MODERN MARRIAGES.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 282, 26 November 1921, Page 17

MODERN MARRIAGES.

PASSIING OF THE LOVE MATCH

ARNOLD BENNETT ON •SUBMISSIVENESS."

Girls have a new attitude towards men and towards life. They ~ce more of life than tlieir mothers did at their ago. Hence, in addition to acquiring a relative independence of spirit, they have become wary. ]n other words, they are loss apt to l>e rash and foolish in the great decision.-. One leading result of this is the gradual decline of the fine old British institution of the love-match. And (I sayl not a bad result either! (says Arnold Uennett in "The Sunday Pictorial"). At which expression of opinion many reader* will be angry, and some very angry. Whut! Abolish love in marriagei What! Adopt the heartless continental system of the deliberately arranged marriage, the marriage of convenience! Well, nobody wants to abolish love in marriage, and nobody could. liut we must understand what we mean when we say "love." The majority of love-matelies are matches of passion, which too frequently no practical consideration has bci-n allowed to restrain. The parties '—and especially the $rl —enter into them in a state of mind and body which is abnormal, and under the moet astounding illusion. The illusion is that the abnormal state of mind and body is normal, and will continue inI definitely.

It won't. Xot one passion in a thousand lasts, ac a passion, more than three "years. Few last, as passions, more than cix months; an appreciable proportion do not survive the honeymoon. The passion may settle down into a solid and enduring calm affection, or it may wither into a tolerant mutual indifference; or it may degenerate into acute dislike. At best the disillusion io serious; at worst it is appalling. The one conceivable advantage of the love-match pure and simple is that it does furnish a unique emotional experience.

Now the '"heartless continental eye-1 tern" (as sentimentalists call it) surely «annot claim to provide this unique emotional experience, with its delicious and iU dreadful moments. On the contrary, for good or evil, it expresely avoids such experience. The parties are not in an. abnormal state when they enter into th-e contract.

The girl—l speak more particularly of her—is under no passional illusion. She does not imagine that her life is ready made. She knows that she has to build it up. And. she sets about building it up. She may fail, of course; but, on the other hand, a solid and enduring affection may be reached, and very often is reached.

Moreover, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Do Continental marriages work out on the average less satisfactorily than Anglo-Saxon marriage's? They positively do not. Therefore, I .welcome the decline of the lovematch in Anglo-Saxon countries. For, if in France, for example, "reason" in marriage has ruled too absolutely, in Britain, for example, "passion" has ruled too absolutely; and there is now some hope that we may be approaching the happy mean.

RIVALRY OF THE SEXE?. The point of tho above is that it furnishes a remarkable illustration of the great and broad fact that girls are trying to look after themselves better ■than they used to do. Necessarily

■t*ik implies that they are becoming the rivals of men in the struggle for the sweets of life.

I do not refer to the chivalry of the r eexes in the various professions and \ callings which make up Hie activity of 1 a national existence. That particular 1 rivalry is important in a material j sense—for women liave already almost ] completely ousted men from certain f fields of work—but to my mind it is not so important as the general rivalry, which may be expressed thus: — In the opinion of women, men have hitherto had a better time than women. (Some men would attempt to deny this. but I do not think that it can be eucceseufllv denied.) Women arc now determined to have as good a time as men. To speak bluntly, they are .Jetermined that in marriage there shall be a vast deal less subjection than tliere was. Some, instead of raying ''le.se subjection." would eey "less servitude ,, or even - ie.ss slavery." And I for one. pro uld «dmit that in applying these horrid words they were not epeaking too strongly. Let us remember that not many years have passed since British married women were first allowed the control of their own property. Let us remember that to-day, in 1921, the British Government, when it collect* income tax absolutely declines to recognise that women may have a separate income! ! Meanwhile, despite progress achieved in the great new rivalry, it cannot he contested that the majority of foreigners visiting Britain and studying its social conditions are simply amazed lat the "submiesiveness" of British wives. iXo doubt it is like their impudence to jte amazol at the submissiveness of ! j British wives, and British wives may I resent the imputation, and British husbands may object to the foreigner making trouble in the British household by his ill-timed criticism. But there you are! That is what foreigners think; and you may take it as a maxim that what foreigners think of us. whether pleasant or unpleasant, • ] has some bias of truth in it.

You may also take it as a maxim 1 that merely to claim and pretvnd to exercise intellectual independence is not enough. Intellectual independence inindividual iiea* about things, and individual ideas oamiot Ihj ohtainecl without study and reflection. Further, study and reflection are hound to re-ult in intellectual independence.