HUSBANDS AND WIVES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17954, 5 June 1920, Page 2

HUSBANDS AND WIVES.

marriage and the modern

NOVEL.

Bi Constant Readeb.

"It is at last beginning to dawn oven ou tiio Housq of Commons that the institution of marriage is in grave danger," asserts tho writer of an article in tho English liovJow 011 "The Future of Marriage," and even a cursory examination of the modorn novel appears to sustain the assertion. Tho difference mado by the conturies in tho literary _ treatment of matrimonial incompatibilities and domestic infelicities can scarcely be more strikingly illustrated than in the contrast between such a book as Douglas .ierrold's well-known jeu d'esprit "Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures," first published in 1845, and tho average novel of the year 1920, wliicli deals with the marriage problem. Soventy-fivo years ago the •'Curtain Lectures delivered' in the course of Thirty "fears by Mrs Margaret Caudle and suffered by Job, her Husband," made matter for merriment cm the part of young and old alike. Indeed tho consciousness that the case of Job and Margaret Caudle reflected only too faithfully the actual condition of things in multitudes of households, made the merriment all the more uproarious. And because the comical side of the relation between husbands and -wives was mad© so prominent, there was little talk of separation or divorce. The Darby and Joan sentiment was well leavened by the comicalities of the Caudles, and thus matrimony in tho Victorian era went evenly on its way. There followed inevitably the onrush of Ibsenism and all that it stood -for— the exnosure of the hypocrisy too often disguised as domesticity and; the tyranny and selfishness which dominated much of the marriage relation. As a result there set in a spirit of stem seriousness which refused to see fun in the squabbles of husband and wife, and which set to work to search out causes, and analyse motives, and by a process of unflinching introspection reach a real remedy. The twentieth century sees public opinion | deeply concerned.witii the question: of marriage, divorce, separation, and irregular union. One section of society, headed bv Mr G. K. Chesterton, protests against in< creased facilities for laxity and insist that the tightening of the marriage bond will le>v! to reflection before entering upon b'fe-long union. Another section, represented by Mr G. Bernard Shaw, advocates that if divorce be made as easy as marriage, husbands and wives win hesitate before making the final breach. A third and more radical section inclines towards a condition in -which irregular unions, for' a timo at least, -will predominate. With these thoughts in mind, a glance at a number of new novels—both English and American—which touch on the matter of marriage from varying points of view, may prove not without profit and instruction. Mr S. P. B. Mais is among the younger writers. For 10 years he "was a teacher in three of the great English public schools; he is a great believer in modern literature he gained high honours at Oxford; and in his novels and other books he reflects the spirit of the times. His -latest novel, "Uncle Lionel," is frankly a sfcndy of modern marriage during and after the waT—not aristocratic marriage, nor the mixed matrimony of the slums, but the relations of an average couple of that well-to-do upper middle class which bulks so largely in the Homeland to-day. In telling his story Mr Mais I has adopted something of the familiar W. J. Locke manner—that is to say, h© puts the narration into the mouth of a benevolent "Uncle Lionel," who, being a looker-on, sees both the best and the worst of Michael and Patricia, the two people mainly concerned in the story. Michael is in love with Patricia, but owing to incompatibility of temperament the two are eternally "scrapping." Michael is a model husband in regard at least to external conduct. Patricia is flirtatious, especially with wounded officers, amongst whom Major Wreford is prime .favourite. At a dance at the Albert Hall to celebrate the armistice Michael, who had a temper, _ knocked Wreford down and carried Patricia off by force, and for a while these violent measures seemed to subdue her wanton unruliness. Gradually, however, her infatuation for Wreford began to manifest itself, until at length she took the irrevocable step and eloped with him. Michael, eventually set freo by divorce, solaced himself with a little girl called Phyllis. This bare outline of the book by no means exhausts its interest, which centres around the general matrimonial atmosphere generated by war condition and its" aftermath. The picture is scarcely a ploasant one, but, like all Mr Mais's books, it jjives the reader seriously to think.

