A History of the Wife (41 page)

THE NEW WOMAN IN ENGLAND

In England, during the 1880s and 1890s, the Woman Question reached its crescendo. Newspaper and magazine articles, novels and plays, public speeches and private conversations centered around the New Woman—an expression invented in 1894 to describe an already familiar phenomenon.
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The New Woman was recognizable by her education, her independence, her tendency to flaunt traditional fam- ily values and blur the boundaries between conventional male and female behavior. She was, in the eyes of her admirers, the long- awaited feminine savior who would set things right between the sexes and bestow untold benefits upon family and society. But in the eyes of her detractors, she was no less than a reprehensible virago, a freak of nature bound to destroy the hallowed separation of gendered

spheres and wreak havoc on such sacred institutions as marriage and motherhood.

Let there be no doubt about it—the New Woman scandal was rooted in anxieties over the future of the wife. While other issues, such as female sexuality, education, employment, and women’s suffrage, became increasingly prominent, feminist protests were seen primarily as attacks on “true womanhood,” that is, the self-sacrificing, all-caring spouse and mother. What would become of the family if married women had a truly egalitarian union with their husbands?

The first to bring this question to broad public attention in England was Mona Caird in her August 1888 article entitled “Marriage,” pub- lished in the
Westminster Review.
Her piece provoked no less than 27,000 letters sent in less than two months to the
Daily Telegraph,
which had invited the public to comment on it.

What exactly had Caird written to initiate such an unprecedented epistolary outpouring, called by one of her contemporaries “the great- est newspaper controversy of modern times”?
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In essence, she had drawn from feminist thinkers like Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill the conviction that women had been kept in subjection for cen- turies because it suited men’s purposes, and that marriage was the pri- mary institution by which women continued to be held in bondage. She attributed the idea of “possession in marriage” to the ancient prac- tice of bride purchase, lingering on in the modern marriage market whereby a nubile Victorian woman effectively sold herself to the high- est bidder.

In her brief and often arbitrary history, Caird reserved particular vit- riol for Luther. It was he, she argued, who had denied the religious sanctity of marriage, turned it into a commercial contract, and “reduced it to something little above a licensed sin.” She dismissed outright the view held by others “that Protestantism dignified mar- riage” and concluded that Reformation thinkers like Luther and Melanchthon were responsible for the belief, still current in Victorian society, that a woman’s major duty in life was to bear children, even if she died from it.

Caird pronounced marriage “a failure.” Because a wife was still sub- ject to a “system of purchase,” she was forced to develop her moral standards
“in accordance with her servitude to man.”
A wife did not honor her own intelligence, education, or chastity, except to the extent that it

was “relative” to her husband. Or, as Caird forcefully put it:
“The woman must protect the man’s property in herself.”
Conversely, because the wife’s virtues “belong” to her husband, he sees himself “dishonoured” by any of her failings. The idea that a man’s honor can be injured by his wife’s infidelity is, in Caird’s eyes, “a most naive proclamation of the theory of proprietorship.” While it may hold up in a divorce court, given the law’s tendency to equate wives with property, she asks a more funda- mental existential question: “Is it possible to be really dishonoured by any action except one’s own?” (That question could certainly be applied to
A Doll’s House
and Helmer’s worry that his wife’s forgery would tar- nish
his
reputation.)

Caird offered a number of radical proposals to alter this state of “degrading bondage.” One solution was to reject marriage altogether. This was the option taken by “an increasing number of women . . . refusing a life of comparative ease in marriage, rather than enter upon it as a means of livelihood, for which their freedom has to be sacri- ficed.”

But Caird did not really want to do away with marriage. What she wanted was not “destruction” but “rebirth,” a process that would come about through the elimination of certain marital wrongs, including the legal obligation for spouses, even those unhappily married, to live together. Throughout the nineteenth century, proven adultery was the only grounds for divorce, and the legal costs involved made even that possibility prohibitive for most English men and women. Caird advo- cated more liberal divorce laws, as well as better education for girls so they could support themselves and not be obliged to marry for money. Marriage could then more easily become a matter of true choice based on love and friendship, rather than a sense of duty. These changes would be brought about by many people of both sexes who were, in her opinion, dissatisfied with present arrangements. Believing that a moral renaissance was in the making, Caird pointed to “the remarkable tumult of thought during the last few years, signs and wonders which seem to herald an awakening,” and she invited her readers to join in the debate.

