FAILURE OF THE PLATONIC MARRIAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 16, 19 January 1901, Page 3 (Supplement)

FAILURE OF THE PLATONIC MARRIAGE.

AX AMUSING NEW 10RK CASE

Lord find Lady Algy—the Lord and Lady Afgy of real life—are no longer chums.

It is the lUlure of a "platonic marriage." The story, as told by tVie "New York World," Is as follows:—

Lady Al?y is suiug Lord Algy, her platon lc lii;s''iLd, for divorce.

You probably remember tlie play. Well, the I'viug embodiment of this husband and wife,, who were married and who liked each other but did not live together, are Mr and Mrs Harry Gillig, of New York.

The Gi.ngs were just good pals. Oftener than not, they did not see each other for months nt a time, but when Mr Gillig mot Mrs GHMg they were boch as pleased as they wero by chance Mrs Gillig met Mr Qiilig.

Jt was a strange case of combination of platouie affection and matrimony. They were rarely together for more than a supper party, yet they thoroughly enjoyed each other's society. As was the case in "Lord and Lady Algy rf " Mr Ciliij was '"dear boy" to Mrs Gillig, and Mrs Gillig was "clear girl" to him. They were fond of each other, but their tastes were so completely different that they did not care to live together.

No more charming fellow lives than Harry Gillig. No more charming woman can be found than Mrs Gillig.

They were always extremely glad to see each other, this man and his wife. They really were. There could be no doubt about that. But they were glad to see each other exactly as Mr Brown might be glad to sc-e Mra Jones, and Mrs Jones glad to see Mr Brown. No one would ever have dreamed that they WERE MAN AND WII'H.

They were merely good friends — that was all. When they met she would ysk" liira to sit by her, and they would talk over things in which they were both Interested. When tbe conversation legitimately ended—exactly as all conversations legitimately end—he rofce and said "good afternoon."

"Good-bye, dear chap," she answered, and he went away.

lv ali probability he went to some other part of the world. He Is a great globetrotter. He is a famous yachtsman, and generally nil all-round good fellow. Most of the time he is travelling. He is known among many of his friends as the "Commodore," because he was at one time Commodore of the Larehmont Yacht Club. He has been around the world twice in his owu yacht.

Of course, this state of affairs could not exist between two people who did not have money. But both the Gilligs have money, and they have much of it. Mrs Gillig's house at Larehmont Is the show-place of the summer colony there, and her town house, at 102 East Thirty-fifth street, is a mansion. It is furnished as might be a palace, and soft-voiced, soft-footed Japanese servants are ready at every moment to do the bidding of the mistress or tii<3 guest.

She Is a faddist. At present her fad is dogs. There has been much in the papers about her dogs of late, because somebodypoisoned a number of them at Larehmont uot very long ago.

There Is no reason to believe that this person had any particular reason for poison! ug Mrs Gillig's dogs, though, because many other dogs were also victims.

Mrs Gillig Is a niece of the late Charles Crocker, of Pacific Railroad fame, and eloped In her early womanhood with Porter Ashe. This marriage was an unhappy one, and she secured a divorce. At the time of her marriage to Mr Ashe she was one of the feigning belles of the Pacific Coast.

Mr Gillig gained a fortune by inheritance, and was, besides, extremely fortunate in his ventures as a fruit-grower in the neighbourhood of Los Angeles, Cal. The marriage of the two who are now about to he separated as man and wife through the medium of the courts was ALMOST AS UNCONVENTIONAL as Mrs Gillig's first marriage to Mr Ashp. It occurred at the Broadway Tabernacle, in this city, in July, 1889. None of their friends, except one or two who acted as Witnesses, know of it, and these kept the matter so quiet that no one else hoard of it until the pair wore well on their way to Europe on their honeymoon.

It was essentially the marriage of .the New Man to the New Woman. They decided to avoid conventionalities. It was their contention that most of the unhappy marriage.'! came from the fact that men and women who wore married twice were not really as good friends as wore people who had not taken the vows and who simply knew each other as acquaintances.

'•Men and their wives are rarely chums," commented Mrs Gillig. "They are too much weighed down by the feeling that they havb made themselves responsible for each other and to each other to be really good companions. .We ,do uot propose to be so foolish. Wo are not ouly to be man and wife, but we are to be pals.

