1
10
1
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/a5dd1ea4c480278c21257177bb292ef0.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=HgXq63WbMEMuZy50YiKPVrUEVKUUSyosFqgKwvW3v4Xy4jo3LLlKpEHHu5t1MgPuRPZmyRmCuhTlfRBi%7EcyTAjmNYRb-MnoZcYhB5ascseKYWJXvH59X8zYrRO8pzXSviVZNRSlqv5GJJuECOw62o98KmuUn6Libplshf36cZM03o3T634JG426oxcE%7EpUuKrzKAq5wsXjZLsnUDxK5%7EVPrtseyMlXLH2BKXVcaTqRZs8LnodC6XsYpwOqxmKWqanV4BQYIzeaV70UwEqf0iZv3QHbKSsdmj%7EIHWiEOPZai5iuWhL5yJ4iVQJb64I2sXQgjHXmmqhOLhqejh9r2flQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
feb2de07ea0be6b64e195b2cc4672666
PDF Text
Text
A SHORT HISTORY OF
MARRIAGE.
•* Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind from China to Peru.”
—Dr. Johnson.
So much of the happiness and prosperity of
mankind depends upon the right relations of the
sexes, that it is desirable that all should have
a clear perception of the origin and nature of
marriage, and of the conditions which it requires.
We live in an age in which social questions are
becoming of vital importance, and of these
marriage must occupy a front place. Old pre
judices are dying out, ancient barriers are visibly
decaying, stubborn ignorance is yielding to multi
plied knowledge, floods of benevolent and
intellectual light are thrown upon every dark spot
in our social system, and, therefore, it is not
possible that the unjust and one-sided views of
sex-unions still prevailing, can for long remain
unchanged.
Bishop Taylor said: “ The first blessing God
gave to man was society, and that society was a
marriage, and that marriage was confederate by
God Himself, and hallowed by a blessing.” But
McLellan says : “Marriage laws, agnatic relation
ship, and kingly government, belong, in the order
of development, to recent times.”
All divines agree with Taylor, all men of
science with McLellan.
Unfortunately, our
present marriage laws were instituted by the
divines. It remains for us to bring them into
harmony with the scientific. For all these human
laws, which the theologians audaciously call
sacred because of their ecclesiastical origin, were,
from their suppostitious character, intended to
become stationary; whereas, marriage is by its
very nature progressive. It advances as minds
�4
Lady Cook’s Essays.
advance, and the ideals of the past can never
be satisfactory nor suitable in the wiser future.
Thus every endeavour to hinder its development
is a crime against humanity.
In our brief remarks upon the subject we shall
mainly rely for our facts upon those agreements
exhibited by a number of original and independent
investigators of unquestioned abilities and veracity.
Nor shall we forget that “ the concealment of
truth is the only indecorum known to science, and
that, to keep anything secret within its cold and
passionless expanses, would be the same as to
throw a cloth round a naked statue.”
There can be little doubt that the earliest
connections between our sexes were periodical,
as in the case of other Mammals, and were
equally as fugitive as theirs. Traces of periodicity
still exist in civilized races. Among the semi
civilized they are more pronounced ; while, with a
few savage tribes, the original habit remains in
great force.
The wild Indians of California
belong to the lowest of the human family, and
Johnston says : “They have their rutting seasons
as regularly as have the deer, the elk, the antelope,
or any other animals.” Powers also says, that
spring “is a literal St. Valentine’s Day with them,
as with the natural beasts and birds of the forest.”
The Watch-an-dies of West Australia resemble
them.
Mr. Oldfield,Jin his “Aborigines of Australia,”
tells us: “ Like the beast of the field, the savage
has but one time for copulation in the year.
About the middle of spring, when yams are in
perfection, when the young of all animals are
abundant, and when eggs and other nutritious
food are to be had, the Watch-an-dies begin to
think of holding th'eir grand semi-religious festival
of^Caa-ro, preparatory to the performance of the
important duty of procreation.” The Tasmanians
had a similar feast. Annual Saturnalia of a quasi
religious character have existed in every part of
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
5
the world, and still obtain in many districts of
Asia, Africa, and America, when all indulge in
unbridled licentiousness. At Rome the festival
of Venus occurred in April. It appears that the
season of periodicity of the sexual passion is
largely determined by the season for the food
on which the species lives. If we turn to the
Anthropoid Apes, Winwood Reade informs us
that the male gorillas fight for the females at
the rutting season, and others say the same of
the Orang-utan. There can be little doubt that
our extremely savage ancestors did this also, and
that those with the strongest canines and greatest
muscular development, obtained .the choicest
females and the largest number.
The next stage towards marriage was the com
paratively peaceable and promiscuous intercourse
between those of the same family, or group of
families.j Even in each tribe every woman was
common, and none knew the father of her' own
child. Thus the children were the property of the
tribe, and not of the parents, and for ages derived
their descent from their mothers. Display, in the
forms of ornamental dress, dancing, and boating,
began to take the place of prowess. Thus vanity
had its rise in the male breast before it was com
municated by heredity to the female. Sir John
Lubbock dignifies this promiscuous breeding by
the name of Communal. Marriage, but with alii
deference to so high an authority, we consider that:
it was not until extra-tribal women were captured:
that marriage had a beginning. For these became:
the peculiar property-of their captors, and gave:
rise to both monogamy and polygamy, as a mam
might have as many as he could capture and keep..
Without defining at present our idea of what true;
marriage is, or should be, we cannot concede that
any vagrant amour deserves the name, even though,
it be a tribal one.
The union must at least have some degree of
permanence. In a general way, however we
*
�6
Lady Coex’s Essays.
agree with the mediaeval proverb : “ Boire manger,
coucher ensemble est mariage, ce me semble.”
It should be clearly understood at the outset
that love, as we understand it in its highest sense,
is altogether the product of modern times. It had
its inception in the age of chivalry. Sacred and
profane poets sang of love, but it was a sensual
passion only that inspired their song. No Greek
or Roman could so much as have imagined the
feeling which a high-minded and cultured European
entertains for the maiden whom he woos and
weds. Their love was coarse, voluptuous, las
civious, and when most relined, as in Plato’s
“ Banquet,” was infinitely beneath the spiritualized
sensuousness which we are here and there able to
acquire.
The so-called communal marriage was attended
by curious circumstances. One was that when
men were allowed to select women for wives from
their own tribe, the others had still their common
rights in her. When this was abandoned, “ a
temporary recognition of the pre-existing com
munal rights ” had to be made; or, as in much
later times, every woman was obliged, once in her
life, to submit herself indiscriminately to the
worshippers of some Phallic divinity, or to strangers
at a great periodic festival, as in the primaeval
custom. It may be, too, that the jus primes noctis,
claimed sometimes by the chief or noble, and at
others by the priest, was a survival of communal
right, these officers representing the community.
With numerous tribes unmarried girls were free to
practise promiscuity, when married women were
jealously guarded, and a man often disdained to
marry a woman unless she had previously had
many lovers. Thus, too, when civilization appeared,
the “ social evil ” was regarded with a tolerance
amounting to approbation. The Hetairse of Greece
were long held in much esteem, and were publicly
known by their coloured or flowered garments.
The women of the fornices at Rome used to stand
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
7
openly at the doors of their cells in loose and light
attire, with their bosoms exposed and the nipples
gilt. And thus, too, did Messalina, the infamous
wife of Claudius Caesar, dare to offer herself at the
doors of the lupinaria, with her breast coloured in
the same curious manner. Torsions of ancient
human thought and taste caused many other
singular customs.
All male savages are much given to jealousy of
their property.
Daughters were their father’s
slaves, and they and their mothers—also slaves—
did all the hard work required for the family. Thus
difficulties in obtaining wives by tribal or inter
tribal arrangement, coupled with female infanticide
or the love of war, partly led to the practice of
capture. This custom prevailed in various parts
of the world, and has now almost perished, but the
form has survived as a mere ceremony. Even
with us the bridegroom’s best man represents the
faithful friend who formerly helped to steal a wife,
and whose reward afterwards was the jus primes,
noctis. In the beginning of the present century
capture de facto was in full force among the South
Slavonians. One of the .eight legal forms of the
marriage ceremony in the “ Laws of Manu ” was
the Rakshasa rite: “the forcible abduction of a
maiden from her home, while she cries out and
weeps, after her kinsmen have been slain or
wounded and their houses broken open.” The
use of the symbol has been found among all except
the Chinese and a few others, and perhaps these
formed no real exception. The most brutal form
of capture was that of the Australians. A man
stalked a woman as he would a kangaroo, stole
behind her and with his nulla-nulla, a heavy club,
struck her senseless. In this state he carried her
off, and, when revived, her marriage was at once
consummated.
*
j Capture, however, gave way to purchase. Bar
tering women between two tribes was a favourite
method at first. A man gave a daughter or some
�8
Lady Cook’s Essays.
other female relative for a wife. The bought wife
was his absolute property and slave, over whom he
had the power of life and death, but in process of
time more merciful ideas modified her condition.
The system of purchase did much to abolish the
horrible practice of female infanticide.
It is
thought that as sons strengthened the fighting
power of a tribe, and daughters weakened it,
exogamous peoples destroyed their female infants
except the first-born, preserved for menial pur
poses, and thus capture and infanticide were
almost universally established, and regarded as
social duties. Marriage was prohibited between
members of the same tribe so long as the tribes
were undivided, but when clans were formed mem
bers of the same clan were prohibited, although
persons of one clan might marry with those of
others.
Next, members of the same stock or
family name might not intermarry, then divisions
of the same tribe might marry with some and not
with others, until finally caste was developed. On
the contrary, with endogamous tribes marriage
outside the tribe, was forbidden and punished.
When by fusion of primitive groups the tribal
system was less distinct, marriage was forbidden
except between persons of the same family or
stock name. Next it was restricted to members
of particular families; and, lastly, old tribal divi
sions were disregarded or forgotten, and those
having by custom the right of connubium, became
a caste. And thus, by two opposite processes,
caste came about. It is not, of course, to be
supposed that those methods were invariably
followed with mathematical precision. They were
frequently modified, just as promiscuity was
modified by polyandry, in which one woman had
several husbands who were sometimes brothers
and at others not. Polyandry still exists over large
areas in the East, and was formerly practised in
Germany and in this country. Sometimes it arises
from a desire to prevent undue increase of family ;
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
9
at others from sheer poverty. A few club together
and obtain a wife between them. As soon as pur
chase became the fashion, daughters were valuable
property to their fathers and female infanticide
ceased. The price depends, as it has always done,
upon the rank, condition, and accomplishments of
the bride, and the extent of the demand.
Virgins generally fetch more than others, and
many strange customs have been adopted to pre
serve their purity, especially in those cases where
a general warranty is understood, and a fraudulent
sale would entitle the husband to return the lady
and claim back the price paid/or her. . With.some
a platform is built by her parents’ hut immediately
after an early betrothal, and there she is fed and
kept high up out of harm’s way without once leav
ing it until delivered to her husband. In parts of
Africa she is shut up at six or seven years of age
in a bamboo cage, and constantly watched and
attended to by old women, who fatten her for the
Mohammedan mart. But a more general and a
surer method is infibulation. Many other plans
are adopted to the same purpose, and when mar
ried her virginity was sometimes proved coram
*
populo or the evidences were preserved by her
parents—as among the Jews—in case of repudia
tion by the husband. The first form of inheritance
was through the female line. This originated from
the uncertainty of male parentage. Polyandry was
a fertile cause of both methods. A Nair woman,
under some restrictions as to rank and caste, might
have twelve husbands. In Ceylon, when a woman
lives in a house and village, of her husband’s, the
marriage is Deega, but when the husband or hus
bands go to live with her, it is Beena ; “and among
the Kandyans the rights of inheritance of the
woman and her children depend upon whether she
is a beena or a deega wife.”
Chief Justice
Starke, of Ceylon, said that “ sometimes a deega
married girl returned to her parents’ house and
was there provided with a beena husband.” Deega
�IO
Lady Cook’s Essays.
marriages, where the husbands were brothers, pro
moted male kinship; beena marriages, female
inheritance and kinship, to the exclusion of the
males. In the first, the eldest brother was the
head of the house and the father of the family, to
whom the others succeeded in turn on his decease,
and continued to “ raise up seed to their brother.”
Where exogamy was the rule, the mothers were
necessarily foreigners, and, by the system of kin
ship, their children were foreigners also. McLellan
shows that thus, “ so far as the system of infanti
cide allowed, their young men and women
accounted of different stocks might intermarry
consistently with exogamy.
Hence grew up a
system of "betrothals, and of marriage by sale and
purchase.” But when civilization advanced, and
paternity became recognized, and conjugal fidelity
and family property commenced, kinship through
the males superseded that through the females.
The whole subject is a very large and complex
one—far too large for a short article. It can
easily be proved, however, that all the social and
moral virtues have arisen from the circumstances
attending the right of family and individual pro
perty.
Honour,
chastity, modesty, fidelity,
in their first feeble birth, date from the time
when the right to individual property made its
appearance, and when this occurred “ barbarism
was already far in the rear.” Before this every
thing was common, and enjoyed promiscuously.
Now men begin to feel the delights of family and
home. Every personal acquisition was thereby
invested with a new charm. And the love of one’s
own developed into the larger love of one’s country,
and at length into sympathy for the whole human
family. And, probably, the germ of all these
elevating sentiments was t'he humble right of abso
lute ownership to a wife by capture. If this be so,
then marriage was the foundation of all civil rights
and moral virtues.
We owe to the Jews that‘theory of a primitive
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
xi
state which has been the cause of so many errors
and failures during the last eighteen centuries.
.Human history opens with Eden, a perfect mar
riage and a happy family. But it was not in this
way that man commenced his career. Whatever
is good in him had to be groped for, fought for
with blood and tears, and held through infinite
and severe struggles. Many races perished, and
those that survived had, and have, to work out
their own salvation. Neither can any tribe or
nation trace its descent to an individual. Many
peoples have professed to do so, but in all cases
their genealogies are spurious and their common
ancestor fictitious. Besides, it can be demonstra
ted that the family appeared last in the order of
social development. Indeed this has now almost
become an ethnographical axiom, and the law of
progression, as against the debasing theory of
retrogression, has been amply vindicated.