The selection of letters published in the
Daily Telegraph
in response to Caird’s article came from wives, husbands, single women, bache- lors, widows and widowers, curates, barmaids, physicians, sailors, a nurse, an artist, a physicist, an actress, a furrier, several lady clerks,

and more. They were all members of the self-respecting middle class, except for a handful of working-class correspondents. Their letters either agreed wholeheartedly with Caird’s views or disagreed just as wholeheartedly. They told their personal stories of happiness or mis- ery, offered reasons why traditional marriage should not be tampered with, or made suggestions for its improvement. Many gave advice to a particular letter writer who had preceded them. This correspondence offers a remarkable panorama of British marriages at the end of the nineteenth century, including numerous miniature self-portraits. The following selection is divided into letters from 1) women who consid- ered their marriages a failure, and 2) women who considered their marriages a success.

MARRIAGE FAILURES

I must say I concur in the suggestion that greater facilities should be afforded for divorce. Let me cite my own case. My husband is a helpless drunkard. It is true, he earns a good living and keeps me in compara- tive luxury; but is this an adequate consideration for the fact that I have to associate with a drunken, besotted husband five nights out of seven? LUCRETIA, Westbourne Park, Aug. 20.

I am one of those who have most unhappily found marriage a most dismal failure. Married when only a girl, after a few years I am practi- cally a widow, having been obliged, from my husband’s brutality, to seek a separation. This was not until, through his brutality, I lost an eye, principally owing to the very merciful law which compelled me to live with a man until I was maimed for life. . . . M.S., Bedford Street, Strand, Aug. 21.

I should indeed be grateful to Mrs. Mona Caird, or to anybody else, who would show us unhappily married folk a decent way out of our dif- ficulties. Marriage, in my case, has been a miserable failure, simply because my husband and I do not suit each other. Ours is a clear case of incompatibility, proved beyond all doubt by the almost daily jarring and wrangling of some fourteen years. . . . We have both broken every vow we made to each other on our wedding day, save one; and being highly moral, if nothing else, we must still endure, wearing out our days

in mutual misery, and darkening and embittering our children’s lives by a loveless and joyless home. . . . A TIRED WIFE, Felpham, near Bognor, Aug. 21.

I myself am a deserted wife, and my husband has treated me with exceptional contempt and unkindness, but I am proud to say that so great is my reverence for the sanctity of the marriage vow, that if my husband sent for me to return to him to-morrow, I would go, and with a hearty will and friendly affection strive to do my duty to him. A City Merchant’s Wife. Worthing, Sept. 10.

I married, unthinkingly, a man whom I did not love. I thought that perhaps I might grow to care for him, but I did not do so. . . . As I am his wife, I consider that I ought to stay with him, but my whole soul revolts against being tied to a man for whom I have no particle of love, and who, in tastes, character, and pursuits, is my direct opposite. I reflect how much better a woman I should have been had love and not duty, ruled me. . . . MATRIMONIAL ADVENTURER, Norwood Sept. 20.

My partner and I suffer from a total incompatibility of disposition. We do not quarrel but there is an absolute want of sympathy—an absolute antipathy of every thought and feeling. . . .

. . . I believe there would be fewer fretful, unhappy, and broken- down wives if husbands would see that their wives had amusements and occupations, apart from domestic matters. . . .

Another case of “Failure” in marriage is the objection English hus- bands have to their wives being independent in money matters. . . . Few men realise how humiliating it is to a woman of independent spirit to ask for every sixpence, nor the spirit of bitterness and rebellion that it engenders. . . . A LOST LIFE, Darenth, Kent, Sept. 26.

