The object of vocational help is not merely to keep the "square peg"
out of the "round hole." The girl arbitrarily placed in a suitable occupation may never discover why she is there, and may be handicapped all her life by a deep conviction that she fits somewhere else. "Know thyself" is a good old maxim yet. The teacher or vocational guide is fitted by the place of observation she holds to help the girl to study herself and the possibilities that life holds out to such as she thus finds herself to be. The final choice should be made by the girl.
CHAPTER XIV
MARRIAGE
Marriage may, or may not, in these days, be the opening door into the homemaker"s career. Many a young woman is a homemaker before she marries. On the other hand, women sometimes marry without any thought of making a home.
But, after all, it is safe to a.s.sume that marriage and homemaking do go hand in hand. The great majority of wives become managers of homes of one sort or another. Shall we then frankly educate our girls for marriage--"dangle a wedding ring ever before their eyes"? Or shall we regard marriages as "made in heaven" and keep our hands off the whole matter?
The proportion of marriages in the United States which terminate in divorce was in 1910 one in twelve. Divorce in this country is now three times as common as forty years ago. The success or failure of marriages cannot, however, be measured merely by the divorce test. We cannot avoid the knowledge that many other unhappy unions are endured until release comes with death. When we say unhappy marriages, we mean not only those which become unendurable, but all those in which marriage impedes the development and hence the efficiency of either party to the contract. Unhappy marriages include not only the mismated, but also those whose unhappiness in married life is due to their own or their mate"s misconception of what marriage really means.
It is obviously impossible even to estimate the number of marriages which are happy or unhappy; but we are safe in saying that the processes of adjustment in many cases are far harder than they ought to be, and that many marriages which seemingly ought to bring happiness fail of real success.
In view of the fact that so many marriages fall short of what they might be, it would seem that some sort of a.s.sistance to the girl in choosing a husband and to the young man in choosing a wife would be wise, such as the instruction we give boys and girls to enable them to be successful in the industrial world. In short, it is not enough to prepare girls for homemaking by making all our references to marriage indirect. Young men and women are ent.i.tled to more knowledge of marriage, its rights, privileges, and duties; they need to realize that in these days of complex living marriage is a difficult relation which requires their best energies and wisest thought.
The modern marriage differs from the marriage of earlier centuries in direct proportion as the status of woman has changed. The ancient marriage, and indeed the medieval one, and the marriage of our own grandmother"s time began with submission and usually ended with subjection. But the modern marriage at its best is a spiritual and material partnership. It is the modern marriage at its best and otherwise with which we have to do.
Half a century ago girls married at eighteen or even earlier, took charge of their households, were mothers of good-sized families at twenty-eight or thirty, and were frequently grandmothers at forty.
Nowadays early marriage is the exception. For years the marriage age has been steadily rising, until some students profess to be alarmed at a prospect of marriage disappearing, the maternal instinct becoming lost by disuse, and the race finally becoming extinct. However, the maximum marriage age, at least for the present, seems to have been reached, and statistics show a slight dropping within the last two or three years.
The forces operating to fix the marriage age are exceedingly complex.
The higher education of girls has undoubtedly been a large factor in the postponement of marriage. Its effect has been wrought in a variety of ways. The increasing years in schoolroom and lecture hall have been directly responsible in many cases. The ambitions aroused account for many more. The increased ability of girls to earn their own living and public acceptance of their doing so have practically removed "marriage as a trade" from the consideration of girls and their parents. Girls no longer need to marry in order to transfer the burden of their support from father to husband. Instead they may "go to work." And once at work they are often reluctant to give up a personal income for the uncertainties of sharing what a husband earns. Then, too, the broadening effect of education makes marriage in the abstract a less absorbing, momentous subject for the girl"s thoughts. Also the rebound toward selfishness coincident with woman"s "emanc.i.p.ation" leads girls to put off what they are sometimes led to consider a sacrifice of themselves. The tragedies of the divorce courts are directly responsible for many a girlish determination not to marry, a determination which is broken only when the first zest of mature life has pa.s.sed and when the woman begins to long for the home ties she has resolved to deny herself and decides to take the risk. The increased cost of living and the ever-increasing responsibilities of rearing, educating, and launching a family of children lead many young people to postpone marriage until they can command a larger income. The strain of modern industrial life, with its fierce compet.i.tions and its early discard of the elderly and unfit, finds many girls who would otherwise marry burdened with the care of parents who can ill spare the daughter"s help.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Halliday Historic Photograph Co.
