{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_62680/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_62680","id":"gutenberg_62680","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62680","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Parenthood & Family Relations","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Divorce"],"text":"THE SUPERSTITION OF DIVORCE\n\n                          BY THE SAME AUTHOR\n\n\n                           IRISH IMPRESSIONS\n                               HERETICS\n                               ORTHODOXY\n                         THE CRIMES OF ENGLAND\n                      A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND\n                         ALL THINGS CONSIDERED\n                          GEORGE BERNARD SHAW\n                               MAN ALIVE\n                            THE FLYING INN\n                        THE BALL AND THE CROSS\n                     THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN\n                      THE WISDOM OF FATHER BROWN\n                     THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL\n\n\n                                 POEMS\n\n                     THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE\n\n\n\n\n                           THE SUPERSTITION\n                              OF DIVORCE\n\n                                  BY\n\n                           G. K. CHESTERTON\n\n                               AUTHOR OF\n          \u201cHERETICS,\u201d \u201cORTHODOXY,\u201d \u201cIRISH IMPRESSIONS,\u201d ETC.\n\n\n                               NEW YORK\n                           JOHN LANE COMPANY\n                                 MCMXX\n\n\n\n\n                           Copyright, 1920,\n                         BY JOHN LANE COMPANY\n\n\n                               Press of\n                      J. J. Little & Ives Company\n                          New York, U. S. A.\n\n\n\n\n_Introductory Note_\n\n\nThe earlier part of this book appeared in the form of five articles\nwhich came out in the \u201cNew Witness\u201d at the crisis of the recent\ncontroversy in the Press on the subject of divorce. Crude and sketchy as\nthey confessedly were, they had a certain rude plan of their own, which\nI find it very difficult to recast even in order to expand. I have\ntherefore decided to reprint the original articles as they stood, save\nfor a few introductory words; and then, at the risk of repetition, to\nadd a few further chapters, explaining more fully any conceptions that\nmay seem to have been too crudely assumed or dismissed. I have set forth\nthe original matter as it appeared, under a general heading, without\ndividing it into chapters.\n\n                                                               G. K. C.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n\nTHE SUPERSTITION OF DIVORCE                                           11\n\nTHE STORY OF THE FAMILY                                               61\n\nTHE STORY OF THE VOW                                                  83\n\nTHE TRAGEDIES OF MARRIAGE                                            105\n\nTHE VISTA OF DIVORCE                                                 127\n\nCONCLUSION                                                           147\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUPERSTITION OF DIVORCE\n\n\n\n\n_I.--The Superstition of Divorce_\n\n\nIt is futile to talk of reform without reference to form. To take a\ncase from my own taste and fancy, there is nothing I feel to be so\nbeautiful and wonderful as a window. All casements are magic casements,\nwhether they open on the foam or the front-garden; they lie close to\nthe ultimate mystery and paradox of limitation and liberty. But if I\nfollowed my instinct towards an infinite number of windows, it would\nend in having no walls. It would also (it may be added incidentally)\nend in having no windows either; for a window makes a picture by making\na picture-frame. But there is a simpler way of stating my more simple\nand fatal error. It is that I have wanted a window, without considering\nwhether I wanted a house. Now many appeals are being made to us to-day\non behalf of that light and liberty that might well be symbolised by\nwindows; especially as so many of them concern the enlightenment and\nliberation of the house, in the sense of the home. Many quite\ndisinterested people urge many quite reasonable considerations in the\ncase of divorce, as a type of domestic liberation; but in the\njournalistic and general discussion of the matter there is far too much\nof the mind that works backwards and at random, in the manner of all\nwindows and no walls. Such people say they want divorce, without asking\nthemselves whether they want marriage. Even in order to be divorced it\nhas generally been found necessary to go through the preliminary\nformality of being married; and unless the nature of this initial act\nbe considered, we might as well be discussing haircutting for the bald\nor spectacles for the blind. To be divorced is to be in the literal\nsense unmarried; and there is no sense in a thing being undone when we\ndo not know if it is done.\n\nThere is perhaps no worse advice, nine times out of ten, than the advice\nto do the work that\u2019s nearest. It is especially bad when it means, as\nit generally does, removing the obstacle that\u2019s nearest. It means that\nmen are not to behave like men but like mice; who nibble at the thing\nthat\u2019s nearest. The man, like the mouse, undermines what he cannot\nunderstand. Because he himself bumps into a thing, he calls it the\nnearest obstacle; though the obstacle may happen to be the pillar that\nholds up the whole roof over his head. He industriously removes the\nobstacle; and in return the obstacle removes him, and much more valuable\nthings than he. This opportunism is perhaps the most unpractical thing\nin this highly unpractical world. People talk vaguely against\ndestructive criticism; but what is the matter with this criticism is not\nthat it destroys, but that it does not criticise. It is destruction\nwithout design. It is taking a complex machine to pieces bit by bit, in\nany order, without even knowing what the machine is for. And if a man\ndeals with a deadly dynamic machine on the principle of touching the\nknob that\u2019s nearest, he will find out the defects of that cheery\nphilosophy. Now leaving many sincere and serious critics of modern\nmarriage on one side for the moment, great masses of modern men and\nwomen, who write and talk about marriage, are thus nibbling blindly at\nit like an army of mice. When the reformers propose, for instance, that\ndivorce should be obtainable after an absence of three years (the\nabsence actually taken for granted in the first military arrangements of\nthe late European War) their readers and supporters could seldom give\nany sort of logical reason for the period being three years, and not\nthree months or three minutes. They are like people who should say \u201cGive\nme three feet of dog\u201d; and not care where the cut came. Such persons\nfail to see a dog as an organic entity; in other words, they cannot make\nhead or tail of it. And the chief thing to say about such reformers of\nmarriage is that they cannot make head or tail of it. They do not know\nwhat it is, or what it is meant to be, or what its supporters suppose it\nto be; they never look at it, even when they are inside it. They do the\nwork that\u2019s nearest; which is poking holes in the bottom of a boat under\nthe impression that they are digging in a garden. This question of what\na thing is, and whether it is a garden or a boat, appears to them\nabstract and academic. They have no notion of how large is the idea they\nattack; or how relatively small appear the holes that they pick in it.\n\nThus, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an intelligent man in other matters, says\nthat there is only a \u201ctheological\u201d opposition to divorce, and that it is\nentirely founded on \u201ccertain texts\u201d in the Bible about marriages. This\nis exactly as if he said that a belief in the brotherhood of men was\nonly founded on certain texts in the Bible, about all men being the\nchildren of Adam and Eve. Millions of peasants and plain people all over\nthe world assume marriage to be static, without having ever clapped eyes\non any text. Numbers of more modern people, especially after the recent\nexperiments in America, think divorce is a social disease, without\nhaving ever bothered about any text. It may be maintained that even in\nthese, or in any one, the idea of marriage is ultimately mystical; and\nthe same may be maintained about the idea of brotherhood. It is obvious\nthat a husband and wife are not visibly one flesh, in the sense of\nbeing one quadruped. It is equally obvious that Paderewski and Jack\nJohnson are not twins, and probably have not played together at their\nmother\u2019s knee. There is indeed a very important admission, or addition,\nto be realised here. What is true is this: that if the nonsense of\nNietzsche or some such sophist submerged current culture, so that it was\nthe fashion to deny the duties of fraternity; then indeed it might be\nfound that the group which still affirmed fraternity was the original\ngroup in whose sacred books was the text about Adam and Eve. Suppose\nsome Prussian professor has opportunely discovered that Germans and\nlesser men are respectively descended from two such very different\nmonkeys that they are in no sense brothers, but barely cousins (German)\nany number of times removed. And suppose he proceeds to remove them even\nfurther with a hatchet; suppose he bases on this a repetition of the\nconduct of Cain, saying not so much \u201cAm I my brother\u2019s keeper?\u201d as \u201cIs\nhe really my brother?\u201d And suppose this higher philosophy of the\nhatchet becomes prevalent in colleges and cultivated circles, as even\nmore foolish philosophies have done. Then I agree it probably will be\nthe Christian, the man who preserves the text about Cain, who will\ncontinue to assert that he is still the professor\u2019s brother; that he is\nstill the professor\u2019s keeper. He may possibly add that, in his opinion,\nthe professor seems to require a keeper.\n\nAnd that is doubtless the situation in the controversies about divorce\nand marriage to-day. It is the Christian church which continues to hold\nstrongly, when the world for some reason has weakened on it, what many\nothers hold at other times. But even then it is barely picking up the\nshreds and scraps of the subject to talk about a reliance on texts. The\nvital point in the comparison is this: that human brotherhood means a\nwhole view of life, held in the light of life, and defended, rightly or\nwrongly, by constant appeals to every aspect of life. The religion that\nholds it most strongly will hold it when nobody else holds it; that is\nquite true, and that some of us may be so perverse as to think a point\nin favour of the religion. But anybody who holds it at all will hold it\nas a philosophy, not hung on one text but on a hundred truths.\nFraternity may be a sentimental metaphor; I may be suffering a delusion\nwhen I hail a Montenegrin peasant as my long lost brother. As a fact, I\nhave my own suspicions about which of us it is that has got lost. But my\ndelusion is not a deduction from one text, or from twenty; it is the\nexpression of a relation that to me at least seems a reality. And what I\nshould say about the idea of a brother, I should say about the idea of a\nwife.\n\nIt is supposed to be very unbusinesslike to begin at the beginning. It\nis called \u201cabstract and academic principles with which we English, etc.,\netc.\u201d It is still in some strange way considered unpractical to open up\ninquiries about anything by asking what it is. I happen to have,\nhowever, a fairly complete contempt for that sort of practicality; for I\nknow that it is not even practical. My ideal business man would not be\none who planked down fifty pounds and said \u201cHere is hard cash; I am a\nplain man; it is quite indifferent to me whether I am paying a debt, or\ngiving alms to a beggar, or buying a wild bull or a bathing machine.\u201d\nDespite the infectious heartiness of his tone, I should still, in\nconsidering the hard cash, say (like a cabman) \u201cWhat\u2019s this?\u201d I should\ncontinue to insist, priggishly, that it was a highly practical point\nwhat the money _was_; what it was supposed to stand for, to aim at or to\ndeclare; what was the nature of the transaction; or, in short, what the\ndevil the man supposed he was doing. I shall therefore begin by asking,\nin an equally mystical manner, what in the name of God and the angels a\nman getting married supposes he is doing. I shall begin by asking what\nmarriage is; and the mere question will probably reveal that the act\nitself, good or bad, wise or foolish, is of a certain kind; that it is\nnot an inquiry or an experiment or an accident; it may probably dawn on\nus that it is a promise. It can be more fully defined by saying it is a\nvow.\n\nMany will immediately answer that it is a rash vow. I am content for the\nmoment to reply that all vows are rash vows. I am not now defending but\ndefining vows; I am pointing out that this is a discussion about vows;\nfirst, of whether there ought to be vows; and second, of what vows ought\nto be. Ought a man to break a promise? Ought a man to make a promise?\nThese are philosophic questions; but the philosophic peculiarity of\ndivorce and re-marriage, as compared with free love and no marriage, is\nthat a man breaks and makes a promise at the same moment. It is a highly\nGerman philosophy; and recalls the way in which the enemy wishes to\ncelebrate his successful destruction of all treaties by signing some\nmore. If I were breaking a promise, I would do it without promises. But\nI am very far from minimising the momentous and disputable nature of the\nvow itself. I shall try to show, in a further article, that this rash\nand romantic operation is the only furnace from which can come the plain\nhardware of humanity, the cast-iron resistance of citizenship or the\ncold steel of common sense; but I am not denying that the furnace is a\nfire. The vow is a violent and unique thing; though there have been many\nbesides the marriage vow; vows of chivalry, vows of poverty, vows of\ncelibacy, pagan as well as Christian. But modern fashion has rather\nfallen out of the habit; and men miss the type for the lack of the\nparallels. The shortest way of putting the problem is to ask whether\nbeing free includes being free to bind oneself. For the vow is a tryst\nwith oneself.\n\nI may be misunderstood if I say, for brevity, that marriage is an affair\nof honour. The sceptic will be delighted to assent, by saying it is a\nfight. And so it is, if only with oneself; but the point here is that it\nnecessarily has the touch of the heroic, in which virtue can be\ntranslated by _virtus_. Now about fighting, in its nature, there is an\nimplied infinity, or at least a potential infinity. I mean that loyalty\nin war is loyalty in defeat or even disgrace; it is due to the flag\nprecisely at the moment when the flag nearly falls. We do already apply\nthis to the flag of the nation; and the question is whether it is wise\nor unwise to apply it to the flag of the family. Of course, it is\ntenable that we should apply it to neither; that misgovernment in the\nnation or misery in the citizen would make the desertion of the flag an\nact of reason and not treason. I will only say here that, if this were\nreally the limit of national loyalty, some of us would have deserted our\nnation long ago.\n\n\n\n\n_II.--The Superstition of Divorce_\n\n\nTo the two or three articles appearing here on this subject I have given\nthe title of the Superstition of Divorce; and the title is not taken at\nrandom. While free love seems to me a heresy, divorce does really seem\nto me a superstition. It is not only more of a superstition than free\nlove, but much more of a superstition than strict sacramental marriage;\nand this point can hardly be made too plain. It is the partisans of\ndivorce, not the defenders of marriage, who attach a stiff and senseless\nsanctity to a mere ceremony, apart from the meaning of the ceremony. It\nis our opponents, and not we, who hope to be saved by the letter of\nritual, instead of the spirit of reality. It is they who hold that vow\nor violation, loyalty or disloyalty, can all be disposed of by a\nmysterious and magic rite, performed first in a law-court and then in a\nchurch or a registry office. There is little difference between the two\nparts of the ritual; except that the law court is much more ritualistic.\nBut the plainest parallels will show anybody that all this is sheer\nbarbarous credulity. It may or may not be superstition for a man to\nbelieve he must kiss the Bible to show he is telling the truth. It is\ncertainly the most grovelling superstition for him to believe that, if\nhe kisses the Bible, anything he says will come true. It would surely be\nthe blackest and most benighted Bible-worship to suggest that the mere\nkiss on the mere book alters the moral quality of perjury. Yet this is\nprecisely what is implied in saying that formal re-marriage alters the\nmoral quality of conjugal infidelity. It may have been a mark of the\nDark Ages that Harold should swear on a relic, though he were afterwards\nforesworn. But surely those ages would have been at their darkest, if he\nhad been content to be sworn on a relic and forsworn on another relic.