In the earliest times of purchase, a woman was
bartered for useful goods or for services rendered
to her father. In this latter way, Jacob purchased
Rachel and her sister Leah. This was a Beenah
marriage where a man, as in Genesis, leaves his
father and his mother, and cleaves unto his wife,
and they become one flesh or kin—the woman’s.
The price for a bride in British Columbia and
Vancouver Island, varies from ^20 to £40 worth of
articles.
In Oregon, an Indian gives for her,
horses, blankets, or buffalo robes ; in California,
shell-money or horses ; in Africa, cattle. A poor
Damara will sell a daughter for a cow; a richer
Kafir expects from three to thirty. With the
Banyai, if nothing be given her family claim her
,
*
children. In Uganda, where no marriage recently
existed, she may be obtained for half-a-dozen
needles, or a coat, or a pair of shoes. An ordi
nary price is a box of percussion caps. In other
parts, a goat or a couple of buckskins will buy a
girl. Passing to Asia, we find her price is some
times five to fifty roubles, or at others, a cartload
�12
Lady Cook’s Essays.
of wood or hay. A princess may be purchased
for three thousand roubles. In Tartary, a woman
can be obtained for a few pounds of butter, or
where a rich man gives twenty small oxen, a poor
man may succeed with a pig. In Fiji, her equiva
lent is a whale’s tooth or a musket. These, and
similar prices elsewhere, are eloquent testimony to
the little value a savage sets on his wife. Her
charms vanish with her girlhood. She is usually
married while a child, and through her cruel
slavery and bitter life, she often becomes old and
repulsive at twenty-five.
When Augustine converted the Anglo-Saxons
to Christianity, marriage by capture was dying out
with them, and purchase had become general.
Nevertheless, capture was not extinguished in
England until centuries later, for Ethelbert, while
enforcing the new law, also ratified the old one, so
that they ran concurrently. He recognized the
right of ? raptor to carry off a woman by force on
his afterwards paying fifty shillings to her owner as
a fine, and then buying her from him at a reasonable
price. If she were a maid, the fine went to her
father; if a wife, then to the husband; but the
raptor had to buy the defrauded husband another
wife, and, in each case, he retained by law the
woman whom he had stolen. It will be seen that
the transition from capture to purchase in this
country was very gradual, and that both methods
existed, for a time, together. Even our princesses
were bought by kings with cattle and costly articles,
just as the poor creatures we have noticed were
obtained by humbler purchase. We learn that the
covetous Anglo-Saxon fathers drove extortionate
bargains, and cheated simple buyers like modern
horse-dealers at a fair. Ethelbert provided against
this by enacting: “ If there be any deceit, let him
bring her home again, and let the man give him
back his money.” This privilege, in its turn,
became obsolete when “morning gifts” were
general. These were presents, made to the bride
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
13
by her husband on the morning after the marriage
night, to show his satisfaction with his bargain, and
she who received a morning gift could not be
afterwards returned. In process of time, when the
brutality of selling one’s own offspring dawned
upon the coarse minds of our ancestors, a
euphemism was invented to conceal its baseness
and satisfy public conscience. Contracts for future
marriages had been called 11 espousals.”
The
bride-price was paid at the time of espousal, and
was now called “ foster lean,” or a supposed repay
ment to the parent of the daughter’s cost for
nurture and training. Greedy fathers made a trade
of this by accepting “foster lean” from many
suitors, and cheating all but one; but at length
this fraudulent practice was checked by the public
sentiment demanding that foster lean should be
paid on the mariage day instead of the day of es
pousal. In those times the wedding day was only
the day of betrothal, when the suitor gave a
“wed,” or pledge for the due performance of his
contract. Our present law of damage for seduc
tion originated in the law of Ethelbert, and was
strengthened by Alfred, who enacted that the be
trayer of an unbetrothed woman should pay her
father for the damage done to her. “ Breach of
promise ” by the maiden incurred the forfeiture of
presents and the foster lean, and another third of
the latter by way of penalty. The man who re
fused to marry his spouse, or delayed more than
two years when she was of marriageable age, for
feited all further right to her and to the foster lean
which he had paid.
Subsequently, when the
Church controlled marriage, she dealt more se
verely with flirts and dishonest fathers, and com
pelled the latter, in the event of breach on the
woman’s part, to pay back four times the amount
of the foster lean. Later it was reduced to twice
the sum.
Among civilizations far older than ours the
system of purchase had ceased before we were a
�14
Lady Cook’s Essays.
people. * he Indian lawgiver, Manu, strictly forT
, bade it, and said: “A man who through avarice
takes a gratuity is a seller of his offspring.” In
the historical times of the Greeks they no longer
bought wives.
In Rome coemptio was only a
symbol of the ancient custom. In the Jewish
Talmud the purchase is also symbolic, as is fre
quently the Mohammedan “ mahr.” With all, the
bride-price, foster-leans, and marriage gifts, when
returned, were converted into dowry, and became
at first the bride’s property. Thus marriage por
tions chiefly derived their origin from the habit of
purchase, and dowry often became, as with the
Hebrews, a religious duty. Not less than the tenth
of a father’s property was considered a just dower.
In Aristotle’s time nearly two-fifths of all Sparta
belonged from this cause to the women. Sir Henry
Maine considers that the amazing thrift of the
French is also owing to this custom, which pro
bably descended to them from the marriage law of
Augustus Caesar. It was only by an anachronism
that Euripides made Medea lament that women
were obliged lo purchase husbands at a great price.
And it is often as true to-day as when the Latin
poet sang:
“ Pars minima est ipsa puella sui.”
As we have seen, there were at first no marriage
ceremonies, and this is the mode still with many
uncivilized tribes. When they did arise it was by
degrees and in many ways; and in all, customs
such as capture, when superseded, became by
symbolism a part of the succeeding legal form of
contract. Sometimes the ceremony symbolizes
sexual intercourse, but more frequently companion
ship or the wife’s subjection. To eat maize pudding
from the same plate, or to eat in any way together,
is a idely
w
*
distributed marriage ceremony. In
Brazil a couple may be married by drinking brandy
together; in Japan, by as many cups of wine; in
Russia and Scandinavia it used to be one cup for
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
i5
both. The joining of hands among the Romans
and Hindoos is common to many parts of the
world. In Scotland it is called “ hand-fasting,”
and couples live together after. To sit together
on a seat while receiving friends, or to have the
hands of each tied together with grass, or to smear
with each other’s blood, or for the woman to tie a
cord of her own twisting around the naked waist of
the man, constitutes marriage in one part or
another. In Australia a woman carries fire to her
lover’s hut, and makes a fire for him. In America
she lays a bundle of rods at the door of his tent.
A Loango negress cooks two dishes for him in his
own hut. In Croatia the bridegroom boxes the
bride’s ears, and in Russia the father formerly
struck his daughter gently with a new whip—for
the last time—and then gave the weapon to her
husband. Down to the present, it is a custom in
Hungary for the groom to give the bride a kick
after the marriage ceremony, to make her feel her
subjection. Even with all civilized peoples the
servitude of the bride is clearly indicated.
The religious ceremonies, where they exist, are
as numerous and various as human whims and ca
prices can make them. Rossbach says that the
farther we go back the stricter they become. But
as Paganism perished in Europe, marriage was
deprived of religious rites, and became a purely
civil institution. Christianity restored its religious
. character, and by a much too free translation from
the Greek to the Latin Vulgate of the word
“ mysterion,” used by St. Paul, the dogma of sa, cramental marriage had its rise.
By the 12th
century it was gradually developed, and in 1563
the Council of Trent made the religious ceremony
the essential part of marriage, without which it
was rendered invalid. In this way a dangerous
blow was struck at social and civil liberty, and
Christendom still suffers from its pernicious effects.
From that day concubinage, illegitimacy, and
prostitution flourished. These were greatly accen
*
�16
Lady Cook’s Essays.
tuated by another evil law of the Church—the
celibacy of the priests and the “ religious.”
Asceticism is a very ancient Pagan custom, and
has found followers in all civilized times and coun
tries. Even savages often expected celibacy, but
not chastity, from their medicine men and priests.
With some of the cultured it has been assumed
from misanthropy, or as a protest against profli
gacy; with others, from a hollow assumption of
superior virtue.
It never occurs under natural
conditions. Neither animals nor savages are ever
celibates from choice unless infirm or diseased.
The Jewish proverb “ He who has no wife is no
man,” was a universal sentiment, and always put
into practice. With uncivilized men, if one re
mained single he was thoroughly despised as un
natural, and classed with thieves and^witches.
Neither did he rank as a man in his tribe. Among the
savage and partially civilized, celibacy is unknown
among women, and the enforced celibacy of a few
men is owing to a scarcity caused by polygamy or
to extreme poverty.
In Sparta celibates were
criminally prosecuted; [at Rome, bachelors were
taxed. Exception to marriage was only made
in the case of a few priestesses devoted to
special work, as in Peru, Persia, Rome, Greece,
and Gaul. Religious asceticism, however, comes
from the East. Buddhism is its centre. Buddh
was the only son of ‘his mother, the best and
purest of women, whose conception was super
natural, so that she still remained a virgin.
Christianity reproduced this original idea.
In
India, where polygamy is the rule, celibacy is
permitted only to men, who must devote their
lives to contemplation; but in Tibet, where poly
andry is the rule, women are encouraged to
become nuns.
Both monks and nuns are as
unchaste as were those of Europe before the
Reformation. “ Lust and ignorance,” it is said,
« are the chief causes of misery; we should, there
fore, suppress lust and remove ignorance.” The
�Lady Book’s Essays.
17
Dhammika-Sutta tells the faithful, “ A wise man
should avoid marriage as if it were a burning pit
of live coals.” Sexual intercourse was sinful in
itself, and the first indulgence by a monk entailed
expulsion from the fraternity, and he was no
longer a monk.
These Eastern ideas probably spread to Syria,
and made a few converts there, known as Essenes.
Josephus, who was born at Jerusalem three years
after the Crucifixion, knew them well. They
rejected pleasures, and, from their esteem of
continence, neglected wedlock. It is not quite
certain whether Christ Himself favoured their
views to any degree, for although He put religious
duty first, He did not reprobate marriage, but He
commanded desertion of wife and family for the
kingdom of Heaven’s sake. St. Paul, however,
held celibacy to be preferable, although he admitted
“ it was better to marry than to burn.” * Marriage
was for the incontinent, as the lesser of two evils.
It does not seem that Christianity at first forbade
polygamy, for Paul held that a bishop (or pastor)
should be satisfied with one wife, and many
learned theologians held polygamy lawful to a
Christian. St. John saw the celestial band of a
hundred and forty-four thousand around the
throne of God, all virgins who had never known
man.
The Fathers soon strengthened these
notions. Tertullian, who died in 216, held that
celibacy ought to be chosen though mankind
should perish. Origen, born in 185, taught that
marriage was profane and impure. Taking Christ’s
words literally, he emasculated himself. Yet he
lived to a.d. 254. St. Jerome, born 88 years
after, tolerated marriage only for the sake of
producing monks and nuns. He said that, though
marriage fills the earth, virginity peoples heaven,
and twenty years before he died, a Roman-Synod
insisted on the celibacy of the superior clergy. In
fact, all the Fathers agreed with those named,
but human nature was too strong for the general
�IS
Lady Cook’s Essays.
acceptance of their views. Chastity, however,
became, in theory, the cardinal virtue of the
Church, whatever it may have been in practice,
and divorces were freely granted sine causa sontica,
and from no other reason than to promote celi
bacy. When the Church sanctified marriages, she
desired that they might be as platonic as possible.
Thus the Emperor Henry II.; Edward the Con
fessor, and Alphonso II. of Spain, were husbands
only in name. All human beings produced through
sexual union were “ born in sin and conceived in
iniquity.” “To have children under any circum
stances was a sin,” but to have them without the
sanction and blessing of the Church, was a deadly
sin. “ Woman was an instrument of Satan,” and
a Gallican Bishop declared that she was not
human. At the Council of Macon the Bishops
debated whether she had a soul. The fanatics
who taught these unnatural and abominable
doctrines, forgot that marriage was the oldest
human institution, and therefore immeasurably
older than the Church; that, by their own
Bible, the first law given to man by his Maker,
unqualified by any restriction, was to “increase
and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.”
Thus the immortality of the race depended
upon its power of reproduction, and the first
duty of man was to ensure the continuance
of his species. Procreation was the sovereign
law of being. Yet, as Huth says, “there is no
doubt that if the clergy had had their own way,
they would have forbidden all mankind, as they
forbade themselves, ever to enter the bonds of
matrimony.”
In the Council of Rome, 1074, all ministers
already married, were ordered to divorce their
wives. In England, however, this could not be
enforced, and at the Council of Winchester, held
two years after, the secular clergy were permitted
to retain their wives. The edict of Gregory the
Great produced terrible results, so that laws were
�lady
ig
Cooks Essays
repeatedly made forbidding priests to have their
sisters or even their mothers as their house
keepers. Formerly they had been permitted to
keep concubines, and were generally taxed for this
license. Early in the fifth century the Council of
Toledo legalized these unions, but Henry III. of
Castile ordered the concubines of priests to wear
a piece of scarlet cloth in their head-dress. The
Puritans of New England compelled the unwedded
mother to wear a scarlet A on her breast, and this
custom gave rise to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
beautiful story, “ The Scarlet Letter.” In France
the priests often, practised polygamy. Everywhere,
bigamy was especially common.
Their com
pulsory celibacy, therefore, led to every possible
immorality and to the most infamous crimes, until
at length the Papal throne itself became polluted.
