry.
CHAPTER XVI
A MATRIMONIAL BOOM
There is quite a boom in the French matrimonial market just at present, and not marriages of convenience either, but real good love matches. Young girls elope with respectable young men holding good positions in order to compel their parents to give their consent. Sons now inform their fathers and mothers that they have, without their help or even their meddling, chosen wives for themselves. It is an open state of rebellion against the old state of affairs in France.
Hitherto there were practically only two kinds of marriages among the upper classes and the good bourgeoisie of France: the marriage of convenience from which love was excluded, and the marriage for love, which, nine times out of ten, was a mésalliance. And, to do justice to the old system, let me say that, as a rule, the marriages of convenience turned out to be much happier than mésalliances, which generally consisted in marrying mistresses – that is to say, according to Balzac, in changing tolerably good wine into very sour vinegar. However, in these marriages of convenience, arranged by families, the social position of the bridegroom and the dot of the bride were the first considerations, and these couples, after being married, often discovered they were made one for the other, and more than one husband won his wife by courting, and really fell in love with her. In cases of mésalliance, after the hours of passion had gone, the husband discovered that all his prospects in life were destroyed through being married to a woman he would never be able to make acceptable to the people of the set he belonged to, and often despair followed disgust, for woe to married people if either of them has the slightest cause for being ashamed of the other!
But things are being changed, and a splendid sign of the times it is, too. Young Frenchmen now seek wives among the families of their own stations in life, court them, and make up their minds to marry them, and, what is best of all, parents begin to realize that, after all, it is their sons, and not themselves, who marry, and that it is they who should make their choices.
I believe that this new state of things, which I hope, for my country, will last, and even yet improve, is greatly due to the influence of the Anglo-Saxons, English and Americans, whose freedom in matrimonial matters is getting more and more familiar to the French through reading and travelling.
Like the Anglo-Saxons, they begin to see the practical side of matrimony. The young Frenchman says to himself: 'I do not send my father to my tailor to choose the clothes I am to wear, and I do not see why I should allow him to go and choose for me the girl I am to marry.'
There are other reasons which may also be due to the ever-increasing influence of Anglo-Saxon manners and customs on France. The French girl is every day getting freer. She is no longer cloistered, as it were, at home and at school. She now frequents the society of young men, gets better acquainted with them, and on more intimate terms than before. She is more independent, feels more confidence in herself, knows more of life than before, and the consequence is that she is better able to provoke the love which she desires to inspire in a man of her choice.
There may also be an economical reason which incites young Frenchmen to seek love in matrimony instead of outside of it. They have been observing their elders, and come to the right conclusion that real love and respectable women are much more within their means than sham love and disreputable women. A charming companion, who is at the same time a sweet mistress and counsellor, a careful housekeeper and a devoted wife, appears to them in her true light – the best article in the market. Besides, they realize that the man who is married has a social advantage over the one who is not. The man who marries a girl of his own society can now explain that he married her simply because he loved her, without thinking that he has to apologize for his action by mentioning what a good stroke of business he has made.
Most men of the preceding generation avoided matrimony as they would have avoided ridicule. The part of husband and father struck them as unpleasant and too petit bourgeois. Literature and the drama helped to fill them with this notion; but now literature and the drama are getting optimistic. We are getting over the period of problem novels and plays, in which all the morbid diseases of the heart were dissected. The heroes of novels and plays begin to get married without ceasing to be interesting, and the result is that the present generation of France is getting more healthy and more cheerful. This is most hopeful for France, for the regeneration seems to take place in every class of society. The friends of France will rejoice in this evolution. I have always maintained, and still maintain, that it is the educational system that explains the prosperity of the Anglo-Saxon race, and that absolute freedom for men to marry the women they love explains its strength and its marvellous vitality.