\nYet this is the new altar these reformers would erect for us, out of the\nmouldy and meaningless relics of their dead law and their dying\nreligion.\n\nNow we, at any rate, are talking about an idea, a thing of the intellect\nand the soul; which we feel to be unalterable by legal antics. We are\ntalking about the idea of loyalty; perhaps a fantastic, perhaps only an\nunfashionable idea, but one we can explain and defend as an idea. Now I\nhave already pointed out that most sane men do admit our ideal in such a\ncase as patriotism or public spirit; the necessity of saving the state\nto which we belong. The patriot may revile but must not renounce his\ncountry; he must curse it to cure it, but not to wither it up. The old\npagan citizens felt thus about the city; and modern nationalists feel\nthus about the nation. But even mere modern internationalists feel it\nabout something; if it is only the nation of mankind. Even the\nhumanitarian does not become a misanthrope and live in a monkey-house.\nEven a disappointed Collectivist or Communist does not retire into the\nexclusive society of beavers, because beavers are all communists of the\nmost class-conscious solidarity. He admits the necessity of clinging to\nhis fellow creatures, and begging them to abandon the use of the\npossessive pronoun; heart-breaking as his efforts must seem to him after\na time. Even a Pacifist does not prefer rats to men, on the ground that\nthe rat community is so pure from the taint of Jingoism as always to\nleave the sinking ship. In short, everybody recognises that there is\n_some_ ship, large and small, which he ought not to leave, even when he\nthinks it is sinking.\n\nWe may take it then that there are institutions to which we are attached\nfinally; just as there are others to which we are attached temporarily.\nWe go from shop to shop trying to get what we want; but we do not go\nfrom nation to nation doing this; unless we belong to a certain group\nnow heading very straight for Pogroms. In the first case it is the\nthreat that we shall withdraw our custom; in the second it is the threat\nthat we shall never withdraw ourselves; that we shall be part of the\ninstitution to the last. The time when the shop loses its customers is\nthe time when the city needs its citizens; but it needs them as critics\nwho will always remain to criticise. I need not now emphasise the deadly\nneed of this double energy of internal reform and external defence; the\nwhole towering tragedy which has eclipsed our earth in our time is but\none terrific illustration of it. The hammer-strokes are coming thick and\nfast now;[A] and filling the world with infernal thunders; and there is\nstill the iron sound of something unbreakable deeper and louder than all\nthe things that break. We may curse the kings, we may distrust the\ncaptains, we may murmur at the very existence of the armies; but we know\nthat in the darkest days that may come to us, no man will desert the\nflag.\n\nNow when we pass from loyalty to the nation to loyalty to the family,\nthere can be no doubt about the first and plainest difference. The\ndifference is that the family is a thing far more free. The vow is a\nvoluntary loyalty; and the marriage vow is marked among ordinary oaths\nof allegiance by the fact that the allegiance is also a choice. The man\nis not only a citizen of the city, but also the founder and builder of\nthe city. He is not only a soldier serving the colours, but he has\nhimself artistically selected and combined the colours, like the colours\nof an individual dress. If it be admissible to ask him to be true to the\ncommonwealth that has made him, it is at least not more illiberal to ask\nhim to be true to the commonwealth he has himself made. If civic\nfidelity be, as it is, a necessity, it is also in a special sense a\nconstraint. The old joke against patriotism, the Gilbertian irony,\ncongratulated the Englishman on his fine and fastidious taste in being\nborn in England. It made a plausible point in saying \u201cFor he might have\nbeen a Russian\u201d; though indeed we have lived to see some persons who\nseemed to think they could be Russians when the fancy took them. If\ncommonsense considers even such involuntary loyalty natural, we can\nhardly wonder if it thinks voluntary loyalty still more natural. And the\nsmall state founded on the sexes is at once the most voluntary and the\nmost natural of all self-governing states. It is not true of Mr. Brown\nthat he might have been a Russian; but it may be true of Mrs. Brown\nthat she might have been a Robinson.\n\nNow it is not at all hard to see why this small community, so specially\nfree touching its cause, should yet be specially bound touching its\neffects. It is not hard to see why the vow made most freely is the vow\nkept most firmly. There are attached to it, by the nature of things,\nconsequences so tremendous that no contract can offer any comparison.\nThere is no contract, unless it be that said to be signed in blood, that\ncan call spirits from the vasty deep; or bring cherubs (or goblins) to\ninhabit a small modern villa. There is no stroke of the pen which\ncreates real bodies and souls, or makes the characters in a novel come\nto life. The institution that puzzles intellectuals so much can be\nexplained by the mere material fact (perceptible even to intellectuals)\nthat children are, generally speaking, younger than their parents. \u201cTill\ndeath do us part\u201d is not an irrational formula, for those will almost\ncertainly die before they see more than half of the amazing (or\nalarming) thing they have done.\n\nSuch is, in a curt and crude outline, this obvious thing for those to\nwhom it is not obvious. Now I know there are thinking men among those\nwho would tamper with it; and I shall expect some of these to reply to\nmy questions. But for the moment I only ask this question: whether the\nparliamentary and journalistic divorce movement shows even a shadowy\ntrace of these fundamental truths, regarded as tests. Does it even\ndiscuss the nature of a vow, the limits and objects of loyalty, the\nsurvival of the family as a small and free state? The writers are\ncontent to say that Mr. Brown is uncomfortable with Mrs. Brown, and the\nlast emancipation, for separated couples, seems only to mean that he is\nstill uncomfortable without Mrs. Brown. These are not days in which\nbeing uncomfortable is felt as the final test of public action. For the\nrest, the reformers show statistically that families are in fact so\nscattered in our industrial anarchy, that they may as well abandon hope\nof finding their way home again. I am acquainted with that argument for\nmaking bad worse and I see it everywhere leading to slavery. Because\nLondon Bridge is broken down, we must assume that bridges are not meant\nto bridge. Because London commercialism and capitalism have copied hell,\nwe are to continue to copy them. Anyhow, some will retain the conviction\nthat the ancient bridge built between the two towers of sex is the\nworthiest of the great works of the earth.\n\nIt is exceedingly characteristic of the dreary decades before the War\nthat the forms of freedom in which they seemed to specialise were\nsuicide and divorce. I am not at the moment pronouncing on the moral\nproblem of either; I am merely noting, as signs of those times, those\ntwo true or false counsels of despair; the end of life and the end of\nlove. Other forms of freedom were being increasingly curtailed. Freedom\nindeed was the one thing that progressives and conservatives alike\ncontemned. Socialists were largely concerned to prevent strikes, by\nState arbitration; that is, by adding another rich man to give the\ncasting vote between rich and poor. Even in claiming what they called\nthe right to work they tacitly surrendered the right to leave off\nworking. Tories were preaching conscription, not so much to defend the\nindependence of England as to destroy the independence of Englishmen.\nLiberals, of course, were chiefly interested in eliminating liberty,\nespecially touching beer and betting. It was wicked to fight, and unsafe\neven to argue; for citing any certain and contemporary fact might land\none in a libel action. As all these doors were successfully shut in our\nfaces along the chilly and cheerless corridor of progress (with its\nglazed tiles) the doors of death and divorce alone stood open, or rather\nopened wider and wider. I do not expect the exponents of divorce to\nadmit any similarity in the two things; yet the passing parallel is not\nirrelevant. It may enable them to realise the limits within which our\nmoral instincts can, even for the sake of argument, treat this desperate\nremedy as a normal object of desire. Divorce is for us at best a\nfailure, of which we are more concerned to find and cure the cause than\nto complete the effects; and we regard a system that produces many\ndivorces as we do a system that drives men to drown and shoot\nthemselves. For instance, it is perhaps the commonest complaint against\nthe existing law that the poor cannot afford to avail themselves of it.\nIt is an argument to which normally I should listen with special\nsympathy. But while I should condemn the law being a luxury, my first\nthought will naturally be that divorce and death are only luxuries in a\nrather rare sense. I should not primarily condole with the poor man on\nthe high price of prussic acid; or on the fact that all precipices of\nsuitable suicidal height were the private property of the landlords.\nThere are other high prices and high precipices I should attack first. I\nshould admit in the abstract that what is sauce for the goose is sauce\nfor the gander; that what is good for the rich is good for the poor; but\nmy first and strongest impression would be that prussic acid sauce is\nnot good for anybody. I fear I should, on the impulse of the moment,\npull a poor clerk or artisan back by the coat-tails, if he were jumping\nover Shakespeare\u2019s Cliff, even if Dover sands were strewn with the\nremains of the dukes and bankers who had already taken the plunge.\n\nBut in one respect, I will heartily concede, the cult of divorce has\ndiffered from the mere cult of death. The cult of death is dead. Those I\nknew in my youth as young pessimists are now aged optimists. And, what\nis more to the point at present, even when it was living it was limited;\nit was a thing of one clique in one class. We know the rule in the old\ncomedy, that when the heroine went mad in white satin, the confidante\nwent mad in white muslin. But when, in some tragedy of the artistic\ntemperament, the painter committed suicide in velvet, it was never\nimplied that the plumber must commit suicide in corduroy. It was never\nheld that Hedda Gabler\u2019s housemaid must die in torments on the carpet\n(trying as her term of service may have been); or that Mrs. Tanqueray\u2019s\nbutler must play the Roman fool and die on his own carving knife. That\nparticular form of playing the fool, Roman or otherwise, was an\noligarchic privilege in the decadent epoch; and even as such has largely\npassed with that epoch. Pessimism, which was never popular, is no\nlonger even fashionable. A far different fate has awaited the other\nfashion; the other somewhat dismal form of freedom. If divorce is a\ndisease, it is no longer to be a fashionable disease like appendicitis;\nit is to be made an epidemic like small-pox. As we have already seen,\npapers and public men to-day make a vast parade of the necessity of\nsetting the poor man free to get a divorce. Now why are they so mortally\nanxious that he should be free to get a divorce, and not in the least\nanxious that he should be free to get anything else? Why are the same\npeople happy, nay almost hilarious, when he gets a divorce, who are\nhorrified when he gets a drink? What becomes of his money, what becomes\nof his children, where he works, when he ceases to work, are less and\nless under his personal control. Labour Exchanges, Insurance Cards,\nWelfare Work, and a hundred forms of police inspection and supervision,\nhave combined for good or evil to fix him more and more strictly to a\ncertain place in society. He is less and less allowed to go to look for\na new job; why is he allowed to go to look for a new wife? He is more\nand more compelled to recognise a Moslem code about liquor; why is it\nmade so easy for him to escape from his old Christian code about sex?\nWhat is the meaning of this mysterious immunity, this special permit for\nadultery; and why is running away with his neighbour\u2019s wife to be the\nonly exhilaration still left open to him? Why must he love as he\npleases; when he may not even live as he pleases?\n\nThe answer is, I regret to say, that this social campaign, in most\nthough by no means all of its most prominent campaigners, relies in this\nmatter on a very smug and pestilent piece of cant. There are some\nadvocates of democratic divorce who are really advocates of general\ndemocratic freedom; but they are the exceptions; I might say, with all\nrespect, that they are the dupes. The omnipresence of the thing in the\npress and in political society is due to a motive precisely opposite to\nthe motive professed. The modern rulers, who are simply the rich men,\nare really quite consistent in their attitude to the poor man. It is\nthe same spirit which takes away his children under the pretence of\norder, which takes away his wife under the pretence of liberty. That\nwhich wishes, in the words of the comic song, to break up the happy\nhome, is primarily anxious not to break up the much more unhappy\nfactory. Capitalism, of course, is at war with the family, for the same\nreason which has led to its being at war with the Trade Union. This\nindeed is the only sense in which it is true that capitalism is\nconnected with individualism. Capitalism believes in collectivism for\nitself and individualism for its enemies. It desires its victims to be\nindividuals, or (in other words) to be atoms. For the word atom, in its\nclearest meaning (which is none too clear) might be translated as\n\u201cindividual.\u201d If there be any bond, if there be any brotherhood, if\nthere be any class loyalty or domestic discipline, by which the poor can\nhelp the poor, these emancipators will certainly strive to loosen that\nbond or lift that discipline in the most liberal fashion. If there be\nsuch a brotherhood, these individualists will redistribute it in the\nform of individuals; or in other words smash it to atoms.\n\nThe masters of modern plutocracy know what they are about. They are\nmaking no mistake; they can be cleared of the slander of inconsistency.\nA very profound and precise instinct has led them to single out the\nhuman household as the chief obstacle to their inhuman progress. Without\nthe family we are helpless before the State, which in our modern case is\nthe Servile State. To use a military metaphor, the family is the only\nformation in which the charge of the rich can be repulsed. It is a force\nthat forms twos as soldiers form fours; and, in every peasant country,\nhas stood in the square house or the square plot of land as infantry\nhave stood in squares against cavalry. How this force operates thus, and\nwhy, I will try to explain in the last of these articles. But it is when\nit is most nearly ridden down by the horsemen of pride and privilege, as\nin Poland or Ireland, when the battle grows most desperate and the hope\nmost dark, that men begin to understand why that wild oath in its\nbeginnings was flung beyond the bounds of the world; and what would seem\nas passing as a vision is made permanent as a vow.\n\n\n\n\n_III.--The Superstition of Divorce_\n\n\nThere has long been a curiously consistent attempt to conceal the fact\nthat France is a Christian country. There have been Frenchmen in the\nplot, no doubt, and no doubt there have been Frenchmen--though I have\nmyself only found Englishmen--in the derivative attempt to conceal the\nfact that Balzac was a Christian writer. I began to read Balzac long\nafter I had read the admirers of Balzac; and they had never given me a\nhint of this truth. I had read that his books were bound in yellow and\n\u201cquite impudently French\u201d; though I may have been cloudy about why being\nFrench should be impudent in a Frenchman. I had read the truer\ndescription of \u201cthe grimy wizard of the _Comedie Humaine_,\u201d and have\nlived to learn the truth of it; Balzac certainly is a genius of the type\nof that artist he himself describes, who could draw a broomstick so\nthat one knew it had swept the room after a murder. The furniture of\nBalzac is more alive than the figures of many dramas. For this I was\nprepared; but not for a certain spiritual assumption which I recognised\nat once as a historical phenomenon. The morality of a great writer is\nnot the morality he teaches, but the morality he takes for granted. The\nCatholic type of Christian ethics runs through Balzac\u2019s books, exactly\nas the Puritan type of Christian ethics runs through Bunyan\u2019s books.