Speaking of Pope John XXIII., Gibbon says,
“ The most scandalous charges were suppressed ;
the Vicar of Christ was only accused of piracy,
murder, rape, sodomy, and incest.” D’Israeli, in
his “ Curiosities of Literature,” quotes the lines
written on a lady’s tomb by way of a pasquinade
on Pope Alexander VI., to whom she had been
too well known
“ Hoc tumulo dormit Lucretia nomine, sed re
Thais : Alexandri Alia, sponsa, nurus.”
The hostility of the Church to sexual union
even in the form of marriage, caused her to devise
innumerable inpediments. Married women were
forbidden to approach the altar or to touch the
Eucharist, and were commended for refusing the
embraces of their husbands. If a woman wished
to become a nun, she could leave her husband
without hi-s consent, nor could he take a wife in
her stead. The Rev. S. Baring-Gould in his
u Lives of the Saints,” tells the following anecdote
of St. Dominic, which at once illustrates the
childish superstition of devotees and the argu
ments ; for encouraging celibacy: “A- lady of
C 2
�20
Lady Cook’s Essays
extreme beauty wished to leave her monastery,
and resisted all the preacher’s arguments. She
blew her nose, and it came off in her handker
chief. Horror-stricken, she implored the prayers of
Dominic. He put her nose on again ; and the
lady consented to remain in the convent.”
Widows promising to remain single were excom
municated on marrying again, which was then
called bigamy. Abstention was demanded of
married people for three days before communion
and forty days after Easter; next, it became as
great a sin for them to cohabit during Lent as it
was to eat flesh; then, marriage was prohibited
during Lent and at no other specified seasons, so
that, as an old writer said, “ there were but few
weeks or days in the year in which people could
get married at all.” And in the Confessional even
the youngest and fairest wives were compelled to
lay bare the most secret acts of their wedded
lives. Marriage was forbidden within the seventh
canonical degree (or to sixth cousins), equal to
the fourteenth civil degree of blood relationship,
and spiritual affinity had been invented, and made
equal to that of blood, to increase the prohibitions.
Thus godfathers and godmothers were held as
related to the child and its relations and to each
other.
Bridesmaids, groomsmen, bride, bride
groom, and officiating priest were similarly related
to each other and to all the relations of all. No
one, therefore, could tell to whom he was not
related. Repudiation after marriage, fraud and
trickery, were made easy for the unprincipled, and
the authority of the Church was appealed to from
a thousand directions. Pope Zachary had said
that marriage must be denied when any relation
ship could be traced, and this was confirmed by
two Councils. But by Luther’s time the pro
hibition extended only as far as to third cousins.
Hallam points out that these “affinities” rendered
it necessary for the Royal houses of Europe to
keep on good terms with the Court of Rome,
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
•
h
because it was scarcely possible for them to
intermarry without transgressing the Canonical
limits. Hence arose constant requests for Papal
dispensations. “ History/ he says, “ is full of
dissolutions of marriage, obtained by fickle passion
or cold-hearted ambition, to which the Church did
not scruple to pander on some suggestion of
relationship.” Nor is this to be wondered at,
seeing the Council of Trent, held in 1545, re
affirmed the spiritual affinities declared by the
Nicene Council in 325.
All this systematic opposition reduced mar
riage, but did not prevent indulgence. We have
already noticed two out of the many Popes
who led scandalous lives. The irregularities of
the ecclesiastics would be almost too astounding
for belief were it not that the authorities are un
questionable. One Abbot, for instance, had
seventy concubines, and a Bishop was deposed for
having sixty-five illegitimate children. Many a
congregation having an unmarried priest stipulated,
for the protection of their wives and daughters,
that he should keep a concubine. For it was not
until Peter the Lombard had discovered the seven
fold operation of the Spirit of God in the seven
sacraments that the Church in the 12th century
included marriage a,s one, and by the middle of
the 13th every wife of a priest had been driven
from her home. Since the 16th century the
Roman canons have remained unchanged.
We have the authority of the pious and learned
Bellarmine, a Roman Catholic, that “ For some
years before the Lutheran and Calvinist heresies
broke forth, there was no justice in ecclesiastical
courts, no discipline in morals, no knowledge of
sacred literature, no reverence for sacred things :
there was almost no religion remaining.” The
Roman Curia published a book containing a tariff
of fees for pardons. A deacon could commit a
murder for twenty crowns ; a bishop or abbot, for
three hundred livres ; and any ecclesiastic might
�22
Lady Cook’s Essays.
violate his vows of chastity with the most aggravat
ing circumstances for one hundred livres, or
eight pounds of our money. The l®athsome
condition of the Church caused two of her most
earnest monks to become distinguished reformers.
St. Cajetan and Luther were born within three
years of each other. The one effected a schism
which we call the Reformation. The other gave
his life and genius for her internal purification.
Cajetan remained a rabid celibate. The monk
Luther married a nun. But the early Protestants
—so strong is custom—looked with a timid eye on
the marriage of their priests. Queen Elizabeth,
when leaving the episcopal palace, insulted Arch
bishop Parker’s wife, by saying that she did not
know how to address her, implying that Mrs.
Parker was only a concubine. And even to-day,
from some cause or other, an unmarried clergyman
caeteris paribus, finds more favour with his con
gregation than a married one.
Monogamy was instituted long before Chris
tianity—long before even the Mosaic law. It was
established in Egypt, for instance, ages prior to
Joseph’s captivity. Potiphar’s amorous wife was
evidently his only one. We know that in Egypt
polygamy was legal, and yet monogamy was the
*
more general practice.
It has been the same
in other countries; and owing to the numerical
equality of the sexes, where men can afford to
marry, monogamy is a natural necessity. We
may take it, therefore, that with or without a Divine
revelation, monogamy would become the final and
most perfect form of marriage.
The “ communal marriage” was the gratifica
tion of a periodical sexual passion—a mere brutal
instinct. The marriage by capture secured a like
purpose, with the addition of personal possession
and the services of a household slave. Marriage
by purchase procured the same advantages with
out the danger of retaliation from injured relatives.
Women now were a sort of cattle, bought and
�i
Lady Cook’s Essays.
23
sold, exchanged and lent, just like any other chat
tels. Excessive lust was indulged in by child
marriages and polygamy.
A woman was worn as
one wears a glove, and then cast aside. Next
dower supplanted purchase, and she began to pos
sess legal rights, sometimes to obtain the mastery
over the husband. Her jubilant freedom made
her audacious. Her superior subtlety gave her
the pre-eminence in the home. When her social
and legal equality were well nigh assured, the emis
saries of Christianity brought a message from God
and imposed it on the people, whereby her
humanity was questioned, her possession of a soul
doubted, her inferiority divinely affirmed, her
perpetual guardianship legalized, her civil rights
merged in her husband, and her subordination to
him laid down by ecclesiastical laws. In childhood
she was denied her share of mental education; in
womanhood her civil and political rights. If, in
exceptional instances, she led armies or ruled
states, or legislated, or otherwise distinguished
herself, these were regarded as exceptions to a
general rule, and her inferiority to man was still
determined. And now, when women in large
numbers have shown their capacity in every
permitted profession and occupation, when every
office that has been opened to them has been
worthily filled, there are still heads and hearts so
obtuse that old conditions are re-asserted, old
prejudices revived, old customs invoked by all the
aids of ridicule and religion.
An ignorant and
corrupt Church enslaved her body and starved her
mind, defiled her morals, and denied her even the
right to read the Scriptures. We are not ignorant
of the history of that .corporation. We know by
what sinister and unholy methods it attained its
power. And relying on the ultimate triumph of
truth and justice, we offer it and all other enemies
of our sex open and honourable opposition. We
invite discussion, but refuse suppression of facts,
and our opponents must either treat or fight.
�24
Lady Cook’s Essays.
In England this battle for the equal privileges
of women commenced more than 150 years ago,
when, in 1739, “ Sophia, a woman of quality,”
wrote an able work entitled “ Woman not Inferior
to Man.” She said “ There is no science or public
office in a State which Jwomen are not as much
qualified for by nature aS the ablest of men.” In
1792, Mary Wolstonecraft, in her “ Vindication of
the Rights of Women,” demanded that the medical
profession, which had been wrested from women,
should be thrown open to them again, and that
they should be allowed to vote for Members of
Parliament. She pointed out that “ meek wives
are in general foolish mothers,” and that business
and professional education of various kinds for
women “ might save many from common and legal
prostitution.” And for this she was denounced
“ as an infidel and monster of immorality.” But
now in all countries, the flower of our sex for
purity and intelligence are beginning to spread
the same wholesome teachings throughout the
world.
Marriage is usually either misunderstood or the
ideal is set too low. People marry from a variety
of reasons: for a living, for convenience, from
vanity or lust, or for companionship or a family.
With Mary Wolstonecraft, we denounce the first
four as “legal prostitution,” and assert that nothing
but true companionship and desire for children can
ever justify marriage.
We doubt whether the
mere desire of a family could alone justify it
unaccompanied by mutual love. But we regard
love as all-sufficient in itself, and the true touch
stone by which marriage may be proved. And by
love wre mean that intelligent and mutual, respect
and sympathy, that unity of thought and aim, that
blending of two in one, which makes each ready for
any sacrifice, or even to die for the other,—a union
which neither time nor accident can destroy. This
alone is marriage, and is able to transform the
peasant’s cot and patch into a veritable Paradise,
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
2§
while without it a palace may be hell. _We have
heard of men, rough, commonplace beings, who
could brave Arctic or torrid wastes in severest cold
or heat, in hunger and thirst, so long as they were
cheered by the companionship of their fellows.
Our first real hunger is heart hunger. Prisoners
denied human companionship have sought comfort
in the affection of a bird, a mouse, or even a
spider. All true natures must have some one or
something to love.
And although the love of
youth is charming and picturesque, the love of old
age is radiant with beauty. To see two human
creatures who have weathered together in closest
communion all the storms and ills of life, battered
and deformed by time, yet able to look into each
other’s eyes with a love surpassing that of their
first affection, is a sight grander than any other
the world can show. For it reveals to us the depth
and purity of marriage as it should be. What are
rites and priestly formulas to such as these ? And
what dignity or value can any ceremony add to the
union of true minds ?
We r$ad of Gretna Green and Fleet marriages,
and the outcry with which their abolition .was met
by younger sons, and even statesmen like Fox.
The Marriage Act, as they well knew, was passed
for the protection of heiresses and ambitious
fathers. It was a rich man’s Act, and opposed to
the interests of the poor, for whom marriage and
divorce should be as inexpensive, easy,, and
expeditious as of old. We know that love will not
fill the larder, but a man who loves will work for
his wife, and the wife who loves will work for her
husband. Love sets in motion a two-fold energy
which is able to conquer many difficulties.
We must not omit to point out as briefly as
possible that to secure the happiness and welfare
of the married and their offspring, the fitness of
candidates is of the highest importance. •* The
sexual side of our being has been so stigmatized
that our other natural appetites have shared in its
|
�26
Lady Cook’s Essays.
degradation. We boast of our love of art, of
literature, or of science, but never of our love of
eating or sleeping. We are ashamed of our bodily
organs and functions, and shun the knowledge
of our own physiology. -These beautiful structures,
which it should be our pride to improve and pre
serve untainted, are accounted vile and not to be
discussed; consequently, those most unfit are
united in marriage, and those subject to personal
or hereditary disease increase and multiply, filling
the earth with sin and sorrow. The nauseous
“purity” which produces all this should be scouted
as criminally filthy, and recklessly foolish. We
should then see how necessary it is to enquire into
character, habits, and family antecedents; how
wicked it is to permit those who can produce none
but diseased or defective offspring ever to
marry ; and that no iniquity of parents can equal
that of giving a pure maiden to an impure man.
Physical beauty alone should never be allowed to
outweigh moral beauty, nor mental excellency be
i
*nferior
held
to wealth. Great authorities, like
Mobius, Charcot, Fere, and others, group together
as brain and nerve diseases : insanity, eccentricity,
violent temper, paralysis, epilepsy, hysteria, neu
ralgia, scrofula, gout, diabetes, consumption, asth
ma, dipsomania, deformities, and mal-formations.
“ All these may alternate with each other in a
given family, one member suffering from one and
another from another.” All arise from imperfect
brain nutrition, which is always transmitted from
parent to child.
Our social vices entail the widespread scourge
called syphilis.
This is so common among a
certain class of men that they affect to treat it as
of Jittle moment. Often men of rank and education
are not ashamed to give their daughters to those
who^have suffered from it. Yet every eminent
physician knows that up to two or three years after
the last signs of the ‘ secondary symptoms * have
disappeared “ the infected person will transmit the
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
27
disease itself to any child born or begotten,” and,
in neglected cases, even after twelve years or more.
In some instances the power of continuing the
species is destroyed. “ Kissing is a common form
of conveying the infection.” Healthy wet nurses
receive it from infected infants. This insidious and
loathsome disease is not hereditary as syphilis be
yond three generations,—seldom beyond two, but
it is none the less deadly. It affects the whole
system. No tissue or organ is safe from it. It pro
duces degenerate conditions. It devitalizes and
deteriorates the family stock. Its virus is never
expelled from the system, and may occasion other
diseases years after health has been apparently re
stored. And for many generations it induces any of
the neurotic complaints we have enumerated. The
experience of Dr. Tarnowsky, a distinguished ob
server, shows that 71 per cent, of women suffering
from syphilis, give birth to dead children, who die in
their first year. Professor Fournie found it fatal to
offspring to the extent of 28 per cent, through the
father, and 60 through the mother, but 68^ per
cent, when both suffered from it. Mr. Lecky de*
scribes it as/‘ an epidemic which is one of the most
dreadful among mankind, which communicates
itself from the guilty husband to the innocent wife,
and even transmits its taint to the offspring”; and
he adds that no other feature of English life
appears so infamous to continental physicians and
writers, as the fact that it should be suffered to
rage unchecked. Yet, when marriage is contem
plated, no questions are asked, no investigation is
made. The men who are careful—extremely care
ful—in the breeding of their domestic animals,
ignore the same necessity for their children.
