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 MARYO*-. .5!
 
 G ET TING 
 MARRIED 
 
 . WITH PREFACE 
 
 By 
 
 BERNARD SHAW 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 1 • 
 
 
 6 
 
 ' J "., » 
 
 o > ■> •> 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 1920
 
 
 Copyright, 1909, by Brentano* 
 
 Copyright, 1911, by Q. Bernard Shaw 
 
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 GETTING MARRIED 
 XVII 
 
 1 vwyM
 
 i 
 
 »f 
 
 N.B.— There is a point of some technical interest to be 
 noted in this play. The customary division into acts 
 and scenes has been disused, and a return made to unity 
 of time and place, as observed in the ancient Greek drama. 
 In the foregoing tragedy, The Doctor's Dilemma, there 
 are five acts ; the place is altered five times ; and the 
 time is spread over an undetermined period of more 
 than a year. No doubt the strain on the attention of 
 the audience and on the ingenuity of the playwright is 
 much less ; but I find in practice that the Greek form 
 is inevitable when drama reaches a certain point in 
 poetic and intellectual evolution. Its adoption was not, 
 on my part, a deliberate display of virtuosity in form, 
 but simply the spontaneous falling of a play of ideas 
 into the form most suitable to it, which turned out to 
 be the classical form. Getting Married, in several acts 
 and scenes, with the time spread over a long period, 
 would be impossible. 
 
 A
 
 PREFACE TO GETTING MARRIED 
 The Revolt against Marriage 
 
 There is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense 
 is talked and thought than marriage. If the mischief 
 stopped at talking and thinking it would be bad enough; 
 but it goes further, into disastrous anarchical action. Be- 
 cause our marriage law is inhuman and unreasonable to 
 the point of downright abomination, the bolder and more 
 rebellious spirits form illicit unions, defiantly sending 
 cards round to their friends announcing what they have 
 done. Young women come to me and ask me whether I 
 think they ought to consent to marry the man they have 
 decided to live with; and they are perplexed and aston- 
 ished when I, who am supposed (heaven knows why!) 
 to have the most advanced views attainable on the sub- 
 ject, urge them on no account to compromize themselves 
 without the security of an authentic wedding ring. They 
 cite the example of George Eliot, who formed an illicit 
 union with Lewes. They quote a saying attributed 
 to Nietzsche, that a married philosopher is ridiculous, 
 though the men of their choice are not philosophers. 
 When they finally give up the idea of reforming our mar- 
 riage institutions by private enterprise and personal 
 righteousness, and consent to be led to the Registry or 
 even to the altar, they insist on first arriving at an ex- 
 plicit understanding that both parties are to be perfectly 
 free to sip every flower and change every hour, as their 
 fancy may dictate, in spite of the legal bond. I do not
 
 6 Getting Married 
 
 observe that their unions prove less monogamic than other 
 people's: rather the contrary, in fact; consequently, I do 
 not know whether they make less fuss than ordinary peo- 
 ple when either party claims the benefit of the treaty; 
 but the existence of the treaty shews the same anarchical 
 notion that the law can be set aside by any two private 
 persons by the simple process of promising one another 
 to ignore it. ' 
 
 Marriage Nevertheless Inevitable 
 
 Now most laws are, and all laws ought to be, stronger 
 than the strongest individual. Certainly the marriage 
 law is. The only people who successfully evade it are 
 those who actually avail themselves of its shelter by pre- 
 tending to be married when they are not, and by Bohe- 
 mians who have no position to lose and no career to be 
 closed. In every other case open violation of the mar- 
 riage laws means either downright ruin or such inconve- 
 nience and disablement as a prudent man or woman 
 would get married ten times over rather than face. And 
 these disablements and inconveniences are not even the 
 price of freedom; for, as Brieux has shewn so convinc- 
 ingly in Les Hannetons, an avowedly illicit union is often 
 found in practice to be as tyrannical and as hard to es- 
 cape from as the worst legal one. 
 
 We may take it then that when a joint domestic estab- 
 lishment, involving questions of children or property, is 
 contemplated, marriage is in effect compulsory upon all 
 normal people ; and until the law is altered there is noth- 
 ing for us but to make the best of it as it stands. Even 
 when no such establishment is desired, clandestine irregu- 
 larities are negligible as an alternative to marriage. 
 How common they are nobody knows ; for in spite of the 
 powerful protection afforded to the parties by the law 
 of libel, and the readiness of society on various other
 
 Preface 7 
 
 grounds to be hoodwinked by the keeping up of the very 
 thinnest appearances, most of them are probably never 
 suspected. But they are neither dignified nor safe and 
 comfortable, which at once rules them out for normal de- 
 cent people. Marriage remains practically inevitable; 
 and the sooner we acknowledge this, the sooner we shall 
 set to work to make it decent and reasonable. 
 
 c 
 
 What does the Word Marriage Mean 
 
 However much we may all suffer through marriage, 
 most of us think so little about it that we regard it as a 
 fixed part of the order of nature, like gravitation. Ex- 
 cept for this error, which may be regarded as constant, 
 we use the word with reckless looseness, meaning a dozen 
 different things by it, and yet always assuming that to 
 a respectable man it can have only one meaning. The 
 pious citizen, suspecting the Socialist (for example) of 
 unmentionable things, and asking him heatedly whether 
 he wishes to abolish marriage, is infuriated by a sense of 
 unanswerable quibbling when the Socialist asks him what 
 particular variety of marriage he means: English civil 
 marriage, sacramental marriage, indissoluble Roman 
 Catholic marriage, marriage of divorced persons, Scotch 
 marriage, Irish marriage, French, German, Turkish, or 
 South Dakotan marriage. In Sweden, one of the most 
 highly civilized countries in the world, a marriage is dis- 
 solved if both parties wish it, without any question of 
 conduct. That is what marriage means in Sweden. In 
 Clapham that is what they call by the senseless name of 
 Free Love. In the British Empire we have unlimited 
 Kulin polygamy, Muslim polygamy limited to four wives, 
 child marriages, and, nearer home, marriages of first 
 cousins: all of them abominations in the eyes of many 
 worthy persons. Not only may the respectable British 
 champion of marriage mean any of these widely different
 
 8 Getting Married 
 
 institutions ; sometimes he does not mean marriage at all. 
 He means monogamy, chastity, temperance, respectabil- 
 ity, morality, Christianity, anti-socialism, and a dozen 
 other things that have no necessary connection with mar- 
 riage. He often means something that he dare not avow : 
 ownership of the person of another human being, for in- 
 stance. And he never tells the truth about his own mar- 
 riage either to himself or any one else. 
 
 With those individualists who in the mid-XIXth cen- 
 tury dreamt of doing away with marriage altogether on 
 the ground that it is a private concern between the two 
 parties with which society has nothing to do, there is now 
 no need to deal. The vogue of " the self -regarding ac- 
 tion " has passed ; and it may be assumed without argu- 
 ment that unions for the purpose of establishing a family 
 will continue to be registered and regulated by the State. 
 Such registration is marriage, and will continue to be 
 called marriage long after the conditions of the registra- 
 tion have changed so much that no citizen now living 
 would recognize them as marriage conditions at all if he 
 revisited the earth. There is therefore no question of 
 abolishing marriage ; but there is a very pressing question 
 of improving its conditions. I have never met anybody 
 really in favor of maintaining marriage as it exists in 
 England to-day. A Roman Catholic may obey his 
 Church by assenting verbally to the doctrine of indis- 
 soluble marriage. But nobody worth counting believes 
 directly, frankly, and instinctively that when a person 
 commits a murder and is put into prison for twenty years 
 for it, the free and innocent husband or wife of that mur- 
 derer should remain bound by the marriage. To put it 
 briefly, a contract for better for worse is a contract that 
 should not be tolerated. As a matter of fact it is not tol- 
 erated fully even by the Roman Catholic Church ; for Ro- 
 man Catholic marriages can be dissolved, if not by the 
 temporal Courts, by the Pope. Indissoluble marriage is
 
 Preface 9 
 
 an academic figment, advocated only by celibates and by 
 comfortably married people who imagine that if other 
 couples are uncomfortable it must be their own fault, just 
 as rich people are apt to imagine that if other people are 
 poor it serves them right. There is always some means 
 of dissolution. The conditions of dissolution may vary 
 widely, from those on which Henry VIII. procured his 
 divorce from Katharine of Arragon to the pleas on which 
 American wives obtain divorces (for instance, " mental 
 anguish " caused by the husband's neglect to cut his toe- 
 nails) ; but there is always some point at which the the- 
 ory of the inviolable better-for-worse marriage breaks 
 down in practice. South Carolina has indeed passed 
 what is called a freak law declaring that a marriage shall 
 not be dissolved under any circumstances; but such an 
 absurdity will probably be repealed or amended by sheer 
 force of circumstances before these words are in print. 
 The only question to be considered is, What shall the 
 conditions of the dissolution be? 
 
 Survivals of Sex Slavery 
 
 If we adopt the common romantic assumption that the 
 object of marriage is bliss, then the very strongest rea- 
 son for dissolving a marriage is that it shall be disagree- 
 able to one or other or both of the parties. If we accept 
 the view that the object of marriage is to provide for the 
 production and rearing of children, then childlessness 
 should be a conclusive reason for dissolution. As neither 
 of these causes entitles married persons to divorce it is 
 at once clear that our marriage law is not founded on 
 either assumption. What it is really founded on is the 
 morality of the tenth commandment, which English- 
 women will one day succeed in obliterating from the 
 walls of our churches by refusing to enter any building 
 where they are publicly classed with a man's house, his
 
 10 Getting Married 
 
 ox, and his ass, as his purchased chattels. In this mo- 
 rality female adultery is malversation by the woman and 
 theft by the man, whilst male adultery with an unmarried 
 woman is not an offence at all. But though this is not 
 only the theory of our marriage laws, but the practical 
 morality of many of us, it is no longer an avowed moral- 
 ity, nor does its persistence depend on marriage; for the 
 abolition of marriage would, other things remaining un- 
 changed, leave women more effectually enslaved than 
 they now are. We shall come to the question of the eco- 
 nomic dependence of women on men later on; but at 
 present we had better confine ourselves to the theories of 
 marriage which we are not ashamed to acknowledge and 
 defend, and upon which, therefore, marriage reformers 
 will be obliged to proceed. 
 
 We may, I think, dismiss from the field of practical 
 politics the extreme sacerdotal view of marriage as a 
 sacred and indissoluble covenant, because though rein- 
 forced by unhappy marriages as all fanaticisms are rein- 
 forced by human sacrifices, it has been reduced to a pri- 
 vate and socially inoperative eccentricity by the introduc- 
 tion of civil marriage and divorce. Theoretically, our 
 civilly married couples are to a Catholic as unmarried 
 couples are: that is, they are living in open sin. Practi- 
 cally, civilly married couples are received in society, by 
 Catholics and everyone else, precisely as sacramentally 
 married couples are ; and so are people who have divorced 
 their wives or husbands and married again. And yet 
 marriage is enforced by public opinion with such ferocity 
 that the least suggestion of laxity in its support is fatal 
 to even the highest and strongest reputations, although 
 laxity of conduct is winked at with grinning indulgence; 
 so that we find the austere Shelley denounced as a fiend 
 in human form, whilst Nelson, who openly left his wife 
 and formed a menage a trois with Sir William and Lady 
 Hamilton, was idolized. Shelley might have had an ille-
 
 \ 
 
 Preface 11 
 
 gitimate child in every county in England if he had done 
 so frankly as a sinner. His unpardonable offence was 
 that he attacked marriage as an institution. We feel a 
 strange anguish of terror and hatred against him, as 
 against one who threatens us with a mortal injury. What 
 is the element in his proposals that produces this effect? 
 The answer of the specialists is the one already alluded 
 to: that the attack on marriage is an attack on property; 
 so that Shelley was something more hateful to a husband 
 than a horse thief: to wit, a wife thief, and something 
 more hateful to a wife than a burglar: namely, one who 
 would steal her husband's house from over her head, and 
 leave her destitute and nameless on the streets. Now, no 
 doubt this accounts for a good deal of anti-Shelleyan 
 prejudice: a prejudice so deeply rooted in our habits 
 that, as I have shewn in my play, men who are bolder 
 freethinkers than Shelley himself can no more bring 
 themselves to commit adultery than to commit any com- 
 mon theft, whilst women who loathe sex slavery more 
 fiercely than Mary Wollstonecraft are unable to face the 
 insecurity and discredit of the vagabondage which is the 
 masterless woman's only alternative to celibacy. But in 
 spite of all this there is a revolt against marriage which 
 has spread so rapidly within my recollection that though 
 we all still assume the existence of a huge and dangerous 
 majority which regards the least hint of scepticism as to 
 the beauty and holiness of marriage as infamous and ab- 
 horrent, I sometimes wonder why it is so difficult to find 
 an authentic living member of this dreaded army of con- 
 vention outside the ranks of the people who never think 
 about public questions at all, and who, for all their nu- 
 merical weight and apparently invincible prejudices, ac- 
 cept social changes to-day as tamely as their forefathers 
 accepted the Reformation under Henry and Edward, the 
 Restoration under Mary, and, after Mary's death, the 
 shandygaff which Elizabeth compounded from both doc-
 
 12 Getting Married 
 
 trines and called the Articles of the Church of England. 
 If matters were left to these simple folk, there would 
 never be any changes at all; and society would perish 
 like a snake that could not cast its skins. Nevertheless 
 the snake does change its skin in spite of them ; and there 
 are signs that our marriage-law skin is causing discom- 
 fort to thoughtful people and will presently be cast 
 whether the others are satisfied with it or not. The ques- 
 tion therefore arises: What is there in marriage that 
 makes the thoughtful people so uncomfortable? 
 
 The New Attack on Marriage 
 
 The answer to this question is an answer which every- 
 body knows and nobody likes to give. What is driving 
 our ministers of religion and statesmen to blurt it out at 
 last is the plain fact that marriage is now beginning to 
 depopulate the country with such alarming rapidity that 
 we are forced to throw aside our modesty like people 
 who, awakened by an alarm of fire, rush into the streets 
 in their nightdresses or in no dresses at all. The ficti- 
 tious Free Lover, who was supposed to attack marriage 
 because it thwarted his inordinate affections and pre- 
 vented him from making life a carnival, has vanished 
 and given place to the very real, very strong, very austere 
 avenger of outraged decency who declares that the licen- 
 tiousness of marriage, now that it no longer recruits the 
 race, is destroying it. 
 
 As usual, this change of front has not yet been noticed 
 by our newspaper controversialists and by the suburban 
 season-ticket holders whose minds the newspapers make. 
 Theyjstill defend the citadel on the side on which nobody 
 is attacking it, and leave its weakest front undefended. 
 
 The religious revolt against marriage is a very old one. 
 Christianity began with a fierce attack on marriage ; and
 
 Preface 18 
 
 to this day the celibacy of the Roman Catholic priesthood 
 is a standing protest against its compatibility with the 
 higher life. St. Paul's reluctant sanction x>f marriage; 
 his personal protest that he countenanced it of necessity 
 and against his own conviction ; his contemptuous " bet- 
 ter to marry than to burn " is only out of date in respect 
 of his belief that the end of the world was at hand and 
 that there was therefore no longer any population ques- 
 tion. His instinctive recoil from its worst aspect as a 
 slavery to pleasure which induces two people to accept 
 slavery to one another has remained an active force in 
 the world to this day, and is now stirring more uneasily 
 than ever. We have more and more Pauline celibates 
 whose objection to marriage is the intolerable indignity 
 of being supposed to desire or live the married life as 
 ordinarily conceived. Every thoughtful and observant 
 minister of religion is troubled by the determination of 
 his flock to regard marriage as a sanctuary for pleasure, 
 seeing as he does that the known libertines of his parish 
 are visibly suffering much less from intemperance than 
 many of the married people who stigmatize them as mon- 
 sters of vice. 
 
 A Forgotten Conference of Married Men 
 
 The late Hugh Price Hughes, an eminent Methodist 
 divine, once organized in London a conference of re- 
 spectable men to consider the subject. Nothing came of 
 it (nor indeed could have come of it in the absence of 
 women) ; but it had its value as giving the young sociolo- 
 gists present, of whom I was one, an authentic notion of 
 what a picked audience of respectable men understood by 
 married life. It was certainly a staggering revelation. 
 Peter the Great would have been shocked; Byron would 
 have been horrified; Don Juan would have fled from the 
 conference into a monastery. The respectable men all
 
 14 Getting Married 
 
 regarded the marriage ceremony as a rite which absolved 
 them from the laws of health and temperance; inaugu- 
 rated a life-long honeymoon; and placed their pleasures 
 on exactly the same footing as their prayers. It seemed 
 entirely proper and natural to them that out of every 
 twenty-four hours of their lives they should pass eight 
 shut up in one room with their wives alone, and this, not 
 birdlike, for the mating season, but all the year round 
 and every year. How they settled even such minor ques- 
 tions as to which party should decide whether and how 
 much the window should be open and how many blankets 
 should be on the bed, and at what hour they should go 
 to bed and get up so as to avoid disturbing one another's 
 sleep, seemed insoluble questions to me. But the mem- 
 bers of the conference did not seem to mind. They were 
 content to have the whole national housing problem 
 treated on a basis of one room for two people. That was 
 the essence of marriage for them. 
 
 Please remember, too, that there was nothing in their 
 circumstances to check intemperance. They were men 
 of business: that is, men for the most part engaged in 
 routine work which exercized neither their minds nor 
 their bodies to the full pitch of their capacities. Com- 
 pared with statesmen, first-rate professional men, artists, 
 and even with laborers and artisans as far as muscular 
 exertion goes, they were underworked, and could spare 
 the fine edge of their faculties and the last few inches of 
 their chests without being any the less fit for their daily 
 routine. If I had adopted their habits, a startling dete- 
 rioration would have appeared in my writing before the 
 end of a fortnight, and frightened me back to what they 
 would have considered an impossible asceticism. But 
 they paid no penalty of which they were conscious. 
 They had as much health as they wanted: that is, they 
 did not feel the need of a doctor. They enjoyed their 
 smokes, their meals, their respectable clothes, their affec-
 
 Preface 15 
 
 tionate games with their children, their prospects of 
 larger profits or higher salaries, their Saturday half 
 holidays and Sunday walks, and the rest of it. They 
 did less than two hours work a day and took from seven 
 to nine office hours to do it in. And they were no good 
 for any mortal purpose except to go on doing it. They 
 were respectable only by the standard they themselves 
 had set. Considered seriously as electors governing an 
 empire through their votes, and choosing and maintaining 
 its religious and moral institutions by their powers of 
 social persecution, they were a black-coated army of ca- 
 lamity. They were incapable of comprehending the in- 
 dustries they were engaged in, the laws under which they 
 lived, or the relation of their country to other countries. 
 They lived the lives of old men contentedly. They were 
 timidly conservative at the age at which every healthy 
 human being ought to be obstreperously revolutionary. 
 And their wives went through the routine of the kitchen, 
 nursery, and drawing-room just as they went through the 
 routine of the office. They had all, as they called it, set- 
 tled down, like balloons that had lost their lifting margin 
 of gas; and it was evident that the process of settling 
 down would go on until they settled into their graves. 
 They read old-fashioned newspapers with effort, and 
 were just taking with avidity to a new sort of paper, 
 costing a halfpenny, which they believed to be extraordi- 
 narily bright and attractive, and which never really suc- 
 ceeded until it became extremely dull, discarding all seri- 
 ous news and replacing it by vapid tittle-tattle, and sub- 
 stituting for political articles informed by at least some 
 pretence of knowledge of economics, history, and consti- 
 tutional law, such paltry follies and sentimentalities, 
 snobberies and partisaneries, as ignorance can under- 
 stand and irresponsibility relish. 
 
 What they called patriotism was a conviction that 
 because they were born in Tooting or Camberwell, they
 
 16 Getting Married 
 
 were the natural superiors of Beethoven, of Rodin, of 
 Ibsen, of Tolstoy and all other benighted foreigners. 
 Those of them who did not think it wrong to go to the 
 theatre liked above everything a play in which the hero 
 was called Dick; was continually fingering a briar pipe; 
 and, after being overwhelmed with admiration and affec- 
 tion through three acts, was finally rewarded with the 
 legal possession of a pretty heroine's person on the 
 strength of a staggering lack of virtue. Indeed their 
 only conception of the meaning of the word virtue was 
 abstention from stealing other men's wives or from re- 
 fusing to marry their daughters. 
 
 As to law, religion, ethics, and constitutional govern- 
 ment, any counterfeit could impose on them. Any atheist 
 could pass himself off on them as a bishop, any anarchist 
 as a judge, any despot as a Whig, any sentimental social- 
 ist as a Tory, any philtre-monger or witch-finder as a 
 man of science, any phrase-maker as a statesman. Those 
 who did not believe the story of Jonah and the great fish 
 were all the readier to believe that metals can be trans- 
 muted and all diseases cured by radium, and that men 
 can live for two hundred years by drinking sour milk. 
 Even these credulities involved too severe an intellectual 
 effort for many of them: it was easier to grin and believe 
 nothing. They maintained their respect for themselves 
 by " playing the game '" (that is, doing what everybody 
 else did), and by being good judges of hats, ties, dogs, 
 pipes, cricket, gardens, flowers, and the like. They were 
 capable of discussing each other's solvency and respecta- 
 bility with some shrewdness, and could carry out quite 
 complicated systems of paying visits and " knowing " 
 one another. They felt a little vulgar when they spent 
 a day at Margate, and quite distinguished and travelled 
 when they spent it at Boulogne. They were, except as 
 to their clothes, " not particular " : that is, they could put 
 rip with ugly sights and sounds, unhealthy smells, and
 
 Preface 17 
 
 inconvenient houses, with inhuman apathy and callous- 
 ness. They had, as to adults, a theory that human nature 
 is so poor that it is useless to try to make the world any 
 better, whilst as to children they believed that if they 
 were only sufficiently lectured and whipped, they could 
 be brought to a state of moral perfection such as no fa- 
 natic has ever ascribed to his deity. Though they were 
 not intentionally malicious, they practised the most ap- 
 palling cruelties from mere thoughtlessness, thinking 
 nothing of imprisoning men and women for periods up 
 to twenty years for breaking into their houses; of treat- 
 ing their children as wild beasts to be tamed by a sys- 
 tem of blows and imprisonment which they called 
 education; and of keeping pianos in their houses, not 
 for musical purposes, but to torment their daughters 
 with a senseless stupidity that would have revolted an 
 inquisitor. 
 