\nWhat his professed opinions were I do not know, any more than I know\nShakespeare\u2019s; but I know that both those great creators of a\nmultitudinous world made it, as compared with other and later writers,\non the same fundamental moral plan as the universe of Dante. There can\nbe no doubt about it for any one who can apply as a test the truth I\nhave mentioned; that the fundamental things in a man are not the things\nhe explains, but rather the things he forgets to explain. But here and\nthere Balzac does explain; and with that intellectual concentration Mr.\nGeorge Moore has acutely observed in that novelist when he is a\ntheorist. And the other day I found in one of Balzac\u2019s novels this\npassage; which, whether or no it would precisely hit Mr. George Moore\u2019s\nmood at this moment, strikes me as a perfect prophecy of this epoch, and\nmight also be a motto for this book: \u201cWith the solidarity of the family\nsociety has lost that elemental force which Montesquieu defined and\ncalled \u2018honour.\u2019 Society has isolated its members the better to govern\nthem, and has divided in order to weaken.\u201d\n\nThroughout our youth and the years before the War, the current criticism\nfollowed Ibsen in describing the domestic system as a doll\u2019s house and\nthe domestic woman as a doll. Mr. Bernard Shaw varied the metaphor by\nsaying that mere custom kept the woman in the home as it keeps the\nparrot in the cage; and the plays and tales of the period made vivid\nsketches of a woman who also resembled a parrot in other particulars,\nrich in raiment, shrill in accent and addicted to saying over and over\nagain what she had been taught to say. Mr. Granville Barker, the\nspiritual child of Mr. Bernard Shaw, commented in his clever play of\n\u201cThe Voysey Inheritance\u201d on tyranny, hypocrisy and boredom, as the\nconstituent elements of a \u201chappy English home.\u201d Leaving the truth of\nthis aside for the moment, it will be well to insist that the\nconventionality thus criticised would be even more characteristic of a\nhappy French home. It is not the Englishman\u2019s house, but the Frenchman\u2019s\nhouse that is his castle. It might be further added, touching the\nessential ethical view of the sexes at least, that the Irishman\u2019s house\nis his castle; though it has been for some centuries a besieged castle.\nAnyhow, those conventions which were remarked as making domesticity\ndull, narrow and unnaturally meek and submissive, are particularly\npowerful among the Irish and the French. From this it will surely be\neasy, for any lucid and logical thinker, to deduce the fact that the\nFrench are dull and narrow, and that the Irish are unnaturally meek and\nsubmissive. Mr. Bernard Shaw, being an Irishman who lives among\nEnglishmen, may be conveniently taken as the type of the difference;\nand it will no doubt be found that the political friends of Mr. Shaw,\namong Englishmen, will be of a wilder revolutionary type than those whom\nhe would have found among Irishmen. We are in a position to compare the\nmeekness of the Fenians with the fury of the Fabians. This deadening\nmonogamic ideal may even, in a larger sense, define and distinguish all\nthe flat subserviency of Clare from all the flaming revolt of Clapham.\nNor need we now look far to understand why revolutions have been unknown\nin the history of France; or why they happen so persistently in the\nvaguer politics of England. This rigidity and respectability must surely\nbe the explanation of all that incapacity for any civil experiment or\nexplosion, which has always marked that sleepy hamlet of very private\nhouses, which we call the city of Paris. But the same things are true\nnot only of Parisians but of peasants; they are even true of other\npeasants in the great Alliance. Students of Serbian traditions tell us\nthat the peasant literature lays a special and singular curse on the\nviolation of marriage; and this may well explain the prim and sheepish\npacifism complained of in that people.\n\nIn plain words, there is clearly something wrong in the calculation by\nwhich it was proved that a housewife must be as much a servant as a\nhousemaid; or which exhibited the domesticated man as being as gentle as\nthe primrose or as conservative as the Primrose League. It is precisely\nthose who have been conservative about the family who have been\nrevolutionary about the state. Those who are blamed for the bigotry or\n_bourgeois_ smugness of their marriage conventions are actually those\nblamed for the restlessness and violence of their political reforms. Nor\nis there seriously any difficulty in discovering the cause of this. It\nis simply that in such a society the government, in dealing with the\nfamily, deals with something almost as permanent and self-renewing as\nitself. There can be a continuous family policy, like a continuous\nforeign policy. In peasant countries the family fights, it may almost be\nsaid that the farm fights. I do not mean merely that it riots in evil\nand exceptional times; though this is not unimportant. It was a savage\nbut a sane feature when, in the Irish evictions, the women poured hot\nwater from the windows; it was part of a final falling back on private\ntools as public weapons. That sort of thing is not only war to the\nknife, but almost war to the fork and spoon. It was in this grim sense\nperhaps that Parnell, in that mysterious pun, said that Kettle was a\nhousehold word in Ireland (it certainly ought to be after its subsequent\nglories), and in a more general sense it is certain that meddling with\nthe housewife will ultimately mean getting into hot water. But it is not\nof such crises of bodily struggle that I speak, but of a steady and\npeaceful pressure from below of a thousand families upon the framework\nof government. For this a certain spirit of defence and enclosure is\nessential; and even feudalism was right in feeling that any such affair\nof honour must be a family affair. It was a true artistic instinct that\npictured the pedigree on a coat that protects the body. The free peasant\nhas arms if he has not armorial bearings. He has not an escutcheon; but\nhe has a shield. Nor do I see why, in a freer and happier society than\nthe present, or even the past, it should not be a blazoned shield. For\nthat is true of pedigree which is true of property; the wrong is not in\nits being imposed on men, but rather in its being denied to them. Too\nmuch capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few\ncapitalists; and so aristocracy sins, not in planting a family tree, but\nin not planting a family forest.\n\nAnyhow, it is found in practice that the domestic citizen can stand a\nsiege, even by the State; because he has those who will stand by him\nthrough thick and thin--especially thin. Now those who hold that the\nState can be made fit to own all and administer all, can consistently\ndisregard this argument; but it may be said with all respect that the\nworld is more and more disregarding them. If we could find a perfect\nmachine, and a perfect man to work it, it might be a good argument for\nState Socialism, though an equally good argument for personal despotism.\nBut most of us, I fancy, are now agreed that something of that social\npressure from below which we call freedom is vital to the health of the\nState; and this it is which cannot be fully exercised by individuals,\nbut only by groups and traditions. Such groups have been many; there\nhave been monasteries; there may be guilds; but there is only one type\namong them which all human beings have a spontaneous and omnipresent\ninspiration to build for themselves; and this type is the family.\n\nI had intended this article to be the last of those outlining the\nelements of this debate; but I shall have to add a short concluding\nsection on the way in which all this is missed in the practical (or\nrather unpractical) proposals about divorce. Here I will only say that\nthey suffer from the modern and morbid weaknesses of always sacrificing\nthe normal to the abnormal. As a fact the \u201ctyranny, hypocrisy and\nboredom\u201d complained of are not domesticity, but the decay of\ndomesticity. The case of that particular complaint, in Mr. Granville\nBarker\u2019s play, is itself a proof. The whole point of \u201cThe Voysey\nInheritance\u201d was that there was no Voysey inheritance. The only\nheritage of that family was a highly dishonourable debt. Naturally their\nfamily affections had decayed when their whole ideal of property and\nprobity had decayed; and there was little love as well as little honour\namong thieves. It has yet to be proved that they would have been as much\nbored if they had had a positive and not a negative heritage; and had\nworked a farm instead of a fraud. And the experience of mankind points\nthe other way.\n\n\n\n\n_IV.--The Superstition of Divorce_\n\n\nI have touched before now on a famous or infamous Royalist who suggested\nthat the people should eat grass; an unfortunate remark perhaps for a\nRoyalist to make; since the regimen is only recorded of a Royal\nPersonage. But there was certainly a simplicity in the solution worthy\nof a sultan or even a savage chief; and it is this touch of autocratic\ninnocence on which I have mainly insisted touching the social reforms of\nour day, and especially the social reform known as divorce. I am\nprimarily more concerned with the arbitrary method than with the\nanarchic result. Very much as the old tyrant would turn any number of\nmen out to grass, so the new tyrant would turn any number of women into\ngrass-widows. Anyhow, to vary the legendary symbolism, it never seems to\noccur to the king in this fairy tale that the gold crown on his head is\na less, and not a more, sacred and settled ornament than the gold ring\non the woman\u2019s finger. This change is being achieved by the summary and\neven secret government which we now suffer; and this would be the first\npoint against it, even if it were really an emancipation; and it is only\nin form an emancipation. I will not anticipate the details of its\ndefence, which can be offered by others, but I will here conclude for\nthe present by roughly suggesting the practical defences of divorce, as\ngenerally given just at present, under four heads. And I will only ask\nthe reader to note that they all have one thing in common; the fact that\neach argument is also used for all that social reform which plain men\nare already calling slavery.\n\nFirst, it is very typical of the latest practical proposals that they\nare concerned with the case of those who are already separated, and the\nsteps they must take to be divorced. There is a spirit penetrating all\nour society to-day by which the exception is allowed to alter the rule;\nthe exile to deflect patriotism, the orphan to depose parenthood, and\neven the widow or, in this case as we have seen the grass-widow, to\ndestroy the position of the wife. There is a sort of symbol of this\ntendency in that mysterious and unfortunate nomadic nation which has\nbeen allowed to alter so many things, from a crusade in Russia to a\ncottage in South Bucks. We have been told to treat the wandering Jew as\na pilgrim, while we still treat the wandering Christian as a vagabond.\nAnd yet the latter is at least trying to get home, like Ulysses; whereas\nthe former is, if anything, rather fleeing from home, like Cain. He who\nis detached, disgruntled, nondescript, intermediate, is everywhere made\nthe excuse for altering what is common, corporate, traditional and\npopular. And the alteration is always for the worse. The mermaid never\nbecomes more womanly, but only more fishy. The centaur never becomes\nmore manly, but only more horsy. The Jew cannot really internationalise\nChristendom; he can only denationalise Christendom. The proletarian does\nnot find it easy to become a small proprietor; he is finding it far\neasier to become a slave. So the unfortunate man, who cannot tolerate\nthe woman he has chosen from all the women in the world, is not\nencouraged to return to her and tolerate her, but encouraged to choose\nanother woman whom he may in due course refuse to tolerate. And in all\nthese cases the argument is the same; that the man in the intermediate\nstate is unhappy. Probably he is unhappy, since he is abnormal; but the\npoint is that he is permitted to loosen the universal bond which has\nkept millions of others normal. Because he has himself got into a hole,\nhe is allowed to burrow in it like a rabbit and undermine a whole\ncountryside.\n\nNext we have, as we always have touching such crude experiments, an\nargument from the example of other countries, and especially of new\ncountries. Thus the Eugenists tell me solemnly that there have been very\nsuccessful Eugenic experiments in America. And they rigidly retain their\nsolemnity (while refusing with many rebukes to believe in mine) when I\ntell them that one of the Eugenic experiments in America is a chemical\nexperiment; which consists of changing a black man into the allotropic\nform of white ashes. It is really an exceedingly Eugenic experiment;\nsince its chief object is to discourage an inter-racial mixture of blood\nwhich is not desired. But I do not like this American experiment,\nhowever American; and I trust and believe that it is not typically\nAmerican at all. It represents, I conceive, only one element in the\ncomplexity of the great democracy; and goes along with other evil\nelements; so that I am not at all surprised that the same strange social\nsections, which permit a human being to be burned alive, also permit the\nexalted science of Eugenics. It is the same in the milder matter of\nliquor laws; and we are told that certain rather crude colonials have\nestablished prohibition laws, which they try to evade; just as we are\ntold they have established divorce laws, which they are now trying to\nrepeal. For in this case of divorce, at least, the argument from distant\nprecedents has recoiled crushingly upon itself. There is already an\nagitation for less divorce in America, even while there is an agitation\nfor more divorce in England.\n\nAgain, when an argument is based on a need of population, it will be\nwell if those supporting it realise where it may carry them. It is\nexceedingly doubtful whether population is one of the advantages of\ndivorce; but there is no doubt that it is one of the advantages of\npolygamy. It is already used in Germany as an argument for polygamy. But\nthe very word will teach us to look even beyond Germany for something\nyet more remote and repulsive. Mere population, along with a sort of\npolygamous anarchy, will not appear even as a practical ideal to any one\nwho considers, for instance, how consistently Europe has held the\nheadship of the human race, in face of the chaotic myriads of Asia. If\npopulation were the chief test of progress and efficiency, China would\nlong ago have proved itself the most progressive and efficient state. De\nQuincey summed up the whole of that enormous situation in a sentence\nwhich is perhaps more impressive and even appalling than all the\nperspectives of orient architecture and vistas of opium vision in the\nmidst of which it comes. \u201cMan is a weed in those regions.\u201d Many\nEuropeans, fearing for the garden of the world, have fancied that in\nsome future fatality those weeds may spring up and choke it. But no\nEuropeans have really wished that the flowers should become like the\nweeds. Even if it were true, therefore, that the loosening of the tie\nnecessarily increased the population; even if this were not\ncontradicted, as it is, by the facts of many countries, we should have\nstrong historical grounds for not accepting the deduction. We should\nstill be suspicious of the paradox that we may encourage large families\nby abolishing the family.\n\nLastly, I believe it is part of the defence of the new proposal that\neven its defenders have found its principle a little too crude. I hear\nthey have added provisions which modify the principle; and which seem to\nbe in substance, first, that a man shall be made responsible for a money\npayment to the wife he deserts, and second, that the matter shall once\nagain be submitted in some fashion to some magistrate. For my purpose\nhere, it is enough to note that there is something of the unmistakable\nsavour of the sociology we resist, in these two touching acts of faith,\nin a cheque-book and in a lawyer. Most of the fashionable reformers of\nmarriage would be faintly shocked at any suggestion that a poor old\ncharwoman might possibly refuse such money, or that a good kind\nmagistrate might not have the right to give such advice. For the\nreformers of marriage are very respectable people, with some honourable\nexceptions; and nothing could fit more smoothly into the rather greasy\ngroove of their respectability than the suggestion that treason is best\ntreated with the damages, gentlemen, heavy damages, of Mr. Serjeant\nBuzfuz; or that tragedy is best treated by the spiritual arbitrament of\nMr. Nupkins.\n\nOne word should be added to this hasty sketch of the elements of the\ncase. I have deliberately left out the loftiest aspect and argument,\nthat which sees marriage as a divine institution; and that for the\nlogical reason that those who believe in this would not believe in\ndivorce; and I am arguing with those who do believe in divorce. I do\nnot ask them to assume the worth of my creed or any creed; and I could\nwish they did not so often ask me to assume the worth of their\nworthless, poisonous plutocratic modern society. But if it could be\nshown, as I think it can, that a long historical view and a patient\npolitical experience can at last accumulate solid scientific evidence of\nthe vital need of such a vow, then I can conceive no more tremendous\ntribute than this, to any faith, which made a flaming affirmation from\nthe darkest beginnings, of what the latest enlightenment can only slowly\ndiscover in the end.