Knickebein on Aged Husbands.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXV, Issue 22, 2 December 1905, Page 60

Knickebein on Aged Husbands.

In the great work of Professor Ludwig Kniekebein, entitled “The Physical and Intellectual Bases of Beauty,” there are to be found some severe animadver s-ions on certain perversions of mar riage. The subject of the distinguished German philosopher’s book may not seem at first sight to be intimately con neeted with the matrimonial problem. To show that the physical basis of beauty is nothing more or less than fat and the intellectual basis repose, which is the purpose of Kniekebein’s monograph. it might not seem that any discussion of marriage is necessary. How ever, discuss it Kniekebein certainly does, and no one who has read the book will quarrel with him for wandering a little from the straight path of esthetic investigation. To be discursive is to be

interesting, and when the professor for gets fat and repose for 50 pages and takes up the marriage question, he grips his reader’s attention with renewed vigour.

Kniekebein can be flippant when he pleases, and when flippancy argues no surrender of principle; he can also indulge a cynical humour when the spice of cynicism does not spoil the flavour of his discourse. But these qualities are scantily indulged when the professor writes on marriage. There are certain phases of married life which Kniekebein regards as deserving of the light switch of indulgent criticism, but on most matrimonial problems he is eminently serious. The trend of the professor’s mind is essentially ethical, and on all such matters he seems to think it incum-

bent on him to take a lofty moral stand. This is especially the case when he treats of what he calls the supreme misalliance. To this he has devoted a special chapter. Kniekebein’s so-called “supreme misalliance” is nothing more than the marriage between a young woman and an old man. All the resources of his logic and all the bitterness of his feelings are employed in a tremendous arraignment of such unions.

“Ever since a fair maid was sacrificed to the selfishness of the withered monarch of Israel, history has recorded these monstrous unions at frequent intervals,’ says Professor Kniekebein. “No doubt they are as old as the world itself, for nothing has been found in the cuneiform inscriptions or the runic rhymes to show that men were not anciently’ as heartless and women as foolish in this regard as they are to-day. From the early records of creation, as set forth by Hesiod, to the voluminous histories compiled by the Byzantine chroniclers instances of this supreme misalliance abound to the eternal dishonour of humanity. The coming of Christianity with a new rule of morals did not eradicate the evil. The spectacle of so-called Christians uniting themselves in these horribly disproportionate marriages is still frequently presented to make the thoughtful man blush for bis species.

“The absurd delicacy of modern taste is responsible for the continuation of this evil. The literary embargo that is rigidly enforced against authors who speak their minds for the good of man has condemned ‘The Wife of Bath’ to perpetual exclusion from literary' respectability and damned ‘January and May’ to the limbo of things that may not be discussed, however much they' are read. And so because this cowardly old world will not face its most important problems youth and health and the pure blood of healthy’ youth are tainted with all the poisons of old age, the promise of blooming girlhood is spoiled by legalised slavery to the will of tottering senility' and the bloom of life is brushed off with the hand, as it were of death.”

“What is the result of the union of a young girl with an aged man?” continues the professor. “The wife, let us say, is just eighteen; he who disgraces the name of husband has already passed fifty. Eighteen years! They indicate at most twelve years of reasoning ex-

perienee—twelve years spent in the calm atmosphere of home and school. The world, the real harsh, cruel, sensual world has never penetrated there to disturb the sweet dreams of innocence or to shatter the pure ideals drawn from the books that are usually placed in a young lady’s hands. That is one phase of the union — the innocent, trusting bride; and what is the groom to whom she gives herself under a delusion induced by ignorance or fostered by parental argument. He is a selfish male who has tired of a bachelor life when bachelorhood no longer means the undisturbed enjoyment of his selfish comforts. He is growing old and feels it. He yearns for the grateful heat of his own hearth, for the luxurious ease of his own easychair. And because a paid domestic is not entirely satisfactory he will get him a wife to keep his house in order, to bring him his slippers, to butter his toast and wield the sugar tongs with a dainty hand, to read to him, perhaps, until he snores and to smooth his pillow when he retires. This is the life to which so many young women condemn themselves. These are the motives which prompt the proposals which flatter them so much—at least these are some of the motives; there are others which need not be discussed. And for this life every natural instinct is sacrificed, every innocent desire is smothered. The miserable Saxon women who were driven to market by inhuman fathers at least went unwillingly; the modern girl who supports the uncertain steps of an old man on the way to the nuptial altar too often goes fully conscious of her fate.”

There is much more to the s ime purpose in Kniekebein’s book. There are passages which lay bare the very roots of this matrimonial crime. Of course, it would not do to quote these. Plain terms seem perfectly right and proper in German, but our prudish English tongue is strangely averse from them. The remedy he proposes is legislation, and it is hard to see how the evil may be coped with otherwise, unless President Roosevelt’s pet prescription of publicity is found effective. Knickerbein’s last words on the subject are not encouraging. “In olden times,” he says, “there was a maxim that did honour to human nature —‘the world is well lost for love.’ Nowadays the sentence is perverted. Too often it reads ‘Love is well lost for worldly position.’ ”