Hence the Royal Houses of Europe are profoundly
tainted with insanity, and the aristocracies with
epilepsy and other neurotic diseases. Benoiston
de Chatea^neauf proved the average life of a
French noble family to be about three hundred
years. And, at the beginning of the last century,
�<8
Lady Cook’s Essays.
the haute noblesse at the French Court looked like
une societe de malades.
We have only touched the fringe of our subject,
but we must stop. We commend our readers to
search further for themselves. Possibly the day
is not far distant when education will be directed
on better lines, when the teaching of physiology
will be compulsory, -and soundness of mind and
body will be the chief desiderata. And when sex
distinctions and privileges are swept away, physical,
moral, and mental improvement will grow apace.
This beautiful world will be the home of beauty.
Ignorance and crime, like unclean beasts, will flee
to its remote recesses. Men will live for them
selves and for each other, and not for arbitrary
laws that harass, injure, and destroy. The foul
brood engendered by ages of superstition will dis
appear, and all will see that only through a new
and wiser system of marriage can the regeneration
and perfection of mankind be brought about.
•
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
29
TRUE LOVE.
“True love’s the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the Heaven.—
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie
Which heart to heart and mind to mind
In body and in soul can bind.”
Scott {Lay of the Last Minstrel).
Ambition and love appear to be the two master passions
of mankind. But few ambitions are worthy, and com
paratively few loves are true. Vulgar love, like vulgar
ambition, may degrade its possessor and ruin others, but
true love ennobles him who feels it, and exalts its object
beyond all else. Lately our contention that true love is
the product of later times, and was unknown to the
ancients, has been called in question by one or two super
ficial critics. The Bible and Horace have been quoted
to disprove our statement. In regard to the Scriptures,
the conditions of life were such in Biblical times that its
existence was impossible. Women were either slaves or
semi-slaves, constantly in subjection from their birth to
their death to one man or another. Solomon’s song is
very beautiful as the production of an ancient Eastern
poet. But the royal lover, whose harem contained a
thousand women obtained by power, could never have
known the sentiment in its purity, however much he may
have fancied a new beauty, or however impassioned may
have been his lay. Much has been made of Jacob’s
serving seven years for Rachel, but that was a common
mode in those days of obtaining a wife when a man was
too poor to buy one, and it is still done in many parts of
the world. Jacob’s affection, which came nearer to
modern love than any of which we have read, did not
prevent him from taking as many other women as were
offered him, although he preferred Rachel to her sore
eyed sister, and to the female slaves who were his concu
bines. Seeing that she was quick-witted, “ beautiful, and
well-favoured,” his preference is not surprising, nor that
the seven years “ seemed to him but a few days for the
love he had to her,” for these were years of courtship
between a patient shepherd and a pretty shepherdess. In
the pastoral age they took no note of time. Jacob’s
grandfather had just completed a century, and his wife
and half-sister was nearly as old when Isaac was born to
them. We sober Westerns must not take the tales of the
�30
Lady Cook’s Essays.
East too literally. The whole account is deeply tinged
with the exaggerations and marvels of the Arabian Nights.
Sarah is the Jewish Helen with whom all who see her are
smitten. By collusion she passed as Abraham’s sister.
The King of Egypt takes this very matured beauty into
his harem, and “ the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house
with great plagues because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.”
Twenty-four years later, when she was extremely old and
at least forty years past the period of child-bearing, her
husband was informed that she would become a mother.
She is very sarcastic over it, regarding it as a physical
impossibility; nevertheless, it came to pass within a year.
But, in the meantime, her beauty attracts the notice of
the King of Gerar, who also seizes her, and takes the
venerable princess into his harem. God visits him in a
dream and tells him all about his mistake. Besides which,
the fertile ladies of the court were suddenly afflicted with
barrenness, but as soon as Abimelech restored her,/things
went on as usual. If the purity of love is to be proved
in Scriptural times, it must be on more coherent testi
mony than all this. The course of Nature proceeds
irrespective of human morality or immorality, but the
sacred writers had very confused notions of moral and
physical causes and sequences, and often mixed them
incongruously.
The Odes of Horace are'next cited to refute us. Well,
all who have really read Horace know that he followed
the filthy and degrading custom of the Romans of his
day, just as they copied the Greeks, and that it was
a matter of indifference to him whether the'object of
his affection were a girl or a boy. The moderns with
all their progress are se_n to be bad enough, but the
ancients must not be quoted as knowing anything of
love. The men were too sensual, and the women too
servile, to comprehend the pure passion of to-day, and
the prettiest phrases that ever were penned cannot con
ceal the vile immoralities and unnatural lusts which they
have enshrined. When our objectors next do us the
honour to criticize, we trust that they vyill first prepare
themselves by some elementary acquaintance with the
subject.
Chaucer, in the Clerk’s Tale, gives the story of the
patient “Grisildis,” who suffered every cruel indignity at
her husband’s hands and never once complained nor
resented it. This was much esteemed. Abject sub
mission, however, is not love. No woman could really
love a man who treated her so foully. Yet many poets
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
3i
have held up this Griselda as a pattern of wifely virtue
and conjugal love. The Patient Countess, in Percy’s
Reliques, is a somewhat similar but better example.
The first stanza anticipates its moral: „
“ Impatience chaungeth smoke to flame,
But jelousie is hell;
Some wives by patience have reduc’d
Ill husbands to live well;
As did the ladie of an earle,
Of whom I now shall tell.”
The ancient ballad of Sir Cauline who loved “ faire
Christabelle, that lady bright,” the daughter of a “ bonnye
kinge in Ireland ferr over the sea,” is a beautiful tale of
unhappy love with a tragic ending. Yet we see from the
first that it was chiefly “ the lust of the eye.” They had
no other reason to love, for they knew little of each other.
The ballad of “The Nut-brown Maid,” gives us a
nearer glimpse of the true passion. Yet even she seems
to have been a relation of the Patient Griselda. Men,
however, like women to learn that the most esteemed
among them were those who would flatter and pet them
notwithstanding their infidelities, their coarseness of mind
and manners, their neglect, and general bad conduct.
Thus pretty fools without much sensibility have always
been admired, while women of sense and learning and
self-respect have been sometimes shunned. Both sides,
however, are becoming wiser. Men are not so ready to
marry a doll-face as they were, and women begin to look
for men with brains and sound hearts. Increase of
caution will produce increase of domestic happiness, and
will make less work for the Divorce Courts. For it is
not possible for two to run together unless well suited to
each other. They cannot even pull comfortably through
life in harness together unless they are unanimous.
There are so many tendencies to friction in married life
that it is certain to prove unhappy unless misery be in
sured against beforehand. Nothing but mutual love can
preserve them from this, a love based on profound know
ledge of each other, profound respect, mutual admiration,
and general agreement, which altogether produce an irre
sistible attraction. Physical beauty may play a part, but
mental and moral beauty will always prove more powerful
and more enduring, for while the first is fading the others
are ripening into fuller perfection. True love can'only
be experienced by the highest natures, because the moral
qualities required for it are indispensable. They must be
true, chaste, full of honour and fidelity, tender, generous,
�32
Lady Cook’s Essays.
and firm as adamant. The false, the sensual, the dis
honourable and faithless, the hard, the mean, and the
fickle, can never acquire the happiness of possessing it.
Its heavenly delights are for reverent dispositions. If
love is heaven and heaven is love,” then to love truly
is the most perfect moral and spiritual education. Selfish
ness has no place in it. Self-abnegation is its flower and
root. In order to obtain this supreme felicity of life, we
must avoid all that will lower our moral tone, and must
cherish whatever will advance it. They are fools and
egoists who despise love. Love is the highest form of
altruism, and is, therefore, the most perfect goodness.
Whosoever lives for or to serve another without looking
for fee or reward, lives a life of love. Nature is love : by
her laws each lives for others; “ all the flowers kiss one
another.” Heaven is love. God is love. And a-true
union might, and should be, the most perfect means of
human happiness could we only purify and etherealize it
with the spirit of true love. The noblest and &wisest
minds have already obtained it, and when true nobility
and true honesty become less rare, true love will be more
general. But while marriage continues to be based upon
unworthy considerations, inspired by recklessness, ignor
ance, lust, selfishness, or weak ambition, instead of true
love, it will be like that house which was built upon the
sands : “ And the rains descended, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and beat upon that h-ouse; and it
fell: and great was the fall of it.”
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
33
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
WHO SHOULD PROPOSE?
M Where found you confidence your suit to move ? ”
—Dryden.
“ Beshrew me, but ’twere pity of his heart,
That could refuse a boon to such a suitress.”
—Rowe.
Marriage is like a voyage by sea—it reveals character.
It shows others what manner of men and women we are.
So Corydon may be the gentlest of swains, and Phyllis
the sweetest shepherdess that ever carried a crook, so long
as they meet to woo and to be wooed; but when they
exchange their pastoral pursuits for homely housekeeping,
the defects of each are for the first time exposed to the
other. It is all very well to sit on a mossy bank beneath
some ancient tree in the leafy month of June, surrounded
by flowers and frisking lambs, and to babble of love and
eternal fidelity; but to sit by a smoky fire in winter, when
the larder is empty and the purse is low, and flowers and
lambs and June are dead, and love itself fast dying, will
test the strongest vows and unloose the most latent dis
cords. Each is surprised to find that the character of the
other was misunderstood. Each’ feels deceived and ag
grieved, and reproaches and tears take the place of billings
and cooings.
But the glittering mansion is not exempt from the evils
of the thatched cottage. There may be wealth and rank,
and a full measure of worldly prosperity, yet discord will
enter in. Lady Clara Vere de Vere is as frail and un
stable as her humbler sisters. Her lordly spouse is in his
way as selfish and as exacting as simple Corydon. Ennui
and friction are as fatal to the happiness of the great as
cold and want are to the poor. Discontent is the cause
with both. And why ? Because neither really knew the
other. Because both masked their feelings and displayed
their most agreeable qualities and abilities. Because with
each the role of the man was to win, and of the woman
to be won. It was his to pursue boldly, and hers to coyly
retreat. Thus he displayed a fictitious courage, and she an
artificial modesty, with two wrecked lives as a result.
These methods may have been suitable for a barbarous
age when men wooed like the birds and beasts of the field,
and lived scarcely better lives than they. But at this
D
�34
Lady Cook’s Essays.
period of human evolution, we require more rational pro
cesses of mating, processes which will promote truth and
honesty between the sexes prior to marriage, and thus
prevent unpleasant after developments. And in order to
accomplish this we must first sweep away the cobwebs of
superstition, particularly those which render it immodest
for awoman to make the first advances in affection. Women
are far shrewder than men in the matter of sexual choice,
and are less governed by blind passion. If they had the
same freedom to propose as men have, there would be
fewer unhappy marriages. It is true a woman has many
ways of letting a man know that he is pleasing to her
without saying so in so many words. But men have the
same. And any such indication on her part would, as
things are, be liable to serious misconstruction. She
might be accused of levity, or even of wantonness, unless
she could be permitted to make her intentions clear by a
definite proposal. It might sound a little strange at first
for a modest and pretty girl to say, “ Dear Mr. Smith, I
have had the pleasure of knowing you for some time, and
have, the highest esteem for your character. I am sure
you would make a good and affectionate husband to a
suitable wife. Our views and feelings have often been
mutually exchanged in the most friendly and unreserved
manner, and I have learnt to entertain a tender regard for
you. If you, as I flatter myself you do, feel similarly
towards me, and think I could make you a wife after your
own heart, I should feel myself the happiest woman alive
by your accepting me. Should you consent to my pro
posal, I shall be delighted to mention it at once to your
Mother.” This, we say, might seem strange at first, but
not stranger than now, when at a tenants’ ball the ladies
of the great house invite the men to dance with them;
and after a few courageous maidens had essayed and
succeeded, it would quickly become the fashion. Young
men, we hear, are shy of proposing now-a-day, and so
cultivate bachelorhood. This is not only an evil to the
commonwealth, but it is also a wrong to its fairer mem
bers, and a tacit reproach to their character. As men are
not generally given to excessive modesty as to their own
qualifications, it cannot be supposed that they think
themselves not good enough for the women. It would be
a great slur on our marriageable young women, however,
to suppose that they are not good enough for the men,
and still worse if it could be said that neither are4, fit for
marriage. If the young men will not do as their fathers
before them, and what has hitherto been considered thely
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
35
duty, let our girls inaugurate a better state of things by
proposing on their own account. After the first novelty
has worn off, no one will accuse them of impropriety or
forwardness.
As things are now, men only are allowed to propose.
We have not desired this custom, but to make it inter
changeable and common to both sexes. That it is not
immodest for a woman to propose, Desdemona herself
proved; she was unquestionably modest, “a maiden never
bold,” said her father. Her husband, when charged with
bewitching her, explained to his judges that she had re
quested him when they were alone to tell over again the
story of his adventures. With manly frankness he con
cluded :—
“ My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;
She swore ; in faith, ’twas strange, ’twas passing strange,
’Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful;
She wished she had not heard it, yet she wished
That heaven had made her such a man ; she thanked me;
And bade me if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake.
She lov’d me for the dangers I nad pass’d,
And I lov’d her that she did pity them.”
Notwithstanding their disparity of years, of colour,
and race, this natural union was an inexpressibly happy
one until the noble nature of Othello was betrayed by the
villainy of an arch-rogue and the fatuousness of a fool.
Surely their misfortune is no argument against love matches
or maidenly proposals. Desdemona knew a hero when
she met him, because her judgment was sound and her
education sufficient for discrimination. But if girls are
imperfectly educated, and therefore deficient in judg
ment, they will undoubtedly mistake shams for realities,
and tinsel for sterling gold.
In truth it seems most fitting, if there should be any
preference in proposing, that women should possess it.
