The man who annoys us is not he who is incapable of
appreciating our arguments, or he who does not share our knowledge, but
he who is out of sympathy with us, and we find far more happiness with
the rawest youth who, though entirely ignorant, is at least on our
side--caring for the things for which we care. Capacity to share the
same intellectual work may be a very pleasant addition to marriage, but
it is no essential. What a man wants is that his wife shall be on his
side in his pursuits. A boy does not require that his mother shall be
able to play football with him, but he does require that she shall care
whether his side wins or loses. The wife who is a true mother to her
husband, in this sense, need not be concerned because she cannot, let us
say, follow his working out of a geometrical proposition. Let her be on
his side whether he fails or succeeds, thus playing the mother; and for
the rest, if she asks him what those funny marks mean, she can play the
daughter too, and hold his heart with both hands at once.
It is to be hoped that such arguments as these will persuade the reader
to assent to our rejection of the psychological grounds on which it is
proposed to abolish monogamy. We extend all the sympathy in the world to
those whose fortune has been unfortunate, and we admit that the ideal
does not always coincide with the real, but we deny that the supposed
argument against monogamy is based upon a sound understanding of human
nature, its needs and its unity in multiplicity.
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