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STORY OF THE FAMILY\n\n\n\n\n_V.--The Story of the Family_\n\n\nThe most ancient of human institutions has an authority that may seem as\nwild as anarchy. Alone among all such institutions it begins with a\nspontaneous attraction; and may be said strictly and not sentimentally\nto be founded on love instead of fear. The attempt to compare it with\ncoercive institutions complicating later history has led to infinite\nillogicality in later times. It is as unique as it is universal. There\nis nothing in any other social relations in any way parallel to the\nmutual attraction of the sexes. By missing this simple point, the modern\nworld has fallen into a hundred follies. The idea of a general revolt of\nwomen against men has been proclaimed with flags and processions, like a\nrevolt of vassals against their lords, of niggers against\nnigger-drivers, of Poles against Prussians or Irishmen against\nEnglishmen; for all the world as if we really believed in the fabulous\nnation of the Amazons. The equally philosophical idea of a general\nrevolt of men against women has been put into a romance by Sir Walter\nBesant, and into a sociological book by Mr. Belfort Bax. But at the\nfirst touch of this truth of an aboriginal attraction, all such\ncomparisons collapse and are seen to be comic. A Prussian does not feel\nfrom the first that he can only be happy if he spends his days and\nnights with a Pole. An Englishman does not think his house empty and\ncheerless unless it happens to contain an Irishman. A white man does not\nin his romantic youth dream of the perfect beauty of a black man. A\nrailway magnate seldom writes poems about the personal fascination of a\nrailway porter. All the other revolts against all the other relations\nare reasonable and even inevitable, because those relations are\noriginally only founded upon force or self-interest. Force can abolish\nwhat force can establish; self-interest can terminate a contract when\nself-interest has dictated the contract. But the love of man and woman\nis not an institution that can be abolished, or a contract that can be\nterminated. It is something older than all institutions or contracts,\nand something that is certain to outlast them all. All the other revolts\nare real, because there remains a possibility that the things may be\ndestroyed, or at least divided. You can abolish capitalists; but you\ncannot abolish males. Prussians can go out of Poland or negroes can be\nrepatriated to Africa; but a man and a woman must remain together in one\nway or another; and must learn to put up with each other somehow.\n\nThese are very simple truths; that is why nobody nowadays seems to take\nany particular notice of them; and the truth that follows next is\nequally obvious. There is no dispute about the purpose of Nature in\ncreating such an attraction. It would be more intelligent to call it the\npurpose of God; for Nature can have no purpose unless God is behind it.\nTo talk of the purpose of Nature is to make a vain attempt to avoid\nbeing anthropomorphic, merely by being feminist. It is believing in a\ngoddess because you are too sceptical to believe in a god. But this is\na controversy which can be kept apart from the question, if we content\nourselves with saying that the vital value ultimately found in this\nattraction is, of course, the renewal of the race itself. The child is\nan explanation of the father and mother; and the fact that it is a human\nchild is the explanation of the ancient human ties connecting the father\nand mother. The more human, that is the less bestial, is the child, the\nmore lawful and lasting are the ties. So far from any progress in\nculture or the sciences tending to loosen the bond, any such progress\nmust logically tend to tighten it. The more things there are for the\nchild to learn, the longer he must remain at the natural school for\nlearning them; and the longer his teachers must at least postpone the\ndissolution of their partnership. This elementary truth is hidden to-day\nin vast masses of vicarious, indirect and artificial work, with the\nfundamental fallacy of which I shall deal in a moment. Here I speak of\nthe primary position of the human group, as it has stood through\nunthinkable ages of waxing and waning civilisations; often unable to\ndelegate any of its work, always unable to delegate all of it. In this,\nI repeat, it will always be necessary for the two teachers to remain\ntogether, in proportion as they have anything to teach. One of the\nshapeless sea-beasts, that merely detaches itself from its offspring and\nfloats away, could float away to a submarine divorce court, or an\nadvanced club founded on free-love for fishes. The sea-beast might do\nthis, precisely because the sea-beast\u2019s offspring need do nothing;\nbecause it has not got to learn the polka or the multiplication table.\nAll these are truisms but they are also truths, and truths that will\nreturn; for the present tangle of semi-official substitutes is not only\na stop-gap, but one that is not big enough to stop the gap. If people\ncannot mind their own business, it cannot possibly be more economical to\npay them to mind each other\u2019s business; and still less to mind each\nother\u2019s babies. It is simply throwing away a natural force and then\npaying for an artificial force; as if a man were to water a plant with a\nhose while holding up an umbrella to protect it from the rain. The\nwhole really rests on a plutocratic illusion of an infinite supply of\nservants. When we offer any other system as a \u201ccareer for women,\u201d we are\nreally proposing that an infinite number of them should become servants,\nof a plutocratic or bureaucratic sort. Ultimately, we are arguing that a\nwoman should not be a mother to her own baby, but a nursemaid to\nsomebody else\u2019s baby. But it will not work, even on paper. We cannot all\nlive by taking in each other\u2019s washing, especially in the form of\npinafores. In the last resort, the only people who either can or will\ngive individual care, to each of the individual children, are their\nindividual parents. The expression as applied to those dealing with\nchanging crowds of children is a graceful and legitimate flourish of\nspeech.\n\nThis triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be\ndestroyed; it can only destroy those civilisations which disregard it.\nMost modern reformers are merely bottomless sceptics, and have no basis\non which to rebuild; and it is well that such reformers should realise\nthat there is something they cannot reform. You can put down the mighty\nfrom their seat; you can turn the world upside down, and there is much\nto be said for the view that it may then be the right way up. But you\ncannot create a world in which the baby carries the mother. You cannot\ncreate a world in which the mother has not authority over the baby. You\ncan waste your time in trying; by giving votes to babies or proclaiming\na republic of infants in arms. You can say, as an educationist said the\nother day, that small children should \u201ccriticise, question authority and\nsuspend their judgment.\u201d I do not know why he did not go on to say that\nthey should earn their own living, pay income tax to the state, and die\nin battle for the fatherland; for the proposal evidently is that\nchildren shall have no childhood. But you can, if you find entertainment\nin such games, organise \u201crepresentative government\u201d among little boys\nand girls, and tell them to take their legal and constitutional\nresponsibilities as seriously as possible. In short, you can be crazy;\nbut you cannot be consistent. You cannot really carry your own\nprinciple back to the aboriginal group, and really apply it to the\nmother and the baby. You will not act on you own theory in the simplest\nand most practical of all possible cases. You are not quite so mad as\nthat.\n\nThis nucleus of natural authority has always existed in the midst of\nmore artificial authorities. It has always been regarded as something in\nthe literal sense individual; that is, as an absolute that could not\nreally be divided. A baby was not even a baby apart from its mother; it\nwas something else, most probably a corpse. It was always recognised as\nstanding in a peculiar relation to government; simply because it was one\nof the few things that had not been made by government; and could to\nsome extent come into existence without the support of government.\nIndeed the case for it is too strong to be stated. For the case for it\nis that there is nothing like it; and we can only find faint parallels\nto it in those more elaborate and painful powers and institutions that\nare its inferiors. Thus the only way of conveying it is to compare it to\na nation; although, compared to it, national divisions are as modern\nand formal as national anthems. Thus I may often use the metaphor of a\ncity; though in its presence a citizen is as recent as a city clerk. It\nis enough to note here that everybody does know by intuition and admit\nby implication that a family is a solid fact, having a character and\ncolour like a nation. The truth can be tested by the most modern and\nmost daily experiences. A man does say \u201cThat is the sort of thing the\nBrowns will like\u201d; however tangled and interminable a psychological\nnovel he might compose on the shades of difference between Mr. and Mrs.\nBrown. A woman does say \u201cI don\u2019t like Jemima seeing so much of the\nRobinsons\u201d; and she does not always, in the scurry of her social or\ndomestic duties, pause to distinguish the optimistic materialism of Mrs.\nRobinson from the more acid cynicism which tinges the hedonism of Mr.\nRobinson. There is a colour of the household inside, as conspicuous as\nthe colour of the house outside. That colour is a blend, and if any tint\nin it predominate it is generally that preferred by Mrs. Robinson. But,\nlike all composite colours, it is a separate color, as separate as green\nis from blue and yellow. Every marriage is a sort of wild balance; and\nin every case the compromise is as unique as an eccentricity.\nPhilanthropists walking in the slums often see the compromise in the\nstreet, and mistake it for a fight. When they interfere, they are\nthoroughly thumped by both parties; and serve them right, for not\nrespecting the very institution that brought them into the world.\n\nThe first thing to see is that this enormous normality is like a\nmountain; and one that is capable of being a volcano. Every abnormality\nthat is now opposed to it is like a molehill; and the earnest\nsociological organisers of it are exceedingly like moles. But the\nmountain is a volcano in another sense also; as suggested in that\ntradition of the southern fields fertilised by larva. It has a creative\nas well as a destructive side; and it only remains, in this part of the\nanalysis, to note the political effect of this extra-political\ninstitution, and the political ideals of which it has been the\nchampion; and perhaps the only permanent champion.\n\nThe ideal for which it stands in the state is liberty. It stands for\nliberty for the very simple reason with which this rough analysis\nstarted. It is the only one of these institutions that is at once\nnecessary and voluntary. It is the only check on the state that is bound\nto renew itself as eternally as the state, and more naturally than the\nstate. Every sane man recognises that unlimited liberty is anarchy, or\nrather is nonentity. The civic idea of liberty is to give the citizen a\nprovince of liberty; a limitation within which a citizen is a king. This\nthe only way in which truth can ever find refuge from public\npersecution, and the good man survive the bad government. But the good\nman by himself is no match for the city. There must be balanced against\nit another ideal institution, and in that sense an immortal institution.\nSo long as the state is the only ideal institution, the state will call\non the citizen to sacrifice himself, and therefore will not have the\nsmallest scruple in sacrificing the citizen. The state consists of\ncoercion; and must always be justified from its own point of view in\nextending the bounds of coercion; as, for instance, in the case of\nconscription. The only thing that can be set up to check or challenge\nthis authority is a voluntary law and a voluntary loyalty. That loyalty\nis the protection of liberty, in the only sphere where liberty can fully\ndwell. It is a principle of the constitution that the King never dies.\nIt is the whole principle of the family that the citizen never dies.\nThere must be a heraldry and heredity of freedom; a tradition of\nresistance to tyranny. A man must be not only free, but free-born.\n\nIndeed, there is something in the family that might loosely be called\nanarchist; and more correctly called amateur. As there seems something\nalmost vague about its voluntary origin, so there seems something vague\nabout its voluntary organisation. The most vital function it performs,\nperhaps the most vital function that anything can perform, is that of\neducation; but its type of early education is far too essential to be\nmistaken for instruction. In a thousand things it works rather by rule\nof thumb than rule of theory. To take a commonplace and even comic\nexample, I doubt if any text-book or code of rules has ever contained\nany directions about standing a child in a corner. Doubtless when the\nmodern process is complete, and the coercive principle of the state has\nentirely extinguished the voluntary element of the family, there will be\nsome exact regulation or restriction about the matter. Possibly it will\nsay that the corner must be an angle of at least ninety-five degrees.\nPossibly it will say that the converging line of any ordinary corner\ntends to make a child squint. In fact I am certain that if I said\ncasually, at a sufficient number of tea-tables, that corners made\nchildren squint, it would rapidly become a universally received dogma of\npopular science. For the modern world will accept no dogmas upon any\nauthority; but it will accept any dogmas upon no authority. Say that a\nthing is so, according to the Pope or the Bible, and it will be\ndismissed as a superstition without examination. But preface your remark\nmerely with \u201cthey say\u201d or \u201cdon\u2019t you know that?\u201d or try (and fail) to\nremember the name of some professor mentioned in some newspaper; and the\nkeen rationalism of the modern mind will accept every word you say. This\nparenthesis is not so irrelevant as it may appear, for it will be well\nto remember that when a rigid officialism breaks in upon the voluntary\ncompromises of the home, that officialism itself will be only rigid in\nits action and will be exceedingly limp in its thought. Intellectually\nit will be at least as vague as the amateur arrangements of the home,\nand the only difference is that the domestic arrangements are in the\nonly real sense practical; that is, they are founded on experiences that\nhave been suffered. The others are what is now generally called\nscientific; that is, they are founded on experiments that have not yet\nbeen made. As a matter of fact, instead of invading the family with the\nblundering bureaucracy that mismanages the public services, it would be\nfar more philosophical to work the reform the other way round. It would\nbe really quite as reasonable to alter the laws of the nation so as to\nresemble the laws of the nursery. The punishments would be far less\nhorrible, far more humorous, and far more really calculated to make men\nfeel they had made fools of themselves. It would be a pleasant change if\na judge, instead of putting on the black cap, had to put on the dunce\u2019s\ncap; or if we could stand a financier in his own corner.\n\nOf course this opinion is rare, and reactionary--whatever that may mean.\nModern education is founded on the principle that a parent is more\nlikely to be cruel than anybody else. It passes over the obvious fact\nthat he is _less_ likely to be cruel than anybody else. Anybody may\nhappen to be cruel; but the first chances of cruelty come with the whole\ncolourless and indifferent crowd of total strangers and mechanical\nmercenaries, whom it is now the custom to call in as infallible agents\nof improvement; policemen, doctors, detectives, inspectors, instructors,\nand so on. They are automatically given arbitrary power because there\nare here and there such things as criminal parents; as if there were no\nsuch things as criminal doctors or criminal school-masters. A mother is\nnot always judicious about her child\u2019s diet; so it is given into the\ncontrol of Dr. Crippen. A father is thought not to teach his sons the\npurest morality; so they are put under the tutorship of Eugene Aram.\nThese celebrated criminals are no more rare in their respective\nprofessions than the cruel parents are in the profession of parenthood.