LOUISA M. ALCOTT Miss Alcott"s lifelong devotion to the interests of her family is a well-known story. She made a happy home for them, and at the same time attained marked success in the literary field.]
If all these obstacles to early marriage could be overcome, the question of the wisest time for marrying might be approached fairly and squarely on its merits.
Too early marriage means immaturity in choice, with the possibility always of unfortunate mistakes and sad awakening. Too late marriage, on the other hand, means settled convictions which often result in that incompatibility which seeks relief in divorce. The plasticity of youth at least _promises_ adaptability. The mature judgment of later years ought to afford a wise choice. Between extreme youth then and a too settled maturity is the wise time.
In order to approach the ideal in the marriage relation, the time of marriage should be so placed that the girl is (1) physically fit, (2) fully educated, (3) broadened by some experience with the world.
She must not be too old to bear children safely, or to rear them sympathetically as they approach the difficult years. She must not be physically worn by excessive industrial service, nor with enthusiasms burned out by the same cause. Probably between twenty-two and twenty-five the girl reaches the height of physical fitness. She may also by that time have completed a liberal education, and she may even have done that and also have put her training to useful service. It would be better if girls completed their college courses earlier than most do. However, since the great majority of girls do not have a college education, the generally increased age of marriage cannot rightfully be laid, as many seem to lay it, at the doors of the college women. Schemes of education in the future will undoubtedly try to remedy the defect of present systems in this respect. If most girls could finish their training in college or professional school at twenty, as some do now, the world would be rewarded by earlier marriages and probably more of them. There would be more children, reared by younger and more enthusiastic mothers. The more difficult professions, which could not be successfully undertaken by the girl of twenty, would then be reserved, as they generally are now, for the women whose ambition is unusually strong and absorbing. Attempts are frequently made to show that ambition is becoming an inordinately prominent quality in all women, but there are few facts to support so wide a contention.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph by Paul Thompson RUTH MCENERY STUART Mrs. Stuart was one of those in whom the talent for homemaking and the talent for creative literary work existed side by side. On her husband"s plantation in Arkansas she found many of the types for the characters in her stories]
The girl graduate of twenty, reinforced by from two to five years of work in the vocation she has chosen, is usually fit, physically and mentally, for marriage. More than that, she may by that age, usually, be trusted to know what she wants, even in a husband, if she is ever going to know.
In the day when girls married nearly always "in their teens," wise choice of a husband called for selection of a man considerably older than the girl herself. This disparity is less common in these days, and is really less desirable than it once was. The girl of the earlier time reached maturity of mind earlier than the girl of to-day with her prolonged education, and much earlier than the boy of her day did. He was still being educated in school or as an apprentice, and was hardly ready to undertake the responsibility of a family at an age when the girl"s scanty education was long since completed and it was considered high time that her support was laid upon a husband"s shoulders.
It used to be said, "Men keep their youth better than women," so that any disparity in age at the time of marriage was soon lost. This is no longer true as it was once. The early marriage, with early and excessive childbearing, overwork, and the numerous restrictions that custom laid upon her, were responsible for woman"s loss of youth.
These conditions no longer exist. The woman of forty or fifty can now usually hold her own with the man of her own age in point of youth.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LOUISE HOMER AND HER FAMILY Madame Homer"s great success in the difficult art of operatic singing has by no means interfered with her career as a homemaker.]
Another consideration in favor of more nearly equal age lies in the fact that formerly men did not look for wives who were their mental equals. They did not really desire mental equals as wives. To-day they do, or, if there still lingers in the minds of some of them the old notion that wives must be clinging vines, the lingering notion will soon be gone. The marriage of equality possesses too many advantages for both parties to be thrown aside. The wife who can think, who is mature enough to be capable of real partnership, is the wife surely of to-morrow, if not of to-day.
Among the forces that control marriage may be mentioned (1) physical attraction, (2) continued social relationships, (3) dissimilarity, (4) affection, (5) barter.
It is usually difficult to say of any marriage that any one of these forces alone caused the mating. It may have been physical attraction together with everyday companionship; or physical attraction and dissimilarity or strangeness, resulting in what we know as love at first sight. Or it may have been affection of slow growth, or affection with an element of appreciation of worldly advantage, or it may have been a little physical attraction with a great deal of desire for social position or wealth, or, ugliest of all, it may have been pure barter, without personal attraction of any sort. For these worldy advantages you offer, I will sell you my body and my soul.