"I am going to feel that whatever Harry does is his affair, and whatever I do is my affair. There will be no senseless criticism. I know that 1 can trust him, and ho knows that he can trust me. I cannot see why a partnership which comes through marriage should be run on less rational lines than the partnership which is brought about through a community of business interests. In one case it is always, of course, a partnership between a man and a woman. In the other case it is usually a partnership between two men.

"The former partnerships are failures In more cases than we hear of through the divorce courts, but a largo majority of the other partnerships succeed. Now, why? Simply because the latter are ratlonnl and the others are not. In tho partnership between men the two parties are careful to consider each other's opinions; to feel that one man Is as good as another. In the partnership between a man and a woman,which is what marriage means, the woman and the tuau both assume the PRIVILEGES OF ACTUAL PROPRIETORSHIP. "That 19 where the mistake is made. No man can really own a woman. No woman

can really own a man or rule him.But people who get married think they can do these things. Both sides think they can do such things. And that is the whole trouble. Harry aud I are dot to make this mistake. We are to be rational married people."

Well, they tried it and they failed. When they found that their tastes were not alike' they maae up their minds tiiat they wouia not live together, but they decided that they would be good friends. They have been bo iiptil now, but now there Is the suit In the divorce court.

There Is another notable case of the same kind in London. It is known to most Ame-

ricans who regularly visit the English capital and meet the cosmopolitans whom one finds there. The parties to it are Lord and Lady de Grey. They are among the principal backers of grand opera in London, and it is said that at times they have to put up a deal of money to help the managers of grand opera in New York.

They are also very rich, and -they are good friends," but not more than that.

Their attempt to make marriage a platonic affair—an affair of good friendship, and nothing more—seems to have succeeded. Lady de Grey was the widow of the fourth Earl Lonsdale (the "Red Earl") before she became the wife of Earl de Grey.

She is a beautiful woman and a clever woman. She is at the head of the "high class Bohemian set" in London. That set is extraordinary. It does what it pleases, but it never does anything which could be really seriously questioned by conventional people—except that it avoids conventionalities. For instance, the women in it smoke. At least some of them do. But for a woman to smoke is NOT A REAL CRIME in the eyes of London people. Sometimes gay people in London would be at supper with Lady de Grey when Lord de Grey happened to stroll into the Savoy. Hotel after they had not seen each other for a long time. Lady de Grey would beckon to him. Whes. he saw her he always went to her with, something more than alacrity and took tha seat at her side that she motioned him to. "Hello, old chap," was this lady's usual greeting to her noble husband. "Dear girl; I am delighted to see you," was the husband's answer. "I haven't seen you for an age. How've you been getting along? Are you well?" They were really good friends, and ther* never has been any talk of a legal separation between them. Even the British Mr? Grandy—and she is a very terrible person Indeed—has nothing whatever to sayagainsj the life of either of them. And that is most unusual.

In the play called "Lord and Lady Algy" the wife and husband have failed to live happily together, and she calls upon him at his chambers—or his apartments, as "we would say in New York. They have a rather interesting session for man and wife, and finally she goes away.

Later his father assails her character, oS does something of the kind. Lord Algy defends her as a gentleman should, and there Is a great scene in the play. After this he goes to a fancy dress ball and becomes intoxicated. There are those there among his friends who desert him in this emergency, but there is one there—the wife Who does not live with him, but who Is hfs good pal—who does not.

And the scene of the act is where she takes him away from the ball—proud to look after him even if they do not live as man and wife usually do. But "Lord and Lady Algy," the play, turned out quite differently from the real life story of Mr and Mrs Harry Gillig. In "Lord and Lady Algy" the pair are reconciled at the end of the piece. Tlie final scene, which means their complete happiness and their abiding joy, is where she goes to him as he sits upon a sofa, and taking one of his cigarettes—a brand she has always disliked— lights it from his, and says: "I think I will smoke the same brand that you smoke after this." In the play the woman gives up." She submits to the man's judgment as to the relative value of different brands of cigarettes, and she probably afterwards submitted to his judgment in other things.

In real life Mr and Mrs Harry GiHig hnve found that platonic marriage was a failure. Mrs Gillig is suing for divorce.