Mr Gonverneur is a popular American novelist with half a score or so of stories to .Ms name, and in "The Wild Goose" he attacks the marriage problem from quite another angle. Frank Manne.rs, an artiit, loved his -wife, Diana, and his little daughter, Tam; but the fly in .the ointment was a man named Ogden Fenn, who during Manners's frequent absences from homo hung about Diana. At length' matters oame to a crisis when Diana declared her preference for Fenn,'and implored Frank to set her free. This leads to an incredible situation. The husband is represented as loving his wife so well that he determines to give her freedom without exposing her to a breaihof scandal. Accordingly he conquers "his innate repulsion to the idea, and is deliberately unfaithful to her in order to afford her the only grounds for divorce possible under the law of the New York State. And the book ends in tragedy, horrible and unrelieved. _ "The "Wild Goose," in addition to being an unpleasant story, comes also under the criticism of dulness. The conversations between husband and wife aro interminable and too long drawn out, and before the end is rcached impatience with the foolishly "fond husband and indignation with the overspirited wife will probably have reached its pitch. The reader will decline to accept the picture ps true of the average American married couple. Mr J. A. T. Lloyd blossomed into literary fame as author of a readable book on Doetoevsky and other of the Russian writers. He is also responsible for a readable novel called "The Uprooters." In a new story called "Prestige" he brgaks new ground. Two of the principal characters in tho book —Sir Jamea_ Growing, a mammoth newspaper proprietor, and his entfrgetic factotum Holden—might have been lifted bodily out of Mr Kennedy Jones's "Fleet Street and Downing Street." Indeed, the backgrounds of "Prestige" will prove fascinating to those anxious to make acquaintance with the inside workings of a huge London newspaper enterprise. "Golding's Building," familiarly known as "The Building," was tha home of many journals expressly designed to suit the public tasto and run entirely on commercial lines for the express purpose of moliey-making. The advertising department was the real lord of the establishment. and men and women _of talent and ability am represented as being forced to debase their gifts and lower their literary aspirations in order to satisfy the demands of an ever greedv' advertising octopus. In this London newspaper world next to the tyranny of advertising came the intrigues of the women in the story;, nnd the "Building" is pictured a3 a hotbed of tcandal and the home of many matrimonial irregularities. In well nigh every ease the woman is married to the wrong man and the man to the wrong woman, and the .-.huff'ing of the pack is proceeded with apparently without any feeling of shame or sense of unfitness. The 'scene of the story is London, and the time just before the declaration of war. Mr Lloyd has succeeded in writing a powerful novel, something at least of which is true to type. As a disillusionment of journalism as a means of livelihood nothing could bo more effective. As a deterrent to marriage on the part of litterateurs it may also serve. j If ;t be urged that in its treatment of tho marriage question the English modern novel is almost devoid of sentipient, the laok is abundantly atoned for in a multitude of Amer'Civi stories. "Th-s Greater Glory," by Mr William Dudley Pelley, is described as "a no.'il of a Now England town," and right- well dp?.s it answer to the description. Here again the background is a newspaper office; riot the mammoth building of a gigantic journalistic trust, but the office of a little country newspaper in a Vermont village. In that office Mary Wood, driven from home by the cruelty of a stepfather, i.ad ?. job, . and "learned the case"; and from that office Mary married Jack Purse, a yultng man deeply in debt. Thenceforward the --tory is one of husband and wife, wit.h in over-increasing family, struggling along undi;r heavy financial embarrassments »nd "siirrnandrd hy the quickly flowing stream of village life, all viewed from tho newspxpor office window. Since "The Greater Glory" has the proverbial happy ending :.nd is remarkably well told, it is likely to be a favourite with all who incline to homely, healthy sentiment.. A greater contrast to "Prestige" cannot well be vjmaginAl.

Mr Gilbert Frankan has inherited a meed oE the story-telling faculty from liia mother, who \vTota under the pseudonym of "Frank Dauby," and whose "Heart of a Child" will long live in the memory of the most inveterate nor el reader. In addition to a not .jneonsidarablo volume of verse, Mr Frankan :s responsible for "Tho Women of the Horizon," a story in which he skilfully embodied the experiences pained during a voyage round the world. Ho has now woven his experiences of war time, gained while in tho trenches, in a notable novel called "Peter Jackson, Cigar Merchant," and described as i romance of married life. When war broke .>ut Peter Jackson was doing well in his cigar business, was happily married, and had a daughter; but tho war completely upset things. Anything further removed from Peter's semi-luxurious existence as head of a prosperous firm. and his lifo in tho trenches cannot well be imagined, and Mr Frankan has defined that contrast clearly and well, so that it _ carries it own moral. The story is fascinating from two different points of view. In tho first place it furnishes a wonderful series of vivid etchings of the "war, the outcome of a first-hand experience, which will live as literature after intcrost in the story has died. Secondly, tho story is mado alivo by* tho skilful evolution .of the marriage relationship existing between Peter and his wife Patricia. Peter married Patricia in March, 1906; 'it was a marriage of affection, kindred tastes, and mutual respect. A marriage which appealed to them (both had a youthful contempt for sentiment) as eminently reasonable.' A marriage into which both had entered with the definite certainty that there would be no passion, no misunderstandings, no petty economies, no vital divergences of opinion. A marriage which—as most marriages—ended by utterly confuting all their original ideas about it." Very skilfully Mr Frankan brings out tho point that the basis of a marriage suitable and in harmony with the piping times of peace failed utterly to survive tho stress and angiysh of the war. It was not until Peter came home wounded from the war and suffering from neurasthenia th;:i Patricia awoke to the love which is the foundation of all true marriage. Incidentally tho sidelights in neurasthenia and its treatment cast by Heron Baynet, a "famous specialist," are quite illuminating. So many novels represent marriage as having been ruined by the war, but it is refreshing to come across a story showing ! another point of view. "Peter Jackson" I stands out from the ruck as one of the best constructed and most readable novels of tho day.