 In short, dear reader, they were very like you and me. 
 I could fill a hundred pages with the tale of our imbe- 
 cilities and still leave much untold; but what I have set 
 down here haphazard is enough to condemn the system 
 that produced us. The corner stone of that system was 
 the family and the institution of marriage as we have it 
 to-day in England. 
 
 Hearth and Home 
 
 There is no shirking it: if marriage cannot be made to 
 produce something better than we are, marriage will have 
 to go, or else the nation will have to go. It is no use 
 talking of honor, virtue, purity, and wholesome, sweet, 
 clean, English home lives when what is meant is simply 
 the habits I have described. The flat fact is that English 
 home life to-day is neither honorable, virtuous, whole- 
 some, sweet, clean, nor in any creditable way distinct- 
 ively English. It is in many respects conspicuously the
 
 18 Getting Married 
 
 reverse; and the result of withdrawing children from it 
 completely at an early age, and sending them to a public 
 school and then to a university, does, in spite of the fact 
 that these institutions are class warped and in some re- 
 spects quite abominably corrupt, produce sociabler men. 
 Women, too, are improved by the escape from home pro- 
 vided by women's colleges; but as very few of them are 
 fortunate enough to enjoy this advantage, most women 
 are so thoroughly home-bred as to be unfit for human so- 
 ciety. So little is expected of them that in Sheridan's 
 School for Scandal we hardly notice that the heroine is 
 a female cad, as detestable and dishonorable in her re- 
 pentance as she is vulgar and silly in her naughtiness. 
 It was left to an abnormal critic like George Gissing to 
 point out the glaring fact that in the remarkable set of 
 life studies of XlXth century women to be found in the 
 novels of Dickens, the most convincingly real ones are 
 either vilely unamiable or comically contemptible; whilst 
 his attempts to manufacture admirable heroines by ideali- 
 zations of home-bred womanhood are not only absurd but 
 not even pleasantly absurd: one has no patience with 
 them. 
 
 As all this is corrigible by reducing home life and 
 domestic sentiment to something like reasonable propor- 
 tions in the life of the individual, the danger of it does 
 not lie in human nature. Home life as we understand it 
 is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cocka- 
 too. Its grave danger to the nation lies in its narrow 
 views, its unnaturally sustained and spitefully jealous 
 concupiscences, its petty tyrannies, its false social pre- 
 tences, its endless grudges and squabbles, its sacrifice of 
 the boy's future by setting him to earn money to help 
 the family when he should be in training for his adult 
 life (remember the boy Dickens and the blacking fac- 
 tory), and of the girl's chances by making her a slave 
 to sick or selfish parents, its unnatural packing into little
 
 Preface 19 
 
 brick boxes of little parcels of humanity of ill-assorted 
 ages, with the old scolding or beating the young for be- 
 having like young people, and the young hating and 
 thwarting the old for behaving like old people, and all 
 the other ills, mentionable and unmentionable, that arise 
 from excessive segregation. It sets these evils up as 
 benefits and blessings representing the highest attainable 
 degree of honor and virtue, whilst any criticism of or 
 revolt against them is savagely persecuted as the ex- 
 tremity of vice. The revolt, driven under ground and 
 exacerbated, produces debauchery veiled by hypocrisy, an 
 overwhelming demand for licentious theatrical entertain- 
 ments which no censorship can stem, and, worst of all, a 
 confusion of virtue with the mere morality that steals its 
 name until the real thing is loathed because the imposture 
 is loathsome. Literary traditions spring up in which the 
 libertine and profligate — Tom Jones and Charles Surface 
 are the heroes, and decorous, law-abiding persons — Blifil 
 and Joseph Surface — are the villains and butts. People 
 like to believe that Nell Gwynne has every amiable qual- 
 ity and the Bishop's wife every odious one. Poor Mr. 
 Pecksniff, who is generally no worse than a humbug with 
 a turn for pompous talking, is represented as a criminal 
 instead of as a very typical English paterfamilias keep- 
 ing a roof over the head of himself and his daughters by 
 inducing people to pay him more for his services than 
 they are worth. In the extreme instances of reaction 
 against convention, female murderers get sheaves of 
 offers of marriage ; and when Nature throws up that rare 
 phenomenon, an unscrupulous libertine, his success among 
 " well brought-up " girls is so easy, and the devotion he 
 inspires so extravagant, that it is impossible not to see 
 that the revolt against conventional respectability has 
 transfigured a commonplace rascal into a sort of An- 
 archist Saviour. As to the respectable voluptuary, who 
 joins Omar Khayyam clubs and vibrates to Swinburne's
 
 20 Getting Married 
 
 invocation of Dolores to " come down and redeem us 
 from virtue/' he is to be found in every suburb. 
 
 Too Much of a Good Thing 
 
 We must be reasonable in our domestic ideals. I do 
 not think that life at a public school is altogether good 
 for a boy any more than barrack life is altogether good 
 for a soldier. But neither is home life altogether good. 
 Such good as it does, I should say, is due to its freedom 
 from the very atmosphere it professes to supply. That 
 atmosphere is usually described as an atmosphere of love; 
 and this definition should be sufficient to put any sane 
 person on guard against it. The people who talk and 
 write as if the highest attainable state is that of a family 
 stewing in love continuously from the cradle to the grave, 
 can hardly have given five minutes serious consideration 
 to so outrageous a proposition. They cannot have even 
 made up their minds as to what they mean by love; for 
 when they expatiate on their thesis they are sometimes 
 talking about kindness, and sometimes about mere appe- 
 tite. In either sense they are equally far from the reali- 
 ties of life. No healthy man or animal is occupied with 
 love in any sense for more than a very small fraction in- 
 deed of the time he devotes to business and to recreations 
 wholly unconnected with love. A wife entirely preoccu- 
 pied with her affection for her husband, a mother entirely 
 preoccupied with her affection for her children, may be 
 all very well in a book (for people who like that kind of 
 book) ; but in actual life she is a nuisance. Husbands 
 may escape from her when their business compels them 
 to be away from home all day ; but young children may 
 be, and quite often are, killed by her cuddling and cod- 
 dling and doctoring and preaching: above all, by her 
 continuous attempts to excite precocious sentimentality,
 
 Preface 21 
 
 a practice as objectionable, and possibly as mischievous, 
 as the worst tricks of the worst nursemaids. 
 
 Large and Small Families 
 
 In most healthy families there is a revolt against this 
 tendency. The exchanging of presents on birthdays and 
 the like is barred by general consent, and the relations 
 of the parties are placed by express treaty on an unsen- 
 timental footing. 
 
 Unfortunately this mitigation of family sentimentality 
 is much more characteristic of large families than small 
 ones. It used to be said that members of large families 
 get on in the world ; and it is certainly true that for pur- 
 poses of social training a household of twenty surpasses 
 a household of five as an Oxford College surpasses an 
 eight-roomed house in a cheap street. Ten children, with 
 the necessary adults, make a community in which an ex- 
 cess of sentimentality is impossible. Two children make 
 a doll's house, in which both parents and children become 
 morbid if they keep to themselves. What is more, when 
 large families were the fashion, they were organized as 
 tyrannies much more than as " atmospheres of love." 
 Francis Place tells us that he kept out of his father's 
 way because his father never passed a child within his 
 reach without striking it; and though the case was an 
 extreme one, it was an extreme that illustrated a ten- 
 dency. Sir Walter Scott's father, when his son incau- 
 tiously expressed some relish for his porridge, dashed a 
 handful of salt into it with an instinctive sense that it 
 was his duty as a father to prevent his son enjoying him- 
 self. Ruskin's mother gratified the sensual side of her 
 maternal passion, not by cuddling her son, but by whip- 
 ping him when he fell downstairs or was slack in learn- 
 ing the Bible off by heart; and this grotesque safety- 
 valve for voluptuousness, mischievous as it was in many
 
 22 Getting Married 
 
 ways, had at least the advantage that the child did not 
 enjoy it and was not debauched by it, as he would have 
 been by transports of sentimentality. 
 
 But nowadays we cannot depend on these safeguards, 
 such as they were. We no longer have large f amilies : all 
 the families are too small to give the children the neces- 
 sary social training. The Roman father is out of fash- 
 ion ; and the whip and the cane are becoming discredited, 
 not so much by the old arguments against corporal pun- 
 ishment (sound as these were) as by the gradual wearing 
 away of the veil from the fact that flogging is a form of 
 debauchery. The advocate of flogging as a punishment 
 is now exposed to very disagreeable suspicions ; and ever 
 since Rousseau rose to the effort of making a certain very 
 ridiculous confession on the subject, there has been a 
 growing perception that child whipping, even for the 
 children themselves, is not always the innocent and high- 
 minded practice it professes to be. At all events there 
 is no getting away from the facts that families are 
 smaller than they used to be, and that passions which 
 formerly took effect in tyranny have been largely di- 
 verted into sentimentality. And though a little sentimen- 
 tality may be a very good thing, chronic sentimentality 
 is a horror, more dangerous, because more possible, than 
 the erotomania which we all condemn when we are not 
 thoughtlessly glorifying it as the ideal married state. 
 
 The Gospel of Laodicea 
 
 Let us try to get at the root error of these false dome«- 
 tice doctrines. Why was it that the late Samuel Butler, 
 with a conviction that increased with his experience of 
 life, preached the gospel of Laodicea, urging people to be 
 temperate in what they called goodness as in everything 
 else? Why is it that I, when I hear some well-meaning 
 person exhort young people to make it a rule to do at
 
 Preface 28 
 
 least one kind action every day, feel very much as I 
 should if I heard them persuade children to get drunk at 
 least once every day? Apart from the initial absurdity 
 of accepting as permanent a state of things in which 
 there would be in this country misery enough to supply 
 occasion for several thousand million kind actions per 
 annum, the effect on the character of the doers of the 
 actions would be so appalling, that one month of any 
 serious attempt to carry out such counsels would proba- 
 bly bring about more stringent legislation against actions 
 going beyond the strict letter of the law in the way of 
 kindness than we have now against excess in the opposite 
 direction. 
 
 There is no more dangerous mistake than the mistake 
 of supposing that we cannot have too much of a good 
 thing. The truth is, an immoderately good man is very 
 much more dangerous than an immoderately bad man: 
 that is why Savonarola was burnt and John of Leyden 
 torn to pieces with red-hot pincers whilst multitudes of 
 unredeemed rascals were being let off with clipped ears, 
 burnt palms, a flogging, or a few years in the galleys. 
 That is why Christianity never got any grip of the world 
 until it virtually reduced its claims on the ordinary citi- 
 zen's attention to a couple of hours every seventh day, 
 and let him alone on week-days. If the fanatics who 
 are preoccupied day in and day out with their salvation 
 were healthy, virtuous, and wise, the Laodiceanism of the 
 ordinary man might be regarded as a deplorable short- 
 coming; but, as a matter of fact, no more frightful mis- 
 fortune could threaten us than a general spread of fa- 
 naticism. What people call goodness has to be kept in 
 check just as carefully as what they call badness; for 
 the human constitution will not stand very much of either 
 without serious psychological mischief, ending in insanity 
 or crime. The fact that the insanity may be privileged, 
 as Savonarola's was up to the point of wrecking the social
 
 24 Getting Married 
 
 life of Florence, does not alter the case. We always 
 hesitate to treat a dangerously good man as a lunatic be- 
 cause he may turn out to be a prophet in the true sense: 
 that is, a man of exceptional sanity who is in the right 
 when we are in the wrong. However necessary it may 
 have been to get rid of Savonarola, it was foolish to poi- 
 son Socrates and burn St. Joan of Arc. But it is none 
 the less necessary to take a firm stand against the mon- 
 strous proposition that because certain attitudes and sen- 
 timents may be heroic and admirable at some momentous 
 crisis, they should or can be maintained at the same pitch 
 continuously through life. A life spent in prayer and 
 almsgiving is really as insane as a life spent in cursing 
 and picking pockets: the effect of everybody doing it 
 would be equally disastrous. The superstitious tolerance 
 so long accorded to monks and nuns is inevitably giving 
 way to a very general and very natural practice of con- 
 fiscating their retreats and expelling them from their 
 country, with the result that they come to England and 
 Ireland, where they are partly unnoticed and partly en- 
 couraged because they conduct technical schools and 
 teach our girls softer speech and gentler manners than 
 our comparatively ruffianly elementary teachers. But 
 they are still full of the notion that because it is possible 
 for men to attain the summit of Mont Blanc and stay 
 there for an hour, it is possible for them to l ; ve there. 
 Children are punished and scolded for not living there; 
 and adults take serious offence if it is not assumed that 
 they live there. 
 
 As a matter of fact, ethical strain is just as bad for 
 us as physical strain. It is desirable that the normal 
 pitch of conduct at which men are not conscious of being 
 particularly virtuous, although they feel mean when they 
 fall below it, should be raised as high as possible ; but it 
 is not desirable that they should attempt to live above this 
 pitch any more than that they should habitually walk at
 
 Preface 25 
 
 the rate of five miles an hour or carry a hundredweight 
 continually on their backs. Their normal condition 
 should be in nowise difficult or remarkable; and it is a 
 perfectly sound instinct that leads us to mistrust the 
 good man as much as the bad man, and to object to the 
 clergyman who is pious extra-professionally as much as 
 to the professional pugilist who is quarrelsome and vio- 
 lent in private life. We do not want good men and bad 
 men any more than we want giants and dwarfs. What 
 we do want is a high quality for our normal : that is, peo- 
 ple who can be much better than what we now call re- 
 spectable without self-sacrifice. Conscious goodness, like 
 conscious muscular effort, may be of use in emergencies; 
 but for everyday national use it is negligible; and its 
 effect on the character of the individual may easily be 
 disastrous. 
 
 For Better For Worse 
 
 It would be hard to find any document in practical 
 daily use in which these obvious truths seem so stupidly 
 overlooked as they are in the marriage service. As we 
 have seen, the stupidity is only apparent : the service was 
 really only an honest attempt to make the best of a com- 
 mercial contract of property and slavery by subjecting 
 it to some religious restraint and elevating it by some 
 touch of poetry. But the actual result is that when 
 two people are under the influence of the most violent, 
 most insane, most delusive, and most transient of pas- 
 sions, they are required to swear that they will remain 
 in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition con- 
 tinuously until death do them part. And though of 
 course nobody expects them to do anything so impossible 
 and so unwholesome, yet the law that regulates their re- 
 lations, and the public opinion that regulates that law, 
 is actually founded on the assumption that the marriage
 
 26 Getting Married 
 
 vow is not only feasible but beautiful and holy, and that 
 if they are false to it, they deserve no sympathy and no 
 relief. If all married people really lived together, no 
 doubt the mere force of facts would make an end to this 
 inhuman nonsense in a month, if not sooner; but it is 
 very seldom brought to that test. The typical British 
 husband sees much less of his wife than he does of his 
 business partner, his fellow clerk, or whoever works be- 
 side him day by day. Man and wife do not as a rule, 
 live together : they only breakfast together, dine together, 
 and sleep in the same room. In most cases the woman 
 knows nothing of the man's working life and he knows 
 nothing of her working life (he calls it her home life). 
 It is remarkable that the very people who romance most 
 absurdly about the closeness and sacredness of the mar- 
 riage tie are also those who are most convinced .that the 
 man's sphere and the woman's sphere are so entirely 
 separate that only in their leisure moments can they ever 
 be together. A man as intimate with his own wife as a 
 magistrate is with his clerk, or a Prime Minister with the 
 leader of the Opposition, is a man in ten thousand. The 
 majority of married couples never get to know one an- 
 other at all : they only get accustomed to having the same 
 house, the same children, and the same income, which is 
 quite a different matter. The comparatively few men 
 who work at home — writers, artists, and to some extent 
 clergymen — have to effect some sort of segregation with- 
 in the house or else run a heavy risk of overstraining 
 their domestic relations. When the pair is so poor that 
 it can afford only a single room, the strain is intolerable : 
 violent quarrelling is the result. Very few couples can 
 live in a single-roomed tenement without exchanging 
 blows quite frequently. In the leisured classes there is 
 often no real family life at all. The boys are at a public 
 school; the girls are in the schoolroom in charge of a 
 governess ; the husband is at his club or in a set which is
 
 Preface 27 
 
 not his wife's; and the institution of marriage enjoys the 
 credit of a domestic peace which is hardly more intimate 
 than the relations of prisoners in the same gaol or guests 
 at the same garden party. Taking these two cases of 
 the single room and the unearned income as the extremes, 
 we might perhaps locate at a guess whereabout on the 
 scale between them any particular family stands. But it 
 is clear enough that the one-roomed end, though its con- 
 ditions enable the marriage vow to be carried out with the 
 utmost attainable exactitude, is far less endurable in 
 practice, and far more mischievous in its effect on the 
 parties concerned, and through them on the community, 
 than the other end. Thus we see that the revolt against 
 marriage is by no means only a revolt against its sordid- 
 ness as a survival of sex slavery. It may even plausibly 
 be maintained that this is precisely the part of it that 
 works most smoothly in practice. The revolt is also 
 against its sentimentality, its romance, its Amorism, even 
 against its enervating happiness. 
 
 Wanted: an Immoral Statesman 
 
 We now see that the statesman who undertakes to deal 
 with marriage will have to face an amazingly complicated 
 public opinion. In fact, he will have to leave opinion 
 as far as possible out of the question, and deal with hu- 
 man nature instead. For even if there could be any real 
 public opinion in a society like ours, which is a mere mob 
 of classes, each with its own habits and prejudices, it 
 would be at best a jumble of superstitions and interests, 
 taboos and hypocrisies, which could not be reconciled in 
 any coherent enactment. It would probably proclaim 
 passionately that it does not matter in the least what sort 
 of children we have, or how few or how many, provided 
 the children are legitimate. Also that it does not matter 
 in the least what sort of adults we have, provided they
 
 28 Getting Married 
 
 are married. No statesman worth the name can possibly 
 act on these views. He is bound to prefer one healthy 
 illegitimate child to ten rickety legitimate ones, and one 
 energetic and capable unmarried couple to a dozen infe- 
 rior apathetic husbands and wives. If it could be proved 
 that illicit unions produce three children each and mar- 
 riages only one and a half, he would be bound to encour- 
 age illicit unions and discourage and even penalize mar- 
 riage. The common notion that the existing forms of 
 marriage are not political contrivances, but sacred ethical 
 obligations to which everything, even the very existence 
 of the human race, must be sacrificed if necessary (and 
 this is what the vulgar morality we mostly profess on the 
 subject comes to) is one on which no sane Government 
 could act for a moment; and yet it influences, or is be- 
 lieved to influence, so many votes, that no Government 
 will touch the marriage question if it can possibly help 
 it, even when there is a demand for the extension of mar- 
 riage, as in the case of the recent long-delayed Act legal- 
 izing marriage with a deceased wife's sister. When a 
 reform in the other direction is needed (for example, an 
 extension of divorce), not even the existence of the most 
 unbearable hardships will induce our statesmen to move 
 so long as the victims submit sheepishly, though when 
 they take the remedy into their own hands an inquiry is 
 soon begun. But what is now making some action in the 
 matter imperative is neither the sufferings of those who 
 are tied for life to criminals, drunkards, physically un- 
 sound and dangerous mates, and worthless and unamiable 
 people generally, nor the immorality of the couples con- 
 demned to celibacy by separation orders which do not 
 annul their marriages, but the fall in the birth rate. 
 Public opinion will not help us out of this difficulty: on 
 the contrary, it will, if it be allowed, punish anybody 
 who mentions it. When Zola tried to repopulate France 
 by writing a novel in praise of parentage, the only com-
 
 Preface 29 
 
 ment made here was that the book could not possibly be 
 translated into English, as its subject was too improper. 
 
 The Limits of Democracy 
 
 Now if England had been governed in the past by 
 statesmen willing to be ruled by such public opinion as 
 that, she would have been wiped off the political map 
 long ago. The modern notion that democracy means 
 governing a country according to the ignorance of its 
 majorities is never more disastrous than when there is 
 some question of sexual morals to be dealt with. The 
 business of a democratic statesman is not, as some of us 
 seem to think, to convince the voters that he knows no 
 better than they as to the methods of attaining their com- 
 mon ends, but on the contrary to convince them that he 
 knows much better than they do, and therefore differs 
 from them on every possible question of method. The 
 voter's duty is to take care that the Government consists 
 of men whom he can trust to devize or support institu- 
 tions making for the common welfare. This is highly 
 skilled work ; and to be governed by people who set about 
 it as the man in the street would set about it is to make 
 straight for " red ruin and the breaking up of laws." 
 Voltaire said that Mr Everybody is wiser than anybody; 
 and whether he is or not, it is his will that must prevail; 
 but the will and the way are two very different things. 
 For example, it is the will of the people on a hot day 
 that the means of relief from the effects of the heat 
 should be within the reach of everybody. Nothing could 
 be more innocent, more hygienic, more important to the 
 social welfare. But the way of the people on such occa- 
 sions is mostly to drink large quantities of beer, or, 
 among the more luxurious classes, iced claret cup, lemon 
 squashes, and the like. To take a moral illustration, the 
 will to suppress misconduct and secure efficiency in work
 
 30 Getting Married 
 
 is general and salutary; but the notion that the best and 
 only effective way is by complaining, scolding, punish- 
 ing, and revenging is equally general. When Mrs 
 Squeers opened an abscess on her pupil's head with an 
 inky penknife, her object was entirely laudable: her 
 heart was in the right place: a statesman interfering 
 with her on the ground that he did not want the boy 
 cured would have deserved impeachment for gross tyr- 
 anny. But a statesman tolerating amateur surgical prac- 
 tice with inky penknives in school would be a very bad 
 Minister of Education. It is on the question of method 
 that your expert comes in ; and though I am democrat 
 enough to insist that he must first convince a representa- 
 tive body of amateurs that his way is the right way and 
 Mrs Squeers's way the wrong way, yet I very strongly 
 object to any tendency to flatter Mrs Squeers into the 
 belief that her way is in the least likely to be the right 
 way, or that any other test is to be applied to it except 
 the test of its effect on human welfare. 
 