At present marriage is of more importance to her than to
a man. Our opponents are never tired of telling us that
it is her avocation. We will take them at their word. A
good woman’s happiness centres in her home. There
she is mistress, mother, and queen. It is her delight to
make all within its influence the happier and better fo.r
her rule, and to convert it into an earthly Paradise. But
to do this she must have the man whom she can love
most truly, and must, therefore, have the right of choos
ing. One of the most accomplished and beautiful Engda
�•
Lady Cook’s Essays.
lishwomen of her day, Lady Mary Wortley Montague,
daughter of a duke and wife of an ambassador, and an
associate of the most intellectual men in Europe, an un
romantic, clear-headed, fashionable lady who saw more
of life, perhaps, than any other woman, wrote in reply to
Rochefoucault’s cynical maxim, “ That marriage is some
times convenient, but never delightful,” and said: “It is
impossible to taste the delights of love in perfection, but
in a well-assorted marriage.................... A fond couple
attached to each other by mutual affection, are two lovers
who live happily together. Though the priest pronounces
certain words, though the lawyers draw up certain instru
ments ; yet I look on these preparatives in the same light
as a lover considers a rope-ladder which he fastens to his
mistress’s window: If they can but live together, what
does it signify by what means the union is accomplished.
. . . . Two married lovers lead very different lives :
they have the pleasure to pass their time in a successive
intercourse of mutual obligations and marks of benevo
lence, and they have the delight to find that each forms
the entire happiness of the beloved object. Herein con
sists perfect felicity. The most trivial concerns of
economy become noble and elegant when they are
exalted by sentiments of affection : to furnish an apart
ment is not barely to furnish an apartment; it is a place
where I expect my lover; to prepare a supper is noC
merely giving orders to my cook ; it is an amusement to
regale the object I dote on. In this light a woman con
siders these necessary occupations as more lively and
affecting pleasures than those gaudy sights which amuse
the greater part of the sex, who are incapable of true
enjoyment.” The husband’s feelings in his duties corre
spond to the wife’s : he works for her, and both are pre
pared, by calm reflection, for mutual infirmities and the
ravages of time. “When a pair,” she adds, ‘‘who enter
tain such rational sentiments, are united by indissoluble
bonds, all nature smiles upon them, and the most common
appear delightful. In my opinion,, such a life is infinitely
more happy and more voluptuous than the most ravish
ing and best regulated gallantry.”
Another reason why a woman should have the privi
lege of proposing is, that it is she who will bear the fruits
of marriage. Hers will be the pain, the years of weari
ness, the intense anxiety and affection for her offspring.
If she endure the cross, should she not also wear the
crown ? If in suffering and sorrow she bring forth
children, should she not have the selection of her partner.
�Ladv Cook’s Essays.
so that she may be indemnified for all by the joy of
knowing that they spring from one whom she is proud to
call their father ? Women are growing wiser, and if free
to propose would elect the worthiest they could obtain.
The wiser they prove the more select will be their choice.
Rakes and profligates of all descriptions they will reject.
They will refuse to join themselves to any unless sound in
body, mind, and morals. Maternity will be revered as a
sacred function demanding every just precaution; as an
obligation to reproduce man as in the Biblical beginning
—in the likeness and image of God.
�gg
Lady Cook’s Essays.
WHICH IS TO BLAME?
Man
or
Woman?
[Reprinted from the “ Woodhull & Claflin Weekly,” 1871.]
“ Ignorance is not innocence, but vulgarity.”
In my first series of Essays, I defined “ Virtue ” and
M Modesty.” I will now venture on a definition of
*
■ Seduction.”*
With the world generally, the assumption is that
women and women only, are liable to seduction, and
that men are entirely free from any such weakness.
Now what is the implication in all this ? Why, simply
that women are weaklings and ninnies, and that they
have no opinion, no character, no power of self-defence,
but simply the liability to be influenced to their
ruin by men. And women consent to and strengthen
this implication by conceding the truth of this false
notion, by joining in the clamour about seduction, pre
cisely as they concur in the false and insulting discrimi
nation between the virtue of man and the virtue of
woman. Now, the fact is that seduction is,' and ought to
be, mutual. No love is without seduction in its highest
sense. But love is not the only attribute of either man
or woman. There should also be wisdom, character,
purpose, and power of self-regulation and defence on the
part of each. If there is any difference, woman is, of
the two, the grand seductive force, whether the seduction
be legitimate charm or its counter-part. She is, by
nature and organisation, if the poets speak the truth,
ai a magazine of enticement and influence and power ”
over the imagination and conduct of the opposite sex.
But even if that were not so, if she stood on the same
level of capacity in this respect with the man, the con
dition into which society has thrust her compels her to
make a profession of seduction. It is considered a
* This article on " Seduction” was written by Lady Cook twenty-five
years ago. It has still, and especially at the present time, sa raison d'etre,
although some passages may, in some respects, be out of date ; but even
those passages referring to the conditions of the position of woman which
conditions have now happily almost ceased to exist—will have in them
selves their purpose in reminding the reader of the vast progress made
in the cause of woman since that period, and in giving the opportunity to
do homage to the valiant efforts of the many of its noble workers.—N<mes
wPwmik
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
reproach for a woman to be an “ old maid.” She must#
therefore, by all possible means, lure some man into
marriage; and not succeeding in that directly, she is
tempted to beguile him into some act which will compro
mise him and compel marriage subsequently. She has
the strongest possible motive, therefore, from this point
of view, to be herself the tempter ; and if the roofs were
lifted off the tops of the houses, if the facts were simply
known of what is every day occurring, I believe it would
be found that a majority of women exert an undue
influence over men.
But it is not merely that the female sex is pre
eminently interested in the whole matter of love, and is,
by nature and organisation, representative of that half
of human concerns, nor the fact, which I have alluded
to, that she is humiliated and despised by society if she
fails to secure a husband; there are still stronger im
pulses and motives and necessities operating on her. As
things are in the world at present, women have not equal
chances with men of earning and winning anything ; men
hold the purse and women are dependents and candidates
for election to place. They must entice and seduce and
entrap men, either in the legitimate or in the illegitimate
way, in order to secure their portion of the spoil. It is
no fault of theirs if they have to do this. Society con
demns them to a condition in which they have no other
resource. I am not arguing the rectitude or otherwise of
that point now. I am merely adverting to the fact as a
reason why many women make a business—the great
pursuit in fact of their lives—of the seduction of men;
while with men the betrayal of women is an incident,
mostly a sudden temptation perhaps thrown in their way,
without suspicion on their part, by the very women who
then raise a hubbub of excitement about having been
ruined. When people had slaves, they expected that
their pigs, chickens, corn, and everything lying loose
about the plantation would be stolen. But the planters
began by stealing the liberty of their slaves, by stealing
their labour, by stealing, in fact, all they had; and the
natural result was that the slaves stole back all they
could. So in the case of women. Reduced to the condi
tion of dependency, and with no other avenue for acquire
ment or success than the one which lies through their
mastery or influence over the opposite sex, their natural
powers to charm and seduce are, of course, reinforced by
astuteness and trickery, and they not only have the cun
*
ning to beguile the men, in the majority of cases, but the
astuteness also to throw the blame on the men for betray
�4©
Lady Cook’s Essays.
ing them. This is sharp practice; but they are taught in
a school of sharp practice which the men have instituted
for them; and the result is a natural and necessary one
from the present organization of society. The very
foundation of our existing social order is mutual decep
tion and all-prevalent hypocrisy; and this will always be
the case until we have freedom ; until we recognise the
rights of nature, until we provide in a normal and proper
way for every passion of the human soul.
There are two policies, or theories, of action in the
world. One is the policy of “ repression ” ; the other
is the policy of “ enfranchisement,” or enlargement. The
policy of repression has its whole legion of legitimate
consequences, which are in the main what we know as
the vices of society. The slave was taught to be tricky
and wily and wise after his method, to circumvent the
wrong which was inflicted on him. The depressed and
oppressed woman is made to be hypocritical and frivo
lous and in every way false to the higher nature of
Womanhood, false to her duties in life, and false to the
true relations which she should hold to men. By enslav
ing her the male sex is doing the greatest possible injus
tice to itself. It is only by enfranchising her, by. helping
her by every possible method to security of condition, to
the opportunity for development, to the means of being
true and noble, that men will have in the world a being
whom he can truly love and whom he will be proud in
all ways to aid and protect. The policy of repression
is therefore suicidal or self-defeating; and as the world
grows wiser, it will be, in all the spheres of life, replaced
by the nobler, more natural, and beneficent policy of free
dom, with order of a higher and better kind, which will
spontaneously follow.
'
I have spoken of seduction in a somewhat. more
general sense than the definitions to be found in the
dictionary, as applicable to all the attractions. which
exist between the sexes, or to that which is exercised by
the one over the other; but it is generally confined to,
and defined in, its bad sense, as the exertion of this charm
unduly and adversely to the real wish and the true in
terests of the party affected by it. In this sense it is
mutual, or as likely to occur on the one side as on the
other, even if it were not stimulated on the part of the
woman by the considerations which I have suggested.
What J have said will perhaps enable my readers to
apportion for themselves the degree of criminality. ® The
immediate criminality is more likely to be with the
woman than with the man; but the remote criminality of
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
instituting and maintaining conditions in society which
force the woman into hypocrisy is more that of the man;
and yet it is hardly worth while to talk of criminality in
either case. The great fact is one of ignorance. What
the world wants is more knowledge of how to do right.
The human passions have been found to be terrible forces,
like steam or fire, and instead of studying them in order
to regulate them in accordance with their own true laws
and their adaptation to the world’s well-being, they have
been feared merely, fought down and repressed.
It may be asked “ ought a woman to risk her happiness
for a lifetime on a promise of marriage? ” In my profession
of a physician, and in a practice of more than a dozen
years, I was consulted by women, and especially by those
in the higher rank in society, for the reason that they bad
more leisure, means, and opportunity to investigate. I
have been consulted by thousands of such women, and I
can truly say that, in a very large proportion of cases,
they have confessed or confided to me that they had
placed the fullest confidence in their husbands prior to
marriage, and that no subsequent advantage was taken of
that fact by the men. In other words, the so-called
“ seduction ” in these numerous instances was not followed
by desertion. It never became known, therefore, as
“ seduction.” It is a very prevalent opinion that the
prompting motive to marriage on the part of men is the
mere gratification of the one passion. The truth is, I
believe, very much the opposite; and that men seek
instinctively, and hope to find, in that relation a true,
rational, and spiritual companionship, as well as material
charm ; but, alas I how often are they sadly disappointed!
The woman proves to be a mere doll, a characterless and
insipid person. The ideality which had enshrined her
before marriage is dispersed after a few days or weeks of
acquaintance and familiarity. Instead of rising in the
esteem of her husband by the development of new and
grand characteristics, she sinks under his contempt, or
palls upon his interest, and he is driven elsewhere in the
hope of meeting that companionship in women which the
higher instinct of the manly soul constantly, whether
consciously or unconsciously, craves. The popular
assumption that when a woman has surrendered her
greatest treasure she is threatened to be despised and
abandoned for that, is not true. For if she is a woman of
a great and noble soul, of commanding character of
intellect, spirituality, and womanly worth, the true man
from that time begins to know how to live. He is initia
ted by her generosity into the true knowledge of his own
�42.
Lady Cook’s Essays.
nature, and elevated to the moral and aesthetic plane of a
woman’s soul.
On the other hand, her silly pretence of ignorance, her
lack of true sentiment and dignity, her childishness, grow
ing in some of its many shapes out of the false education
and no education which surround this whole subject, are
precisely what disgust and repel men and ruin them. It
is another blunder to suppose that it is only women who
get ruined. Women who allow themselves to think that
sexuality and prettiness are the only charms they are
expected to have, and that it is a disgrace for them to be
strong-minded, are sure to wreck their own happiness
and that of the man whom they ought to love.
I may here answer more than one correspondent by
saying that I do not advocate the abrogation or the
amendment of the Marriage Laws as long as they are
needed, as long as there is nothing better, as long as
people’s ideas are not elevated above the plane of such
laws. What I advocate is freedom of thought and speech
on the subject, freedom to devise better methods; but I
mean all this a great deal more with reference to opinion
than with reference to law. What I want are higher
development, better knowledge, and of course, better laws
and better institutions to grow out of these. There are,
undoubtedly, women who are weak and silly and simple,
and who are taken advantage of by designing men. Until
we have such systems of education as will tend to prevent
women from being weak, simple, and silly, it is undoubtedly
right to have laws punishing seduction with the utmost
severity; but we have also, as I think I have shown,
ninnies among men, and ought we not therefore to have
laws for their protection ? An Act of the Legislature
entitled “An Act for the Protection of Ninnies against
Designing Women ” would be refreshing, and perhaps
logically based upon the reason of the laws for the protec
tion of female virtue. Indeed, there were, at one time,
laws in England specifically “ for the punishment of bad
women who seduced the soldiers of the king.”
I do not remember that the Bible has said much, if
anything, about the awful crime of seducing women. It
has, I believe, on the contrary, commiserated the sad
condition of the ninny part of our mixed population. Read
attentively Proverbs vii. on this subject. Making a
running commentary on it, it reads somewhat as follows:
“Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister, and call under
standing thy kinswoman, that may keep thee from the
Strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
43
her words (the seducer). For at the window of my house
I looked through my casement (peeped from behind the
curtains, spying over other people’s affairs, which showed
the writer’s interest in the subject) and I beheld among
the simple ones (the ninny population—not the women,
mind), a young man void of understanding (not a very
*
rare case) passing the street near her corner (whoever shai=
was, the woman that lived in the corner over the way),
and he went the way to her house in the twilight in tha
evening, in the black and dark night (that is to say,
repeatedly, and sometimes when it was so dark that ‘ it
was all I could do to watch them *, and behold there met
)
him a woman with the attire of a harlot, and subtle of
heart (cunning and capable of seduction); so she caught
him and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto
him ‘ I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry,
with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt. I have
perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
Come, let us us take our fill of love until the morning, let
us solace ourselves with loves. For the good man (the
husband) is not at home, he has gone along journey. He
hath taken a bag of money with him and will come home
at the day appointed ’ (that is to say, not too soon for us).
With her much fair speech she caused him to yield (seduced
him), with the flattering of her lips she forced him to yield
(figuratively, violation, I suppose). He goeth after her
(ninny-like) straight-way as an ox goeth to the slaughter,
or as a fool (as he was) to the correction of the stocks;
till a dart strikes through his liver.”
