The solid foundation of their confidence is the fact that the
relationship set up by a comfortable marriage is so intimate and
so persuasive of the whole life of the parties to it, that nobody
has room in his or her life for more than one such relationship at
a time. What is called a household of three is never really of
three except in the sense that every household becomes a household
of three when a child is born, and may in the same way become a
household of four or fourteen if the union be fertile enough. Now
no doubt the marriage tie means so little to some people that the
addition to the household of half a dozen more wives or husbands
would be as possible as the addition of half a dozen governesses
or tutors or visitors or servants. A Sultan may have fifty wives
as easily as he may have fifty dishes on his table, because in the
English sense he has no wives at all; nor have his wives any
husband: in short, he is not what we call a married man. And there
are sultans and sultanas and seraglios existing in England under
English forms. But when you come to the real modern marriage of
sentiment, a relation is created which has never to my knowledge
been shared by three persons except when all three have been
extraordinarily fond of one another.
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