 The Science and Art of Politics 
 
 Political Science means nothing else than the devizing 
 of the best ways of fulfilling the will of the world; and, 
 I repeat, it is skilled work. Once the way is discovered, 
 the methods laid down, and the machinery provided, the 
 work of the statesman is done, and that of the official 
 begins. To illustrate, there is no need for the police 
 officer who governs the street traffic to be or to know any 
 better than the people who obey the wave of his hand. 
 All concerted action involves subordination and the ap- 
 pointment of directors at whose signal the others will act. 
 There is no more need for them to be superior to the 
 rest than for the keystone of an arch to be of harder 
 stone than the coping. But when it comes to devizing 
 the directions which are to be obeyed: that is, to making
 
 Preface 31 
 
 new institutions and scraping old ones, then you need 
 aristocracy in the sense of government by the best. A 
 military state organized so as to carry out exactly the 
 impulses of le average soldier would not last a year. 
 The result of trying to make the Church of England re- 
 flect the notions of the average churchgoer has reduced 
 it to a cipher except for the purposes of a petulantly 
 irreligious social and political club. Democracy as to 
 the thing to be done may be inevitable (hence the vital 
 need for a democracy of supermen) ; but democracy as 
 to the way to do it is like letting the passengers drive the 
 train: it can only end in collision and wreck. As a mat- 
 ter of act, we obtain reforms (such as they are), not by 
 allowing the electorate to draft statutes, but by persuad- 
 ing it that a certain minister and his cabinet are gifted 
 with sufficient political sagacity to find out how to pro- 
 duce the desired result. And the usual penalty of taking 
 advantage of this power to reform our institutions is 
 defeat by a vehement " swing of the pendulum " at the 
 next election. Therein lies the peril and the glory of 
 democratic statesmanship. A statesman who confines 
 himself to popular legislation — or, for the matter of that, 
 a playwright who confines himself to popular plays — is 
 like a blind man's dog who goes wherever the blind man 
 pulls him, on the ground that both of them want to go 
 to the same place. 
 
 Why Statesmen Shirk the Marriage 
 
 Question 
 
 The reform of marriage, then, will be a very splendid 
 and very hazardous adventure for the Prime Minister 
 who takes it in hand. He will be posted on every hoard- 
 ing and denounced in every Opposition paper, especially 
 in the sporting papers, as the destroyer of the home, the 
 family, of decency, of morality, of chastity and what
 
 32 Getting Married 
 
 not. All the commonplaces of the modern antiSocialist 
 Noodle's Oration will be hurled at him. And he will 
 have to proceed without the slightest concession to it, 
 giving the noodles nothing but their due in the assurance 
 " I know how to attain our ends better than you/' and 
 staking his political life on the conviction carried by that 
 assurance, which conviction will depend a good deal on 
 the certainty with which it is made, which again can be 
 attained only by studying the facts of marriage and un- 
 derstanding the needs of the nation. And, after all, he 
 will find that the pious commonplaces on which he and 
 the electorate are agreed conceal an utter difference in 
 the real ends in view: his being public, far-sighted, and 
 impersonal, and those of multitudes of the electorate 
 narrow, personal, jealous, and corrupt. Under such cir- 
 cumstances, it is not to be wondered at that the mere men- 
 tion of the marriage question makes a British Cabinet 
 shiver with apprehension and hastily pass on to safer 
 business. Nevertheless the reform of marriage cannot 
 be put off for ever. When its hour comes, what are the 
 points the Cabinet will have to take up ? 
 
 The Question of Population 
 
 First, it will have to make up its mind as to how many 
 people we want in the country. If we want less than 
 at present, we must ascertain how many less; and if we 
 allow the reduction to be made by the continued opera- 
 tion of the present sterilization of marriage, we must 
 settle how the process is to be stopped when it has gone 
 far enough. But if we desire to maintain the population 
 at its present figure, or to increase it, we must take im- 
 mediate steps to induce people of moderate means to 
 marry earlier and to have more children. There is less 
 urgency in the case of the very poor and the very rich. 
 They breed recklessly: the rich because they can afford
 
 Preface 33 
 
 it, and the poor because they cannot afford the precau- 
 tions by which the artisans and the middle classes avoid 
 big families. Nevertheless the population declines, be- 
 cause the high birth rate of the very poor is counterbal- 
 anced by a huge infantile-mortality in the slums, whilst 
 the very rich are also the very few, and are becoming 
 sterilized by the spreading revolt of their women against 
 excessive childbearing — sometimes against any child- 
 bearing. 
 
 This last cause is important. It cannot be removed by 
 any economic readjustment. If every family were pro- 
 vided with <£ 10,000 a year tomorrow, women would still 
 refuse more and more to continue bearing children until 
 they are exhausted whilst numbers of others are bearing 
 no children at all. Even if every woman bearing and 
 rearing a valuable child received a handsome series of 
 payments, thereby making motherhood a real profes- 
 sion as it ought to be, the number of women able or will- 
 ing to give more of their lives to gestation and nursing 
 than three or four children would cost them might not 
 be very large if the advance in social organization and 
 conscience indicated by such payments involved also the 
 opening up of other means of livelihood to women. And 
 it must be remembered that urban civilization itself, in- 
 sofar as it is a method of evolution (and when it is not 
 this, it is simply a nuisance), is a sterilizing process as 
 far as numbers go. It is harder to keep up the supply 
 of elephants than of sparrows and rabbits; and for the 
 same reason it will be harder to keep up the supply of 
 highly cultivated men and women than it now is of agri- 
 cultural laborers. Bees get out of this difficulty by a 
 special system of feeding which enables a queen bee to 
 produce 4,000 eggs a day whilst the other females lose 
 their sex altogether and become workers supporting the 
 males in luxury and idleness until the queen has found 
 her mate, when the queen kills him and the quondam
 
 34 Getting Married 
 
 females kill all the rest (such at least are the accounts 
 given by romantic naturalists of the matter). 
 
 The Right to Motherhood 
 
 This system certainly shews a much higher develop- 
 ment of social intelligence than our marriage system; 
 but if it were physically possible to introduce it into hu- 
 man society it would be wrecked by an opposite and not 
 less important revolt of women : that is, the revolt against 
 compulsory barrenness. In this two classes of women 
 are concerned: those who, though they have no desire for 
 the presence or care of children, nevertheless feel that 
 motherhood is an experience necessary to their complete 
 psychical development and understanding of themselves 
 and others, and those who, though unable to find or un- 
 willing to entertain a husband, would like to cccupy 
 themselves with the rearing of children. My own ex- 
 perience of discussing this question leads me to believe 
 that the one point on which all women are in furious 
 secret rebellion against the existing law is the saddling 
 of the right to a child with the obligation to become the 
 servant of a man. Adoption, or the begging or buying 
 or stealing of another woman's child, is no remedy: it 
 does not provide the supreme experience of bearing the 
 child. No political constitution will ever succeed or de- 
 serve to succeed unless it includes the recognition of an 
 absolute right to sexual experience, and is untainted by 
 the Pauline or romantic view of such experience as sin- 
 ful in itself. And since this experience in its fullest 
 sense must be carried in the case of women to the point 
 of childbearing, it can only be reconciled with the accept- 
 ance of marriage with the child's father by legalizing 
 polygyny, because there are more adult women in the 
 country than men. Now though polygyny prevails 
 throughout the greater part of the British Empire, and
 
 Preface 35 
 
 is as practicable here as in India, there is a good deal 
 to be said against it, and still more to be felt. However, 
 let us put our feelings aside for a moment, and consider 
 the question politically. 
 
 Monogamy, Polygyny, and Polyandry 
 
 The number of wives permitted to a single husband or 
 of husbands to a single wife under a marriage system, is 
 not an ethical problem: it depends solely on the propor- 
 tion of the sexes in the population. If in consequence of 
 a great" war three-quarters of the men in this country 
 were killed, it would be absolutely necessary to adopt 
 the Mohammedan allowance of four wives to each man in 
 order to recruit the population. The fundamental rea- 
 son for not allowing women to risk their lives in battle 
 and for giving them the first chance of escape in all 
 dangerous emergencies: in short, for treating their lives 
 as more valuable than male lives, is not in the least a 
 chivalrous reason, though men may consent to it under 
 the illusion of chivalry. It is a simple matter of neces- 
 sity; for if a large proportion of women were killed or 
 disabled, no possible readjustment of our marriage law 
 could avert the depopulation and consequent political 
 ruin of the country, because a woman with several hus- 
 bands bears fewer children than a woman with one, 
 whereas a man can produce as many families as he has 
 wives. The natural foundation of the institution of 
 monogamy is not any inherent viciousness in polygyny 
 or polyandry, but the hard fact that men and women are 
 born in about equal numbers. Unfortunately, we kill so 
 many of our male children in infancy that we are left 
 with a surplus of adult women which is sufficiently large 
 to claim attention, and yet not large enough to enable 
 every man to have two wives. Even if it were, we should 
 be met by an economic difficulty. A Kaffir is rich in pro-
 
 36 Getting Married 
 
 portion to the number of his wives, because the women 
 are the breadwinners. But in our civilization women are ' 
 not paid for their social work in the bearing and rearing 
 of children and the ordering of households; they are 
 quartered on the wages of their husbands. At least four 
 out of five of our men could not afford two wives unless 
 their wages were nearly doubled. Would it not then be 
 well to try unlimited polygyny; so that the remaining 
 fifth could have as many wives apiece as they could 
 afford? Let us see how this would work. 
 
 The Male Revolt Against Polygyny- 
 Experience shews that women do not object to 
 polygyny when it is customary: on the contrary, they are 
 its most ardent supporters. The reason is obvious. The 
 question, as it presents itself in practice to a woman, is 
 whether it is better to have, say, a whole share in a tenth- 
 rate man or a tenth share in a first-rate man. Substitute 
 the word Income for the word Man, and you will have 
 the question as it presents itself economically to the de- 
 pendent woman. The woman whose instincts are ma- 
 ternal, who desires superior children more than anything 
 else, never hesitates. She would take a thousandth 
 share, if necessary, in a husband who was a man in a 
 thousand, rather than have some comparatively weedy 
 weakling all to herself. It is the comparatively weedy 
 weakling, left mateless by polygyny, who objects. Thus, 
 it was not the women of Salt Lake City nor even of 
 America who attacked Mormon polygyny. It was the 
 men. And very naturally. On the other hand, women 
 object to polyandry, because polyandry enables the best 
 women to monopolize all the men, just as polygyny 
 enables the best men to monopolize all the women. That 
 is why all our ordinary men and women are unanimous 
 in defence of monogamy, the men because it excludes
 
 Preface 37 
 
 polygyny, and the women because it excludes polyandry. 
 The women, left to themselves, would tolerate polygyny. 
 The men, left to themselves, would tolerate polyandry. 
 But polygyny would condemn a great many men, and 
 polyandry a great many women, to the celibacy of 
 neglect. Hence the resistance any attempt to establish 
 unlimited polygyny always provokes, not from the best 
 people, but from the mediocrities and the inferiors. If 
 we could get rid of our inferiors and screw up our aver- 
 age quality until mediocrity ceased to be a reproach, 
 thus making every man reasonably eligible as a father 
 and every woman reasonably desirable as a mother, 
 polygyny and polyandry would immediately fall into 
 sincere disrepute, because monogamy is so much more 
 convenient and economical that nobody would want to 
 share a husband or a wife if he (or she) could have a 
 sufficiently good one all to himself (or herself). Thus 
 it appears that it is the scarcity of husbands or wives of 
 high quality that leads woman to polygyny and men to 
 polyandry, and that if this scarcity were cured, monog- 
 amy, in the sense of having only one husband or wife 
 at a time (facilities for changing are another matter), 
 would be found satisfactory. 
 
 Difference between Oriental and 
 Occidental Polygyny 
 
 It may now be asked why the polygynist nations have 
 not gravitated to monogamy, like the latter-day saints of 
 Salt Lake City. The answer is not far to seek: their 
 polygyny is limited. By the Mohammedan law a man 
 cannot marry more than four wives; and by the unwrhV 
 ten law of necessity no man can keep more wives than 
 he can afford; so that a man with four wives must be 
 quite as exceptional in Asia as a man with a carriage- 
 and-pair or a motor car is in Europe, where, nevertheless,
 
 38 Getting Married 
 
 we may all have as many carriages anC motors as we can 
 afford to pay for. Kulin polygyny, tl ough unlimited, is 
 not really a popular institution: if ycu are a person of 
 high caste you pay another person o r very august caste 
 indeed to make your daughter momentarily one of his 
 sixty or seventy momentary wives for the sake of en- 
 nobling your grandchildren; but this fashion of a small 
 and intensely snobbish class is negligible as a general 
 precedent. In any case, men and women in the East do 
 not marry anyone they fancy, as in England and Amer- 
 ica. Women are secluded and marriages are arranged. 
 In Salt Lake City the free unsecluded woman could see 
 and meet the ablest man of the community, and tempt 
 him to make her his tenth wife by all the arts peculiar 
 to women in English-speaking countries. No eastern 
 woman can do anything of the sort. The man alone has 
 any initiative; but he has no access to the woman; be- 
 sides, as we have seen, the difficulty created by male 
 license is not polygyny but polyandry, which is not 
 allowed. 
 
 Consequently, if we are to make polygyny a success, 
 we must limit it. If we have two women to every one 
 man, we must allow each man only two wives. That is 
 simple; but unfortunately our own actual proportion is, 
 roughly, something like l^\ woman to 1 man. Now you 
 cannot enact that each man shall be allowed l-j^j- wives, 
 or that each woman who cannot get a husband all to 
 herself shall divide herself between eleven already mar- 
 ried husbands. Thus there is no way out for us through 
 polygyny. There is no way at all out of the present 
 system of condemning the superfluous women to barren- 
 ness, except by legitimizing the children of women who 
 are not married to the fathers.
 
 Preface 39 
 
 The Old Maid's Right to Motherhood 
 
 Now the right to bear children without taking a hus- 
 band could not be confined to women who are superfluous 
 in the monogamic reckoning. There is the practical dif- 
 ficulty that although in our population there are about a 
 million monogamically superfluous women, yet it is quite 
 impossible to say of any given unmarried woman that 
 she is one of the superfluous. And there is the difficulty 
 of principle. The right to bear a child, perhaps the 
 most sacred of all women's rights, is not one that should 
 have any conditions attached to it except in the interests 
 of race welfare. There are many women of admirable 
 character, strong, capable, independent, who dislike the 
 domestic habits of men; have no natural turn for moth- 
 ering and coddling them ; and find the concession of con- 
 jugal rights to any person under any conditions intol- 
 erable by their self-respect. Yet the general sense of 
 the community recognizes in these very women the fittest 
 people to have charge of children, and trusts them, as 
 schoolmistresses and matrons of institutions, more than 
 women of any other type when it is possible to procure 
 them for such work. Why should the taking of a hus- 
 band be imposed on these women as the price of their 
 right to maternity? I am quite unable to answer that 
 question. I see a good deal of first-rate maternal ability 
 and sagacity spending itself on bees ancf poultry and vil- 
 lage schools and cottage hospitals; and I find myself 
 repeatedly asking myself why this valuable strain in the 
 national breed should be sterilized. Unfortunately, the 
 very women whom we should tempt to become mothers 
 for the good of the race are the very last people to press 
 their services on their country in that way. Plato long 
 ago pointed out the importance* of being governed by men 
 with sufficient sense of responsibility and comprehension 
 of public duties to be very reluctant to undertake the
 
 40 Getting Married 
 
 work of governing; and yet we have taken his instruction 
 so little to heart that we are at present suffering acutely 
 from government by gentlemen who will stoop to all the 
 mean shifts of electioneering and incur all its heavy ex- 
 penses for the sake of a seat in Parliament. But what 
 our sentimentalists have not yet been told is that exactly 
 the same thing applies to maternity as to government. 
 The best mothers are not those who are so enslaved by 
 their primitive instincts that they will bear children no 
 matter how hard the conditions are, but precisely those 
 who place a very high price on their services, and are 
 quite prepared to become old maids if the price is re- 
 fused, and even to feel relieved at their escape. Our 
 democratic and matrimonial institutions may have their 
 merits: at all events they are mostly reforms of some- 
 thing worse; but they put a premium on want'of self- 
 respect in certain very important matters; and the con- 
 sequence is that we are very badly governed and are, on 
 the whole, an ugly, mean, ill-bred race. 
 
 Ibsen's Chain Stitch 
 
 Let us not forget, however, in our sympathy for the 
 superfluous women, that their children must have fathers 
 as well as mothers. Who are the fathers to be? All 
 monogamists and married women will reply hastily: 
 either bachelors or widowers; and this solution will serve 
 as well as another; for it would be hypocritical to pre- 
 tend that the difficulty is a practical one. None the less, 
 the monogamists, after due reflection, will point out that 
 if there ire widowers enough the superfluous women are 
 not really superfluous, and therefore there is no reason 
 why the parties should not marry respectably like other 
 people. And they might in that case be right if the rea- 
 sons were purely numerical : that is, if every woman were 
 willing to take a husband if one could be found for her,
 
 Preface 41 
 
 and every man willing to take a wife on the same terms; 
 also, please remember, if widows would remain celibate 
 to give the unmarried women a chance. These ifs will 
 not work. We must recognize two classes of old maids: 
 one, the really superfluous women, and the other, the 
 women who refuse to accept maternity on the (to them) 
 unbearable condition of taking a husband. From both 
 classes may, perhaps, be subtracted for the present the 
 large proportion of women who could not afford the ex- 
 tra expense of one or more children. I say " perhaps," 
 because it is by no means sure that within reasonable 
 limits mothers do not make a better fight for subsistence, 
 and have not, on the whole, a better time than single 
 women. In any case, we have two distinct cases to deal 
 with: the superfluous and the voluntary; and it is the 
 voluntary whose grit we are most concerned to fertilize. 
 But here, again, we cannot put our finger on any par- 
 ticular case and pick out Miss Robinson's as superfluous, 
 and Miss Wilkinson's as voluntary. Whether we legiti- 
 mize the child of the unmarried woman as a duty to the 
 superfluous or as a bribe to the voluntary, the practical 
 result must be the same: to wit, that the condition of 
 marriage now attached to legitimate parentage will be 
 withdrawn from all women, and fertile unions outside 
 marriage recognized by society. Now clearly the conse- 
 quences would not stop there. The strong-minded ladies 
 who are resolved to be mistresses in their own houses 
 would not be the only ones to take advantage of the new 
 law. Even women to whom a home without a man in it 
 would be no home at all, and who fully intended, if the 
 man turned out to be the right one, to live with him 
 exactly as married couples live, would, if they were pos- 
 sessed of independent means, have every inducement to 
 adopt the new conditions instead of the old ones. Only 
 the women whose sole means of livelihood was wifehood 
 would insist on marriage: hence a tendency would set in
 
 42 Getting Married 
 
 to make marriage more and more one of the customs im- 
 posed by necessity on the poor, whilst the freer form of 
 union, regulated, no doubt, by settlements and private 
 contracts of various kinds, would become the practice of 
 the rich: that is, would become the fashion. At which 
 point nothing but the achievement of economic inde- 
 pendence by women, which is already seen clearly ahead 
 of us, would be needed to make marriage disappear alto- 
 gether, not by formal abolition, but by simple disuse. 
 The private contract stage of this process was reached 
 in ancient Rome. The only practicable alternative to it 
 seems to be such an extension of divorce as will reduce 
 the risks and obligations of marriage to a degree at 
 which they will be no worse than those of the alternatives 
 to marriage. As we shall see, this is the solution to 
 which all the arguments tend. Meanwhile, note how 
 much reason a statesman has to pause before meddling 
 with an institution which, unendurable as its drawbacks 
 are, threatens to come to pieces in all directions if a sin- 
 gle thread of it be cut. Ibsen's similitude of the ma- 
 chine-made chain stitch, which unravels the whole seam at 
 the first pull when a single stitch is ripped, is very ap- 
 plicable to the knot of marriage. 
 
 Remoteness of the Facts from the Ideal 
 
 But before we allow this to deter us from touching the 
 sacred fabric, we must find out whether it is not already 
 coming to pieces in all directions by the continuous strain 
 of circumstances. No doubt, if it were all that it pre- 
 tends to be, and human nature were working smoothly 
 within its limits, there would be nothing more to be said : 
 it would be let alone as it always is let alone during the 
 cruder stages of civilization. But the moment we refer 
 to the facts, we discover that the ideal matrimony and 
 domesticity which our bigots implore us to preserve as
 
 Preface 43 
 
 the corner stone of our society is a figment: what we 
 have really got is something very different, questionable 
 at its best, and abominable at its worst. The word pure, 
 so commonly applied to it by thoughtless people, is ab- 
 surd; because if they do not mean celibate by it, they 
 mean nothing; and if they do mean celibate, then mar- 
 riage is legalized impurity, a conclusion which is 
 offensive and inhuman. Marriage as a fact is not in 
 the least like marriage as an ideal. If it were, the sud- 
 den changes which have been made on the continent from 
 indissoluble Roman Catholic marriage to marriage that 
 can be dissolved by a box on the ear as in France, by an 
 epithet as in Germany, or simply at the wish of both 
 parties as in Sweden, not to mention the experiments 
 made by some of the American States, would have shaken 
 society to its foundations. Yet they have produced so 
 little effect that Englishmen open their eyes in surprise 
 when told of their existence. 
 