\nBut indeed the case is far stronger than this; and there is no need to\nrely on the case of such criminals at all. The ordinary weaknesses of\nhuman nature will explain all the weaknesses of bureaucracy and business\ngovernment all over the world. The official need only be an ordinary man\nto be more indifferent to other people\u2019s children than to his own; and\neven to sacrifice other people\u2019s family prosperity to his own. He may be\nbored; he may be bribed; he may be brutal, for any one of the thousand\nreasons that ever made a man a brute. All this elementary common sense\nis entirely left out of account in our educational and social systems of\ntoday. It is assumed that the hireling will _not_ flee, and that solely\nbecause he is a hireling. It is denied that the shepherd will lay down\nhis life for the sheep; or for that matter, even that the she-wolf will\nfight for the cubs. We are to believe that mothers are inhuman; but not\nthat officials are human. There are unnatural parents, but there are no\nnatural passions; at least, there are none where the fury of King Lear\ndared to find them--in the beadle. Such is the latest light on the\neducation of the young; and the same principle that is applied to the\nchild is applied to the husband and wife. Just as it assumes that a\nchild will certainly be loved by anybody except his mother, so it\nassumes that a man can be happy with anybody except the one woman he has\nhimself chosen for his wife.\n\nThus the coercive spirit of the state prevails over the free promise of\nthe family, in the shape of formal officialism. But this is not the most\ncoercive of the coercive elements in the modern commonwealth. An even\nmore rigid and ruthless external power is that of industrial employment\nand unemployment. An even more ferocious enemy of the family is the\nfactory. Between these modern mechanical things the ancient natural\ninstitution is not being reformed or modified or even cut down; it is\nbeing torn in pieces. It is not only being torn in pieces in the sense\nof a true metaphor, like a living thing caught in a hideous clockwork of\nmanufacture. It is being literally torn in pieces, in that the husband\nmay go to one factory, the wife to another, and the child to a third.\nEach will become the servant of a separate financial group, which is\nmore and more gaining the political power of a feudal group. But whereas\nfeudalism received the loyalty of families, the lords of the new servile\nstate will receive only the loyalty of individuals; that is, of lonely\nmen and even of lost children.\n\nIt is sometimes said that Socialism attacks the family; which is founded\non little beyond the accident that some Socialists believe in free-love.\nI have been a Socialist, and I am no longer a Socialist, and at no time\ndid I believe in free-love. It is true, I think in a large and\nunconscious sense, that State Socialism encourages the general coercive\nclaim I have been considering. But if it be true that Socialism attacks\nthe family in theory, it is far more certain that Capitalism attacks it\nin practice. It is a paradox, but a plain fact, that men never notice a\nthing as long as it exists in practice. Men who will note a heresy will\nignore an abuse. Let any one who doubts the paradox imagine the\nnewspapers formally printing along with the Honours\u2019 List a price list,\nfor peerages and knighthoods; though everybody knows they are bought and\nsold. So the factory is destroying the family in fact; and need depend\non no poor mad theorist who dreams of destroying it in fancy. And what\nis destroying it is nothing so plausible as free-love; but something\nrather to be described as an enforced fear. It is economic punishment\nmore terrible than legal punishment, which may yet land us in slavery as\nthe only safety.\n\nFrom its first days in the forest this human group had to fight against\nwild monsters; and so it is now fighting against these wild machines. It\nonly managed to survive then, and it will only manage to survive now, by\na strong internal sanctity; a tacit oath or dedication deeper than that\nof the city or the tribe. But though this silent promise was always\npresent, it took at a certain turning point of our history a special\nform which I shall try to sketch in the next chapter. That turning point\nwas the creation of Christendom by the religion which created it.\nNothing will destroy the sacred triangle; and even the Christian faith,\nthe most amazing revolution that ever took place in the mind, served\nonly in a sense to turn that triangle upside down. It held up a mystical\nmirror in which the order of the three things was reversed; and added a\nholy family of child, mother and father to the human family of father,\nmother and child.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STORY OF THE VOW\n\n\n\n\n_VI.--The Story of the Vow_\n\n\nCharles Lamb, with his fine fantastic instinct for combinations that are\nalso contrasts, has noted somewhere a contrast between St. Valentine and\nvalentines. There seems a comic incongruity in such lively and frivolous\nflirtations still depending on the date and title of an ascetic and\ncelibate bishop of the Dark Ages. The paradox lends itself to his\ntreatment, and there is a truth in his view of it. Perhaps it may seem\neven more of a paradox to say there is no paradox. In such cases\nunification appears more provocative than division; and it may seem idly\ncontradictory to deny the contradiction. And yet in truth there is no\ncontradiction. In the deepest sense there is a very real similarity,\nwhich puts St. Valentine and his valentines on one side, and most of the\nmodern world on the other. I should hesitate to ask even a German\nprofessor to collect, collate and study carefully all the valentines in\nthe world, with the object of tracing a philosophical principle running\nthrough them. But if he did, I have no doubt about the philosophic\nprinciple he would find. However trivial, however imbecile, however\nvulgar or vapid or stereotyped the imagery of such things might be, it\nwould always involve one idea, the same idea that makes lovers\nlaboriously chip their initials on a tree or a rock, in a sort of\nmonogram of monogamy. It may be a cockney trick to tie one\u2019s love on a\ntree; though Orlando did it, and would now doubtless be arrested by the\npolice for breaking the bye-laws of the Forest of Arden. I am not here\nconcerned especially to commend the habit of cutting one\u2019s own name and\nprivate address in large letters on the front of the Parthenon, across\nthe face of the Sphinx, or in any other nook or corner where it may\nchance to arrest the sentimental interest of posterity. But like many\nother popular things, of the sort that can generally be found in\nShakespeare, there is a meaning in it that would probably be missed by\na less popular poet, like Shelley. There is a very permanent truth in\nthe fact that two free persons deliberately tie themselves to a log of\nwood. And it is the idea of tying oneself to something that runs through\nall this old amorous allegory like a pattern of fetters. There is always\nthe notion of hearts chained together, or skewered together, or in some\nmanner secured; there is a security that can only be called captivity.\nThat it frequently fails to secure itself has nothing to do with the\npresent point. The point is that every philosophy of sex must fail,\nwhich does not account for its ambition of fixity, as well as for its\nexperience of failure. There is nothing to make Orlando commit himself\non the sworn evidence of the nearest tree. He is not bound to be bound;\nhe is under constraint, but nobody constrains him to be under\nconstraint. In short, Orlando took a vow to marry precisely as Valentine\ntook a vow not to marry. Nor could any ascetic, without being a heretic,\nhave asserted in the wildest reactions of asceticism, that the vow of\nOrlando was not lawful as well as the vow of Valentine. But it is a\nnotable fact that even when it was not lawful, it was still a vow.\nThrough all that medi\u00e6val culture, which has left us the legend of\nromance, there ran this pattern of a chain, which was felt as binding\neven where it ought not to bind. The lawless loves of medi\u00e6val legends\nall have their own law, and especially their own loyalty, as in the\ntales of Tristram or Lancelot. In this sense we might say that medi\u00e6val\nprofligacy was more fixed than modern marriage. I am not here discussing\neither modern or medi\u00e6val ethics, in the matter of what they did say or\nought to say of such things. I am only noting as a historical fact the\ninsistence of the medi\u00e6val imagination, even at its wildest, upon one\nparticular idea. That idea is the idea of the vow. It might be the vow\nwhich St. Valentine took; it might be a lesser vow which he regarded as\nlawful; it might be a wild vow which he regarded as quite lawless. But\nthe whole society which made such festivals and bequeathed to us such\ntraditions was full of the idea of vows; and we must recognise this\nnotion, even if we think it nonsensical, as the note of the whole\ncivilisation. And Valentine and the valentine both express it for us;\neven more if we feel them both as exaggerated, or even as exaggerating\nopposites. Those extremes meet; and they meet in the same place. Their\ntrysting place is by the tree on which the lover hung his love-letters.\nAnd even if the lover hung himself on the tree, instead of his literary\ncompositions, even that act had about it also an indefinable flavour of\nfinality.\n\nIt is often said by the critics of Christian origins that certain ritual\nfeasts, processions or dances are really of pagan origin. They might as\nwell say that our legs are of pagan origin. Nobody ever disputed that\nhumanity was human before it was Christian; and no Church manufactured\nthe legs with which men walked or danced, either in a pilgrimage or a\nballet. What can really be maintained, so as to carry not a little\nconviction, is this: that where such a Church has existed it has\n_preserved_ not only the processions but the dances; not only the\ncathedral but the carnival. One of the chief claims of Christian\ncivilisation is to have preserved things of pagan origin. In short, in\nthe old religious countries men _continue_ to dance; while in the new\nscientific cities they are often content to drudge.\n\nBut when this saner view of history is realised, there does remain\nsomething more mystical and difficult to define. Even heathen things are\nChristian when they have been preserved by Christianity. Chivalry is\nsomething recognisably different even from the _virtus_ of Virgil.\nCharity is something exceedingly different from the plain city of Homer.\nEven our patriotism is something more subtle than the undivided lover of\nthe city; and the change is felt in the most permanent things, such as\nthe love of landscape or the love of woman. To define the\ndifferentiation in all these things will always be hopelessly difficult.\nBut I would here suggest one element in the change which is perhaps too\nmuch neglected; which at any rate ought not to be neglected; the nature\nof a vow. I might express it by saying that pagan antiquity was the age\nof status; that Christian medi\u00e6valism was the age of vows; and that\nsceptical modernity has been the age of contracts; or rather has tried\nto be, and has failed.\n\nThe outstanding example of status was slavery. Needless to say slavery\ndoes not mean tyranny; indeed it need only be regarded relatively to\nother things to be regarded as charity. The idea of slavery is that\nlarge numbers of men are meant and made to do the heavy work of the\nworld, and that others, while taking the margin of profits, must\nnevertheless support them while they do it. The point is not whether the\nwork is excessive or moderate, or whether the condition is comfortable\nor uncomfortable. The point is that his work is chosen for the man, his\nstatus fixed for the man; and this status is forced on him by law. As\nMr. Balfour said about Socialism, that is slavery and nothing else is\nslavery. The slave might well be, and often was, far more comfortable\nthan the average free labourer; and certainly far more lazy than the\naverage peasant. He was a slave because he had not reached his position\nby choice, or promise, or bargain, but merely by status.\n\nIt is admitted that when Christianity had been for some time at work in\nthe world, this ancient servile status began in some mysterious manner\nto disappear. I suggest here that one of the forms which the new spirit\ntook was the importance of the vow. Feudalism, for instance, differed\nfrom slavery chiefly because feudalism was a vow. The vassal put his\nhands in those of his lord, and vowed to be his man; but there was an\naccent on the noun substantive as well as on the possessive pronoun. By\nswearing to be his man, he proved he was not his chattel. Nobody exacts\na promise from a pickaxe, or expects a poker to swear everlasting\nfriendship with the tongs. Nobody takes the word of a spade; and nobody\never took the word of a slave. It marks at least a special stage of\ntransition that the form of freedom was essential to the fact of\nservice, or even of servitude. In this way it is not a coincidence that\nthe word homage actually means manhood. And if there was vow instead of\nstatus even in the static parts of Feudalism, it is needless to say\nthat there was a wilder luxuriance of vows in the more adventurous part\nof it. The whole of what we call chivalry was one great vow. Vows of\nchivalry varied infinitely from the most solid to the most fantastic;\nfrom a vow to give all the spoils of conquest to the poor to a vow to\nrefrain from shaving until the first glimpse of Jerusalem. As I have\nremarked, this rule of loyalty, even in the unruly exceptions which\nproved the rule, ran through all the romances and songs of the\ntroubadours; and there were always vows even when they were very far\nfrom being marriage vows. The idea is as much present in what they\ncalled the Gay Science, of love, as in what they called the Divine\nScience, of theology. The modern reader will smile at the mention of\nthese things as sciences; and will turn to the study of sociology,\nethnology and psycho-analysis; for if these are sciences (about which I\nwould not divulge a doubt) at least nobody would insult them by calling\nthem either gay or divine.\n\nI mean here to emphasise the presence, and not even to settle the\nproportion, of this new notion in the middle ages. But the critic will\nbe quite wrong if he thinks it enough to answer that all these things\naffected only a cultured class, not corresponding to the servile class\nof antiquity. When we come to workmen and small tradesmen, we find the\nsame vague yet vivid presence of the spirit that can only be called the\nvow. In this sense there was a chivalry of trades as well as a chivalry\nof orders of knighthood; just as there was a heraldry of shop-signs as\nwell as a heraldry of shields. Only it happens that in the enlightenment\nand liberation of the sixteenth century, the heraldry of the rich was\npreserved, and the heraldry of the poor destroyed. And there is a\nsinister symbolism in the fact that almost the only emblem still hung\nabove a shop is that of the three balls of Lombardy. Of all those\ndemocratic glories nothing can now glitter in the sun; except the sign\nof the golden usury that has devoured them all. The point here, however,\nis that the trade or craft had not only something like the crest, but\nsomething like the vow of knighthood. There was in the position of the\nguildsman the same basic notion that belonged to knights and even to\nmonks. It was the notion of the free choice of a fixed estate. We can\nrealise the moral atmosphere if we compare the system of the Christian\nguilds, not only with the status of the Greek and Roman slaves, but with\nsuch a scheme as that of the Indian castes. The oriental caste has some\nof the qualities of the occidental guild; especially the valuable\nquality of tradition and the accumulation of culture. Men might be proud\nof their castes, as they were proud of their guilds. But they had never\nchosen their castes, as they have chosen their guilds. They had never,\nwithin historic memory, even collectively created their castes, as they\ncollectively created their guilds. Like the slave system, the caste\nsystem was older than history. The heathens of modern Asia, as much as\nthe heathens of ancient Europe, lived by the very spirit of status.\nStatus in a trade has been accepted like status in a tribe; and that in\na tribe of beasts and birds rather than men. The fisherman continued to\nbe a fisherman as the fish continued to be a fish; and the hunter would\nno more turn into a cook than his dog would try its luck as a cat.\nCertainly his dog would not be found prostrated before the mysterious\naltar of Pasht, barking or whining a wild, lonely, and individual vow\nthat he at all costs would become a cat. Yet that was the vital revolt\nand innovation of vows, as compared with castes or slavery; as when a\nman vowed to be a monk, or the son of a cobbler saluted the shrine of\nSt. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. When he had entered the\nguild of the carpenters he did indeed find himself responsible for a\nvery real loyalty and discipline; but the whole social atmosphere\nsurrounding his entrance was full of the sense of a separate and\npersonal decision. There is one place where we can still find this\nsentiment; the sentiment of something at once free and final. We can\nfeel it, if the service is properly understood, before and after the\nmarriage vows at any ordinary wedding in any ordinary church.