No husband ever secured his
domestic happiness and honor, nor has any wife ever secured hers,
by relying on it. No private claims of any sort should be founded
on it: the real point of honor is to take no corrupt advantage of
it. When we hear of young women being led astray and the like, we
find that what has led them astray is a sedulously inculcated
false notion that the relation they are tempted to contract is
so intensely personal, and the vows made under the influence of
its transient infatuation so sacred and enduring, that only an
atrociously wicked man could make light of or forget them. What is
more, as the same fantastic errors are inculcated in men, and the
conscientious ones therefore feel bound in honor to stand by what
they have promised, one of the surest methods to obtain a
husband is to practise on his susceptibilities until he is either
carried away into a promise of marriage to which he can be legally
held, or else into an indiscretion which he must repair by
marriage on pain of having to regard himself as a scoundrel and a
seducer, besides facing the utmost damage the lady's relatives can
do him.
Such a transaction is not an entrance into a "holy state of
matrimony": it is as often as not the inauguration of a lifelong
squabble, a corroding grudge, that causes more misery and
degradation of character than a dozen entirely natural
"desertions" and "betrayals.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73