 Difficulty of Obtaining Evidence 
 
 As to what actual marriage is, one would like evidence 
 instead of guesses; but as all departures from the ideal 
 are regarded as disgraceful, evidence cannot be obtained; 
 for when the whole community is indicted, nobody will 
 go into the witness-box for the prosecution. Some 
 guesses we can make with some confidence. For exam- 
 ple, if it be objected to any change that our bachelors 
 and widowers would no longer be Galahads, we may 
 without extravagance or cynicism reply that many of 
 them are not Galahads now, and that the only change 
 would be that hypocrisy would no longer be compulsory. 
 Indeed, this can hardly be called guessing: the evidence 
 is in the streets. But when We attempt to find out the 
 truth about our marriages, we cannot even guess with 
 any confidence. Speaking for myself, I can say that I
 
 44 Getting Married 
 
 know the inside history of perhaps half a dozen mar- 
 riages. Any family solicitor knows more than this; but 
 even a family solicitor, however large his practice, knows 
 nothing of the million households which have no solic- 
 itors, and which nevertheless make marriage what it 
 really is. And all he can say comes to no more than I 
 can say : to wit, that no marriage of which I have any 
 knowledge is in the least like the ideal marriage. I do 
 not mean that it is worse: I mean simply that it is differ- 
 ent. Also, far from society being organized in a defence 
 of its ideal so jealous and implacable that the least step 
 from the straight path means exposure and ruin, it is 
 almost impossible by any extravagance of misconduct to 
 provoke society to relax its steady pretence of blindness, 
 unless you do one or both of two fatal things. One is 
 to get into the newspapers; and the other is to confess. 
 If you confess misconduct to respectable men or women, 
 they must either disown you or become virtually your 
 accomplices : that is why they are so angry with you for 
 confessing. If you get into the papers, the pretence of 
 not knowing becomes impossible. But it is hardly too 
 much to say that if you avoid these two perils, you can 
 do anything you like, as far as your neighbors are con- 
 cerned. And since we can hardly flatter ourselves that 
 this is the effect of charity, it is difficult not to suspect 
 that our extraordinary forbearance in the matter of stone 
 throwing is that suggested in the well-known parable 
 of the women taken in adultery which some early free- 
 thinker slipped into the Gospel of St John : namely, that 
 we all live in glass houses. We may take it, then, that 
 the ideal husband and the ideal wife are no more real 
 human beings than the cherubim. Possibly the great ma- 
 jority keeps its marriage vows in the technical divorce 
 court sense. No husband or wife yet born keeps them or 
 ever can keep them in the ideal sense.
 
 Preface 45 
 
 Marriage as a Magic Spell 
 
 The truth which people seem to overlook in this matter 
 is that the marriage ceremony is quite useless as a magic 
 spell for changing in an instant the nature of the rela- 
 tions of two human beings to one another. If a man 
 marries a woman after three weeks acquaintance, and the 
 day after meets a woman he has known for twenty years, 
 he finds, sometimes to his own irrational surprise and 
 his wife's equally irrational indignation, that his wife 
 is a stranger to him, and the other woman an old friend. 
 Also, there is no hocus pocus that can possibly be de- 
 vized with rings and veils and vows and benedictions 
 that can fix either a man's or woman's affection for 
 twenty minutes, much less twenty years. Even the most 
 affectionate couples must have moments during which 
 they are far more conscious of one another's faults than 
 of one another's attractions. There are couples who dis- 
 like one another furiously for several hours at a time; 
 there are couples who dislike one another permanently; 
 and there are couples who never dislike one another; but 
 these last are people who are incapable of disliking any- 
 body. If they do not quarrel, it is not because they are 
 married, but because they are not quarrelsome. The 
 people who are quarrelsome quarrel with their husbands 
 and wives just as easily as with their servants and rel- 
 atives and acquaintances: marriage makes no difference. 
 Those who talk and write and legislate as if all this 
 could be prevented by making solemn vows that it shall 
 not happen, are either insincere, insane, or hopelessly 
 stupid. There is some sense in a contract to perform or 
 abstain from actions that are reasonably within voluntary 
 control; but such contracts are only needed to provide 
 against the possibility of either party being no longer de- 
 sirous of the specified performance or abstention. A 
 person proposing or accepting a contract not only to do
 
 46 Getting Married 
 
 something but to like doing it would be certified as mad. 
 Yet popular superstition credits the wedding rite with 
 the power of fixing our fancies or affections for life even 
 under the most unnatural conditions. 
 
 The Impersonality of Sex 
 
 It is necessary to lay some stress on these points, be- 
 cause few realize the extent to which we proceed on the 
 assumption that marriage is a short cut to perfect and 
 permanent intimacy and affection. But there is a still 
 more unworkable assumption which must be discarded 
 before discussions of marriage can get into any sort of 
 touch with the facts of life. That assumption is that the 
 specific relation which marriage authorizes between the 
 parties is the most intimate and personal of human rela- 
 tions, and embraces all the other high human relations. 
 Now this is violently untrue. Every adult knows that 
 the relation in question can and does exist between entire 
 strangers, different in language, color, tastes, class, civ- 
 ilization, morals, religion, character: in everything, in 
 short, except their bodily homology and the reproductive 
 appetite common to all living organisms. Even hatred, 
 cruelty, and contempt are not incompatible with it; and 
 jealousy and murder are as near to it as affectionate 
 friendship. It is true that it is a relation beset with 
 wildly extravagant illusions for inexperienced people, 
 and that even the most experienced people have not 
 always sufficient analytic faculty to disentangle it from 
 the sentiments, sympathetic or abhorrent, which may 
 spring up through the other relations which are com- 
 pulsorily attached to it by our laws, or sentimentally 
 associated with it in romance. But the fact remains that 
 the most disastrous marriages are those founded exclu- 
 sively on it, and the most successful those in which it 
 has been least considered, and in which the decisive con-
 
 Preface 47 
 
 siderations have had nothing to do with sex, such as 
 liking, money, congeniality of tastes, similarity of hab- 
 its, suitability of class, &c, &c. 
 
 It is no doubt necessary under existing circumstances 
 for a woman without property to be sexually attractive, 
 because she must get married to secure a livelihood; and 
 the illusions of sexual attraction will cause the imagina- 
 tion of young men to endow her with every accomplish- 
 ment and virtue that can make a wife a treasure. The 
 attraction being thus constantly and ruthlessly used as 
 a bait, both by individuals and by society, any discussion 
 tending to strip it of its illusions and get at its real 
 natural history is nervously discouraged. But nothing 
 can well be more unwholesome for everybody than the 
 exaggeration and glorification of an instinctive function 
 which clouds the reason and upsets the judgment more 
 than all the other instincts put together. The process 
 may be pleasant and romantic; but the consequences are 
 not. It would be far better for everyone, as well as far 
 honester, if young people were taught that what they 
 call love is an appetite which, like all other appetites, 
 is destroyed for the moment by its gratification; that 
 no profession, promise, or proposal made under its in- 
 fluence should bind anybody; and that its great natural 
 purpose so completely transcends the personal interests 
 of any individual or even of any ten generations of in- 
 dividuals that it should be held to be an act of prostitu- 
 tion and even a sort of blasphemy to attempt to turn it 
 to account by exacting a personal return for its gratifica- 
 tion, whether by process of law or not. By all means 
 let it be the subject of contracts with society as to its 
 consequences; but to make marriage an open trade in it 
 ns at present, with money, board and lodging, personal 
 slavery, vows of eternal exclusive personal sentimental- 
 ities and the rest of it as the price, is neither virtuous, 
 dignified, nor decent. No husband ever secured his do-
 
 48 Getting Married 
 
 mestic happiness and honor, nor has any wife ever se- 
 cured hers, by relying on it, No private claims of any I , 
 sort should be founded on it: the real point of honor is J 
 to take no corrupt advantage of it. When we hear of 
 young women being led astray and the like, we find that 
 what has led them astray is a sedulously inculcated false 
 notion that the relation they are tempted to contract is 
 so intensely personal, and the vows made under the in- 
 fluence of its transient infatuation so sacred and endur- 
 ing, that only an atrociously wicked man could make 
 light of or forget them. What is more, as the same fan- 
 tastic errors are inculcated in men, and the conscientious 
 ones therefore feel bound in honor to stand by what they 
 have promised, one of the surest methods to obtain a 
 husband is to practise on his susceptibilities until he is 
 either carried away into a promise of marriage to which 
 he can be legally held, or else into an indiscretion which 
 he must repair by marriage on pain of having to regard 
 himself as a scoundrel and a seducer, besides facing the 
 utmost damage the lady's relatives can do him. 
 
 Such a transaction is not an entrance into a ' holy 
 state of matrimony " : it is as often as not the inaugura- 
 tion of a lifelong squabble, a corroding grudge, that 
 causes more misery and degradation of character than a 
 dozen entirely natural " desertions " and " betrayals." 
 Yet the number of marriages effected more or less in this 
 way must be enormous. When people say that love 
 should be free, their words, taken literally, may be fool- 
 ish; but they are only expressing inaccurately a very 
 real need for the disentanglement of sexual relations 
 from a mass of exorbitant and irrelevant conditions im- 
 posed on them on false pretences to enable needy par- 
 ents to get their daughters "off their hands' and to 
 keep those who are already married effectually enslaved 
 by one another.
 
 Preface 49 
 
 The Economic Slavery of Women 
 
 One of the consequences of basing marriage on the 
 considerations stated with cold abhorrence by Saint Paul 
 in the seventh chapter of his epistle to the Corinthians, 
 as being made necessary by the unlikeness of most men 
 to himself, is that the sex slavery involved has become 
 complicated by economic slavery; so that whilst the man 
 defends marriage because he is really defending his 
 pleasures, the woman is even more vehement on the 
 same side because she is defending her only means of 
 livelihood. To a woman without property or marketable 
 talent a husband is more necessary than a master to a 
 dog. There is nothing more wounding to our sense of 
 human dignity than the husband hunting that begins in 
 every family when the daughters become marriageable; 
 but it is inevitable under existing circumstances; and the 
 parents who refuse to engage in it are bad parents, 
 though they may be superior individuals. The cubs of 
 a humane tigress would starve; and the daughters of 
 women who cannot bring themselves to devote several 
 years of their lives to the pursuit of sons-in-law often 
 have to expatiate their mother's squeamishness by life- 
 long celibacy and indigence. To ask a young man his 
 intentions when you know he has no intentions, but is 
 unable to deny that he has paid attentions; to threaten 
 an action for breach of promise of marriage; to pretend 
 that your daughter is a musician when she has with the 
 greatest difficulty been coached into playing three piano- 
 forte pieces which she loathes; to use your own mature 
 charms to attract men to the house when your daughters 
 have no aptitude for that department of sport; to coach 
 them, when they have, in the arts by which men can be 
 led to compromize themselves; and to keep all the skel- 
 etons carefully locked up in the family cupboard until 
 the prey is duly hunted down and bagged: all this is a
 
 5G Getting Married 
 
 mother's duty today; and a very revolting duty it is: 
 one that disposes of the conventional assumption that it 
 is in the faithful discharge of her home duties that a J 
 woman finds her self-respect. The truth is that family 
 life will never be decent, much less ennobling, until this 
 central horror of the dependence of women on men is 
 done away with. At present it reduces the difference 
 between marriage and prostitution to the difference be- 
 tween Trade Unionism and unorganized casual labor: 
 a huge difference, no doubt, as to order and comfort, but 
 not a difference in kind. 
 
 However, it is not by any reform of the marriage laws 
 that this can be dealt with. It is in the general move- 
 ment for the prevention of destitution that the means for 
 making women independent of the compulsory sale of 
 their persons, in marriage or otherwise, will be found; 
 but meanwhile those who deal specifically with the mar- 
 riage laws should never allow themselves for a moment 
 to forget this abomination that " plucks the rose from 
 the fair forehead of an innocent love, and sets a blister 
 there," and then calmly calls itself purity, home, mother- 
 hood, respectability, honor, decency, and any other fine 
 name that happens to be convenient, not to mention the 
 foul epithets it hurls freely at those who are ashamed 
 of it. 
 
 Unpopularity of Impersonal Views 
 
 Unfortunately it is very hard to make an average cit- 
 izen take impersonal views of any sort in matters affect- 
 ing personal comfort or conduct. We may be enthusias- 
 tic Liberals or Conservatives without any hope of seats 
 in Parliament, knighthoods, or posts in the Government, 
 because party politics do not make the slightest differ- 
 ence in our daily lives and therefore cost us nothing. 
 But to take a vital process in which we are keenly inter-
 
 Preface 51 
 
 ested personal instruments, and ask ns to regard it, and 
 feel about it, and legislate on it, wholly as if it were an 
 impersonal one, is to make a higher demand than most 
 people seem capable of responding to. We all have per- 
 sonal interests in marriage which we are not prepared to 
 sink. It is not only the women who want to get mar- 
 ried: the men do too, sometimes on sentimental grounds, 
 sometimes on the more sordid calculation that bachelor 
 life is less comfortable and more expensive, since a wife 
 pays for her status with domestic service as well as with 
 the other services expected of her. Now that children 
 are avoidable, this calculation is becoming more common 
 and conscious than it was: a result which is regarded as 
 " a steady improvement in general morality." 
 
 Impersonality is not Promiscuity 
 
 There is, too, a really appalling prevalence of the su- 
 perstition that the sexual instinct in men is utterly pro- 
 miscuous, and that the least relaxation of law and cus- 
 tom must produce a wild outbreak of licentiousness. As 
 far as our moralists can grasp the proposition that we 
 should deal with the sexual relation as impersonal, it 
 seems to them to mean that we should encourage it to be 
 promiscuous: hence their recoil from it. But promis- 
 cuity and impersonality are not the same thing. No 
 man ever fell in love with the entire female sex, nor any 
 woman with the entire male sex. We often do not fall 
 in love at all; and when we do we fall in love with one 
 person and remain indifferent to thousands of others who 
 pass before our eyes every day. Selection, carried even 
 to such fastidiousness as to induce people to say quite 
 commonly that there is only one man or woman in the 
 world for them, is the rule in nature. If anyone doubts 
 this, let him open a shop for the sale of picture post- 
 cards, and, when an enamoured lady customer demands
 
 52 Getting Married 
 
 a portrait of her favorite actor or a gentleman of his 
 favorite actress, try to substitute some other portrait on 
 the ground that since the sexual instinct is promiscuous, 
 one portrait is as pleasing as another. I suppose no 
 shopkeeper has ever been foolish enough to do such a 
 thing; and yet all our shopkeepers, the moment a discus- 
 sion arises on marriage, will passionately argue against 
 all reform on the ground that nothing but the most 
 severe coercion can save their wives and daughters from 
 quite indiscriminate rapine. 
 
 Domestic Change of Air 
 
 Our relief at the morality of the reassurance that man 
 is not promiscuous in his fancies must not blind us to 
 the fact that he is (to use the word coined by certain 
 American writers to describe themselves) something of a 
 Varietist. Even those who say there is only one man 
 or woman in the world for them, find that it is not 
 always the same man or woman. It happens that our f 
 law permits us to study this phenomenon among entirely 
 law-abiding people. I know one lady who has been mar- 
 ried five times. She is, as might be expected, a wise, 
 attractive, and interesting woman. The question is, is 
 she wise, attractive, and interesting because she has been 
 married five times, or has she been married five times 
 because she is wise, attractive, and interesting? Prob- 
 ably some of the truth lies both ways. I also know of a 
 household consisting of three families, A having married 
 first B, and then C, who afterwards married D. All 
 three unions were fruitful; so that the children had a 
 change both of fathers and mothers. Now I cannot hon- 
 estly say that these and similar cases have convinced me 
 that people are the worse for a change. The lady who 
 has married and managed five husbands must be much 
 more expert at it than most monogamic ladies; and as a
 
 Preface 53 
 
 companion and counsellor she probably leaves them no- 
 where. Mr Kipling's question 
 
 What can they know of England that only England know? 
 
 disposes not only of the patriots who are so patriotic that 
 they never leave their own country to look at another, 
 hut of the citizens who are so domestic that they have 
 never married again and never loved anyone except their 
 own husbands and wives. The domestic doctrinaires are 
 also the dull people. The impersonal relation of sex 
 may be judicially reserved for one person; but any such 
 reservation of friendship, affection, admiration, sympa- 
 thy and so forth is only possible to a wretchedly narrow 
 and jealous nature; and niether history nor contemporary 
 society shews us a single amiable and respectable char- 
 acter capable of it. This has always been recognized in 
 cultivated society: that is why poor people accuse culti- 
 vated society of profligacy, poor people being often so 
 ignorant and uncultivated that they have nothing to offer 
 each other but the sex relationship, and cannot conceive 
 why men and women should associate for any other 
 purpose. 
 
 As to the children of the triple household, they were 
 not only on excellent terms with one another, and never 
 thought of any distinction between their full and their 
 half brothers and sisters; but they had the superior so- 
 ciability which distinguishes the people who live in com- 
 munities from those who live in small families. 
 
 The inference is that changes of partners are not in 
 themselves injurious or undesirable. People are not de- 
 moralized by them when they are effected according to 
 law. Therefore we need not hesitate to alter the law 
 merely because the alteration would make such changes 
 easier.
 
 54 Getting Married 
 
 Home Manners are Bad Manners 
 
 On the other hand, we have all seen the bonds of mar- 
 riage vilely abused by people who are never classed with 
 shrews and wife-beaters : they are indeed sometimes held 
 np as models of domesticity because they do not drink 
 nor gamble nor neglect their children nor tolerate dirt 
 and untidiness, and because they are not amiable enough 
 to have what are called amiable weaknesses. These ter- 
 rors conceive marriage as a dispensation from all the 
 common civilities and delicacies which they have to ob- 
 serve among strangers, or, as they put it, " before com- 
 pany." And here the effects of indissoluble marriage- 
 for-better-for-worse are very plainly and disagreeably 
 seen. If such people took their domestic manners into 
 general society, they would very soon find themselves 
 without a friend or even an acquaintance in the world. 
 There are women who, through total disuse, have lost the 
 power of kindly human speech and can only scold and J 
 complain: there are men who grumble and nag from in- 
 veterate habit even when they are comfortable. But 
 their unfortunate spouses and children cannot escape 
 from them. 
 
 Spurious "Natural" Affection 
 
 What is more, they are protected from even such dis- 
 comfort as the dislike of his prisoners may cause to a 
 gaoler by the hypnotism of the convention that the nat- 
 ural relation between husband and wife and parent and 
 child is one of intense affection, and that to feel any 
 other sentiment towards a member of one's family is to 
 be a monster. Under the influence of the emotion thus 
 manufactured the most detestable people are spoilt with 
 entirely undeserved deference, obedience, and even affec- 
 tion whilst they live, and mourned when they die by
 
 Preface 55 
 
 those whose lives they wantonly or maliciously made 
 miserable. And this is what we call natural conduct. 
 Nothing could well be less natural. That such a con- 
 vention should have been established shews that the in- 
 dissolubility of marriage creates such intolerable situa- 
 tions that only by beglamoring the human imagination 
 with a hypnotic suggestion of wholly unnatural feelings 
 can it be made to keep up appearances. 
 
 If the sentimental theory of family relationship en- 
 courages bad manners and personal slovenliness and un- 
 cleanness in the home, it also, in the case of sentimental 
 people, encourages the practice of rousing and playing 
 on the affections of children prematurely and far too fre- 
 quently. The lady who says that as her religion is love, 
 her children shall be brought up in an atmosphere 
 of love, and institutes a system of sedulous endearments 
 and exchanges of presents and conscious and studied acts 
 of artificial kindness, may be defeated in a large family 
 by the healthy derision and rebellion of children who 
 have acquired hardihood and common sense in their con- 
 flicts with one another. But the small families, which 
 are the rule just now, succumb more easily; and in the 
 case of a single sensitive child the effect of being forced 
 in a hothouse atmosphere of unnatural affection may be 
 disastrous. 
 
 In short, whichever way you take it, the convention 
 that marriage and family relationship produce special 
 feelings which alter the nature of human intercourse is 
 a mischievous one. The whole difficulty of bringing up 
 a family well is the difficulty of making its members be- 
 have as considerately at home as on a visit in a strange 
 house, and as frankly, kindly, and easily in a strange 
 house as at home. In the middle classes, where the seg- 
 regation of the artificially limited family in its little 
 brick box is horribly complete, bad manners, ugly 
 dresses, awkwardness, cowardice, peevishness, and all the
 
 56 Getting Married 
 
 petty vices of unsociability flourish like mushrooms in a 
 cellar. In the upper class, where families are not limited 
 for money reasons; where at least two houses and some- 
 times three or four are the rule (not to mention the 
 clubs) ; where there is travelling and hotel life ; and 
 where the men are brought up, not in the family,, but in 
 public schools, universities, and the naval and military 
 services, besides being constantly in social training in 
 other people's houses, the result is to produce what may 
 be called, in comparison with the middle class, something 
 that might almost pass as a different and much more 
 sociable species. And in the very poorest class, where 
 people have no homes, only sleeping places, and conse- 
 quently live practically in the streets, sociability again 
 appears, leaving the middle class despised and disliked 
 for its helpless and offensive unsociability as much by 
 those below it as those above it, and yet ignorant enough 
 to be proud of it, and to hold itself up as a model for 
 the reform of the (as it considers) elegantly vicious rich 
 and profligate poor alike. 
 