\n\nSuch, in very vague outline, has been the historical nature of vows; and\nthe unique part they played in that medi\u00e6val civilisation out of which\nmodern civilisation rose--or fell. We can now consider, a little less\ncloudily than it is generally considered nowadays, whether we really\nthink vows are good things; whether they ought to be broken; and (as\nwould naturally follow) whether they ought to be made. But we can never\njudge it fairly till we face, as I have tried to suggest, this main fact\nof history; that the personal pledge, feudal or civic or monastic, was\nthe way in which the world did escape from the system of slavery in the\npast. For the modern break-down of mere contract leaves it still\ndoubtful if there be any other way of escaping it in the future.\n\nThe idea, or at any rate the ideal, of the thing called a vow is fairly\nobvious. It is to combine the fixity that goes with finality with the\nself-respect that only goes with freedom. The man is a slave who is his\nown master, and a king who is his own ancestor. For all kinds of social\npurposes he has the calculable orbit of the man in the caste or the\nservile state; but in the story of his own soul he is still pursuing,\nat great peril, his own adventure. As seen by his neighbours, he is as\nsafe as if immured in a fortress; but as seen by himself he may be for\never careering through the sky or crashing towards the earth in a\nflying-ship. What is socially humdrum is produced by what is\nindividually heroic; and a city is made not merely of citizens but\nknight-errants. It is needless to point out the part played by the\nmonastery in civilising Europe in its most barbaric interregnum; and\neven those who still denounce the monasteries will be found denouncing\nthem for these two extreme and apparently opposite eccentricities. They\nare blamed for the rigid character of their collective routine; and also\nfor the fantastic character of their individual fanaticism. For the\npurposes of this part of the argument, it would not matter if the\nmarriage vow produced the most austere discomforts of the monastic vow.\nThe point for the present is that it was sustained by a sense of free\nwill; and the feeling that its evils were not accepted but chosen. The\nsame spirit ran through all the guilds and popular arts and spontaneous\nsocial systems of the whole civilisation. It had all the discipline of\nan army; but it was an army of volunteers.\n\nThe civilisation of vows was broken up when Henry the Eighth broke his\nown vow of marriage. Or rather, it was broken up by a new cynicism in\nthe ruling powers of Europe, of which that was the almost accidental\nexpression in England. The monasteries, that had been built by vows,\nwere destroyed. The guilds, that had been regiments of volunteers, were\ndispersed. The sacramental nature of marriage was denied; and many of\nthe greatest intellects of the new movement, like Milton, already\nindulged in a very modern idealisation of divorce. The progress of this\nsort of emancipation advanced step by step with the progress of that\naristocratic ascendancy which has made the history of modern England;\nwith all its sympathy with personal liberty, and all its utter lack of\nsympathy with popular life. Marriage not only became less of a sacrament\nbut less of a sanctity. It threatened to become not only a contract, but\na contract that could not be kept. For this one question has retained a\nstrange symbolic supremacy amid all the similar questions, which seems\nto perpetuate the coincidence of the origin. It began with divorce for a\nking; and it is now ending in divorces for a whole kingdom.\n\nThe modern era that followed can be called the era of contract; but it\ncan still more truly be called the era of leonine contract. The nobles\nof the new time first robbed the people, and then offered to bargain\nwith them. It would not be an exaggeration to say that they first robbed\nthe people, and then offered to cheat them. For their rents were\ncompetitive rents, their economics competitive economics, their ethics\ncompetitive ethics; they applied not only legality but pettifogging. No\nmore was heard of the customary rents of the medi\u00e6val estates; just as\nno more was heard of the standard wages of the medi\u00e6val guilds. The\nobject of the whole process was to isolate the individual poor man in\nhis dealings with the individual rich man; and then offer to buy and\nsell with him, though it must necessarily be himself that was bought\nand sold. In the matter of labour, that is, though a man was supposed\nto be in the position of a seller, he was more and more really in the\npossession of a slave. Unless the tendency be reversed, he will probably\nbecome admittedly a slave. That is to say, the word slave will never be\nused; for it is always easy to find an inoffensive word; but he will be\nadmittedly a man legally bound to certain social service, in return for\neconomic security. In other words, the modern experiment of mere\ncontract has broken down. Trusts as well as Trades\u2019 Unions express the\nfact that it has broken down. Social reform, Socialism, Guild Socialism,\nSyndicalism, even organised philanthropy, are so many ways of saying\nthat it has broken down. The substitute for it may be the old one of\nstatus; but it must be something having some of the stability of status.\nSo far history has found only one way of combining that sort of\nstability with any sort of liberty. In this sense there is a meaning in\nthe much misused phrase about the army of industry. But the army must be\nstiffened either by the discipline of conscripts or by the vows of\nvolunteers.\n\nIf we may extend the doubtful metaphor of an army of industry to cover\nthe yet weaker phrase about captains of industry, there is no doubt\nabout what those captains at present command. They work for a\ncentralised discipline in every department. They erect a vast apparatus\nof supervision and inspection; they support all the modern restrictions\ntouching drink and hygiene. They may be called the friends of temperance\nor even of happiness; but even their friends would not call them the\nfriends of freedom. There is only one form of freedom which they\ntolerate; and that is the sort of sexual freedom which is covered by the\nlegal fiction of divorce. If we ask why this liberty is alone left, when\nso many liberties are lost, we shall find the answer in the summary of\nthis chapter. They are trying to break the vow of the knight as they\nbroke the vow of the monk. They recognise the vow as the vital\nantithesis to servile status; the alternative and therefore the\nantagonist. Marriage makes a small state within the state, which\nresists all such regimentation. That bond breaks all other bonds; that\nlaw is found stronger than all later and lesser laws. They desire the\ndemocracy to be sexually fluid, because the making of small nuclei is\nlike the making of small nations. Like small nations, they are a\nnuisance to the mind of imperial scope. In short, what they fear, in the\nmost literal sense, is home rule.\n\nMen can always be blind to a thing so long as it is big enough. It is so\ndifficult to see the world in which we live, that I know that many will\nsee all I have said here of slavery as a nonsensical nightmare. But if\nmy association of divorce with slavery seems only a far-fetched and\ntheoretical paradox, I should have no difficulty in replacing it by a\nconcrete and familiar picture. Let them merely remember the time when\nthey read \u201cUncle Tom\u2019s Cabin,\u201d and ask themselves whether the oldest and\nsimplest of the charges against slavery has not always been the breaking\nup of families.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDIES OF MARRIAGE\n\n\n\n\n_VII.--The Tragedies of Marriage_\n\n\nThere is one view very common among the liberal-minded which is\nexceedingly fatiguing to the clear-headed. It is symbolised in the sort\nof man who says, \u201cThese ruthless bigots will refuse to bury me in\nconsecrated ground, because I have always refused to be baptised.\u201d A\nclear-headed person can easily conceive his point of view, in so far as\nhe happens to think that baptism does not matter. But the clear-headed\nwill be completely puzzled when they ask themselves why, if he thinks\nthat baptism does not matter, he should think that burial does matter.\nIf it is in no way imprudent for a man to keep himself from a\nconsecrated font, how can it be inhuman for other people to keep him\nfrom a consecrated field? It is surely much nearer to mere superstition\nto attach importance to what is done to a dead body than to a live\nbaby. I can understand a man thinking both superstitious, or both\nsacred; but I cannot see why he should grumble that other people do not\ngive him as sanctities what he regards as superstitions. He is merely\ncomplaining of being treated as what he declares himself to be. It is as\nif a man were to say, \u201cMy persecutors still refuse to make me king, out\nof mere malice because I am a strict republican.\u201d Or it is as if he\nsaid, \u201cThese heartless brutes are so prejudiced against a teetotaler,\nthat they won\u2019t even give him a glass of brandy.\u201d\n\nThe fashion of divorce would not be a modern fashion if it were not full\nof this touching fallacy. A great deal of it might be summed up as a\nmost illogical and fanatical appetite for getting married in churches.\nIt is as if a man should practice polygamy out of sheer greed for\nwedding cake. Or it is as if he provided his household with new shoes,\nentirely by having them thrown after the wedding carriage when he went\noff with a new wife. There are other ways of procuring cake or\npurchasing shoes; and there are other ways of setting up a human\nestablishment. What is unreasonable is the request which the modern man\nreally makes of the religious institutions of his fathers. The modern\nman wants to buy one shoe without the other; to obtain one half of a\nsupernatural revelation without the other. The modern man wants to eat\nhis wedding cake and have it, too.\n\nI am not basing this book on the religious argument, and therefore I\nwill not pause to inquire why the old Catholic institutions of\nChristianity seem to be especially made the objects of these\nunreasonable complaints. As a matter of fact nobody does propose that\nsome ferocious Anti-Semite like M. Drumont should be buried as a Jew\nwith all the rites of the Synagogue. But the broad-minded were furious\nbecause Tolstoi, who had denounced Russian orthodoxy quite as\nferociously, was not buried as orthodox, with all the rites of the\nRussian Church. Nobody does insist that a man who wishes to have fifty\nwives when Mahomet allowed him five, must have his fifty with the full\napproval of Mahomet\u2019s religion. But the broad-minded are extremely\nbitter because a Christian who wishes to have several wives when his\nown promise bound him to one, is not allowed to violate his vow at the\nsame altar at which he made it. Nobody does insist on Baptists totally\nimmersing people who totally deny the advantages of being totally\nimmersed. Nobody ever did expect Mormons to receive the open mockers of\nthe Book of Mormon, nor Christian Scientists to let their churches be\nused for exposing Mrs. Eddy as an old fraud. It is only of the forms of\nChristianity making the Catholic claim that such inconsistent claims are\nmade. And even the inconsistency is, I fancy, a tribute to the\nacceptance of the Catholic idea in a catholic fashion. It may be that\nmen have an obscure sense that nobody need belong to the Mormon religion\nand every one does ultimately belong to the Church; and though he may\nhave made a few dozen Mormon marriages in a wandering and entertaining\nlife, he will really have nowhere to go to if he does not somehow find\nhis way back to the churchyard. But all this concerns the general\ntheological question and not the matter involved here, which is merely\nhistorical and social. The point here is that it is at least\nsuperficially inconsistent to ask institutions for a formal approval,\nwhich they can only give by an inconsistency.\n\nI have put first the question of what is marriage. And we are now in a\nposition to ask more clearly what is divorce. It is not merely the\nnegation or neglect of marriage; for any one can always neglect\nmarriage. It is not the dissolution of the legal obligation of marriage,\nor even the legal obligation of monogamy; for the simple reason that no\nsuch obligation exists. Any man in modern London may have a hundred\nwives if he does not call them wives; or rather, if he does not go\nthrough certain more or less mystical ceremonies in order to assert that\nthey are wives. He might create a certain social coolness round his\nhousehold, a certain fading of his general popularity. But that is not\ncreated by law, and could not be prevented by law. As the late Lord\nSalisbury very sensibly observed about boycotting in Ireland, \u201cHow can\nyou make a law to prevent people going out of the room when somebody\nthey don\u2019t like comes into it?\u201d We cannot be forcibly introduced to a\npolygamist by a policeman. It would not be an assertion of social\nliberty, but a denial of social liberty, if we found ourselves\npractically obliged to associate with all the profligates in society.\nBut divorce is not in this sense mere anarchy. On the contrary divorce\nis in this sense respectability; and even a rigid excess of\nrespectability. Divorce in this sense might indeed be not unfairly\ncalled snobbery. The definition of divorce, which concerns us here, is\nthat it is the attempt to give respectability, and not liberty. It is\nthe attempt to give a certain social status, and not a legal status. It\nis indeed supposed that this can be done by the alteration of certain\nlegal forms; and this will be more or less true according to the extent\nto which law as such overawed public opinion, or was valued as a true\nexpression of public opinion. If a man divorced in the large-minded\nfashion of Henry the Eighth pleaded his legal title among the peasantry\nof Ireland, for instance, I think he would find a difference still\nexisting between respectability and religion. But the peculiar point\nhere is that many are claiming the sanction of religion as well as of\nrespectability. They would attach to their very natural and sometimes\nvery pardonable experiments a certain atmosphere, and even glamour,\nwhich has undoubtedly belonged to the status of marriage in historic\nChristendom. But before they make this attempt, it would be well to ask\nwhy such a dignity ever appeared or in what it consisted. And I fancy we\nshall find ourselves confronted with the very simple truth, that the\ndignity arose wholly and entirely out of the fidelity; and that the\nglamour merely came from the vow. People were regarded as having a\ncertain dignity because they were dedicated in a certain way; as bound\nto certain duties and, if it be preferred, to certain discomforts. It\nmay be irrational to endure these discomforts; it may even be irrational\nto respect them. But it is certainly much more irrational to respect\nthem, and then artificially transfer the same respect to the absence of\nthem. It is as if we were to expect uniforms to be saluted when armies\nwere disbanded; and ask people to cheer a soldier\u2019s coat when it did\nnot contain a soldier. If you think you can abolish war, abolish it; but\ndo not suppose that when there are no wars to be waged, there will still\nbe warriors to be worshipped. If it was a good thing that the\nmonasteries were dissolved, let us say so and dismiss them. But the\nnobles who dissolved the monasteries did not shave their heads, and ask\nto be regarded as saints solely on account of that ceremony. The nobles\ndid not dress up as abbots and ask to be credited with a potential\ntalent for working miracles, because of the austerity of their vows of\npoverty and chastity. They got inside the houses, but not the hoods, and\nstill less the haloes. They at least knew that it is not the habit that\nmakes the monk. They were not so superstitious as those moderns, who\nthink it is the veil that makes the bride.\n\nWhat is respected, in short, is fidelity to the ancient flag of the\nfamily, and a readiness to fight for what I have noted as its unique\ntype of freedom. I say readiness to fight, for fortunately the fight\nitself is the exception rather than the rule. The soldier is not\nrespected because he is doomed to death, but because he is ready for\ndeath; and even ready for defeat. The married man or woman is not doomed\nto evil, sickness or poverty; but is respected for taking a certain step\nfor better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness or in health.\nBut there is one result of this line of argument which should correct a\ndanger in some arguments on the same side.\n\nIt is very essential that a stricture on divorce, which is in fact\nsimply a defence of marriage, should be independent of sentimentalism,\nespecially in the form called optimism. A man justifying a fight for\nnational independence or civic freedom is neither sentimental nor\noptimistic. He explains the sacrifice, but he does not explain it away.