To secure the finest marriages for girls we must insure three conditions: (1) high ideals of marriage among our adolescents, (2) better knowledge of men, and (3) wise companionships during the years from fourteen to twenty-five.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON The South is justly proud of this poet of no mean rank who gave herself unstintedly to her home duties and responsibilities]
Physical attraction on one or both sides is undoubtedly the greatest force in marriage selection. It is only when physical attraction exerts its influence upon a girl whose ideal of a husband is low or vague or incorrect that the danger is great. Physical attraction is not love, but it may be--often it is--the basis of love when it exists between two who are suited to a life together.
Generally speaking, girls will find married life easier, and their husbands will find life more satisfactory, when the two have been reared with approximately the same ideals. The girl who falls in love with a man largely because he is "different" from the boys among whom she has grown up often finds that very difference a stumbling block to domestic happiness. Marriages across such chasms where there should be common ground are more hazardous than between those whose education, social training, friends, and beliefs are of the same type. When they do succeed, they undoubtedly are the richer for the variety of experience husband and wife have to give each other; and, too, they show an adaptability on the part of one or both which argues well for continued happiness. Commonly, however, they do not succeed.
There are, also, deeper matters than these to be considered. Is this man or this woman worthy of lifelong devotion? Is the love he offers or she offers in return for the love you offer, the love that gives or the love that merely takes? Has he been a success at something, anything, that counts? Has he a sense of responsibility in marriage and the burdens it brings? Does he desire a home? Do his views as to children reflect man"s natural desire to found a family or merely the selfish desire for the freedom and luxury which the absence of children may make possible? Has he a right to approach fatherhood--is his body physically and morally clean?
[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood COLONEL AND MRS. ROOSEVELT WITH MEMBERS OF THEIR FAMILY Colonel Roosevelt"s own family was preeminently one in which the father shared with the mother a keen sense of the responsibilities of marriage and the highest ideals of home life]
These are serious questions with which to weight the wings of a young man"s or a young woman"s fancy. But the attraction which cannot stand before them is not safe as a basis for marriage. Many a young man or woman has willfully turned closed eyes to the selfishness or the irresponsibility which will later wreck a home, because attraction blinded common sense.
Barter, the lowest form of marriage, exists and has always existed whenever the material benefits that either husband or wife expects to derive from the connection are the impelling forces in the union. The woman desires wealth, social position, a t.i.tle--or perhaps nothing more than security from poverty or the necessity of work outside the home, or perhaps no more than the mere security of a home itself. The man in other cases desires wealth, or social position, or a wife who will grace his fine home, or some business connection which the marriage will afford. And upon these things men and women build, or attempt to build, the foundations of home life.
It is not true of course that every girl of moderate means, or without means, who marries a man of wealth does so because of his money. Nor is it always true when the cases are reversed. Love may be as real between those two as between any others. But when it is true that the marriage is an exchange of commodities, it is no different from prost.i.tution under other circ.u.mstances. In fact, it is prost.i.tution under cover, without acceptance of the stigma which for centuries has been the portion of voluntary selling of the body to him who cares to buy.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood JULIA WARD HOWE AND HER GRANDDAUGHTER In the life of Mrs. Howe was exemplified the ident.i.ty of ideals of husband and wife. They worked side by side in the literary field and in their philanthropic and reform work]
Eugenics, a modern science which aims at race regeneration, lays down many laws and restrictions for those who are selecting their mates. By the following of these laws and restrictions in the selection of husbands and wives, undesirable traits in the offspring are to be weeded out and desirable; ones are to be fostered and increased.
That these laws should be studied with the care used by breeders of plants and animals goes without saying. That if they are followed strictly the number of marriages would be materially reduced, at least for a considerable time, is doubtless true. That marriages in which eugenics has played the major part in selection will present new problems is probably equally true. If marriages were mere temporary unions, for the purpose of obtaining offspring, eugenic principles could not be too exactly nor too coldly applied to the selection of mates. But since marriage implies living together and becoming, or continuing to be, worthy members of the community, and since the offspring are fashioned no less by the conditions of their upbringing than by heredity, selection of mates must involve more than looking for eugenically perfect fathers and mothers for the generations yet unborn. Eugenics, however, is in infancy as a science, and, like the human infants it would protect, must react to the environment in which it finds itself and must feel the chastening hand of time before its value can be known. Agitation in the direction of allowing posterity to be "well born" can never be out of place. What being well born is and how it shall be attained is a worthy subject of research. As a cold, exact science, however, eugenics can never hope for application without some consideration of the personal equation which makes marriage at its best not a mating merely, but a joining of souls.