 Carrying the War into the Enemy's 
 
 Country 
 
 Without pretending to exhaust the subject, I have 
 said enough to make it clear that the moment we lose the 
 desire to defend our present matrimonial and family ar- 
 rangements, there will be no difficulty in making out an 
 overwhelming case against them. No doubt until then 
 we shall continue to hold up the British home as the 
 Holy of Holies in the temple of honorable motherhood, 
 innocent childhood, manly virtue, and sweet and whole- 
 some national life. But with a clever turn of the hand 
 this holy of holies can be exposed as an Augean stable, 
 so filthy that it would seem more hopeful to burn it down 
 than to attempt to sweep it out. And this latter view
 
 Preface 57 
 
 will perhaps prevail if the idolaters of marriage persist 
 in refusing all proposals for reform and treating those 
 who advocate it as infamous delinquents. Neither view 
 is of any use except as a poisoned arrow in a fierce fight 
 between two parties determined to discredit each other 
 with a view to obtaining powers of legal coercion over 
 one another. 
 
 Shelley and Queen Victoria 
 
 The best way to avert such a struggle is to open the 
 eyes of the thoughtlessly conventional people to the 
 weakness of their position in a mere contest of recrim- 
 ination. Hitherto they have assumed that they have the 
 advantage of coming into the field without a stain on 
 their characters to combat libertines who have no charac- 
 ter at all. They conceive it to be their duty to throw 
 mud; and they feel that even if the enemy can find any 
 mud to throw, none of it will stick. They are mistaken. 
 There will be plenty of that sort of ammunition in the 
 other camp; and most of it will stick very hard indeed. 
 The moral is, do not throw any. If we can imagine 
 Shelley and Queen Victoria arguing out their differences 
 in another world, we may be sure that the Queen has 
 long ago found that she cannot settle the question by 
 classing Shelley with George IV. as a bad man; and 
 Shelley is not likely to have called her vile names on 
 the general ground that as the economic dependence of 
 women makes marriage a money bargain in which the 
 man is the purchaser and the woman the purchased, there 
 is no essential difference between a married woman and 
 the woman of the streets. Unfortunately, all the people 
 whose methods of controversy are represented by our 
 popular newspapers are not Queen Victorias and Shel- 
 leys. A great mass of them, when their prejudices are 
 challenged, have no other impulse than to call the chal-
 
 58 Getting Married 
 
 lenger names, and, when the crowd seems to be on their 
 side, to maltreat him personally or hand him over to the 
 law, if he is vulnerable to it. Therefore I cannot say 
 that I have any certainty that the marriage question will 
 be dealt with decently and tolerantly. But dealt with 
 it will be, decently or indecently; for the present state 
 of things in England is too strained and mischievous to 
 last. Europe and America have left us a century behind 
 in this matter. 
 
 A Probable Effect of Giving Women the 
 
 Vote 
 
 The political emancipation of women is likely to lead 
 to a comparatively stringent enforcement by law of 
 sexual morality (that is why so many of us dread it) ; 
 and this will soon compel us to consider what our sexual 
 morality shall be. At present a ridiculous distinction is 
 made between vice and crime, in order that men may be 
 vicious with impunity. Adultery, for instance, though 
 it is sometimes fiercely punished by giving an injured 
 husband crushing damages in a divorce suit (injured 
 wives are not considered in this way), is not now di- 
 rectly prosecuted; and this impunity extends to illicit 
 relations between unmarried persons who have reached 
 what is called the age of consent. There are other mat- 
 ters, such as notification of contagious disease and solic- 
 itation, in which the hand of the law has been brought 
 down on one sex only. Outrages which were capital 
 offences within the memory of persons still living when 
 committed on women outside marriage, can still be in- 
 flicted by men on their wives without legal remedy. At 
 all such points the code will be screwed up by the opera- 
 tion of Votes for Women, if there be any virtue in the 
 franchise at all. The result will be that men will find 
 the more ascetic side of our sexual morality taken seri-
 
 Preface 59 
 
 ously by the law. It is easy to foresee the consequences. 
 No man will take much trouble to alter laws which he 
 can evade, or which are either not enforced or enforced 
 on women only. But when these laws take him by the 
 collar and thrust him into prison, he suddenly becomes 
 keenly critical of them, and of the arguments by which 
 they are supported. Now we have seen that our mar- 
 riage laws will not stand criticism, and that they have 
 held out so far only because they are so worked as to fit 
 roughly our state of society, in which women are neither 
 politically nor personally free, in which indeed women 
 are called womanly only when they regard themselves as 
 existing solely for the use of men. When Liberalism en- 
 franchises them politically, and Socialism emancipates 
 them economically, they will no longer allow the law to 
 take immorality so easily. Both men and women will be 
 forced to behave morally in sex matters; and when they 
 find that this is inevitable they will raise the question 
 of what behavior really should be established as moral. 
 If they decide in favor of our present professed morality, 
 they will have to make a revolutionary change in their 
 habits by becoming in fact what they only pretend to be 
 at present. If, on the other hand, they find that this 
 would be an unbearable tyranny, without even the excuse 
 of justice or sound eugenics, they will reconsider their 
 morality and remodel the law. 
 
 The Personal Sentimental Basis of 
 Monogamy 
 
 Monogamy has a sentimental basis which is quite dis- 
 tinct from the political one of equal numbers of the 
 sexes. Equal numbers in the sexes are quite compatible 
 with a change of partners every day or every hour. 
 Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society 
 from the farm-yard except that children are more
 
 60 Getting Married 
 
 troublesome and costly than chickens and calves, and 
 that men and women are not so completely enslaved as 
 farm stock. Accordingly, the people whose conception 
 of marriage is a farm-yard or slave-quarter conception 
 are always more or less in a panic lest the slightest re- 
 laxation of the marriage laws should utterly demoralize 
 society; whilst those to whom marriage is a matter of 
 more highly evolved sentiments and needs (sometimes 
 said to be distinctively human, though birds and animals 
 in a state of freedom evince them quite as touchingly as 
 we) are much more liberal, knowing as they do that 
 monogamy will take care of itself provided the parties 
 are free enough, and that promiscuity is a product of 
 slavery and not of liberty. 
 
 The solid foundation of their confidence is the fact 
 that the relationship set up by a comfortable marriage 
 is so intimate and so persuasive of the whole life of the 
 parties to it, that nobody has room in his or her life 
 for more than one such relationship at a time. What is 
 called a household of three is never really of three except 
 in the sense that every household becomes a household 
 of three when a child is born, and may in the same way 
 become a household of four or fourteen if the union be 
 fertile enough. Now no doubt the marriage tie means 
 so little to some people that the addition to the house- 
 hold of half a dozen more wives or husbands would be 
 as possible as the addition of half a dozen governesses 
 or tutors or visitors or servants. A Sultan may have 
 fifty wives as easily as he may have fifty dishes on his 
 table, because in the English sense he has no wives at 
 all; nor have his wives any husband: in short, he is not 
 what we call a married man. And there are sultans and 
 sultanas and seraglios existing in England under Eng- 
 lish forms. But when you come to the real modern mar- 
 riage of sentiment, a relation is created which has never 
 to my knowledge been shared by three persons except 
 
 V 
 
 Sa
 
 Preface 61 
 
 when all three have been extraordinarily fond of one 
 another. Take for example the famous case of Nelson 
 and Sir William and Lady Hamilton. The secret of 
 this household of three was not only that both the hus- 
 band and Nelson were devoted to Lady Hamilton, but 
 that they were also apparently devoted to one another. 
 When Hamilton died both Nelson and Emma seem to 
 have been equally heartbroken. When there is a success- 
 ful household of one man and two women the same un- 
 usual condition is fulfilled: the two women not only can- 
 not live happily without the man but cannot live happily 
 without each other. In every other case known to me, 
 either from observation or record, the experiment is a 
 hopeless failure: one of the two rivals for the really in- 
 timate affection of the third inevitably drives out the 
 other. The driven-out party may accept the situation 
 and remain in the house as a friend to save appearances, 
 or for the sake of the children, or for economic reasons; 
 but such an arrangement can subsist only when the for- 
 feited relation is no longer really valued; and this in- 
 difference, like the triple bond of affection which carried 
 Sir William Hamilton through, is so rare as to be prac- 
 ticably negligible in the establishment of a conventional 
 morality of marriage. Therefore sensible and experi- 
 enced people always assume that when a declaration of 
 love is made to an already married person, the declara- 
 tion binds the parties in honor never to see one another 
 again unless they contemplate divorce and remarriage. 
 And this is a sound convention, even for unconventional 
 people. Let me illustrate by reference to a fictitious 
 case: the one imagined in my own play Candida will do 
 as well as another. Here a young man who has been 
 received as a friend into the house of a clergyman falls 
 in love with the clergyman's wife, and, being young and 
 inexperienced, declares his feelings, and claims that he, 
 and not the clergyman, ia the more suitable mate for the
 
 62 Getting Married 
 
 lady. The clergyman, who has a temper, is first tempted 
 to hurl the youth into the street by bodily violence: an 
 impulse natural, perhaps, but vulgar and improper, and 
 not open, on consideration, to decent men. Even coarse 
 and inconsiderate men are restrained from it by the fact 
 that the sympathy of the woman turns naturally to the 
 victim of physical brutality and against the bully, the 
 Thackerayan notion to the contrary being one of the 
 illusions of literary masculinity. Besides, the husband 
 is not necessarily the stronger man: an appeal to force 
 has resulted in the ignominious defeat of the husband 
 quite as often as in poetic justice as conceived in the 
 conventional novelet. What an honorable and sensible 
 man does when his household is invaded is what the Rev- 
 erend James Mavor Morell does in my play. He recog- 
 nizes that just as there is not room for two women in 
 that sacredly intimate relation of sentimental domesticity 
 which is what marriage means to him, so there is no 
 room for two men in that relation with his wife; and he 
 accordingly tells her firmly that she must choose which 
 man will occupy the place that is large enough for one 
 only. He is so far shrewdly unconventional as to rec- 
 ognize that if she chooses the other man, he must give 
 way, legal tie or no legal tie; but he knows that either 
 one or the other must go. And a sensible wife would 
 act in the same way. If a romantic young lady came into 
 her house and proposed to adore her husband on a tol- 
 erated footing, she would say " My husband has not 
 room in his life for two wives: either you go out of the 
 house or I go out of it." The situation is not at all un- 
 likely: I had almost said not at all unusual. Young 
 ladies and gentlemen in the greensickly condition which 
 is called calf-love, associating with married couples at 
 dangerous periods of mature life, quite often find them- 
 selves in it; and the extreme reluctance of proud and 
 sensitive people to avoid any assertion of matrimonial
 
 Preface 63 
 
 rights, or to condescend to jealousy, sometimes makes 
 the threatened husband or wife hesitate to take prompt 
 steps and do the apparently conventional thing. But 
 whether they hesitate or act the result is always the 
 same. In a real marriage of sentiment the wife or hus- 
 band cannot be supplanted by halves; and such a mar- 
 riage will break very soon under the strain of polygyny 
 or polyandry. What we want at present is a sufficiently 
 clear teaching of this fact to ensure that prompt and 
 decisive action shall always be taken in such cases with- 
 out any false shame of seeming conventional (a. shame to 
 which people capable of such real marriage are specially 
 susceptible), and a rational divorce law to enable the 
 marriage to be dissolved and the parties honorably re- 
 sorted and recoupled without disgrace and scandal if 
 that should prove the proper solution. 
 
 It must be repeated here that no law, however strin- 
 gent, can prevent polygamy among groups of people who 
 choose to live loosely and be monogamous only in ap- 
 pearance. But such cases are not now under considera- 
 tion. Also, affectionate husbands like Samuel Pepys, and 
 affectionate wives of the corresponding temperament, 
 may, it appears, engage in transient casual adventures 
 out of doors without breaking up their home life. But 
 within doors that home life may be regarded as naturally 
 monogamous. It does not need to be protected against 
 polygamy: it protects itself. 
 
 Divorce 
 
 All this has an important bearing on the question of 
 divorce. Divorce reformers are so much preoccupied 
 with the injustice of forbidding a woman to divorce her 
 husband for unfaithfulness to his marriage vow, whilst 
 allowing him that power over her, that they are apt to 
 overlook the pressing need for admitting other and. far
 
 64 Getting Married 
 
 more important grounds for divorce. If we take a docu- 
 ment like Pepys' Diary, we learn that a woman may have 
 an incorrigibly unfaithful husband, and yet be much bet- I 
 ter off than if she had an ill-tempered, peevish, mali- 
 ciously sarcastic one, or was chained for life to a crimi- 
 nal, a drunkard, a lunatic, an idle vagrant, or a person 
 whose religious faith was contrary to her own. Imagine 
 being married to a liar, a borrower, a mischief maker, a 
 teaser or tormentor of children and animals, or even sim- 
 ply to a bore! Conceive yourself tied for life to one of 
 the perfectly " faithful " husbands who are sentenced to 
 a month's imprisonment occasionally for idly leaving 
 their wives in childbirth without food, fire, or attendance ! 
 What woman would not rather marry ten Pepyses ? what 
 man a dozen Nell Gwynnes? Adultery, far from being 
 the first and only ground for divorce, might more reason- 
 ably be made the last, or wholly excluded. The present 
 law is perfectly logical only if you once admit (as no 
 decent person ever does) its fundamental assumption 
 that there can be no companionship between men and ) 
 women because the woman has a " sphere " of her own, 
 that of housekeeping, in which the man must not meddle, 
 whilst he has all the rest of human activity for his 
 sphere: the only point at which the two spheres touch 
 being that of replenishing the population. On this as- 
 sumption the man naturally asks for a guarantee that the 
 children shall be his because he has to find the money to 
 support them. The power of divorcing a woman for 
 adultery is this guarantee, a guarantee that she does not 
 need to protect her against a similar imposture on his 
 part, because he cannot bear children. No doubt he can 
 spend the money that ought to be spent on her children 
 on another woman and her children ; but this is desertion, 
 which is a separate matter. The fact for us to seize is 
 that in the eye of the law, adultery without consequences 
 is merely a sentimental grievance, whereas the planting 

 
 Preface 65 
 
 on one man of another man's offspring is a substantial 
 one. And so, no doubt, it is ; but the day has gone by for 
 basing laws on the assumption that a woman is less to 
 a man than his dog, and thereby encouraging and accept- 
 ing the standards of the husbands who buy meat for their 
 bull-pups and leave their wives and children hungry. 
 That basis is the penalty we pay for having borrowed 
 our religion from the East, instead of building up a re- 
 ligion of our own out of our western inspiration and west- 
 ern sentiment. The result is that we all believe that our 
 religion is on its last legs, whereas the truth is that it is 
 not yet born, though the age walks visibly pregnant with 
 it. Meanwhile, as women are dragged down by their ori- 
 ental servitude to our men, and as, further, women drag 
 down those who degrade them quite as effectually as men 
 do, there are moments when it is difficult to see anything 
 in our sex institutions except a police des mceurs keeping 
 the field for a competition as to which sex shall corrupt 
 the other most. 
 
 Importance of Sentimental Grievances 
 
 Any tolerable western divorce law must put the senti- 
 mental grievances first, and should carefully avoid sing* 
 ling out any ground of divorce in such a way as to cre- 
 ate a convention that persons having that ground are 
 bound in honor to avail themselves of it. It is generally 
 admitted that people should not be encouraged to petition 
 for a divorce in a fit of petulance. What is not so clearly 
 seen is that neither should they be encouraged to petition 
 in a fit of jealousy, which is certainly the most detest- 
 able and mischievous of all the passions that enjoy pub- 
 lic credit. Still less should people who are not jealous 
 be urged to behave as if they were jealous, and to enter 
 upon duels and divorce suits in which they have no de- 
 sire to be successful. There should be no publication of
 
 66 Getting Married 
 
 the grounds on which a divorce is sought or granted ; and 
 as this would abolish the only means the public now has 
 of ascertaining that every possible effort has been made 
 to keep the couple united against their wills, such pri- 
 vacy will only be tolerated when we at last admit that 
 the sole and sufficient reason why people should be 
 granted a divorce is that they want one. Then there will 
 be no more reports of divorce cases, no more letters read 
 in court with an indelicacy that makes every sensitive 
 person shudder and recoil as from a profanation, no more 
 washing of household linen, dirty or clean, in public. 
 We must learn in these matters to mind our own business 
 and not impose our individual notions of propriety on one 
 another, even if it carries us to the length of openly ad- 
 mitting what we are now compelled to assume silently, 
 that every human being has a right to sexual experience, 
 and that the law is concerned only with parentage, which 
 is now a separate matter. 
 
 Divorce Without Asking Why 
 
 The one question that should never be put to a peti- 
 tioner for divorce is " Why? " When a man appeals to 
 a magistrate for protection from someone who threatens 
 to kill him, on the simple ground that he desires to live, 
 the magistrate might quite reasonably ask him why he 
 desires to live, and why the person who wishes to kill him 
 should not be gratified. Also whether he can prove that 
 his life is a pleasure to himself or a benefit to anyone 
 else, and whether it is good for him to be encouraged to 
 exaggerate the importance of his short span in this vale 
 of tears rather than to keep himself constantly ready to 
 meet his God. 
 
 The only reason for not raising these very weighty 
 points is that we find society unworkable except on the
 
 Preface 67 
 
 assumption that every man has a natural right to live. 
 Nothing short of his own refusal to respect that right in 
 others can reconcile the community to killing him. From 
 this fundamental right many others are derived. The 
 American Constitution, one of the few modern political 
 documents drawn up by men who were forced by the 
 sternest circumstances to think out what they really had 
 to face instead of chopping logic in a university class- 
 room, specifies " liberty and the pursuit of happiness " 
 as natural rights. The terms are too vague to be of much 
 practical use; for the supreme right to life, extended as 
 it now must be to the life of the race, and to the quality 
 of life as well as to the mere fact of breathing, is making 
 short work of many ancient liberties, and exposing the 
 pursuit of happiness as perhaps the most miserable of 
 human occupations. Nevertheless, the American Con- 
 stitution roughly expresses the conditions to which mod- 
 ern democracy commits us. To impose marriage on two 
 unmarried people who do not desire to marry one an- 
 other would be admittedly an act of enslavement. But 
 it is no worse than to impose a continuation of marriage 
 on people who have ceased to desire to be married. It 
 will be said that the parties may not agree on that; that 
 one may desire to maintain the marriage the other wishes 
 to dissolve. But the same hardship arises whenever a 
 man in love proposes marriage to a woman and is re- 
 fused. The refusal is so painful to him that he often 
 threatens to kill himself and sometimes even does it. 
 Yet we expect him to face his ill luck, and never dream 
 of forcing the woman to accept him. His case is the 
 same as that of the husband whose wife tells him she no 
 longer cares for him, and desires the marriage to be 
 dissolved. You will say, perhaps, if you are supersti- 
 tious, that it is not the same — that marriage makes a 
 difference. You are wrong: there is no magic in mar- 
 riage. If there were, married couples would never de-
 
 68 Getting Married 
 
 sire to separate. But they do. And when they do, it 
 is simple slavery to compel them to remain together. 
 
 Economic Slavery Again the Root 
 
 Difficulty 
 
 The husband, then, is to be allowed to discard his wife 
 when he is tired of her, and the wife the husband when 
 another man strikes her fancy? One must reply unhesi- 
 tatingly in the affirmative; for if we are to deny every 
 proposition that can be stated in offensive terms by its 
 opponents, we shall never be able to affirm anything at 
 all. But the question reminds us that until the economic 
 independence of women is achieved, we shall have to re- 
 main impaled on the other horn of the dilemma and 
 maintain marriage as a slavery. And here let me ask the 
 Government of the day (1910) a question with regard 
 to the Labor Exchanges it has very wisely established 
 throughout the country. What do these Exchanges do 
 when a woman enters and states that her occupation is 
 that of a wife and mother; that she is out of a job; and 
 that she wants an employer? If the Exchanges refuse 
 to entertain her application, they are clearly excluding 
 nearly the whole female sex from the benefit of the Act. 
 If not, they must become matrimonial agencies, unless, 
 indeed, they are prepared to become something worse by 
 putting the woman down as a housekeeper and introduc- 
 ing her to an employer without making marriage a con- 
 dition of the hiring. 
 
 Labor Exchanges and the White Slavery 
 
 Suppose, again, a woman presents herself at the Labor 
 Exchange, and states her trade as that of a White Slave, 
 meaning the unmentionable trade pursued by many 
 thousands of women in all civilized cities. Will the
 
 Preface 69 
 
 Labor Exchange find employers for her? If not, what 
 will it do with her? If it throws her back destitute and 
 unhelped on the streets to starve, it might as well not 
 exist as far as she is concerned; and the problem of un- 
 employment remains unsolved at its most painful point. 
 Yet if it finds honest employment for her and for all the 
 unemployed wives and mothers, it must find new places 
 in the world for women ; and in so doing it must achieve 
 for them economic independence of men. And when 
 this is done, can we feel sure that any woman will con- 
 sent to be a wife and mother (not to mention the less re- 
 spectable alternative) unless her position is made as eli- 
 gible as that of the women for whom the Labor Ex- 
 changes are finding independent- work ? Will not many 
 women now engaged in domestic work under circum- 
 stances which make it repugnant to them, abandon it and 
 seek employment under other circumstances ? As unhap- 
 piness in marriage is almost the only discomfort suffi- 
 ciently irksome to induce a woman to break up her home, 
 and economic dependence the only compulsion sufficiently 
 stringent to force her to endure such unhappiness, the 
 solution of the problem of finding independent employ- 
 ment for women may cause a great number of childless 
 unhappy marriages to break up spontaneously, whether 
 the marriage laws are altered or not. And here we must 
 extend the term childless marriages to cover households 
 in which the children have grown up and gone their own 
 way, leaving the parents alone together: a point at 
 which many worthy couples discover for the first time 
 that they have long since lost interest in one another, 
 and have been united only by a common interest in their 
 children. We may expect, then, that marriages which 
 are maintained by economic pressure alone will dissolve 
 when that pressure is removed ; and as all the parties to 
 them will certainly not accept a celibate life, the law 
 must sanction the dissolution in order to prevent a recur-
 
 70 Getting Married 
 
 rence of the scandal which has moved the Government 
 to appoint the Commission now sitting to investigate the 
 marriage question : the scandal, that is, of a great number 
 of persons, condemned to celibacy by magisterial sepa- 
 ration orders, and, of course, refusing to submit to the 
 condemnation, forming illicit connections to an extent 
 which threatens to familiarize the working classes with 
 an open disuse of marriage. In short, once set women 
 free from their economic slavery, and you will find that 
 unless divorce is made as easy as the dissolution of a 
 business partnership, the practice of dispensing with 
 marriage will presently become so common that conven- 
 tional couples will be ashamed to get married. 
 