\nHe does not say that bayonet wounds are pin-pricks, or mere scratches of\nthe thorns on the rose of pleasure. He does not say that the whole\ndisplay of firearms is a festive display of fireworks. On the contrary,\nwhen he praises it most, he praises it as pain rather than pleasure. He\nincreases the praise with the pain; it is his whole boast that\nmilitarism, and even modern science, can produce no instrument of\ntorture to tame the soul of man. It is idle, in speaking of war, to pit\nthe realistic against the romantic, in the sense of the heroic; for all\npossible realism can only increase the heroism; and therefore, in the\nhighest sense, increase the romance. Now I do not compare marriage with\nwar, but I do compare marriage with law or liberty or patriotism or\npopular government, or any of the human ideals which have often to be\ndefended by war. Even the wildest of those ideals, which seem to escape\nfrom all the discipline of peace, do not escape from the discipline of\nwar. The Bolshevists may have aimed at pure peace and liberty; but they\nhave been compelled, for their own purpose, first to raise armies and\nthen to rule armies. In a word, however beautiful you may think your own\nvisions of beatitude, men must suffer to be beautiful, and even suffer a\nconsiderable interval of being ugly. And I have no notion of denying\nthat mankind suffers much from the maintenance of the standard of\nmarriage; as it suffers much from the necessity of criminal law or the\nrecurrence of crusades and revolutions. The only question here is\nwhether marriage is indeed, as I maintain, an ideal and an institution\nmaking for popular freedom; I do not need to be told that anything\nmaking for popular freedom has to be paid for in vigilance and pain, and\na whole army of martyrs.\n\nHence I am far indeed from denying the hard cases which exist here, as\nin all matters involving the idea of honour. For indeed I could not deny\nthem without denying the whole parallel of militant morality on which my\nargument rests. But this being first understood, it will be well to\ndiscuss in a little more detail what are described as the tragedies of\nmarriage. And the first thing to note about the most tragic of them is\nthat they are not tragedies of marriage at all. They are tragedies of\nsex; and might easily occur in a highly modern romance in which marriage\nwas not mentioned at all. It is generally summarised by saying that the\ntragic element is the absence of love. But it is often forgotten that\nanother tragic element is often the presence of love. The doctors of\ndivorce, with an air of the frank and friendly realism of men of the\nworld, are always recommending and rejoicing in a sensible separation by\nmutual consent. But if we are really to dismiss our dreams of dignity\nand honour, if we are really to fall back on the frank realism of our\nexperience as men of the world, then the very first thing that our\nexperience will tell us is that it very seldom is a separation by mutual\nconsent; that is, that the consent very seldom is sincerely and\nspontaneously mutual. By far the commonest problem in such cases is that\nin which one party wishes to end the partnership and the other does not.\nAnd of that emotional situation you can make nothing but a tragedy,\nwhichever way you turn it. With or without marriage, with or without\ndivorce, with or without any arrangements that anybody can suggest or\nimagine, it remains a tragedy. The only difference is that by the\ndoctrine of marriage it remains both a noble and a fruitful tragedy;\nlike that of a man who falls fighting for his country, or dies\ntestifying to the truth. But the truth is that the innovators have as\nmuch sham optimism about divorce as any romanticist can have had about\nmarriage. They regard their story, when it ends in the divorce court,\nthrough as rosy a mist of sentimentalism as anybody ever regarded a\nstory ending with wedding bells. Such a reformer is quite sure that when\nonce the prince and princess are divorced by the fairy godmother, they\nwill live happily ever after. I enjoy romance, but I like it to be\nrooted in reality; and any one with a touch of reality knows that nine\ncouples out of ten, when they are divorced, are left in an exceedingly\ndifferent state. It will be safe to say in most cases that one partner\nwill fail to find happiness in an infatuation, and the other will from\nthe first accept a tragedy. In the realm of reality and not of romance,\nit is commonly a case of breaking hearts as well as breaking promises;\nand even dishonour is not always a remedy for remorse.\n\nThe next limitation to be laid down in the matter affects certain\npractical forms of discomfort, on a level rather lower than love or\nhatred. The cases most commonly quoted concern what is called \u201cdrink\u201d\nand what is called \u201ccruelty.\u201d They are always talked about as matters\nof fact; though in practice they are very decidedly matters of opinion.\nIt is not a flippancy, but a fact, that the misfortune of the woman who\nhas married a drunkard may have to be balanced against the misfortune of\nthe man who has married a teetotaler. For the very definition of\ndrunkenness may depend on the dogma of teetotalism. Drunkenness, it has\nbeen very truly observed,[B] \u201cmay mean anything from _delirium tremens_\nto having a stronger head than the official appointed to conduct the\nexamination.\u201d Mr. Bernard Shaw once professed, apparently seriously,\nthat any man drinking wine or beer at all was incapacitated from\nmanaging a motorcar; and still more, therefore, one would suppose, from\nmanaging a wife. The scales are weighted here, of course, with all those\nfalse weights of snobbishness which are the curse of justice in this\ncountry. The working class is forced to conduct almost in public a\nnormal and varying festive habit, which the upper class can afford to\nconduct in private; and a certain section of the middle class, that\nwhich happens to concern itself most with local politics and social\nreforms, really has or affects a standard quite abnormal and even alien.\nThey might go any lengths of injustice in dealing with the working man\nor working woman accused of too hearty a taste in beer. To mention but\none matter out of a thousand, the middle class reformers are obviously\nquite ignorant of the hours at which working people begin to work.\nBecause they themselves, at eleven o\u2019clock in the morning, have only\nrecently finished breakfast and the full moral digestion of the _Daily\nMail_, they think a charwoman drinking beer at that hour is one of those\narising early in the morning to follow after strong drink. Most of them\nreally do not know that she has already done more than half a heavy\nday\u2019s work, and is partaking of a very reasonable luncheon. The whole\nproblem of proletarian drink is entangled in a network of these\nmisunderstandings; and there is no doubt whatever that, when judged by\nthese generalisations, the poor will be taken in a net of injustices.\nAnd this truth is as certain in the case of what is called cruelty as\nof what is called drink. Nine times out of ten the judgment on a navvy\nfor hitting a woman is about as just as a judgment on him for not taking\noff his hat to a lady. It is a class test; it may be a class\nsuperiority; but it is not an act of equal justice between the classes.\nIt leaves out a thousand things; the provocation, the atmosphere, the\nharassing restrictions of space, the nagging which Dickens described as\nthe terrors of \u201ctemper in a cart,\u201d the absence of certain taboos of\nsocial training, the tradition of greater roughness even in the gestures\nof affection. To make all marriage or divorce, in the case of such a\nman, turn upon a blow is like blasting the whole life of a gentleman\nbecause he has slammed the door. Often a poor man cannot slam the door;\npartly because the model villa might fall down; but more because he has\nnowhere to go to; the smoking-room, the billiard-room and the peacock\nmusic-room not being yet attached to his premises.\n\nI say this in passing, to point out that while I do not dream of\nsuggesting that there are only happy marriages, there will quite\ncertainly, as things work nowadays, be a very large number of unhappy\nand unjust divorces. They will be cases in which the innocent partner\nwill receive the real punishment of the guilty partner, through being in\nfact and feeling the faithful partner. For instance, it is insisted that\na married person must at least find release from the society of a\nlunatic; but it is also true that the scientific reformers, with their\nfuss about \u201cthe feeble-minded,\u201d are continually giving larger and looser\ndefinitions of lunacy. The process might begin by releasing somebody\nfrom a homicidal maniac, and end by dealing in the same way with a\nrather dull conversationalist. But in fact nobody does deny that a\nperson should be allowed some sort of release from a homicidal maniac.\nThe most extreme school of orthodoxy only maintains that anybody who has\nhad that experience should be content with that release. In other words,\nit says he should be content with that experience of matrimony, and not\nseek another. It was put very wittily, I think, by a Roman Catholic\nfriend of mine, who said he approved of release so long as it was not\nspelt with a hyphen.\n\nTo put it roughly, we are prepared in some cases to listen to the man\nwho complains of having a wife. But we are not prepared to listen, at\nsuch length, to the same man when he comes back and complains that he\nhas not got a wife. Now in practice at this moment the great mass of the\ncomplaints are precisely of this kind. The reformers insist particularly\non the pathos of a man\u2019s position when he has obtained a separation\nwithout a divorce. Their most tragic figure is that of the man who is\nalready free of all those ills he had, and is only asking to be allowed\nto fly to others that he knows not of. I should be the last to deny\nthat, in certain emotional circumstances, his tragedy may be very tragic\nindeed. But his tragedy is of the emotional kind which can never be\nentirely eliminated; and which he has himself, in all probability,\ninflicted on the partner he has left. We may call it the price of\nmaintaining an ideal or the price of making a mistake; but anyhow it is\nthe point of our whole distinction in the matter; it is here that we\ndraw the line, and I have nowhere denied that it is a line of battle.\nThe battle joins on the debatable ground, not of the man\u2019s doubtful past\nbut of his still more doubtful future. In a word, the divorce\ncontroversy is not really a controversy about divorce. It is a\ncontroversy about re-marriage; or rather about whether it is marriage at\nall.\n\nAnd with that we can only return to the point of honour which I have\ncompared here to a point of patriotism; since it is both the smallest\nand the greatest kind of patriotism. Men have died in torments during\nthe last five years for points of patriotism far more dubious and\nfugitive. Men like the Poles or the Serbians, through long periods of\ntheir history, may be said rather to have lived in torments. I will\nnever admit that the vital need of the freedom of the family, as I have\ntried to sketch it here, is not a cause as valuable as the freedom of\nany frontier. But I do willingly admit that the cause would be a dark\nand terrible one, if it really asked these men to suffer torments. As I\nhave stated it, on its most extreme terms, it only asks them to suffer\nabnegations. And those negative sufferings I do think they may\nhonourably be called upon to bear, for the glory of their own oath and\nthe great things by which the nations live. In relation to their own\nnation most normal men will feel that this distinction between release\nand \u201cre-lease\u201d is neither fanciful nor harsh, but very rational and\nhuman. A patriot may be an exile in another country; but he will not be\na patriot of another country. He will be as cheerful as he can in an\nabnormal position; he may or may not sing his country\u2019s songs in a\nstrange land; but he will not sing the strange songs as his own. And\nsuch may fairly be also the attitude of the citizen who has gone into\nexile from the oldest of earthly cities.\n\n\n\n\nTHE VISTA OF DIVORCE\n\n\n\n\n_VIII.--The Vista of Divorce_\n\n\nThe case for divorce combines all the advantages of having it both ways;\nand of drawing the same deduction from right or left, and from black or\nwhite. Whichever way the programme works in practice, it can still be\njustified in theory. If there are few examples of divorce, it shows how\nlittle divorce need be dreaded; if there are many, it shows how much it\nis required. The rarity of divorce is an argument in favour of divorce;\nand the multiplicity of divorce is an argument against marriage. Now, in\ntruth, if we were confined to considering this alternative in a\nspeculative manner, if there were no concrete facts but only abstract\nprobabilities, we should have no difficulty in arguing our case. The\nabstract liberty allowed by the reformers is as near as possible to\nanarchy, and gives no logical or legal guarantee worth discussing. The\nadvantages of their reform do not accrue to the innocent party, but to\nthe guilty party; especially if he be sufficiently guilty. A man has\nonly to commit the crime of desertion to obtain the reward of divorce.\nAnd if they are entitled to take as typical the most horrible\nhypothetical cases of the abuse of the marriage laws, surely we are\nentitled to take equally extreme possibilities in the abuse of their own\ndivorce laws. If they, when looking about for a husband, so often hit\nupon a homicidal maniac, surely we may politely introduce them to the\nfar more human figure of the gentleman who marries as many women as he\nlikes and gets rid of them as often as he pleases. But in fact there is\nno necessity for us to argue thus in the abstract; for the amiable\ngentleman in question undoubtedly exists in the concrete. Of course, he\nis no new figure; he is a very recurrent type of rascal; his name has\nbeen Lothario or Don Juan; and he has often been represented as a rather\nromantic rascal. The point of divorce reform, it cannot be too often\nrepeated, is that the rascal should not only be regarded as romantic,\nbut regarded as respectable. He is not to sow his wild oats and settle\ndown; he is merely to settle down to sowing his wild oats. They are to\nbe regarded as tame and inoffensive oats; almost, if one may say so, as\nQuaker oats. But there is no need, as I say, to speculate about whether\nthe looser view of divorce might prevail; for it is already prevailing.\nThe newspapers are full of an astonishing hilarity about the rapidity\nwith which hundreds or thousands of human families are being broken up\nby the lawyers; and about the undisguised haste of the \u201chustling judges\u201d\nwho carry on the work. It is a form of hilarity which would seem to\nrecall the gaiety of a grave-digger in a city swept by a pestilence. But\na few details occasionally flash by in the happy dance; from time to\ntime the court is moved by a momentary curiosity about the causes of the\ngeneral violation of oaths and promises; as if there might, here and\nthere, be a hint of some sort of reason for ruining the fundamental\ninstitution of society. And nobody who notes those details, or\nconsiders those faint hints of reason, can doubt for a moment that\nmasses of these men and women are now simply using divorce in the spirit\nof free-love. They are very seldom the sort of people who have once\nfallen tragically into the wrong place, and have now found their way\ntriumphantly to the right place. They are almost always people who are\nobviously wandering from one place to another, and will probably leave\ntheir last shelter exactly as they have left their first. But it seems\nto amuse them to make again, if possible in a church, a promise they\nhave already broken in practice and almost avowedly disbelieve in\nprinciple.\n\nIn face of this headlong fashion, it is really reasonable to ask the\ndivorce reformers what is their attitude towards the old monogamous\nethic of our civilisation; and whether they wish to retain it in\ngeneral, or to retain it at all. Unfortunately even the sincerest and\nmost lucid of them use language which leaves the matter a little\ndoubtful. Mr. E. S. P. Haynes is one of the most brilliant and most\nfair-minded controversialists on that side; and he has said, for\ninstance, that he agrees with me in supporting the ideal of indissoluble\nor, at least, of undissolved marriage. Mr. Haynes is one of the few\nfriends of divorce who are also real friends of democracy; and I am sure\nthat in practice this stands for a real sympathy with the home,\nespecially the poor home. Unfortunately, on the theoretic side, the word\n\u201cideal\u201d is far from being an exact term, and is open to two almost\nopposite interpretations. For many would say that marriage is an ideal\nas some would say that monasticism is an ideal, in the sense of a\ncounsel of perfection. Now certainly we might preserve a conjugal ideal\nin this way. A man might be reverently pointed out in the street as a\nsort of saint, merely because he was married. A man might wear a medal\nfor monogamy; or have letters after his name similar to V.C. or D.D.;\nlet us say L.W. for \u201cLives With His Wife,\u201d or \u201cN.D.Y.