Choosing a husband or a wife is, after all, merely the beginning of the marriage problem. Good husbands are not discovered, but made, from originally good or perhaps indifferent or in rare cases from even poor material, by the reaction of married life upon what was previously mere "man." Even so with wives.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CAROLINE BARTLETT CRANE Mrs. Crane, an expert on sanitation, has successfully applied the principles of good housekeeping to civic affairs in many cities, and has thus made women more of a factor in the community at large]
The successful marriage presupposes unselfishness, even carried if necessary to the point of sacrifice, but it must be unselfishness for two, not for one alone. Neither the "child wife" who must be carried as a burden, nor the complacent husband who forms the center of a smoothly revolving little world patiently turned by a silent wife, has any part in the marriage of equality--the only marriage worthy of the name.
The successful marriage calls also for freedom--again for two. Women sometimes hesitate to marry because the old idea of marriage involved loss of individuality, and they have little faith in men"s readiness to accept any other idea. Men, on the other hand, fear to marry because the "new woman" demands so much for herself--development, a career, a chance to work out her own ideals of life. The man sees little in this for himself but the "second fiddle" which woman for centuries played to his first. Ideal marriages, however, do take place in which there is no sacrifice of personality--in which, indeed, each lives a fuller life than would have been possible without the marriage. For this to be realized, there must be full recognition of the responsibility of each for his or her own deeds, and a standing aside while each works out his destiny. This does not mean a separation of interests nor an abandonment of common counsel. It means merely that in individual matters each must have the freedom enjoyed before marriage took place. It must mean for women some sort of economic independence, and in addition a spiritual independence such as men enjoy. When this freedom is cheerfully given, and in return the wife gives a like liberty to the husband, the great incentive to concealments and deceptions or to nagging and controversy is removed.
The petty annoyances of the day are lessened, trust is increased, and both man and woman find their strength increased rather than depleted by the relation.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Courtesy of George Herbert Palmer ALICE FREEMAN PALMER Mrs. Palmer"s was one of the ideal marriages in which husband and wife each lived a fuller life than would have been possible without the marriage. Happy in her home life, Mrs. Palmer yet had time to achieve a brilliant success in administrative educational work]
Common interests are an almost certain safeguard in most marriages.
Common duties are more often than not a source of difficulty. An untold number of matrimonial ventures fail because of inadequate responsibility in adjustment of expenses to income. Many more are rendered inharmonious by failure of parents to agree as to the management of children. In both these directions increased knowledge will do much to secure harmonious action. Family traditions are more than likely to clash when they are adopted as principles of family discipline. "Children must mind," says the father, in memory and emulation of his father"s method with him. "Children must not be coerced," says the mother, who has been reared by a different method.
Clearly a course in child psychology would have been of value to these parents in determining a common procedure. There is probably no subject upon which either father or mother finds it so hard to yield to the other"s way as upon this. Each feels, and rightly, that the material to be trained is so precious, and that failure, if it comes, will be so stupendous, that neither dares do what seems wrong to his own mind. Nothing but common knowledge and a predetermined policy can solve this problem so near to the root of success or failure in marriage itself.
Girls are commonly taught too little of the duties of married women to their husbands. They look for a lifetime of unalloyed bliss. If they fail to realize their impossible dream, they turn their faces toward the divorce court. Many girls have had too smooth a pathway, too little of responsibility, and too little of disappointment, before undertaking the serious duty of establishing and maintaining a lifelong partnership. There has been little in their lives to prepare them for long-continued relations of any sort. On the other hand, the same girls have equally little idea of what they have a right to expect of marriage for themselves. Much of the necessary adjustment is left to chance.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph by Paul Thompson AMELIA E. BARR Far from interfering with her career, Mrs. Barr"s home interests were the inspiration for it. Thrown on her own resources by the death of her husband, who sacrificed himself in a yellow fever epidemic in Texas, Mrs. Barr took up writing to make a living for her children]
Scarcely any phase of woman"s part in marriage is arousing more attention at present than the question of childbearing. Women, and especially educated women, are accused of sterility or of intentionally avoiding motherhood. They are said to believe that children interfere with their careers, that they can render greater service to the world in public work than in childbearing. They "prefer idleness and luxury to the care of a family." The "maternal instinct is fading." They threaten us with "race suicide," the "extinction of mankind," a silent world given over to dumb beasts who have not yet learned the principles of "birth control" and "family limitation."