The point here is that the Bible makes the chief
instance of seduction to be that of the man by the woman
in common allusion to the matter. Indeed, we always
admit this, after the first instance; but, then, without
much logic for it, we assume that it is always the man, in
this first instance of the the so-called “ fall from virtue,”
who has betrayed and ruined the woman. This point tha
Bible does not mention or refer to. If, then, woman
is the only sex which elevates seduction into a profession
or a life-business, I suggest that there may be some mistake
about the matter, and that the poor innocent girl, or older
maiden, who wakes our sympathy for her wronged in
nocence, may, at least in a majority of cases, have planned
her own ruin, and have seduced the foolish man into
what goes afterwards as his criminality. I still adhere to
my proposition of a law to emanate from & Parliament
“for^the protection of ninnies against the seduction of
young girls and grown women.” If law is to regulate ths
matter, let the whole ground be effectually covered.
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
MARRIAGE.
“Wishing each other not divorced but dead,
They live respectably as man and wife.”—Byron.
If on-e were driven in a corner for an argument against
the existing marriage system, it would only be necessary
to refer to the records of the Divorce Courts during one
short year. What a catalogue of wretchedness is con
tained in those files! Those “ human documents ” are
more tragically pathetic than the most startlingly realistic
work of the imagination ever written in the past or which
can ever be penned in the future. People of all ranks
and all classes devour their filthy details, published by
the least reputable of the daily journals, and yet turn up
the whites of their eyes and hold up their hands in
hypocritical amazement when any would-be reformer of
the existing horrible state of things steps into the arena
to denounce unholiness, and to endeavour to bring about
a more holy, a purer, and a more natural condition of
things.
How often do we not hear it said, by women of the
world, as well as by men, that “ marriage is a lottery ? ”
The proposition indeed is so self-evident as to be undeni
able. A “ lottery!” That is precisely what marriage has
come to be. For one marriage of affection and love,
there are many unions of what the French term “con
venience ”—that is to say, marriages wherein the prevail
ing, and often the only, element is cash I It is all a
question (to employ the mordant phrase of the Poet
Laureate) of “ Proputty, proputty, proputty I ” Now, how
is the modern marriage “ brought about ? ”
For reasons, which are so obvious that they do not
require to be specified, I will deal first with marriage as
it is known in what, by a polite fiction, are styled “ the
upper classes,” albeit some of those who “ live, move, and
have their being ” in that orbit have, by their evil example,
done more than any other classes to bring the sacred
institution of marriage into loathing and contempt. Like
most of the other marts of commerce, the marriage of
Modern Babylon is open for all practical purposes the
whole year round, morning, noon, afternoon, and night.
Special activity, however, reigns during the Spring and
�Lady Cook’s
essays.
45
Summer months, from April to the end of July the
market-place of Society is thronged by matrons and
maids, the latter decked out in all the colours of the
rainbow, and further bedizened by the aid of “jewels
rich and rare.” No expense is spared by the matronly
auctioneers to make their property attractive and fas
cinating, and every inducement is offered to purchasers to
come and buy the human flesh and blood. The proprie
tors of all this beauty are their own auctioneers, and set
up their rostrums as we have all seen, and can see every
season, in every conceivable place; it may be an at home
in Mayfair, a dance in Belgravia, or a Royal strawberry
crush in Pall Mall. But, no matter where it may be, the
procedure never varies, but is always the same.
A goodly assemblage having been got together, the
auctioneer-mother mounts the rostrum, and the sale
begins :—■
“ My lords and gentlemen, the catalogue of to-day’s
auction contains, as you will have seen, an unusually choice
selection of youthful beauties, differing only in age, height,
and colour. Many of them can trace their family history
back to the days of Adam; they are highly accomplished,
able to drive, ride, swim, row, fence, and play tennis as
well as any of yourselves. Some have been taught, or
perhaps I should say, have taught themselves to smoke,
but at present, I grieve to say, these latter are in the
minority. And now, my lords and gentlemen, with these
few preliminary remarks, we will have Lot I. brought
forward. Her age is eighteen, and, as you will observe,
she is a magnificent blonde, as like as possible to her
female ancestress, the Countess of Ruffleton, whose por
trait, painted by Lely, you have all doubtless seen at
Hampton Court. Observe her lustrous eyes, the texture
of her velvety skin, the roundness of her arms, the beauty
of her bust, her delicate hands, and her small feet.
Approach her more closely, gentlemen; don’t be afraid—
she won’t mind your criticism. She is the last of six
sisters, so don’t let this opportunity slip. The reserve
price put upon her is only £100,000. The purchaser need
not have any birth at all. We ask no particulars as to
the existence of grandfathers or grandmothers ; money is
the sine qua non. £100,000 buys her 1 Buyer’s name,
please, Mr. Moneybags ? Thank you. The solicitors
will wait on you in the morning. Now put up the next
lot.”
And thus the sales of human flesh and blood proceed
day after day and year after year in the marriage mart of
�•
Lady Cook’s Essays.
the Modern Babylon. If I am charged with exaggerating
the prevailing condition of things, I am content to call
one witness, and one only, in support of the accuracy of
what I have set down in no spirit of malice or unchari
tableness. Let us hear “ Canon Liddon on the Marriage
Market,” for that is the exact heading which the news
papers gave their reports of that memorable discourse,
which the ever-to-be-lamented divine delivered from the
pulpit of St. Paul’s Cathedral a short time before his
death. Canon Liddon (I am now quoting textually from
the newspaper reports of that period), preaching yesterday
at St. Paul’s on the parable of the rich landowner who
had more goods than he could stow away, said there were
many counterparts of him in modern society. . . . After
dwelling on four considerations as to the use or abuse of
property to be derived from the parable, Canon Liddon
said:—
“ The London season is approaching, and a bevy of
mothers, like Generals on a campaign, will complain of
no fatigue if they can only marry their daughters, not to
high-souled and generous men, but to those who have a
fortune. There will also be a group of young men, who,
having lived a life of dissipation, are thinking of settling
down. They will look for a girl, not with graces of
character which will make her husband and children
happy, but for one possessed of a dowry which will
enable him to keep up a large establishment. Thus the
most sacred of all human relationships, both for time and
eternity, is prostituted to the brutal level of an affair of
cash, and is quickly followed by months and years of
misery, which, after seething in private, are paraded to
the world amid the shame and degradation of the Divorce
Court. He did not underrate the dangers of involution
likely to arise from the strained relations of capital, labour,
strikes, and other causes, but there were dangers nearer
home.”
■ These words, of one of the most devoted sons of the
Church who ever lived, made a profound, but not lasting,
impression on the world generally. Nobody dared to
criticise them, for they were stamped with the impress of
Truth, and not to be ridiculed or explained away by
sneering doctrinaires in the Press or Voltairian cynics in
the drawing-rooms and clubs. Liddon had spoken and
the mouths of the mockers were closed; and they were
as dumb dogs in the presence of such an accusation.
Dr.' Magee, the deeply-regretted Archbishop of York, was
another eminent cleric, who was not afraid to speak out,
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
47
either in the pulpit or the Senate, and a few others might
be added to the glorious roll of men in high places who,
recognising the social decadence of which every day
furnishes more and more striking proofs, did not hesitate
to denounce the evils which still surround us, despite the
vaunted “spread of civilization,” Free Education, and
the benefits which we are told a Free and Cheap Press
has bestowed upon the Empire.
When we read of Joan of Arc being tied to the stake
and burnt, we shudder even now; but how far in excess
of all physical torture is the refined cruelty of the nine
teenth century, which compels a girl or a woman to be
the companion of a lustful being who is hardly one remove
from a beast, simply because she is penniless and he has
well-filled coffers 1 In the great majority of cases it may
be safely assumed that a girl knows nothing whatever
about the duties and responsibilities of wedded life until
she is married. Such ignorance is not only culpable, it
is positively criminal on the part of those who have let
her go blindfolded to the altar. Where there has been no
love, how can there ever be any respect ? And where the
husband sets a bad example—as he too often does, parti
cularly in aristocratic life—who can wonder at the wife
straying into the paths of sin ? The wonder is, not that
there is so little good in the world, but that there is not
more vice than unfortunately exists.
Marriage, according to the existing system, is, with
many women, the first step towards demoralisation—the
initial step to Avernus—from which there is no retreat.
“All hope abandon ye who enter here! ” It is a sad
and ghastly fact that a newly-married woman, no matter
how young she may be, is considered fair game by all the
elderly andyouthful roues whose position enables them to
approach her. Every artful wile is practised to lead her
astray; she is flattered and fooled to the top of her
bent; money is lavished upon her; and, to sum up, she
finds a life of sin so much easier and more pleasurable
than one of virtue, that she too seldom hesitates before
leading it.
Again, if we do but consider the number of oppor
tunities which young and middle-aged married women
have of kicking over the traces, we shall be the less sur
prised at the appalling results of modern marriage. Where
the alliance has been entirely a question of cash, and
where, as in any great city like London and New York,
women are surrounded by luxuries and beset by the most
insidious temptations, how can we expect society of all
�4»
Lady Cook’s Essays.
kinds to be other than it is ? The looseness of the con
versation at the dinner-table, and even in the drawing
room, has much to do with ruining women, especially if
they be of the giddy and thoughtless kind. And what
shall we say of feminine dress, which, in this year of
grace one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, may
be said to have reached the acme of indecency and extra
vagance? It seems to be a race with “fashionable”
women who shall wear the most decolletee gown and the
largest diamonds. Whenever I see one of these muchjewelled ladies, I am reminded of what Juvenal says in
his terrible trenchant and biting Sixth Satire : There is
nothing a woman will not allow herself, nothing she holds
disgraceful, when she has encircled her neck with
emeralds, and inserted ear-rings of great value in her
ears, stretched with their weight. Is it not humiliating
to reflect that the world is no better now than it was in
its infancy—than it was when the greatest satirist who
ever lived penned his scathing denunciations of the
women of Old Rome ? Juvenal, remember, was born in
a small town of the Volsei, about the year of Christ 38,
yet his Satires are almost as applicable to the end of the
nineteenth century as they were to the period of which
he wrote.
Let us glance for a moment at the frequently discussed
union of George Eliot and George Henry Lewes.
They were brought together through the medium of
Mr. Herbert Spencer, and in less than three years, as is
evident from her correspondence, they had become every
thing to each other. They could not legally marry, inas
much as Mr. Lewes’s wife was living. Mr. J. W. Cross,
who, less than two years after the death of Lewes, was
married to George Eliot at the fasnionable fane in Hanover
Square, says:—“ In forming a judgment on so momentous
a question, it is above all things necessary to understand
what was actually undertaken and what was actually
achieved; and, in my opinion, this can be best arrived
at, not from outside statement or arguments, but by con
sideration of the true tenour of the life ” which followed,
in the development of which Mr. Lewes’s true character,
as well as that of George Eliot, unfolded itself. George
Eliot herself, writing to a lady in defence of her line of
conduct, declared, “ If there is any one action or relation
in my life which, is and always has been profoundly
serious, it is my relation to Mr. Lewes.” In order to
allay any prejudice which her friends may have had
against her mode of life (says one of her biographers), she
argues the possibility for two persons to have different
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
49
opinions on momentous subjects with equal sincerity,
with an equally earnest conviction that their respective
opinions are alone the truly moral ones. “ If we differ
on the subject of marriage laws,” says George Eliot,
writing to Mrs. Bray, the lady above referred to, “ I at
least can believe of you that you cleave to what you
believe to be good; and I don’t know anything in the
nature of your views that should prevent you believing
the same of me. . . . One thing I can tell you in a
few words: Lightly and easily broken ties are what I
neither desire theoretically nor could live for practically.
Women who are satisfied with ties do not act as I have
done. That any unworldly, unsuperstitious person, who
is sufficiently acquainted with the realities of life, can
pronounce my relation with Mr. Lewes immoral, I can
only understand by remembering how subtle and com
plex are the influences which mould opinion. From the
majority of persons, of course, we never looked for any
thing but condemnation. We are leading no life of self
indulgence, except, indeed, that being happy in each
other, we find everything easy. ... I should not
care to vindicate myself if I did not love you, and desire
to relieve you of the pain which you say these conclusions
have given you. I should like never to write about
myself again; it is not healthy to dwell on one’s own
feelings and conduct, but only try and live more faithfully
and more lovingly every fresh day.” It is, perhaps,
hardly necessary for me to point out what is perfectly
well known—namely, that Lewes and his wife had pre
viously come to the cenclusion that they could no longer
live together. The world would be all the better if we
had more George Eliot’s—women with the courage to be
true to their hearts and their convictions—and fewer of
those women who, in accordance with the monstrous law
of society that you may commit any number of sins if
you can do so without being found out, lead double lives,
and instead of elevating themselves and their husbands
by the good influence which an honourable attachment
would exercise over them, gradually sink down and down,
and become brutalised under the weight of the dual
existence which they have been beguiled into leading.
These, however, are precisely the women who are most
severe and unsparing in denouncing the weaker vessels
who have fallen in public estimation, simply because they
have not been sufficiently clever to observe the Eleventh
Commandment: “ Thou shalt not be found out! ”
From the days when, to go no farther back, Hogarth
�50
Lady Cook’s Assays.
painted his “ Marriage a la Mode,” down to the present
date, our satirists have made the marriage institution a
target for their most pointed shafts. One eminent writer
makes these pertinent remarks, which I perhaps may be
pardoned for observing fully bear out my assertions as
printed above:—
“ Considering how fashionable marriages originate, it
is astonishing that they do not turn out worse than they
generally do. A man meets a girl in a ballroom, admires
her, gets into the way of dancing with her, calls on her
parents, and, perhaps, is asked to dinner. The end of
the season approaches; she seems to ^prefer him to
others ; the match would be suitable; he proposes and
is accepted. . . . Whatever the cause and explana
tion, a thoroughly united and loving couple is compara
tively seldom to be met with in good society. . . .