 Divorce Favorable to Marriage 
 
 Divorce, in fact, is not the destruction of marriage, 
 but the first condition of its maintenance. A thousand 
 indissoluble marriages mean a thousand marriages and 
 no more. A thousand divorces may mean two thousand 
 marriages; for the couples may marry again. Divorce 
 only re-assorts the couples: a very desirable thing when 
 they are ill-assorted. Also, it makes people much more 
 willing to marry, especially prudent people and proud 
 people with a high sense of self-respect. Further, the 
 fact that a divorce is possible often prevents its being 
 petitioned for, not only because it puts married couples 
 on their good behavior towards one another, but because, 
 as no room feels like a prison if the door is left open, the 
 removal of the sense of bondage would at once make mar- 
 riage much happier than it is now. Also, if the door 
 were always open, there would be no need to rush 
 through it as there is now when it opens for one moment 
 in a lifetime, and may never open again. 
 
 From this point of view England has the worst civil 
 marriage law in the world, with the exception of silly 

 
 Preface 71 
 
 South Carolina. In every other reasonably civilized 
 country the grounds on which divorce can be granted ad- 
 mit of so wide an interpretation that all unhappy mar- 
 riages can be dissolved without resorting to the shameful 
 shifts imposed by our law. Yet the figures just given 
 to the Royal Commission shew that in the State of Wash- 
 ington, where there are eleven different grounds of di- 
 vorce, and where, in fact, divorce can be had for the 
 asking at a negligible cost, the divorce rate is only 184 
 per 100,000 of the population, which, if we assume that 
 the 100,000 people represent 20,000 families, means less 
 than one per cent of domestic failures. In Japan the 
 rate is 215, which is said to be the highest on record. 
 This is not very alarming: what is quite hideous is that 
 the rate in England is only 2, a figure which, if we as- 
 sume that human nature is much the same in Walworth 
 as in Washington, must represent a frightful quantity 
 of useless unhappiness and clandestine polygamy. I am 
 not forgetting my own demonstration that the rate is 
 kept down in Washington by the economic slavery of 
 women; but I must point out that this is at its worst in 
 the middle classes only, because a woman of the working 
 class can turn to and support herself, however poorly; 
 and a woman of the upper classes usually has some prop- 
 erty. And in all classes we may guess that the object 
 of many divorces is not the resumption of a single life, 
 but a change of partners. As this change can be effected 
 easily under the existing law in the State of Washington 
 it is not certain that the economic emancipation of women 
 would alter the rate there to any startling extent. What 
 is certain is that it could not conceivably raise it to a 
 figure at which even the most panicky alarmist could 
 persuade sensible people that the whole social fabric was 
 tumbling to pieces. When journalists and bishops and 
 American Presidents and other simple people describe 
 this Washington result as alarming, they are speaking
 
 72 Getting Manied 
 
 as a peasant speaks of a motor car or an aeroplane when 
 he sees one for the first time. All he me ms is that he 
 is not used to it and therefore fears that it may injure 
 him. Every advance in civilization frightens these hon- 
 est folk. This is a pity; but it we were to spare their 
 feelings we should never improve the world at all. To 
 let them frighten us, and then pretend that their stupid 
 timidity is virtue and purity and so forth, is simply 
 moral cowardice. 
 
 Male Economic Slavery and The Rights of 
 
 Bachelors 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the refusal to accept the 
 indignities, risks, hardships, softships, and divided du- 
 ties of marriage is not confined to our voluntary old 
 maids. There are men of the mould of Beethoven and 
 Samuel Butler, whom one can hardly conceive as mar- 
 ried men. There are the great ecclesiastics, who will 
 not own two loyalties: one to the Church and one to the 
 hearth. There are men like Goethe, who marry late 
 and reluctantly solely because they feel that they can- 
 not in honest friendship refuse the status of marriage 
 to any woman of whose attachment to them they have 
 taken any compromizing advantage, either in fact or in 
 appearance. No sensible man can, under existing cir- 
 cumstances, advise a woman to keep house with a man 
 without insisting on his marrying her, unless she is in- 
 dependent of conventional society (a state of things 
 which can occur only very exceptionally) ; and a man 
 of honor cannot advise a woman to do for his sake what 
 he would not advise her to do for anyone else's. The 
 result is that our Beethovens and Butlers — of whom, in 
 their ordinary human aspect, there are a good many — 
 become barren old bachelors, and rather savage ones at 
 that
 
 Preface 73' 
 
 Another difficulty which we always think of in connec- 
 tion with women, but which is by no means without its 
 application to men, is the economic one. The number of 
 men who cannot afford to marry is large enough to pro- 
 duce very serious social results ; and the higher the work 
 the man is doing, the more likely he is to find himself 
 in this class until he has reached or passed middle age. 
 The higher departments of science, law, philosophy, 
 poetry, and the fine arts are notoriously starved in youth 
 and early manhood: the marriageable age there, econom- 
 ically speaking, is nearer fifty than twenty. Even in 
 business the leading spirits seldom reach a position of 
 security until they are far beyond the age at which cel- 
 ibacy is tolerable. Account must also be taken of the 
 younger sons of the propertied classes, brought up in 
 households in which the rate of expenditure, though ten 
 times that possible on a younger son's portion, yet rep- 
 resents the only habit of life he has learnt. 
 
 Taking all these cases as representing a bachelor class, 
 and bearing in mind that though a man who marries at 
 forty is not called a bachelor, yet he has for twenty years 
 of his adult life been one, and therefore produced all the 
 social problems that arise out of the existence of unmar- 
 ried men, we must not shrink from asking whether all 
 these gentlemen are celibates, even though we know that 
 the question must be answered very emphatically in the 
 negative. Some of them marry women of property, 
 thereby reproducing the economic dependence of women 
 on men with the sexes reversed. But there are so few 
 women of property available for this purpose in com- 
 parison with the number of bachelors who cannot afford 
 to marry, that this resource does not solve the problem 
 of the bachelor who cannot afford a wife. If there were 
 no other resources available, bachelors would make love 
 to the wives and daughters of their friends. This being 
 morally inadmissible, a demand arises for a cheap tern-
 
 74 Getting Married 
 
 porary substitute for marriage. A class of women must 
 be found to protect the wives and the daughters of the 
 married by keeping company with the bachelors for hire 
 for as long or as short a time as the bachelor can afford, 
 on the understanding that no claim is to be made on him 
 after the hiring is ended. And such an institution, as 
 we know, exists among us. It is commonly spoken of 
 and thought of as an offence against our marriage moral- 
 ity; but all the experts who write scientific treatises on 
 marriage seem to be agreed that it is, on the contrary, a 
 necessary part of that morality, and must stand and fall 
 with it. 
 
 I do not myself think that this view will bear exam- 
 ination. In my play, Mrs Warren's Profession, I have 
 shewn that the institution in question is an economic 
 phenomenon, produced by our underpayment and ill- 
 treatment of women who try to earn an honest living. I 
 am aware that for some reason scientific writers are per- 
 versely impatient of this vfew, and, to discredit it, quote 
 police lists of the reasons given by the victims for adopt- 
 ing their trade, and insist on the fact that poverty is not 
 often alleged. But this means only that the actual word 
 is seldom used. If a prisonful of thieves were asked 
 what induced them to take to thieving, and some replied 
 Poverty, and others Hunger, and others Desire for Ex- 
 citement, no one would deny that the three answers were 
 really one answer — that poverty means hunger, an in- 
 tolerable lack of variety and pleasure, and, in short, all 
 sorts of privations. When a girl, similarly interro- 
 gated, says she wanted fine clothes, or more fun, or the 
 like, she is really saying that she lacked what no woman 
 with plenty of money need lack. The fact that, accord- 
 ing to the testimony of men who profess experience in 
 such matters, you may search Europe in vain for a 
 woman in this trade who has the table manners of a lady, 
 shews that prostitution is not a vocation but a slavery
 
 Preface 75 
 
 to which women are driven by the miseries of honest 
 poverty. When every young woman has an honorable 
 and comfortable livelihood open to her on reasonable 
 terms, the streets will make no more recruits. When 
 every young man can afford to marry, and marriage re- 
 form makes it easy to dissolve unions contracted by 
 young and inexperienced people in the event of their 
 turning out badly, or of one of the pair achieving a po- 
 sition neither comfortable nor suitable for the other, both 
 prostitution and bachelordom will die a natural death. 
 Until then, all talk of "purification" is idle. It is for 
 that reason, and also because they have been so fully 
 dealt with by Havelock Ellis and numerous foreign writ- 
 ers on the psychology and physiology of sex, that I lay 
 little stress on prostitution here. 
 
 The Pathology of Marriage 
 
 I shall also say as little as possible of the pathology 
 of marriage and its kerbstone breakwater. Only, as 
 there seems to be no bottom to the abyss of public ig- 
 norance on the subject, I am compelled to warn my read- 
 ers that marriage has a pathology and even a criminol- 
 ogy. But they are both so frightful that they have been 
 dealt with not only in such treatises as those of Havelock, 
 Ellis, Fournier, Duclaux, and many German writers, but 
 in such comparatively popular works as The Heavenly 
 Twins by Sarah Grand, and several of the plays of 
 Brieux: notably Les Avaries, Les Trois Filles de M. 
 Dupont, and Maternite. I purposely pass them by 
 quickly, not only because attention has already been 
 called to them by these devoted writers, but because my 
 mission is not to deal with obvious horrors, but to open 
 the eyes of normal respectable men to evils which are 
 escaping their consideration. 
 
 As to the evils of disease and contagion, our con-
 
 76 Getting Married 
 
 sciences are sound enough: what is wrong with us is ig- 
 norance of the facts. No doubt this is a very formidable 
 ignorance in a country where the first cry of the soul is 
 " Dont tell me: I dont want to know," and where frantic 
 denials and furious suppressions indicate everywhere the 
 cowardice and want of faith which conceives life as 
 something too terrible to be faced. In this particular 
 case ** I dont want to know " takes a righteous air, and 
 becomes " I dont want to know anything about the dis- 
 eases which are the just punishment of wretches who 
 should not be mentioned in my presence or in any book 
 that is intended for family reading." Wicked and fool- 
 ish as the spirit of this attitude is, the practice of it is 
 so easy and lazy and uppish that it is very common. 
 But its cry is drowned by a louder and more sincere one. 
 We who do not want to know also do not want to go 
 blind, to go mad, to be disfigured, to be barren, to be- 
 come pestiferous, or to see such things happening to our 
 children. We learn, at last, that the majority of the 
 victims are not the people of whom we so glibly say 
 " Serve them right," but quite innocent children and in- 
 nocent parents, smitten by a contagion which, no matter 
 in what vice it may or may not have originated, con- 
 taminates the innocent and the guilty alike once it is 
 launched exactly as any other contagious disease does; 
 that indeed it often hits the innocent and misses the 
 guilty because the guilty know the danger and take 
 elaborate precautions against it, whilst the innocent, who 
 have been either carefully kept from any knowledge of 
 their danger, or erroneously led to believe that contagion 
 is possible through misconduct only, run into danger 
 blindfold. Once knock this fact into people's minds, 
 and their self-righteous indifference and intolerance soon 
 change into lively concern for themselves and their fam- 
 ilies.
 
 Preface 77 
 
 The Criminology of Marriage 
 
 The pathology of marriage involves the possibility of 
 the most horrible crime imaginable: that of the person 
 who, when suffering from contagious disease, forces the 
 contagion on another person by an act of violence. Such 
 an act occurring between unmarried people would, within 
 the memory of persons now living, have exposed the &g- 
 gressor to the penalty of death; and it is still punished 
 unmercifully by an extreme term of penal servitude 
 when it occurs, as it sometimes does, through the hideous 
 countryside superstition that it effects a cure when the 
 victim is a virgin. Marriage makes this outrage abso- 
 lutely legal. You may with impunity do to the person 
 to whom you are married what you may not do to the 
 most despised outcast of the streets. And this is only 
 the extreme instance of the outlawry which our marriage 
 laws effect. In our anxiety to provide for ourselves a 
 little private Alsatia in which we can indulge ourselves 
 as we please without reproach or interference from law, 
 religion, or even conscience (and this is what marriage 
 has come to mean to many of us), we have forgotten that 
 we cannot escape restraints without foregoing rights; 
 that all the laws that are needed to compel strangers to 
 respect us are equally if not more necessary to compel 
 our husbands and wives to respect us; and that society 
 without law, whether between two or two million per- 
 sons, means tyranny and slavery. 
 
 If the incorrigible sentimentalists here raise their little 
 pipe of " Not if they love one another," I tell them, with 
 such patience as is possible, that if they had ever had 
 five minutes experience of love they would know that love 
 is itself a tyranny requiring special safeguards; that 
 people will perpetrate " for the sake of " those they love, 
 exactions and submissions that they would never dream 
 of proposing to or suffering from those they dislike or
 
 78 Getting Married 
 
 regard with indifference; that healthy marriages are 
 partnerships of companionable and affectionate friend- 
 ship; that cases of chronic life-long love, whether senti- 
 mental or sensual, ought to be sent to the doctor if not 
 to the executioner; and that honorable men and women, 
 when their circumstances permit it, are so far from 
 desiring to be placed helplessly at one another's mercy 
 that they employ every device the law now admits of, 
 from the most stringent marriage settlements to the em- 
 ployment of separate legal advisers, to neutralize the 
 Alsatian evils of the marriage law. 
 
 Does it Matter? 
 
 A less obviously silly evasion, and one which has a 
 greater air of common sense, is " After all, seeing that 
 most couples get on very well together, does it matter 
 so much?" The same reply might be made by a lazy 
 magistrate when asked for a warrant to arrest a burglar, 
 or by a sleepy fireman wakened by a midnight call for 
 his fire-escape. " After all, very few people have their 
 houses broken into; and fewer still have them burnt. 
 Does it matter?" But tell the magistrate or fireman 
 that it is his house that has been broken into, or his house 
 that has been burnt, and you will be startled by the 
 change in his attitude. Because a mass of people have 
 shaken down into comfort enough to satisfy them, or 
 at least to cause them no more discomfort than they are 
 prepared to put up with for the sake of a quiet life, less 
 lucky and more sensitive and conscientious people should 
 not be condemned to expose themselves to intolerable 
 wrongs. Besides, people ought not to be content with 
 the marriage law as it is merely because it is not often 
 unbearably uncomfortable. Slaves are very often much 
 more comfortable both in body and mind than fully re- 
 sponsible free men. That does not excuse anybody for
 
 Preface 7ft 
 
 embracing slavery. It is no doubt a great pity, from 
 many points of view, that we were not conquered by 
 Napoleon, or even by Bismarck and Moltke. None the 
 less we should have been rightly despised if we had not 
 been prepared to fight them for the right to misgovern 
 ourselves. 
 
 But, as I have said, I am content, in this matter of 
 the evils of our marriage law, to take care of the pence 
 and let the pounds take care of themselves. The crimes 
 and diseases of marriage will force themselves on public 
 attention by their own virulence. I mention them here 
 only because they reveal certain habits of thought and 
 feeling with regard to marriage of which we must rid 
 ourselves if we are to act sensibly when we take the nec- 
 essary reforms in hand. 
 
 Christian Marriage 
 
 First among these is the habit of allowing ourselves 
 to be bound not only by the truths of the Christian re- 
 ligion but by the excesses and extravagances which the 
 Christian movement acquired in its earlier days as a vio- 
 lent reaction against what it still calls paganism. By far 
 the most dangerous of these, because it is a blasphemy 
 against life, and, to put it in Christian terms, an accusa- 
 tion of indecency against God, is the notion that sex, 
 with all its operations, is in itself absolutely an obscene 
 thing, and that an immaculate conception is a miracle. 
 So unwholesome an absurdity could only have gained 
 ground under two conditions: one, a reaction against a 
 society in which sensual luxury had been carried to re- 
 volting extremes, and, two, a belief that the world was 
 coming to an end, and that therefore sex was no longer 
 a necessity. Christianity, because it began under these 
 conditions, made sexlessness and Communism the two 
 main practical articles of its propaganda; and it has
 
 80 Getting Married 
 
 never quite lost its original bias in these directions. In 
 spite of the putting off of the Second Coming from the 
 lifetime of the apostles to the millennium, and of the 
 great disappointment of the year 1000 a.d., in which 
 multitudes of Christians seriously prepared for the end 
 of the world, the prophet who announces that the end is 
 at hand is still popular. Many of the people who ridi- 
 cule his demonstrations that the fantastic monsters of 
 the book of Revelation are among us in the persons of 
 our own political contemporaries, and who proceed sanely 
 in all their affairs on the assumption that the world is 
 going to last, really do believe that there will be a Judg- 
 ment Day, and that it might even be in their own time. 
 A thunderstorm, an eclipse, or any very unusual weather 
 will make them apprehensive and uncomfortable. 
 
 This explains why, for a long time, the Christian 
 Church refused to have anything to do with marriage. 
 The result was, not the abolition of sex, but its excom- 
 munication. And, of course, the consequences of per- 
 suading people that matrimony was an unholy state were 
 so grossly carnal, that the Church had to execute a com- 
 plete right-about-face, and try to make people under- 
 stand that it was a holy state : so holy indeed that it could 
 not be validly inaugurated without the blessing of the 
 Church. And by this teaching it did something to atone 
 for its earlier blasphemy. But the mischief of chopping 
 and changing your doctrine to meet this or that practical 
 emergency instead of keeping it adjusted to the whole 
 scheme of life, is that you end by having half-a-dozen 
 contradictory doctrines to suit half-a-dozen different 
 emergencies. The Church solemnized and sanctified 
 marriage without ever giving up its original Pauline doc- 
 trine on the subject. And it soon fell into another con- 
 fusion. At the point at which it took up marriage and 
 endeavored to make it holy, marriage was, as it still is, 
 largely a survival of the custom of selling women to men.
 
 Preface 81 
 
 Now in all trades a marked difference is made in price 
 between a new article and a second-hand one. The 
 moment we meet with this difference in value betwen hu- 
 man beings, we may know that we are in the slave- 
 market, where the conception of our relations to the per- 
 sons sold is neither religious nor natural nor human nor 
 superhuman, but simply commercial. The Church, when 
 it finally gave its blessing to marriage, did not, in its 
 innocence, fathom these commercial traditions. Conse- 
 quently it tried to sanctify them too, with grotesque re- 
 sults. The slave-dealer having always asked more 
 money for virginity, the Church, instead of detecting the 
 money-changer and driving him out of the temple, took 
 him for a sentimental and chivalrous lover, and, helped 
 by its only half-discarded doctrine of celibacy, gave vir- 
 ginity a heavenly value to ennoble its commercial pre- 
 tensions. In short, Mammon, always mighty, put the 
 Church in his pocket, where he keeps it to this day, in 
 spite of the occasional saints and martyrs who contrive 
 from time to time to get their heads and souls free to 
 testify against him. 
 
 Divorce a Sacramental Duty 
 
 But Mammon overreached himself when he tried to 
 impose his doctrine of inalienable property on the 
 Church under the guise of indissoluble marriage. For 
 the Church tried to shelter this inhuman doctrine and 
 flat contradiction of the gospel by claiming, and rightly 
 claiming, that marriage is a sacrament. So it is; but 
 that is exactly what makes divorce a duty when the mar- 
 riage has lost the inward and spiritual grace of which 
 the marriage ceremony is the outward and visible sign. 
 In vain do bishops stoop to pick up the discarded argu- 
 ments of the atheists of fifty years ago by pleading that 
 the words of Jesus were in an obscure Aramaic dialect,
 
 82 Getting Married 
 
 and were probably misunderstood, as Jesus, they think, 
 could not have said anything a bishop would disapprove 
 of. Unless they are prepared to add that the statement 
 that those who take the sacrament with their lips but not 
 with their hearts eat and drink their own damnation is 
 also a mistranslation from the Aramaic, they are most 
 solemnly bound to shield marriage from profanation, not 
 merely by permitting divorce, but by making it compul- 
 sory in certain cases as the Chinese do. 
 
 When the grest protest of the XVI century came, and 
 the Church was reformed in several countries, the 
 Reformation was so largely a rebellion against sacer- 
 dotalism that marriage was very nearly excommunicated 
 again: our modern civil marriage, round which so many 
 fierce controversies and political conflicts have raged, 
 would have been thoroughly approved of by Calvin, and 
 hailed with relief by Luther. But the instinctive doc- 
 trine that there is something holy and mystic in sex, a 
 doctrine which many of us now easily dissociate from 
 any priestly ceremony, but which in those days seemed 
 to all who felt it to need a ritual affirmation, could not 
 be thrown on the scrap-heap with the sale of Indulgences 
 and the like; and so the Reformation left marriage where 
 it was: a curious mixture of commercial sex slavery, 
 early Christian sex abhorrence, and later Christian sex 
 sanctification. 
 