These letters and others from unhappy wives often attributed the cause of their misery to the husband, who was portrayed as brutal, con- temptuous, unkind, and given to drink. The letter writer usually pic- tured herself as a person who had made every effort to be a “model wife,” with “high notions of devotion and self-sacrifice,” yet the circum- stances of her union had defeated her, and all she desired was a way out that would be sanctioned by the laws of her land and the precepts of

her religion. Still, none was willing to sin through adultery in order to get a divorce.

Some of the wives recognized incompatibility of character as the problem. They did not point the finger at their husbands any more than they pointed it at themselves. Indeed, one woman admitted that she was simply “unfit for marriage.” Like the other correspondents, she protested against the laws that made it impossible for her and her hus- band to leave each other.

HAPPILY MARRIED

[W]ill you allow a married woman of twenty years’ experience to say a few words? . . . Marriage was instituted, I humbly conceive, in the interest of the weaker portion of humanity, viz. women and children, and it works more to their advantage than otherwise. Men could prob- ably content themselves very well—and many do—with a system of free,
i.e.,
temporary marriage. . . . The woman, I suppose, was intended to be subject. “He shall rule over thee,” was part of the curse pronounced on the first human sinner, Eve. . . . I write from a feminine standpoint only; and while admitting that marriage is often very disap- pointing, it cannot be considered a total failure so long as it carries on the race legitimately and surrounds the woman with the dignity— almost sanctity—of true wifehood and honourable motherhood. FAITH AND HOPE, Brighton, Aug. 10.

If you are sensible, intelligent, and diplomatic women, and do not expect too much of your husbands, you may be happy wives as a rule. . . . Use your own judgment in the treatment of the particular specimen of the genus homo on whom you bestow your affections. Above all, recollect that there must always be something on both sides to put up with, so bear and forbear; and if you get a decent fellow, he will love, respect, and appreciate you for it. If you find that your hus- band is at all inclined to go astray, give him a latchkey; he will soon tire of a liberty which is not disputed. Don’t sit up for him. Go to your rest contentedly, and meet him with a sweet, unsuspecting smile, and no embarrassing questions on his return in the small hours of the morning. . . . Under these circumstances your husbands will find no sport at all, and I warrant, will return home nightly at regular and

respectable hours less than a month after. It rests with yourselves to a great extent whether your marriage turn out failures or not. EMILY COFFIN, London, Aug. 14.

On the eve of my marriage I made three mental vows. They were— never to aggravate him, never to have a secret from him, nor by any selfish or thoughtless act of mine to lead him one step towards bank- ruptcy. Fifteen years afterwards I told him of those vows, and although I have been a widow for ten years, I should blot this paper with my tears if I attempted to put it in writing the love and tenderness of his reply. . . . A BELIEVER IN THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE, Lincoln, Aug. 20.

Will you give a workman’s wife a chance to say a few words on the marriage question? . . . Now, I am a married woman of forty years’ wedlock standing; therefore what I say is entitled to consideration. My verdict is “Marriage is not a failure,” and I will show you why I think so. At fifteen, when I was an apprentice girl, I fell in love with my— well, my old man. He was an apprentice boy, four years older. We were very happy—happy as the finest swells that ever wooed, though neither of us consulted our parents as to our choice, and we enjoyed courting on the quiet, and we longed for the day when we could get married. As soon as he was out of his time we fixed the day; and one morning we both of us took a day off and marched away to church with a shopmate a-piece for witnesses and wedding train, and were united by a good- natured person, who seemed to relish the job of making so young and good-looking couple man and wife. My dowry was the love I had to give. His means were just what he could win week by week as a jour- neyman. With no bank account, and with but the slenderest sort of “establishment,” we set up in matrimony, and we were as happy as was possible. Within a year my first boy was born. He has had eight broth- ers and sisters, and seven of them live in manhood and woman- hood. . . . Why are we made men and women? Clearly to be partners one to the other, and to fulfill the divine mandate “Increase and multi- ply.” We are not put on this earth by God merely to amuse ourselves, but to do a work. Woman’s work is to be a mother, and form her chil- dren’s minds and educate their hearts. But in acquitting herself of these duties she finds wondrous joys if she be a true woman. What greater