Finding it terribly dull at home, she invites some of
her most favoured acquaintances to call on her. Soon
one succeeds in rendering himself more agreeable than
his rivals, and he gradually establishes his position as
permanent cavalier. . . . and she soon gets so used
to his visits and attractions as to look on them as almost
necessaries of life. By degrees the cavalier draws his
intimacy closer. . . . Then the woman must be a
prodigy if she is not in great danger of forfeiting her
fair fame.”
Our novelists and playwrights base the great majority
of their stories and dramatic plots on the unhappiness of
those women. And as it is in “ Society,” so it is in the
ranks of the middle and lower middle classes—in fact, the
bourgeoisie. Mr. Giblet, the poulterer, will not allow his
daughter to wed the son of Mr. Spratt, the fishmonger,
unless he has ocular demonstration of the fact that Spratt
p£re is certain to “ cut up warm,” and vice-versa. The
great linendraper, who has made a fortune by the sale of
shirting and huckaback, urges his son to marry into the
ranks of the aristocracy, and threatens to cut him with
the proverbial shilling unless he does so. Not long ago
the daughter of a Hebrew dressmaker espoused a Roman
Catholic nobleman! Indeed, the children of wealthy
Jews frequently marry into Christian families whose
blood is pure though their purses are light. In fact, from
the top to the bottom of the ladder it is the same story—
“ Proputty—proputty—proputty! ” The American poet
summed up the matter tersely and accurately when he
wrote—
,
“ O, dimes and dollars-—dollars and dimes ’
An empty pocket’s the worst of crimes !3
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
51
It is only on rare occasions that we hear any reference
made to the “ sanctity of the marriage-tie.” This is
well, for, remembering what Society is, and has long
been, it would take a judge who has been through
many divorce cases to tell us the precise amount of
“ sanctity ” which still hovers over the institution of
marriage. A primary evil of the existing institution of
marriage is the mad haste with which many matrimonial
alliances are concluded. The young couple who are to be
“joined together in holy matrimony” see one another, so
to speak, in false colours—at all events, not in their own
characters. They are thrown together for a short time,
when both are decked out in the most attractive manner,
and usually under circumstances which do not admit of
any but the merest puerilities of the day being gossiped
about. A few hasty conversations at parties, where every
thing is artificial, and everybody playing a part; an
occasional chat in a drawing-room, where the girl’s
mother and sisters are watching her every movement and
striving to catch what he is saying; a stolen meeting in the
park or elsewhere—these are often the only opportunities
afforded the husband and wife of the future to become
acquainted with each other. “ Acquaintance ” is indeed
the right word for it, inasmuch as their knowledge of one
another rarely or never developes into anything more
until the clergyman has made them one. But, indeed, it
may be stated as an incontestible fact, that under the
present conditions of social life it takes years for people to
know each other at all intimately; yet, in face of this
drawback, parents willingly give their consent to the
marriage of their children, well knowing that the girl and
the young man are absolutely without any—even the
smallest—knowledge of each other’s real character, tem
perament, disposition, and good or bad qualities. Oppor
tunity of talking over the serious matters inseparable
from that existence into which they are about to plunge,
unreflecting, yet nevertheless responsible, they have
never had. Each is more or less infatuated with the other;
and that is the Alpha and the Omega of their wooing !
A man no sooner endeavours to fathom the ideas,
capabilities, and general character of a girl to whom he
has been drawn more than to another, than his evident
partiality for her is misinterpreted, and he is asked by the
eager match-making mother what his “intentions” are.
Thus he is too often bamboozled into what is called
“ making a declaration,” and he finds himself “ engaged ”
before he knows whether he is standing on his head or os
�53
Lady Cook’s Essays.
his heels I When, by some chance or other, he arrives at
the terrible conclusion that the young lady is not at all
suited to his notions of what a helpmate should be, it is too
late for him to retract, the least symptom of his wish to do
so being greeted by a hint that the matter will have to be
referred to the family solicitor. Fearful of such a denoument as a breach of promise action, he holds to his
written or spoken word, and goes to the altar writh the
knowledge that he is entering upon a marriage which can
but end in dire, humiliating failure. Is it not a crying
shame and scandal that the Church and the law should
sanction such unholy alliances, ending as so many of them
inevitably must, and do end, in the Divorce Court, or
worse ? Surely a woman who offers herself for money in
the street is a lesser offender than one who sells herself at
the altar for a fortune or a title. The former, indeed,
does less positive harm to the community than the latter,
who is guilty of bringing into the world children for whom
she has no real affection, and who are too often the fruit
of a transient animal passion.
Even worse are the marriages of ignorance, which,
alas ! only too often become criminal marriages. When
mothers take less trouble over the accomplishments and
appearance of their children, and more over the early
formation of their characters and dispositions; when,
instead of bedizening them with jewellery, tricking them
out in purple and fine linen, and rushing them into
marriage, for no other reason than to get rid of them
because there are others growing up, and because £hey are
crazy to secure for their offspring big incomes and what
is fatuously termed “ social position ”; when mothers
steadfastly and determinedly impress upon their progeny
the absolute necessity of deep consideration and reflection
before taking a step which can never be retraced, and
which, if hastily and thoughtlessly taken, may embitter
and perhaps ruin several lives ; when mothers become the
true guides, teachers, and loving advisers of their children,
instead of being, as now, their covert enemies; when
they impress upon them that a passing fancy or a spas
modic passion must not be mistaken for love, and that love
which is not based on mutual respect will never serve as
the foundation of married happiness; and when they
teach them that marriage was not instituted for the
simple purpose of getting them “ well provided for ”—in
other words, of enabling them to live the lives of drones;
when, in short, mothers will no longer think it “wrong” to
discuss marriage and its attendant responsibilities with
�Lady Cook’s Essavs.
53
their daughters, but will initiate them into the duties and
requirements of wedded life, and look upon them as their
best friends instead of as burdens and ignorant beings,
from whom everything relating to the innermost life of a
woman—or of man—must be jealously hidden, while girls
must only be permitted to see the artificial side of life,
and be callously left to find out the rest for themselves—
then, and not till then, shall we have moral marriages,
unions of hearts and souls; in which the characters of
both men and women will be elevated, purified, and deve
loped—unions in which both husband and wife can truly
say—not only at the altar, but every day of their lives—
that they will “ love, honour, and respect ” each other,
�54
Lady Cook's Essays.
WRONGS OF MARRIED MEN.
“ If too wary, then she’ll shrew thee,
If too lavish, she’ll undo thee.”
—Cotton!s Joys of Marriage,
The circumstances relating to marriage are becoming
so confused and anomalous, that a re-casting of the laws
pertaining to it must soon be universally demanded. At
present married people scarcely know where they are.
The daily papers constantly give most pathetic accounts
of injured husbands in humble life resorting to Police
Magistrates for assistance or advice, and finding that they
have no remedy against the misconduct of their worthless
partners. We have not been sparing, from time to time,
in enumerating the wrongs of women. But the men have
theirs also to a less degree, and it is only equitable that
attention should be drawn to them, for justice and fair
play should be given to all. We have never demanded
that women should have any privileges denied to men.
We only ask that both should share alike.
Not long ago, when the law gave the husband sole
control of the wife’s unsettled property, it was right that
he should be liable for her maintenance. But when, as
now, a married woman retains her own, the reason for
compelling maintenance from the husband has disap
peared. She maj have a good house and a good income,
and from caprice or other cause, may deny him admittance
to his married home, and to any share of her living. If
destitute he mav go to the workhouse, while she is living in
luxury, and no claim can be made upon her for his sus
tenance. But reverse the positions, and the husband will
be compelled to allow her a maintenance. This system
falls hardest on the poorest. It is not uncommon for a
Police Magistrate to order a working man to contribute
twelve shillings a week or more to the support of a
separated wife. Few men of such a class can do this and
live.
Again, since the Jackson case, no husband can compel
an unwilling wife to cohabit with him. Of course, this is
right enough. But, on the other hand, a wife can compel
an unwilling husband, by a Judge’s order, to restore her
to cohabitation or pay the penalty of refusal. This seems
an unfair distinction. If a husband neglect his wife and
family, so that it become constructive cruelty, the wife
can obtain a separation order without so much as tha
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
53
asking. But a wife may spend her days in dissipation,
may frequent public-houses, and neglect her children, and
the husband has neither remedy nor power to prevent
her.
The wife may be a nagger, a scold, a perpetual
tormentor; one of the class whom our humorous and
practical forefathers cured by the application of a duck
ing-stool and a horse-pond; she may be guilty of any
misconduct short of adultery, and the unfortunate
husband must put up with it all. Many such fly for
refuge to the nearest tavern and drown their misery in
drink, and often become criminal from their misfortune.
Many an honest, hard-working man, too, is punished by
the Magistrates because, in his absence from home, his
wife neglected her duties and kept his children from
school. If the fines are not paid, it is he who is im
prisoned, and not the culprit wife.
Widows can claim, absolutely, one-third of the
personalty of husbands dying intestate, but widowers
have only a life interest in the unwilled property of
deceased wives.
As a rule the husband has to work hard to maintain
his wife and family, but however humble their circum
stances may be, the wife can, if she will, be as idleas she
please, and her husband has no remedy. The law will
punish him for his neglect, but not her for hers. For
merly he could castigate her, now he must not so much
as threaten. A working man complains to a Magistrate
that his wife neglects to get his meals, and when she should
be tidying his home, spends her time gossiping in a public
house. “ Very sorry,” replies the Magistrate, “ but I
can do nothing for you. You have taken her for better
or for worse ; you must grin and bear it.” He refuses,
and leaves her, and she straightway obtains a mainte
nance order against him. But would not easy, swift, and
cheap divorce, be a fairer and more sensible mode of
settling their difficulty? Ought the law to compel
people to commit adultery before they can obtain it ?
These are some of the wrongs under which married
men suffer, owing to the radical changes which have taken
place in the relations of husband and wife since marriage
was made a religious sacrament. A more rational per
ception of its nature, however, is beginning to prevail,
and it is time that all these and other anomalies should
cease. The religious idea of its character must give way.
Marriage will have to be thoroughly re-constructed on the
basis of a civil partnership, terminable at will, or from
�56
Lady Cook’s Essays.
breach of . contract, as in other associations. Even time
partnerships, to lapse at the end of a term, say seven or
any other number of years to be agreed upon, would be
better than the hap-hazard, happy-go-lucky system now
in vogue. These, if agreeable, could be renewed or con
tinued at the will of both. As Mr. Labouchere has just
said in the House of Commons, the Law of Divorce is
utterly absurd. “ If two people,” he added, “ wanted to
be married, let them be married,—and if they wanted to
be. divorced, let them be divorced.” Although these
opinions were greeted with much laughter by the House,
as though they were excessively funny, they are neverthe
less correct, and domestic happiness will never be
universal until they be received as serious truths. Should
there be children of those separated, it would be a simple
matter to compel parents to set aside a sum for their sup
port in a ratio according to the individual property of
each. This would put an end to the filthy accounts of
divorce suits which pollute our daily papers, and which
obtain ready admittance into families where a serious
essay on manners and morals is too often excluded
because it contains a little necessary plain speaking—as
though omelettes could be expected without breaking eggs.
If people could divorce themselves at will and with
out publicity, they would be as careful to preserve each
other’s esteem after, as they were before marriage. We
should then seldom see what so frequently happens now ;
the charming, neat, obliging, fiancee, developing into the
giddy, careless, slatternly, and dis-obliging wife, or the
ardent and devoted lover cooling down into the neglectful
and heartless husband. Those truly married would con
tinue to do all they could to please each other -; and those
superficially united would practise the outward decencies
of married life from mutual and self interests. Marriage
would cease to be the grave of love, and the sum total of
human happiness would be immensely increased. Pos
session during good behaviour is far better for our weak
human nature than possession absolute. In the State of
Illinois, where divorce is as easy as possible, only one
couple in seven resort to it, including strangers who visit
there for the purpose, so that of the inhabitants, perhaps
not more than one in fourteen couples, or one person in
twenty-eight, desire to break through the marriage bond.
The nature of marriage would be elevated by bringing it
as nearly as possible to a condition of mutual satisfaction.
Morality would be increased through it. All that are
required to effect these ends are: equal conditions of
partnership, civil contract, and easy method of separation..
�Lapy Cook’s Essays.
57
ARE WE POLYGAMISTS?
A Domestic Dialogue.
“
. . . That love, Sir,
Which is the price of virtue, dwells not here.”
—Beaumont and Fletcher—The New Lover.
He : I don’t know what you mean, Gladys, by asking
such a ridiculous question. Of course we are not poly
gamists. Polygamy is practised only by Asiatics, Africans,
aboriginal Americans, Mormons, and such people, and not
by Europeans, except in Turkey, much less by English
men.
She : I am quite aware, Bertie, that Englishmen are
not supposed to be polygamists. I know that public
opinion, the laws, and our religion, are understood to be
directed against plurality of wives. But I have heard
and read some very strange things lately, and since our
honeymoon, five years ago, my ideas of marriage have
become so much clearer, that I have really begun to
question whether polygamy may not be an institution
with us in private, although disavowed in public. I
assure you, dear, the query is by no means a ridiculous
one.
He ; I suppose you have been reading some of the
trashy views put forth by the advocates of women’s
rights and other rubbish of that sort. Better stick to a
lively novel, Gladys; it will do you more good.
She : No, Bertie, you have not guessed correctly. My
thoughts are my own. But I don’t see why you should
be so hard on women’s rights. If they have any, sureb
they should be allowed to claim them, and it is not ver
gallant of the men to treat rightful claims so contenr
tuously. Howeve-r, Bertie dear, we won’t quarrel ov
this. But I should so like to ask you a few questions
you will answer them on your honour, well and tn?
They say Socrates used to arrive at the truth by askS
questions. Then why not a woman ?
He: Well, my little philosopher in petticoats,-s^
. what you please, and I will answer as well as
able.
She : Do you love me, Bertie ?
�5s
Lady Cook’s Essays,
He : You darling little goose, of course I do. You
know I do. What makes you ask such a question ?