 Othello and Desdemona 
 
 How strong was the feeling that a husband or a wife 
 is an article of property, greatly depreciated in value at 
 second-hand, and not to be used or touched by any per- 
 son but the proprietor, may be learnt from Shakespear. 
 His most infatuated and passionate lovers are Antony 
 and Othello ; yet both of them betray the commercial and 
 proprietary instinct the moment they lose their tempers.
 
 Preface 83 
 
 " I found you," says Antony, reproaching Cleopatra, 
 " as a morsel cold upon dead Caesar's trencher." Othel- 
 lo's worst agony is the thought of " keeping a corner in 
 the thing he loves for others' uses." But this is not what 
 a man feels about the thing he loves, but about the thing 
 he owns. I never understood the full significance of 
 Othello's outburst until I one day heard a lady, in the 
 course of a private discussion as to the feasibility of 
 " group marriage," say with cold disgust that she would 
 as soon think of lending her toothbrush to another 
 woman as her husband. The sense of outraged manhood 
 with which I felt mvself and all other husbands thus re- 
 duced to the rank of a toilet appliance gave me a very 
 unpleasant taste of what Desdemona might have felt had 
 she overheard Othello's outburst. I was so dumfounded 
 that I had not the presence of mind to ask the lady 
 whether she insisted on having a doctor, a nurse, a den- 
 tist, and even a priest and solicitor all to herself as well. 
 But I had too often heard men speak of women as if 
 they were mere personal conveniences to feel surprised 
 that exactly the same view is held, only more fastidiously, 
 by women. 
 
 All these views must be got rid of before we can have 
 any healthy public opinion (on which depends our hav- 
 ing a healthy population) on the subject of sex, and con- 
 sequently of marriage. Whilst the subject is considered 
 shameful and sinful we shall have no systematic instruc- 
 tion in sexual hygiene, because such lectures as are given 
 in Germany, France, and even prudish America (where 
 the great Miltonic tradition in this matter still lives) 
 will be considered a corruption of that youthful inno- 
 cence which now subsists on nasty stories and whispered 
 traditions handed down from generation to generation of 
 school-children: stories and traditions which conceal 
 nothing of sex but its dignity, its honor, its sacredness, 
 its rank as the first necessity of society and the deepest
 
 84 Getting Married 
 
 concern of the nation. We shall continue to maintain 
 the White Slave Trade and protect its exploiters by, on 
 the one hand, tolerating the white slave as the necessary 
 breakwater of marriage; and, on the other, trampling on 
 her and degrading her until she has nothing to hope 
 from our Courts ; and so, with policemen at every corner, 
 and law triumphant all over Europe, she will still be 
 smuggled and cattle-driven fcom one end of the civilized 
 world to the other, cheated, beaten, bullied, and hunted 
 into the streets to disgusting overwork, without daring to 
 utter the cry for help that brings, not rescue, but expo- 
 sure and infamy, yet revenging herself terribly in the 
 end by scattering blindness and sterility, pain and dis- 
 figurement, insanity and death among us with the cer- 
 tainty that we are much too pious and genteel to allow 
 such things to be mentioned with a view to saving either 
 her or ourselves from them. And all the time we shall 
 keep enthusiastically investing her trade with every al- 
 lurement that the art of the novelist, the playwright, the 
 dancer, the milliner, the painter, the limelight man, and 
 the sentimental poet can devize, after which we shall con- 
 tinue to be very much shocked and surprised when the 
 cry of the youth, of the young wife, of the mother, of 
 the kifected nurse, and of all the other victims, direct 
 and indirect, arises with its invariable refrain: "Why 
 did nobody warn me? " 
 
 What is to become of the Children? 
 
 I must not reply flippantly, Make them all Wards in 
 Chancery; yet that would be enough to put any sensible 
 person on the track of the reply. One would think, to 
 hear the way in which people sometimes ask the question, 
 that not only does marriage prevent the difficulty from 
 ever arising, but that nothing except divorce can ever 
 raise it. It is true that if you divorce the parents, the
 
 Preface 85 
 
 children have to be disposed of. But if you hang the 
 parents, or imprison the parents, or take the children out 
 of the custody of the parents because they hold Shelley's 
 opinions, or if the parents die, the same difficulty arises. 
 And as these things have happened again and again, and 
 as we have had plenty of experience of divorce decrees 
 and separation orders, the attempt to use children as an 
 obstacle to divorce is hardly worth arguing with. We 
 shall deal with the children just as we should deal with 
 them if their homes were broken up by any other cause. 
 There is a sense in which children are a real obstacle to 
 divorce: they give parents a common interest which 
 keeps together many a couple who, if childless, would 
 separate. The marriage law is superfluous in such cases. 
 This is shewn by the fact that the proportion of childless 
 divorces is much larger than the proportion of divorces 
 from all causes. But it must not be forgotten that the 
 interest of the children forms one of the most powerful 
 arguments for divorce. An unhappy household is a bad 
 nursery. There is something to be said for the polygy- 
 nous or polyandrous household as a school for children: 
 children really do suffer from having too few parents: 
 this is why uncles and aunts and tutors and governesses 
 are often so good for children. But it is just the po- 
 lygamous household which our marriage law allows to 
 be broken up, and which, as we have seen, is not possi- 
 ble as a typical institution in a democratic country where 
 the numbers of the sexes are about equal. Therefore 
 polygyny and polyandry as a means of educating children 
 fall to the ground, and with them, I think, must go the 
 opinion which has been expressed by Gladstone and oth- 
 ers, that an extension of divorce, whilst admitting many 
 new grounds for it, might exclude the ground of adultery. 
 There are, however, clearly many things that make some 
 of our domestic interiors little private hells for children 
 (especially when the children are quite content in them)
 
 86 Getting Married 
 
 w^iich would justify any intelligent State in breaking up 
 the home and giving the custody of the children either 
 to the parent whose conscience had revolted against the 
 corruption of the children, or to neither. 
 
 Which brings me to the point that divorce should no 
 longer be confined to cases in which one of the parties 
 petitions for it. If, for instance, you have a thoroughly 
 rascally couple making a living by infamous means and 
 bringing up their children to their trade, the king's 
 proctor, instead of pursuing his present purely mischiev- 
 ous function of preventing couples from being divorced 
 by proving that they both desire it, might very well in- 
 tervene and divorce these children from their parents. 
 At present, if the Queen herself were to rescue some un- 
 fortunate child from degradation and misery and place 
 her in a respectable home, and some unmentionable pair 
 of blackguards claimed the child and proved that they 
 were its father and mother, the child would be given to 
 them in the name of the sanctity of the home and the 
 holiness of parentage, after perpetrating which crime, 
 the law would calmly send an education officer to take 
 the child out of the parents' hands several hours a day 
 in the still more sacred name of compulsory education. 
 (Of course what would really happen would be that the 
 couple would blackmail the Queen for their consent to 
 the salvation of the child, unless, indeed, a hint from a 
 police inspector convinced them that bad characters can- 
 not always rely on pedantically constitutional treat- 
 ment when they come into conflict with persons in high 
 station). 
 
 The truth is, not only must the bond between man and 
 wife be made subject to a reasonable consideration of 
 the welfare of the parties concerned and of the commun- 
 ity, but the whole family bond as well. The theory that 
 the wife is the property of the husband or the husband 
 of the wife is not a whit less abhorrent and mischievous
 
 Preface 87 
 
 than the theory that the child is the property of the par 
 ent. Parental bondage will go the way of conjugal 
 bondage: indeed the order of reform should rather be 
 put the other way about ; for the helplessness of children 
 has already compelled the State to intervene between 
 parent and child more than between husband and wife. 
 If you pay less than .£40 a year rent, you will sometimes 
 feel tempted to say to the vaccination officer, the school 
 attendance officer, and the sanitary inspector: " Is this 
 child mine or yours ? " The answer is that as the child 
 is a vital part of the nation, the nation cannot afford to 
 leave it at the irresponsible disposal of any individual or 
 couple of individuals as a mere small parcel of private 
 property. The only solid ground that the parent can 
 take is that as the State, in spite of its imposing name, 
 can, when all is said, do nothing with the child except 
 place it in the charge of some human being or another, 
 the parent is no worse a custodian than a stranger. And 
 though this proposition may seem highly questionable at 
 first sight to those who imagine that only parents spoil 
 children, yet those who realize that children are as often 
 spoilt by severity and coldness as by indulgence, and 
 that the notion that natural parents are any worse than 
 adopted parents is probably as complete an illusion as 
 the notion that they are any better, see no serious likeli- 
 hood that State action will detach children from their 
 parents more than it does at present: nay, it is even 
 likely that the present system of taking the children out 
 of the parents' hands and having the parental duty per- 
 formed by officials, will, as poverty and ignorance be- 
 come the exception instead of the rule, give way to the 
 system of simply requiring certain results, beginning 
 with the baby's weight and ending perhaps with some 
 sort of practical arts degree, but leaving parents and 
 children to achieve the results as they best may. Such 
 freedom is, of course, impossible in our present poverty-
 
 88 Getting Married 
 
 stricken circumstances. As long as the masses of oor 
 people are too poor to be good parents or good anything 
 else except beasts of burden, it is no use requiring much 
 more from them but hewing of wood and drawing of 
 water: whatever is to be done must be done for them, 
 mostly, alas ! by people whose superiority is merely tech- 
 nical. Until we abolish poverty it is impossible to push 
 rational measures of any kind very far: the wolf at the 
 door will compel us to live in a state of siege and to do 
 everything by a bureaucratic martial law that would be 
 quite unnecessary and indeed intolerable in a prosperous 
 community. But however we settle the question, we 
 must make the parent justify his custody of the child 
 exactly as we should make a stranger justify it. If a 
 family is not achieving the purposes of a family it should 
 be dissolved just as a marriage should when it, too, is 
 not achieving the purposes of marriage. The notion 
 that there is or ever can be anything magical and inviol- 
 able in the legal relations of domesticity, and the curious 
 confusion of ideas which makes some of our bishops im- 
 agine that in the phrase " Whom God hath joined," the 
 word God means the district registrar or the Reverend 
 John Smith or William Jones, must be got rid of. Means 
 of breaking up undesirable families are as necessary to 
 the preservation of the family as means of dissolving un- 
 desirable marriages are to the preservation of marriage. 
 If our domestic laws are kept so inhuman that they at 
 last provoke a furious general insurrection against them 
 as they already provoke many private ones, we shall in 
 a very literal sense empty the baby out with the bath by 
 abolishing an institution which needs nothing more than 
 a little obvious and easy rationalizing to make it not only 
 harmless but comfortable, honorable, and useful.
 
 Preface 89 
 
 The Cost of Divorce 
 
 But please do not imagine that the evils of indissolu- 
 ble marriage can be cured by divorce laws administered 
 on our present plan. The very cheapest undefended di- 
 vorce, even when conducted by a solicitor for its own 
 sake and that of humanity, costs at least ,£30 out-of- 
 pocket expenses. To a client on business terms it costs 
 about three times as much. Until divorce is as cheap as 
 marriage, marriage will remain indissoluble for all ex- 
 cept the handful of people to whom £100 is a procurable 
 sum. For the enormous majority of us there is no differ- 
 ence in this respect between a hundred and a quadrillion. 
 Divorce is the one thing you may not sue for in forma 
 pauperis. 
 
 Let me, then, recommend as follows: 
 
 1. Make divorce as easy, as cheap, and as private 
 as marriage. 
 
 2. Grant divorce at the request of either party, 
 whether the other consents or not; and admit no other 
 ground than the request, which should be made without 
 stating any reasons. 
 
 3. Confine the power of dissolving marriage for mis- 
 conduct to the State acting on the petition of the king's 
 proctor or other suitable functionary, who may, however, 
 be moved by either party to intervene in ordinary request 
 cases, not to prevent the divorce taking place, but to en- 
 force alimony if it be refused and the case is one which 
 needs it. 
 
 4. Make it impossible for marriage to be used as a 
 punishment as it is at present. Send the husband and 
 wife to penal servitude if you disapprove of their con- 
 duct and want to punish them ; but do not send them back 
 to perpetual wedlock. 
 
 5. If, on the other hand, you think a couple perfectly 
 innocent and well conducted, do not condemn them also
 
 90 Getting Married 
 
 to perpetual wedlock against their wills, thereby making 
 the treatment of what you consider innocence on both 
 sides the same as the treatment of what you consider 
 guilt on both sides. 
 
 6. Place the work of a wife and mother on the same 
 footing as other work: that is, on the footing of labor 
 worthy of its hire; and provide for unemployment in it 
 exactly as for unemployment in shipbuilding or any 
 other recognized bread-winning trade. 
 
 7. And take and deal with all the consequences of 
 these acts of justice instead of letting yourself be fright- 
 ened out of reason and good sense by fear of conse- 
 quences. We must finally adapt our institutions to hu- 
 man nature. In the long run our present plan of trying 
 to force human nature into a mould of existing abuses, 
 superstitions, and corrupt interests, produces the explo- 
 sive forces that wreck civilization. 
 
 8. Never forget that if you leave your law to judges 
 and your religion to bishops, you will presently find 
 yourself without either law or religion. If you doubt 
 this, ask any decent judge or bishop. Do not ask some- 
 body who does not know what a judge is, or what a 
 bishop is, or what the law is, or what religion is. In 
 other words, do not ask your newspaper. Journalists are 
 too poorly paid in this country to know anything that is 
 fit for publication. 
 
 Conclusions 
 
 To sum up, we have to depend on the solution of the 
 problem of unemployment, probably on the principles 
 laid down in the Minority Report of the Royal Commis- 
 sion on the Poor Law, to make the sexual relations be- 
 tween men and women decent and honorable by making 
 women economically independent of men, and (in the 
 younger son section of the upper classes) men economi-
 
 Preface 91 
 
 cally independent of women. We also have to bring our- 
 selves into line with the rest of Protestant civilization by 
 providing means for dissolving all unhappy, improper, 
 and inconvenient marriages. And, as it is our cautious 
 custom to lag behind the rest of the world to see how 
 their experiments in reform turn out before venturing 
 ourselves, and then take advantage of their experience 
 to get ahead of them, we should recognize that the an- 
 cient system of specifying grounds for divorce, such as 
 adultery, cruelty, drunkenness, felony, insanity, va- 
 grancy, neglect to provide for wife and children, deser- 
 tion, public defamation, violent temper, religious hetero- 
 doxy, contagious disease, outrages, indignities, personal 
 abuse, " mental anguish," conduct rendering life burden- 
 some and so forth (all these are examples from some 
 code actually in force at present), is a mistake, because 
 the only effect of compelling people to plead and prove 
 misconduct is that cases are manufactured and clean linen 
 purposely smirched and washed in public, to the great 
 distress and disgrace of innocent children and relatives, 
 whilst the grounds have at the same time to be made so 
 general that any sort of human conduct may be brought 
 within them by a little special pleading and a little men- 
 tal reservation on the part of witnesses examined on oath. 
 When it comes to " conduct rendering life burdensome," 
 it is clear that no marriage is any longer indissoluble; 
 and the sensible thing to do then is to grant divorce 
 whenever it is desired, without asking why.
 
 GETTING MARRIED 
 
 » 
 
 On a fine morning in the spring of 1908 the Norman 
 kitchen in the Palace of the Bishop of Chelsea looks 
 very spacious and clean and handsome and healthy. 
 
 The Bishop is lucky enough to have a XII century 
 palace. The palace itself has been lucky enough to es- 
 cape being carved up into XV century Gothic, or shaved 
 into XVIII century ashlar, or " restored " by a XIX 
 century builder and a Victorian architect with a deep 
 sense of the umbrella-like gentlemanliness of XIV cen- 
 tury vaulting. The present occupant, A. Chelsea, un- 
 officially Alfred Bridgenorth, appreciates Norman work. 
 He has, by adroit complaints of the discomfort of the 
 place, induced the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to give 
 him some money to spend on it; and with this he has got 
 rid of the wall papers, the paint, the partitions, the ex- 
 quisitely planed and moulded casings with which the 
 Victorian cabinetmakers enclosed and hid the huge black 
 beams of hewn oak, and of all other expedients of his 
 predecessors to make themselves feel at home and re- 
 spectable in a Norman fortress. It is a house built to 
 last for ever. The walls and beams are big enough to 
 carry the tower of Babel, as if the builders, anticipating 
 our modern ideas and instinctively defying them, had re- 
 solved to shew how much material they could lavish on 
 a house built for the glory of God, instead of keeping a
 
 94 Getting Married 
 
 competitive eye on the advantage of sending in the lowest 
 tender, and scientifically calculating how little material 
 would be enough to prevent the whole affair from tum- 
 bling down by its own weight. 
 
 The kitchen is the Bishop's favorite room. This is not 
 at all because he is a man of humble mind; but because 
 the kitchen is one of the finest rooms in the house. The 
 Bishop has neither the income nor the appetite to have 
 his cooking done there. The windows, high up in the 
 wall, look north and south. The north window is the 
 largest; and if we look into the kitchen through it we see 
 facing us the south wall with small Norman windows 
 and an open door near the corner to the left. Through 
 this door we have a glimpse of the garden, and of a gar- 
 den chair in the sunshine. In the right-hand corner is an 
 entrance to a vaulted circular chamber with a winding 
 stair leading up through a tower to the upper floors of 
 the palace. In the wall to our right is the immense fire- 
 place, with its huge spit like a baby crane, and a collec- 
 tion of old iron and brass instruments which pass as the 
 original furniture of the fire, though as a matter of fact 
 they have been picked up from time to time by the 
 Bishop at secondhand shops. In the near end of the left- 
 hand wall a small Norman door gives access to the Bish- 
 op's study, formerly a scullery. Further along, a great 
 oak chest stands against the wall. Across the middle of 
 the kitchen is a big timber table surrounded by eleven 
 stout rush-bottomed chairs: four on the far side, three 
 on the near side, and two at each end. There is a big 
 chair with railed back and sides on the hearth. On the 
 floor is a drugget of thick fibre matting. The only other 
 piece of furniture is a clock with a wooden dial about as 
 large as the bottom of a washtub, the weights, chains, 
 and pendulum being of corresponding magnitude; but 
 the Bishop has long since abandoned the attempt to keep 
 it going. It hangs above the oak chest.
 
 Getting Married 95 
 
 The kitchen is occupied at present by the jffifcpp'* 
 lady* Mrs Bridgenorth , who is talking to Mr^Wjlimik. 
 Colli nsTtte green-groce r. He is in evening dress, though 
 it ts early forenoon. Mrs Bridgenorth is a quiet happy- 
 looking woman of fifty or thereabouts, placid, gentle, and 
 humorous, with delicate features and fine grey hair with 
 many white threads. She is dressed as for some festiv- 
 ity; but she is taking things easily as she sits in the big 
 chair by the hearth, reading The Times. 
 
 Collins is an elderly man with a rather youthful waist. 
 His muttonchop whiskers have a coquettish . touch of 
 Dundreary at their lower ends. He is_an affable man,' 
 with those perfect manners which can be acquired only 
 in keeping a shop for the sale of necessaries of life to 
 ladies whose social position is so unquestionable that they 
 Jre not anxious about it. He is a reassuring man, with 
 a vigilant grey eye, and the power of saying anything he 
 likes to you without offence, because his tone always im- 
 plies that h$ does it with your kind permission. Withal 
 by no means servile: rather gallant and compassionate, 
 but never without a conscientious recognition, on public 
 grounds, of social distinctions. He is at the oak chest 
 counting a pile of napkins. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth reads placidly: Collins counts: a 
 blackbird sings in the garden. Mrs Bridgenorth puts 
 The Times down in her lap and considers Collins for a 
 moment. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Do you never feel nervous on 
 these occasions, Collins? • 
 
 Collins. Lord bless you, no, maam. It would be 
 a joke, after marrying five of your daughters, if I was 
 to get nervous over marrying the last of them. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. I have always said you were a 
 wonderful man, Collins. 
 
 Collins [almost blushing] Oh, maam! 
 
 )
 
 96 Getting Married 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Yes. I never could arrange 
 anything — a wedding or even a dinner — without some 
 hitch or other. 
 
 Collins. Why should you give yourself the trouble, 
 maam? Send for the greengrocer, maam: thats the secret 
 of easy housekeeping. Bless you, it's his business. It 
 pays him and you, let alone the pleasure in a house like 
 this [Mrs Bridgenorth bows in acknowledgment of the 
 compliment]. They joke about the greengrocer, just as 
 they joke about the mother-in-law. But they cant get 
 
 on without both. ' " — ~~, — 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. What a bond between us, Collins ! 
 Collins. Bless you, maam, theres all sorts of bonds 
 between all sorts of people. You are a very affable lady, 
 maam, for a Bishop's lady. I have known Bishop's la- 
 dies that would fairly provoke you to up and cheek them'; 
 but nobody would ever forget himself and his place with 
 you, maam. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Collins : you are * a flatterer. 
 You will superintend the breakfast yourself as usual, of 
 course, wont you? 
 
 Collins. Yes, yes, bless you, maam, of course. I 
 ' always do. Them fashionable caterers send down such 
 [• people as I never did set eyes on. Dukes you would take 
 )them for. You see the relatives shaking hands with 
 [ them and asking them about the family — actually ladies 
 saying "Where have we met before?" and all sorts of 
 Confusion. Thats my secret in business, maam. You 
 /'can always spot me as the greengrocer. It's a fortune 
 ( to me in these days, when you cant hardly tell who any- 
 v one is or isnt. [He goes out through the tower, and im- 
 mediately returns for a moment to announce] The Gen- 
 eral, maam. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth rises to receive her brother-in-law, 
 who enters resplendent in full-dress uniform, with many 
 medals and orders. General Bridgenorth is a well set up
 
 Getting Married 97 
 
 man of fifty, with large brave nostrils, an iron mouth, 
 faithful dog's eyes, and much natural simplicity and dig- 
 nity of character. He is ignorant, stupid, and preju- 
 diced, having been carefully trained to be so; and it is 
 not always possible to be patient with him when his 
 unquestionably good intentions become actively mischiev- 
 ous; but one blames society, not himself, for this. He 
 would be no worse a man than Collins, had he enjoyed 
 Collins's social opportunities. He comes to the hearth, 
 where Mrs Bridgenorth is standing with her bach to the 
 fireplace. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Good morning, Boxer. [They 
 shake hands]. Another niece to give away. This is the 
 last of them. 
 