\u201d for \u201cNot Divorced\nYet.\u201d We might, on entering some strange city, be struck by a stately\ncolumn erected to the memory of a wife who never ran away with a\nsoldier, or the shrine and image of a historical character, who had\nresisted the example of the man in the \u201cNew Witness\u201d ballade in bolting\nwith the children\u2019s nurse. Such high artistic hagiology would be quite\nconsistent with Mr. Haynes\u2019 divorce reform; with re-marriage after three\nyears, or three hours. It would also be quite consistent with Mr.\nHaynes\u2019 phrase about preserving an ideal of marriage. What it would not\nbe consistent with is the perfectly plain, solid, secular and social\nusefulness which I have here attributed to marriage. It does not create\nor preserve a natural institution, normal to the whole community, to\nbalance the more artificial and even more arbitrary institution of the\nstate; which is less natural even if it is equally necessary. It does\nnot defend a voluntary association, but leaves the only claim on life,\ndeath and loyalty with a more coercive institution. It does not stand,\nin the sense I have tried to explain, for the principle of liberty. In\nshort, it does not do any of the things which Mr. Haynes himself would\nespecially desire to see done. For humanity to be thus spontaneously\norganised from below, it is necessary that the organisation should be\nalmost as universal as the official organisation from above. The tyrant\nmust find not one family but many families defying his power; he must\nfind mankind not a dust of atoms, but fixed in solid blocks of fidelity.\nAnd those human groups must support not only themselves but each other.\nIn this sense what some call individualism is as corporate as communism.\nIt is a thing of volunteers; but volunteers must be soldiers. It is a\ndefence of private persons; but we might say that the private persons\nmust be private soldiers. The family must be recognised as well as real;\nabove all, the family must be recognised by the families. To expect\nindividuals to suffer successfully for a home apart from the home, that\nis for something which is an incident but not an institution, is really\na confusion between two ideas; it is a verbal sophistry almost in the\nnature of a pun. Similarly, for instance, we cannot prove the moral\nforce of a peasantry by pointing to one peasant; we might almost as well\nreveal the military force of infantry by pointing to one infant.\n\nI take it, however, that the advocates of divorce do not mean that\nmarriage is to remain ideal only in the sense of being almost\nimpossible. They do not mean that a faithful husband is only to be\nadmired as a fanatic. The reasonable men among them do really mean that\na divorced person shall be tolerated as something unusually unfortunate,\nnot merely that a married person shall be admired as something unusually\nblessed and inspired. But whatever they desire, it is as well that they\nshould realise exactly what they do; and in this case I should like to\nhear their criticisms in the matter of what they see. They must surely\nsee that in England at present, as in many parts of America in the past,\nthe new liberty is being taken in the spirit of licence as if the\nexception were to be the rule, or, rather, perhaps the absence of rule.\nThis will especially be made manifest if we consider that the effect of\nthe process is accumulative like a snowball, and returns on itself like\na snowball. The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous\nmarriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it\nall the easier to be united for no reason. A man might quite clearly\nforesee that a sensual infatuation would be fleeting, and console\nhimself with the knowledge that the connection could be equally\nfleeting. There seems no particular reason why he should not elaborately\ncalculate that he could stand a particular lady\u2019s temper for ten months;\nor reckon that he would have enjoyed and exhausted her repertoire of\ndrawing-room songs in two years. The old joke about choosing the wife to\nfit the furniture or the fashions might quite logically return, not as\nan old joke but as a new solemnity; indeed, it will be found that a new\nreligion is generally the return of an old joke. A man might quite\nconsistently see a woman as suited to the period of the hobble skirt,\nand as less suited to the threatened recurrence of the crinoline. These\nfancies are fantastic enough, but they are not a shade more fantastic\nthan the facts of many a divorce controversy as urged in the divorce\ncourts. And this is to leave out altogether the most fantastic fact of\nall: the winking at widespread and conspicuous collusion. Collusion has\nbecome not so much an illegal evasion as a legal fiction, and even a\nlegal institution, as it is admirably satirised in Mr. Somerset\nMaugham\u2019s brilliant play of \u201cHome and Beauty.\u201d The fact was very frankly\nbrought before the public, by a man who was eminently calculated to\ndisarm satire by sincerity. Colonel Wedgewood is a man who can never be\ntoo much honoured, by all who have any hope of popular liberties still\nfinding champions in the midst of parliamentary corruption. He is one of\nthe very few men alive who have shown both military and political\ncourage; the courage of the camp and the courage of the forum. And\ndoubtless he showed a third type of social courage, in avowing the\nabsurd expedient which so many others are content merely to accept and\nemploy. It is admittedly a frantic and farcical thing that a good man\nshould find or think it necessary to pretend to commit a sin. Some of\nthe divorce moralists seem to deduce from this that he ought really to\ncommit the sin. They may possibly be aware, however, that there are some\nwho do not agree with them.\n\nFor this latter fact is the next step in the speculative progress of the\nnew morality. The divorce advocates must be well aware that modern\ncivilisation still contains strong elements, not the least intelligent\nand certainly not the least vigorous, which will not accept the new\nrespectability as a substitute for the old religious vow. The Roman\nCatholic Church, the Anglo-Catholic school, the conservative\npeasantries, and a large section of the popular life everywhere, will\nregard the riot of divorce and re-marriage as they would any other riot\nof irresponsibility. The consequence would appear to be that two\ndifferent standards will appear in ordinary morality, and even in\nordinary society. Instead of the old social distinction between those\nwho are married and those who are unmarried, there will be a distinction\nbetween those who are married and those who are really married. Society\nmight even become divided into two societies; which is perilously\napproximate to Disraeli\u2019s famous exaggeration about England divided into\ntwo nations. But whether England be actually so divided or not, this\nnote of the two nations is the real note of warning in the matter. It\nis in this connection, perhaps, that we have to consider most gravely\nand doubtfully the future of our own country.\n\nAnarchy cannot last, but anarchic communities cannot last either. Mere\nlawlessness cannot live, but it can destroy life. The nations of the\nearth always return to sanity and solidarity; but the nations which\nreturn to it first are the nations which survive. We in England cannot\nafford to allow our social institutions to go to pieces, as if this\nancient and noble country were an ephemeral colony. We cannot afford it\ncomparatively, even if we could afford it positively. We are surrounded\nby vigorous nations mainly rooted in the peasant or permanent ideals;\nnotably in the case of France and Ireland. I know that the detested and\ndetestably undemocratic parliamentary clique, which corrupts France as\nit does England, was persuaded or bribed by a Jew named Naquet to pass a\ncrude and recent divorce law, which was full of the hatred of\nChristianity. But only a very superficial critic of France can be\nunaware that French parliamentarism is superficial. The French nation\nas a whole, the most rigidly respectable nation in the world, will\ncertainly go on living by the old standards of domesticity. When\nFrenchmen are not Christians they are heathens; the heathens who\nworshipped the household gods. It might seem strange to say, for\ninstance, that an atheist like M. Clemenceau has for his chief ideal a\nthing called piety. But to understand this it is only necessary to know\na little Latin--and a little French.\n\nA short time ago, as I am well aware, it would have sounded very strange\nto represent the old religious and peasant communities either as a model\nor a menace. It was counted a queer thing to say, in the days when my\nfriends and I first said it; in the days of my youth when the republic\nof France and the religion of Ireland were regarded as alike ridiculous\nand decadent. But many things have happened since then; and it will not\nnow be so easy to persuade even newspaper readers that Foch is a fool,\neither because he is a Frenchman or because he is a Catholic. The older\ntradition, even in the most unfashionable forms, has found champions in\nthe most unexpected quarters. Only the other day Dr. Saleeby, a\ndistinguished scientific critic who had made himself the special\nadvocate of all the instruction and organisation that is called social\nscience, startled his friends and foes alike by saying that the peasant\nfamilies in the West of Ireland were far more satisfactory and\nsuccessful than those brooded over by all the benevolent sociology of\nBradford. He gave his testimony from an entirely rationalistic and even\nmaterialistic point of view; indeed, he carried rationalism so far as to\ngive the preference to Roscommon because the women are still mammals. To\na mind of the more traditional type it might seem sufficient to say they\nare still mothers. To a memory that lingers over the legends and lyrical\nmovements of mankind, it might seem no great improvement to imagine a\nsong that ran \u201cMy mammal bids me bind my hair,\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m to be Queen of\nthe May, mammal, I\u2019m to be Queen of the May.\u201d But indeed the truth to\nwhich he testified is all the more arresting, because for him it was\nmaterialistic and not mystical. The brute biological advantage, as well\nas other advantages, was with those for whom that truth was a truth; and\nit was all the more instinctive and automatic where that truth was a\ntradition. The sort of place where mothers are still something more than\nmammals is the only sort of place where they still are mammals. There\nthe people are still healthy animals; healthy enough to hit you if you\ncall them animals. I also have, on this merely controversial occasion,\nused throughout the rationalistic and not the religious appeal. But it\nis not unreasonable to note that the materialistic advantages are really\nfound among those who most repudiate materialism. This one stray\ntestimony is but a type of a thousand things of the same kind, which\nwill convince any one with the sense of social atmospheres that the day\nof the peasantries is not passing, but rather arriving. It is the more\ncomplex types of society that are now entangled in their own\ncomplexities. Those who tell us, with a monotonous metaphor, that we\ncannot put the clock back, seem to be curiously unconscious of the fact\nthat their own clock has stopped. And there is nothing so hopeless as\nclockwork when it stops. A machine cannot mend itself; it requires a man\nto mend it; and the future lies with those who can make living laws for\nmen and not merely dead laws for machinery. Those living laws are not to\nbe found in the scatter-brained scepticism which is busy in the great\ncities, dissolving what it cannot analyse. The primary laws of man are\nto be found in the permanent life of man; in those things that have been\ncommon to it in every time and land, though in the highest civilisation\nthey have reached an enrichment like that of the divine romance of Cana\nin Galilee. We know that many critics of such a story say that its\nelements are not permanent; but indeed it is the critics who are not\npermanent. A hundred mad dogs of heresy have worried man from the\nbeginning; but it was always the dog that died. We know there is a\nschool of prigs who disapprove of the wine; and there may now be a\nschool of prigs who disapprove of the wedding. For in such a case as the\nstory of Cana, it may be remarked that the pedants are prejudiced\nagainst the earthly elements as much as, or more than, the heavenly\nelements. It is not the supernatural that disgusts them, so much as the\nnatural. And those of us who have seen all the normal rules and\nrelations of humanity uprooted by random speculators, as if they were\nabnormal abuses and almost accidents, will understand why men have\nsought for something divine if they wished to preserve anything human.\nThey will know why common sense, cast out from some academy of fads and\nfashions conducted on the lines of a luxurious madhouse, has age after\nage sought refuge in the high sanity of a sacrament.\n\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n\n\n\n_IX.--Conclusion_\n\n\nThis is a pamphlet and not a book; and the writer of a pamphlet not only\ndeals with passing things, but generally with things which he hopes will\npass. In that sense it is the object of a pamphlet to be out of date as\nsoon as possible. It can only survive when it does not succeed. The\nsuccessful pamphlets are necessarily dull; and though I have no great\nhopes of this being successful, I dare say it is dull enough for all\nthat. It is designed merely to note certain fugitive proposals of the\nmoment, and compare them with certain recurrent necessities of the race;\nbut especially the necessity for some spontaneous social formation freer\nthan that of the state. If it were more in the nature of a work of\nliterature, with anything like an ambition of endurance, I might go\ndeeper into the matter, and give some suggestions about the philosophy\nor religion of marriage, and the philosophy or religion of all these\nrather random departures from it. Some day perhaps I may try to write\nsomething about the spiritual or psychological quarrel between faith and\nfads. Here I will only say, in conclusion, that I believe the universal\nfallacy here is a fallacy of being universal. There is a sense in which\nit is really a human if heroic possibility to love everybody; and the\nyoung student will not find it a bad preliminary exercise to love\nsomebody. But the fallacy I mean is that of a man who is not even\ncontent to love everybody, but really wishes to be everybody. He wishes\nto walk down a hundred roads at once; to sleep in a hundred houses at\nonce; to live a hundred lives at once. To do something like this in the\nimagination is one of the occasional visions of art and poetry; to\nattempt it in the art of life is not only anarchy but inaction. Even in\nthe arts it can only be the first hint and not the final fulfillment; a\nman cannot work at once in bronze and marble, or play the organ and the\nviolin at the same time. The universal vision of being such a Briareus\nis a nightmare of nonsense even in the merely imaginative world; and\nends in mere nihilism in the social world. If a man had a hundred\nhouses, there would still be more houses than he had days in which to\ndream of them; if a man had a hundred wives, there would still be more\nwomen than he could ever know. He would be an insane sultan jealous of\nthe whole human race, and even of the dead and the unborn. I believe\nthat behind the art and philosophy of our time there is a considerable\nelement of this bottomless ambition and this unnatural hunger; and since\nin these last words I am touching only lightly on things that would need\nmuch larger treatment, I will admit that the rending of the ancient roof\nof man is probably only a part of such an endless and empty expansion. I\nasked in the last chapter what those most wildly engaged in the mere\ndance of divorce, as fantastic as the dance of death, really expected\nfor themselves or for their children. And in the deepest sense I think\nthis is the answer; that they expect the impossible, that is the\nuniversal. They are not crying for the moon, which is a definite and\ntherefore a defensible desire. They are crying for the world; and when\nthey had it, they would want another one. In the last resort they would\nlike to try every situation, not in fancy but in fact; but they cannot\nrefuse any and therefore cannot resolve on any. In so far as this is the\nmodern mood, it is a thing so deadly as to be already dead. What is\nvitally needed everywhere, in art as much as in ethics, in poetry as\nmuch as in politics, is choice; a creative power in the will as well as\nin the mind. Without that self-limitation of somebody, nothing living\nwill ever see the light.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[A] Written at the time of the last great German assaults.\n\n[B] The late Cecil Chesterton, in the \u201cNew Witness.\u201d","title":"The Superstition of Divorce","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":24256}