She : Excuse me, dear, you must not ask questions,
but only answer them. Else the process will be spoilt.
Did you ever love anyone else ?
He : Come now, my little wifey, that’s hardly fair. I
suppose I have done much like other young men. Most
of them sow a few wild oats before they settle down to
the calm delights of matrimony. No one thinks the worse
of them for that, and many believe that they are all the
better for it afterwards.
She : I have heard these sentiments before, dear. I
suppose it soothes men’s consciences to play at this kind
of make-believe. You, Bertie, are very clever and sen
sible, as everyone knows. Do you think immorality is
less immoral because you call it “ wild oats ” ?
He : Certainly not.
She : Does it depend upon sex ?
He : Well, I suppose not. I should say what would
be immoral in one would be immoral in the other.
She : Yet, darling, if you had put the question to me
and l had given a similar reply as to my former life, I am
afraid you would not have forgiven me.
He : I am afraid not, too. But then girls are not ex
pected to do the same as men. Society gives men greater
licence, and with good reason. Conduct which scarcely
harms them would ruin women.
She : Just so. Men weigh their actions in one balance
and ours in another. But they could not sow wild oats
unless women helped them.
He : True, but not your sort, dear. I think we had
t better not discuss them.
She : Then you can answer my question. Did you
ever love anyone else ?
He : Most men love, or think they love, many times,
perhaps, before they meet with the right one. I have
done the same. But I have never loved anyone as I love
you, Gladys, and that should satisfy you.
1 She : It does. I am very proud and happy in
yobr love, darling. I am only trying in my weak, and,
peliaps, foolish way, to see whether we are polygamists
or Vot. So I am sure you will humour me for a few
minLtes. Did you ever know a man obtain the affections
of a tvoman, persuade her to live with him in all the man
ner ok a wife, and then legally marry some one else while .
so enraged ?
I am sorry to say, many.
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
59
She : Is it true that it is quite a common thing, for
men of means especially, both married and single, to have
one or more mistresses and to keep two or more homes ?
He : I am afraid it is very common, from the well-todo even up to royalty, and the higher the more so.
She : And if a Prince, say, marry one woman with
his left hand and another with his right, and he call the
first marriage morganatic, what should we call the second ?
He : I don’t know. I suppose the second does away
with the first.
She : How can it ? It doesn’t do away with the
woman and her children. If the second is not bigamy
it must be polygamy,
He : But, possibly, he may not have any further con
nection with the first. Polygamy does not mean a series
of wives, but having more than one at the same time.
She : I am aware. But I believe it is not the habit of
polygamists in the foreign parts you first mentioned, to be
closely associated always with all their wives. No one
can suppose that Solomon for example, loved a thousand
women at once. One or two favourite ones usually
supplant the others, but these are maintained and their
children cared for because the mothers continue to be
wives in name, as they were at one time in fact. There
is something honest about this. Every woman knows
beforehand that she must expect associate wives, and
often prefers them, because they share and lighten her
duties. Her constitution is seldom broken down by
excessive child-bearing. But English women endure
much because they are led to anticipate an undivided
empire over their husbands, who, by your own admission
give them only a share in their affections and embraces.
If the custom is general, it would be better for the happi
ness of women if we were to profess polygamy as well as
practise it,—better if it were acknowledged openly and
legalized as in the East. Do you think it general ? Pray
answer me carefully, dear.
He : Why, Gladys, your praises of polygamy surprise
me. It will not be very hard to convert the men. For '
am ashamed to confess,—but a promise is a promise,that in every class of life men have mistresses. I do n<
mean to say that all have, or that the practice is alwa
general with those who do. On the contrary I belie
that, as a rule, the union is occasional only, and that
any given moment those who thus indulge themselvesi
in a minority. Yet there are comparatively few who0
not have concubines at some time or other in their lb
*
�6d
Lady Cook’s Essays*
She : You are trifling with me. I do not admire
polygamy, but I admire honesty, and honest polygamy is
better than dishonest and hypocritical polygamy. Young
married women are the fashion, now, I am told. But
what becomes of these women ?
He: Heaven knows. I don’t like to speculate. I fear
that, when cast off, they retaliate by deceiving other men,
and go from bad to worse. Sometimes they pass from
one “ protector” to another; at others, they fall as low as
women can.
She : Then that disposes of all excuse for wild oat sow
ing. r The results are terrible to think of. What would you
say of me, Bertie, if after professing to love you above all
men, and you only, after lying in your bosom and becoming
your other self, I were, from mere caprice or selfish con
venience, to cast you forth to poverty, shame, the streets,
and premature death,—I having the power, as men have,
to do all these ?
He : I cannot imagine it, dear. You couldn’t do it.
She : No I I could not do it, and I cannot understand
how men can do it. But such creatures are not men.
Cowards, like these, do not deserve to call any woman
mother.
He : You are getting excited, and the children are just
coming in and will want to see us.
She : The darlings ! O, Bertie, promise me to guard
our boy against sowing wild oats, and I will teach our
little Gladys to shun the snares and follies that may
I threaten her in the future.
\
He : We will both do our best to shield them from
evil.
' She : And, as to the question with which we started,
I suspect I am not sufficiently Socratic, or you have been
oo vague in your replies, for although, from what I have
\eard,'I fear that Englishmen are mostly polygamists by
ractice or inclination, I am not able to decide it from my
yn observation. Suppose we submit our remarks to the
tblic. You know “ in the multitude of counsel there is
lA.sdom.”
| He : The very thing. I will write them out at once,
■
i
1
B
B
■
B
v
V
•A
�Lady Cook’s Essays.
, 6x
MORALS OF AUTHORS.
,
J .....
It is a melancholy fact that the morals of writers and
their writings have often been at variance. A large num
ber of distinguished authors whose works have become
immortal, and whom it would be invidious to mention,
have been men of indifferent lives, and in some cases
grossly dissolute and abandoned. Their work, however,
was better than themselves, and has been preserved and
valued for its intrinsic merit. Genius and moral purity
should be inseparable, but unfortunately it is not so. As
a rule, men of great abilities have claimed for themselves
a license denied to meaner mortals, and on the whole it
has been regretfully conceded to them. For just as we
pardon the private follies and wickedness of those
monarchs who have ruled well, so with these, the true
kings of men, mankind have been lenient to their faults
for the sake of their great public usefulness. Strange to
say, no matter to what department of intellectual or
artistic greatness we turn our eye, we observe that its
mc-st splendid members have very frequently been distin
guished for eccentricity or recklessness, they soar higher
and fall lower than other men. “ Great wits to madness
are allied,” said the poet, and thus brilliant abilities have
been too often united to moral worthlessness. But by
universal practice and consent, a distinction has been
preserved between the worker and his work. Each has
been judged separately, and thus some of the priceless
intellectual and artistic treasures of past times have come
down to us, whereas otherwise they would have been lost.
It was chiefly reserved for this century, and notably since
the days of Wesley and Lord Byron, to attempt to mea
sure a man’s work by the standard of his moral character.
This spirit, however, has never been so remarkably ex
hibited as during the last few weeks. And as it appears
to be opposed to sound sense and to the public welfare,
we desire to question its utility and therefore its morality.
An author and playwright of some considerable repu»
tMion has been convicted by a jury of infamous crim
**
�62
Lady Cook's Essays.
nality. Before his conviction—indeed, as soon as he was
charged—his works were in some places withheld from
the public. And now a Member of the Westminster
Vestry has given notice to move “that they be withdrawn
from the two public libraries in Westminster, and that
the other local authorites in London be requested to take
the same course in regard to the libraries under their
control.” Several libraries had already done this, per
haps without sufficient consideration. We have never
had any acquaintance whatever, beyond common repute,
with the author in question or his literary works. But
these, we presume, were good to have become so popular,
and if they were good then they must be the same now.
Here we regard only the principle involved. This resolves
itself into the query—Should we prohibit or refuse good
work because of the immorality of the author or doer ?
The absurdity of an affirmative to this question should
be self-evident, and, if carried out, would land us into
endless difficulties. If our baker bakes good bread, or
our bootmaker makes good boots, we do not ask what are
the morals of these tradesmen before eating the bread
and wearing the boots. It would be agreeable to know
that they are worthy people, and sad to think them the
reverse, but the usefulness of their handiwork would not
be affected by either sentiment. Indeed one ought to be
thankful to be able to get a good thing at all without
troubling about the moral deficiencies of the makers.
We do not inquire before buying a picture whether
the artist is moral or otherwise. The quality of the work
is all we regard. If literature is to be an exception to
this custom, there would be very little left but that of
inferior value, for, unfortunately, as we have said, the
men of highest genius have been too frequently of ex
tremely shaky morals.
The virtuous vestryman of Westminster no doubt
goes to church regularly and enjoys the Psalms of David
and the Song of his son Solomon. But the worst of
modern authors are the pinks of propriety compared to
those old poetic Jews who perpetrated many villainies.
However, we do not on that account move that these
amorous and religious effusions be withdrawn from
Westminster Abbey and our other churches. On the con
trary, if their perusal will do any one any good, by all
means let people read them. And let us thank God that
it is possible to educe good from the evil, and to paint
the beauty of the rose and the fairness of the lily from
the ordure of the stable.
�It is surprising how virtuous everybody is when some
one more unfortunate is found out. Some men have been
practising an indescribable and abominable custom from
time immemorial. The greatest and most accomplished
were frequently addicted to it, and thousands of well born
and high bred in our country today still follow it. If the
waves of indignation which are said to pass over the
English speaking nations demand that the intellectual
work of its votaries be also condemned, then, to be con
sistent, we must prohibit the choicest efforts of genius.
Horace, and most of the rest of the ancient classics must
be burnt, the Bible expurgated, and possibly even our
own glorious Shakespeare himself would come under the
ban. Are our great works to make room for some of the
puling and demoralizing novels of up-to-date writers, the
giants to give way to pigmies ? It would seem so if
we permit vestrymen to decide.
If we are genuine in our desire to root out this immo
rality, we should attack the many instead of making scape
goats of one or two. We should check the growth of
this abomination in our schools and colleges, where our
youths are too often educated in the vice, and stamp it
out in our Army and Navy as we did the leprosy. And
our sense of virtue should impel us to lay hands upon
that viler and far more important abuse : the betrayal and
ruin of innocent girls, for, unlike the other, this is fol
lowed by every evil: suicide, infanticide, destitution,
disease, or death,.
�TI-IE FIRST
SERIES
OF
LADY COOK’S ESSAYS
ON THE
EVILS OF SOCIETY
CONTAINS I
iJ * a*
IDEAL WOMAN
..
..
•• »-.......................
VIRTUE...........................................
3
8
I2
MODESTY
..
MATERNITY
.. .. '...............................................
1Q
....................................................
2Q
MOTHERS AND THEIR DUTIES.......................
3I
REGENERATION OF UOiNETY
PRUDERY
.......................
35
..
THE LOST RIB
MORAL ESPIONAGE
............................................
4g
PLEA FOR YOUNG & OLD MAIDS.......................
5I
MOTHERS-IN-LAW......................................................
55
AID FOR THE POOR
............................................
TO BE OBTAINED OF THE UNIVERSAL PUBLISHING Co.,
24, Bedfordbury, Covent Garden, London, W.C,
Pries id. Post Free, iH
�PUBLISHERS’ NOTICE.
The Publishers desire to inform the numerous
Readers of the First and Second Series of Lady
Cook’s Essays, and the General Public, that the
Third Series will be issued shortly in Book Form,
much larger and on good paper, at the Low Price
of Sixpence.
As only a limited number will be
printed, orders should be sent in without delay.
No money will be accepted till day of publication,
when we will notify those who send them Names
and Addresses.
Her Ladyship’s future works will comprise
a large number of most powerful essays, amongst
which will be—
Advice to Parents,
Advice to Young Men,
Advice to Young Girls,
Advice to Married Women,
Advice to Married Men,
Advice to Those About to Marry, and
Improvement of the Race Morally and
Physically.
besides numerous other striking articles that will
appear for the first time, and for which the
Publishers
take the responsibility o’t bringing
before the Public.
;THE UNIVERSAL PUBLISHING CO.
N.B,—All of Lady Cook’s Essays can be had
through your Newsagent on Application.
�DEDICATION
THE FOLLOWING ESSAYS ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO
MY DEAR HUSBAND,
WHO HAS MOST GENEROUSLY AIDED ME IN ALL MY WORK.
THE FIRST SERIES
OF
ESSAYS
LADY COOK’S
ON THE
EVILS OF SOCIETY
CONTAINS
Page.
IDEAL WOMAN
...
...
VIRTUE
MODESTY
...
...
MATERNITY ...
THE LOST RIB
...
...
...
...
MOTHERS AND THEIR DUTIES
REGENERATION OF SOCIETY ...
PRUDERY
...
...
...
MORAL ESPIONAGE
...
PLEA FOR YOUNG AND OLD MAIDS
...
MOTHERS-IN-LAW
AID FOR THE POOR
.......................
...
...
...
3
8
12
16
26
31
35
43
48
51
55
60
To be obtained of the UNIVERSAL PUBLISHING COMPANY,
24, Bedfordbury, Covent Garden, London, W.C., and can be
obtained from all Newsagents.
Price Id.
Post Free, l£d.
N.B.—If your Newsagent has not got Lady Cook's Essays in
stools he can obtain them for you through his Agent, or
direct from the Publishing Office.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lady Cook's essays
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cook, Tennessee Claflin [Lady]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: [3],63, [3] p. ; 20 cm.
Notes: Contents: A short history of marriage -- True love -- Who should propose? -- Which is to blame? man or woman? -- Marriage -- Wrongs of married men -- Are we polygamists? a domestic dialogue -- Morals of authors. Contains material previously published elsewhere, likely in 'Evils of Society and their Remedies'. Second Series of Essays, Universal Publishing Company, 1895. Publisher's notice, advertisements and author's dedication on unnumbered pages at end. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[Universal Publishing Company]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1895?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N179
Subject
The topic of the resource
Marriage
Women
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Lady Cook's essays), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Marriage
NSS