 The General [very gloomy] Yes, Alice. Nothing 
 for the old warrior uncle to do but give away brides to 
 luckier men than himself. Has — [he chokes] has your 
 sister come yet? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Why do you always call Lesbia 
 my sister ? Dont you know that it annoys her more than 
 any of the rest of your tricks? 
 
 The General. Tricks ! Ha ! Well, I'll try to break 
 myself of it; but I think she might bear with me in a 
 little thing like that. She knows that her name sticks 
 in my throat. Better call her your sister than try to call 
 her L — [he almost breaks down] L — well, call her by 
 her name and make a fool of myself by crying. [He 
 sits down at the near end of the table], 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [going to him and rallying him] 
 Oh come, Boxer! Really, really! We are no longer 
 boys and girls. You cant keep up a broken heart all 
 your life. It must be nearly twenty years since she 
 refused you. And you know that it's not because-} 
 she dislikes you, but only that she's not a marrying { 
 woman. 
 
 The General, It's no use. I love her still. And
 
 1 
 
 98 Getting Married 
 
 I cant help telling her so whenever we meet, though I 
 know it makes her avoid me. [He all but weeps]. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. What does she say when you 
 tell her? 
 
 The General. Only that she wonders when I am 
 going to grow out of it. I know now that I shall never 
 grow out of it. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Perhaps you would if you mar- 
 ried her. I believe youre better as you are, Boxer. 
 / The General. I'm a miserable man. I'm really 
 ■ sorry to be a ridiculous old bore, Alice ; but when I come 
 •> to this house for a wedding — to these scenes — to — to — 
 recollections of the past — always to give the bride to 
 / somebody else, and never to have my bride given to me 
 * — [he rises abruptly] May I go into the garden and 
 smoke it off? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Do, Boxer. 
 
 Collins returns with the wedding cake. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Oh, heres the cake. I believe 
 it's the same one we had for Florence's wedding. 
 
 The General. I cant bear it [he hurries out through 
 the garden door], 
 
 Collins [putting the cake on the table] Well, look 
 at that, maam ! Aint it odd that after all the weddings 
 he's given away at, the General cant stand the sight of a 
 wedding cake yet. It always seems to give him the same 
 shock. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Well, it's his last shock. You 
 have married the whole family now, Collins. [She takes 
 up The Times again and resumes her seat]. 
 
 Collins. Except your sister, maam. A fine charac- 
 ter of a lady, maam, is Miss Grantham. I have an ambi- 
 tion to arrange her wedding breakfast. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. She wont marry, Collins. 
 
 Collins. Bless you, maam, they all say that. You 
 and me said it, I'll lay. I did, anyhow.
 
 Getting Married 99 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. No: marriage came natural to<? 
 me. I should have thought it did to you too. 
 
 Collins [pensive] No, maam: it didnt come natural. 
 My wife had to break me into it. It came natural to 
 her : she's what you might call a regular old hen. Always 
 wants to have her family within sight of her. Wouldnt 
 go to bed unless she knew they was all safe at home and 
 the door locked, and the lights out. Always wants her 
 luggage in the carriage with her. Always goes and 
 makes the engine driver promise her to be careful. She's 
 a born wife and mother, maam, Thats why my children 
 all ran away from home. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Did you ever feel inclined to run 
 away, Collins? 
 
 Collins. Oh yes, maam, yes : very often. But when 
 it came to the point I couldnt bear to hurt her feelings. 
 Shes a sensitive, affectionate, anxious soul; and she was 
 never brought up to know what freedom is to some peo- 
 ple. You see, family life is all the life she knows: she's 
 like a bird born in a cage, thai wouI3 die if you let it 
 loose in the woods. When I thought how little it was 
 to a man of my easy temper to put up with her, and how 
 deep it would hurt her to think it was because I didnt 
 care for her, I always put off running away till next 
 time ; and so in the end I never ran away at all. I dare- 
 say it was good for me to be took such care of; but it 
 cut me off from all my old friends something dreadful, 
 maam: especially the women, maam. She never gave 
 them a chance: she didnt indeed. She never understood 
 that married people should take holidays from one an- 
 other if they are to keep ^aTalf fresh. Not "that"! ever 
 got tired of her, maam ; but my ! how I used to get tired 
 of home life sometimes. I used to catch myself envying 
 my brother George: I positively did, maam. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. George was a bachelor then, I 
 suppose? 
 
 X
 
 100 Getting Married 
 
 Collins. Bless you, no, maam. He married a very 
 fine figure of a woman ; but she was that changeable and 
 what you might call susceptible, you would not believe. 
 She didnt seem to have any control over herself when she 
 fell in love. She would mope for a couple of days, cry- 
 ing about nothing; and then she would up and say — no 
 matter who was there to hear her — " I must go to him, 
 George " ; and away she would go from her home and 
 her husband without with-your-leave or by-your-leave. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. But do you mean that she did 
 this more than once? That she came back? 
 
 Collins. Bless you, maam, she done it five times to 
 my own knowledge; and then George gave up telling us 
 about it, he got so used to it. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. But did he always take her back? 
 
 Collins. Well, what could he do, maam? Three 
 times out of four the men would bring her back the same 
 evening and no harm done. Other times theyd run away 
 from her. What could any man with a heart do but com- 
 fort her when she came back crying at the way they 
 dodged her when she threw herself at their heads, pre- 
 tending they was too noble to accept the sacrifice she 
 was making. George told her again and again that if 
 she'd only stay at home and hold off a bit theyd 
 be at her feet all day long. She got sensible at last 
 and took his advice. George always liked change of 
 company. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. What an odious woman, Col- 
 lins ! Dont you think so ? 
 
 Collins [judicially] Well, many ladies with a do- 
 mestic turn thought so and said so, maam. But I will 
 say for Mrs George that the variety of experience made 
 her wonderful interesting. Thats where the flighty ones 
 score off the steady ones, maam. Look at my old 
 woman ! She's never known any man but me ; and she 
 cant properly know me, because she dont know other
 
 Getting Married 101 
 
 men to compare me with. Of course she knows her par- 
 ents in — well, in the way one does know one's parents: 
 not knowing half their lives as you might say, or ever 
 thinking that they was ever young; and she knew her 
 children as children, and never thought of them as inde- 
 pendent human beings till they ran away and nigh broke 
 her heart for a week or two. But Mrs George she came 
 to know a lot about men of alT sorts and ages ; for the 
 older she got the younger she liked em; and it certainly 
 made her interesting, and gave her a lot of sense. I have 
 often taken her advice on things when my own poor old 
 woman wouldnt have been a bit of use to me. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. I hope you dont tell your wife 
 that you go elsewhere for advice. 
 
 Collins. Lord bless you, maam, I'm that fond of my 
 old Matilda that I never tell her anything at all for fear 
 of hurting her feelings. You see, she's such an out-and^ 
 out wife and mother that she's hardly a responsible hu-( 
 man being out of her house, except when she's marketing./ 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Does she approve of Mrs 
 George ? 
 
 Collins. Oh, Mrs George gets round her. Mrs 
 George can get round anybody if she wants to. And 
 then Mrs George is very particular about religion. And 
 shes a clairvoyant. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [surprised] A clairvoyant! 
 
 Collins [caZm] Oh yes, maam, yes. All you have 
 to do is to mesmerize her a bit; and off she goes into a 
 trance, and says the most wonderful things ! not things 
 about herself, but as if it was the whole human race giv- 
 ing you a bit of its mind. Oh, wonderful, maam, I 
 assure you. You couldnt think of a game that Mrs 
 George isnt up to. 
 
 Lesbia Grantham comes in through the tower. She it 
 a tall, handsome, slender lady in her prime: that is, be- 
 tween 36 and 55. She has what is called a well-bred air,
 
 !02 Getting Married 
 
 dressing very carefully to produce that effect without 
 the least regard for the latest fashions, sure of herself 
 very ternfymg to the young and shy, fastidious to the 
 ends of her long finger-tips, and tolerant and amused 
 rather than sympathetic. 
 
 Lesbia. Good morning, dear big sister. 
 \The S ^? GENORTH - Good corning, dear little sister. 
 
 Lesbia. Good morning, Collins. How well you are 
 looking! And how young! [She turns the middle chair 
 away from the table and sits down], 
 
 Collins. Thats only my professional habit at a wed- 
 ding Miss. You should see me at a political dinner. 
 I look nigh seventy. [Looking at his watch] Time's 
 getting along, maam. May I send up word from you 
 to Miss Edith to hurry a bit with her dressing? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Do, Collins. 
 
 Collins goes out through the tower, talcing the cake 
 with him. 
 
 Lesbia. Dear old Collins! Has he told you any 
 stories this morning? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Yes. You were just late for a 
 particularly thrilling invention of his. 
 
 Lesbia. About Mrs George? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Yes. He says she's a clair- 
 voyant. 
 
 Lesbia. I wonder whether he really invented Mrs 
 George, or stole her out of some book. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. I wonder! 
 
 Lesbia. Wheres the Barmecide? 
 ^ Mrs Bridgenorth. In the study, working away at 
 his new book. He thinks no more now of having a 
 daughter married than of having an egg for breakfast. 
 
 The General, soothed by smoking, comes in from the 
 garden. 
 
 The General [with resolute bonhomie] Ah, Lesbia!
 
 Getting Married 103 
 
 How do you do? [They shake hands; and he takes the 
 chair on her right], 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth goes out through the tower, 
 Lesbia. How are you, Boxer? You look almost as 
 gorgeous as the wedding cake. 
 
 The General. I make a point of appearing in uni- 
 form whenever I take part in any ceremony, as a lesson 
 to the subalterns. It is not the custom in England; but 
 it ought to be. 
 
 Lesbia. You look very fine, Boxer. What a frightful 
 lot of bravery all these medals must represent! 
 
 The General. No, Lesbia. They represent despair 
 and cowardice. I won all the early ones by trying to get 
 killed. You know why. 
 
 Lesbia. But you had a charmed life? 
 The General. Yes, a charmed life. Bayonets bent 
 on my buckles. Bullets passed through me and left no 
 trace: thats the worst of modern bullets: Ive never been 
 hit by a dum-dum. When I was only a company officer 
 I had at least the right to expose myself to death in the 
 field. Now I'm a General even that resource is cut off. 
 [Persuasively drawing his chair nearer to her] Listen 
 to me, Lesbia. For the tenth and last time — 
 
 Lesbia [interrupting] On Florence's wedding morn- 
 ing, two years ago, you said " For the ninth and last 
 time." 
 
 The General. We are two years older, Lesbia. I'm 
 fifty: you are — 
 
 Lesbia. Yes, I know. It's no use, Boxer. When 
 will you be old enough to take no for an answer? 
 
 The General. Never, Lesbia, never. You have 
 never given me a real reason for refusing me yet. I once 
 thought it was somebody else. There were lots of fel- 
 lows after you; but now theyve all given it up and mar- 
 ried. [Bending still nearer to her] Lesbia: tell me 
 your secret. Why —
 
 104 Getting Married 
 
 Lksbia [sniffing disgustedly] Oh! Youve been smok- 
 ing. [She rises and goes to the chair on the hearth] 
 Keep away, you wretch. 
 
 The General. But for that pipe, I could not have 
 faced you without breaking down. It has soothed me 
 and nerved me. 
 
 Lesbia [sitting down with The Times in her hand] 
 Well, it has nerved me to tell you why I'm going to be 
 an old maid. 
 
 The General [impulsively approaching her] Dont 
 say that, Lesbia. I t's no t natural: it's not right: 
 it's— *" — 
 
 Lesbia [fanning him off] No: no closer, Boxer, 
 please. [He retreats, discouraged]. It may not be nat- 
 ural; but it happens all the time. Youll find plenty of 
 women like me, if you care to look for them : women with 
 lots of character and good looks and money and offers, 
 who wont and dont get married. Cant you guess why? 
 
 The General. I can understand when there is 
 another. 
 r Lesbia. Yes ; but there isnt another. Besides, do you 
 Ssuppose I think, at my time of life, that the difference 
 [between one decent sort of man and another is worth 
 V bothering about? 
 
 The General. The heart has its preferences, Lesbia. 
 One image, and one only, gets indelibly — 
 
 Lesbia. Yes. Excuse my interrupting you so often; 
 but your sentiments are so correct that I always know 
 what you are going to say before you finish. You see, 
 Boxer, everybody is not like you. You are a sentimental 
 noodle: you dont see women as they really are. You 
 dont see me as I really am. Now I do see men as they 
 really are. I see you as you really are. 
 
 The General [murmuring] No: dont say that, 
 Lesbia. 
 
 Lesbia. I'm a regular old maid. I'm very particular
 
 Getting Married 105 
 
 about my belongings. I like to have my own house, and 
 to have it to myself. I have a very keen sense of beauty 
 and fitness and cleanliness and order. I am proud of my 
 independence and jealous for it. I have a sufficiently 
 well-stocked mind to be very good company for myself 
 if I have plenty of books and music. The one thing I 
 never could stand is a great lout of a man smoking all 
 over my house and going to sleep in his chair after din- 
 ner, and untidying everything. Ugh! 
 
 The General. But love — 
 
 Lesbia. Oh, love ! Have you no imagination ? DoA 
 you think I have never been in love with wonderful men? J 
 heroes ! archangels ! princes ! sages ! even fascinating ras- / 
 cals ! and had the strangest adventures with them? Do I <-L 
 you know what it is to look at a mere real man after ^ 
 that? a man with his boots in every corner, and the smell J 
 of his tobacco in every curtain? \j 
 
 The General [somewhat dazed] Well but — excuse 
 my mentioning it — dont you want children? 
 
 Lesbia. I ought to have children. I should be a 
 good mother to children. I believe it would pay the 
 country very well to pay me very well to have children. 
 But the country tells me that I cant have a child in my 
 house without a man in it too; so I tell the country that 
 it will have to do without my children. If I am to be a 
 moth erj'T 'really cannot have a man bothering me to be 
 a wife at the same time. 
 
 The General. My dear Lesbia: you know I dont 
 wish to be impertinent; but these are not the correct 
 views for an English lady to express. 
 
 Lesbia. That is why I dont express them, except to 
 gentlemen who wont take any other answer. The diffi- 
 culty, you see, is that I really am an English lady, and 
 am particularly proud of being one. 
 
 The General. I'm sure of that, Lesbia: quite sure 
 of it. I never meant —
 
 106 Getting Married 
 
 Lesbia [rising impatiently] Oh, my dear Boxer, do 
 please try to think of something else than whether you 
 have offended me, and whether you are doing the correct 
 thing as an English gentleman. You are faultless, and 
 very dull. [She shakes her shoulders intolerantly and 
 walks across to the other side of the kitchen]. 
 
 The General [moodily] Ha! thats whats the matter 
 with me. Not clever. A poor silly soldier man. 
 
 Lesbia. The whole matter is very simple. As I say, 
 I am an English lady, by which I mean that I have been 
 trained to do without what I cant have on honorable 
 terms, no matter what it is. 
 
 The General. I really dont understand you, Lesbia. 
 
 Lesbia [turning on him] Then why on earth do you 
 want to marry a woman you dont understand? 
 
 The General. I dont know. I suppose I love you. 
 
 Lesbia. Well, Boxer, you can love me as much as 
 you like, provided you look happy about it and dont bore 
 me. But you cant marry me; and thats all about it. 
 
 The General. It's so frightfully difficult to argue 
 the matter fairly with you without wounding your del- 
 icacy by overstepping the bounds of good taste. But 
 surely there are calls of nature — 
 
 Lesbia. Dont be ridiculous, Boxer. 
 
 The General. Well, how am I to express it? Hang 
 it all, Lesbia, dont you want a husband? 
 * Lesbia. No. I want children; and I want to devote 
 myself entirely to my children, and not to their father. 
 [The law will not allow me to do that; so^3iaTe""Sade- up 
 y mind to have neither husband nor children. 
 
 The General. But, great Heavens, the natural ap- 
 petites — 
 
 Lesbia. As I said before, an English lady is not the 
 slave of her appetites. That is what an English gentle- 
 man seems incapable of understanding. [She sits down 
 at the end of the table, near the study door] .
 
 Getting Married 107 
 
 The General [huffily] Oh well, if you refuse, you 
 refuse. I shall not ask you again. I'm sorry I returned 
 to the subject. [He retires to the hearth and plant* 
 himself there, wounded a.id lofty], 
 
 Lesbia. Dont be cross, Boxer. 
 
 The General. I'm not cross, only wounded, Lesbia. 
 And when you talk like that, I dont feel convinced: I 
 only feel utterly at a loss. 
 
 Lesbia. Well, you know our family rule. When at a 
 loss consult the greengrocer. [Opportunely Collins 
 comes in through the tower] . Here he is. 
 
 Collins. Sorry to be so much in and out, Miss. I 
 thought Mrs Bridgenorth was here. The table is ready 
 now for the breakfast, if she would like to see it. 
 
 Lesbia. If you are satisfied, Collins, I am sure she 
 will be. 
 
 The General. By the way, Collins: I thought 
 theyd made you an alderman. 
 
 Collins. So they have, General. 
 
 The General. Then wheres your gown? 
 
 Collins. I dont wear it in private life, General. 
 
 The General. Why? Are you ashamed of it? 
 
 Collins. No, General. To tell you the truth, I take 
 a pride in it. I cant help it. 
 
 The General. Attention, Collins. Come here, 
 [Collins comes to him]. Do you see my uniform — all 
 my medals? 
 
 Collins. Yes, General. They strike the eye, as it 
 were. 
 
 The General. They are meant to. Very well. 
 Now you know, dont you, that your services to the com- 
 munity as a greengrocer are as important and as digni- 
 fied as mine as a soldier? 
 
 Collins. I'm sure it's very honorable of you to say 
 so, General. 
 
 The General [emphatically] You know also, dont
 
 108 Getting Married 
 
 you, that any man who can see anything ridiculous, or 
 unmanly, or unbecoming in your work or in your civic 
 robes is not a gentleman, but a jumping, bounding, snort- 
 ing cad? 
 
 Collins. Well, strictly between ourselves, that is my 
 opinion, General. 
 
 The General. Then why not dignify my niece's 
 wedding by wearing your robes? 
 
 Collins. A bargain's a bargain, General. Mrs 
 Bridgenorth sent for the greengrocer, not for the alder- 
 man. It's just as unpleasant to get more than you bar- 
 gain for as to get less. 
 
 The General. I'm sure she will agree with me. I 
 attach importance to this as an affirmation of solidarity 
 in the service of the community. The Bishop's apron, 
 my uniform, your robes: the Church, the Army, and the 
 Municipality. 
 
 Collins [retiring] Very well, General. [He turns 
 dubiously to Lesbia on his way to the tower]. I wonder 
 what my wife will say, Miss ? 
 
 The General. What! Is your wife ashamed of 
 your robes? 
 
 Collins. No, sir, not ashamed of them. But she 
 grudged the money for them; and she will be afraid of 
 my sleeves getting into the gravy. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth, her placidity quite upset, comes in 
 with a letter; hurries past Collins; and comes between 
 Lesbia and the General. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Lesbia: Boxer: heres a pretty 
 mess! 
 
 Collins goes out discreetly. 
 
 The General. Whats the matter? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Reginald's in London, and wants 
 to come to the wedding. 
 
 The General [stupended] Well, dash my buttons! 
 
 Lesbia. Oh, all right, let him come.
 
 Getting Married 109 
 
 The General. Let him come ! Why, the decree has 
 not been made absolute yet. Is he to walk in here to 
 Edith's wedding, reeking from the Divorce Court? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [vexedly sitting down in the mid- 
 dle chair] It's too bad. No: I cant forgive him, Les- 
 bia, really. A man of Reginald's age, with a young wife 
 — the best of girls, and as pretty as she can be — to go 
 off with a common woman from the streets ! Ugh ! 
 
 Lesbia. You must make allowances. What can you 
 expect? Reginald was always weak. He was brought 
 up to be weak. The family property was all mortgaged 
 when he inherited it. He had to struggle along in con- 
 stant money difficulties, hustled by his solicitors, morally 
 bullied by the Barmecide, and physically bullied by 
 Boxer, while they two were fighting their own way and 
 getting well trained. You know very well he couldnt 
 afford to marry until the mortgages were cleared and he 
 was over fifty. And then of course he made a fool of 
 himself mai .ying a child like Leo. 
 
 The General. But to hit her! Absolutely to hit 
 her! He knocked her down — knocked her flat down on 
 a flowerbed in the presence of his gardener. He! the 
 head of the family ! the man that stands before the 
 Barmecide and myself as Bridgenorth of Bridgenorth! 
 to beat his wife and go off with a low woman and be 
 divorced for it in the face of all England! in the face of 
 my uniform and Alfred's apron ! I can never forget 
 what I felt: it was only the King's personal request — 
 virtually a command — that stopped me from resigning 
 my commission. I'd cut Reginald dead if I met him in 
 the street. 
 
 Mrs, Bridgenorth. Besides, Leo's coming. Theyd 
 meet. It's impossible, Lesbia. 
 
 Lesbia. Oh, I forgot that. That settles it. He 
 mustnt come. 
 
 The General. Of course he mustnt. You tell him
 
 110 Getting Married 
 
 that if he enters this house, I'll leave it; and so will 
 every decent man and woman in it. • 
 
 Collins [returning for a moment to announce] Mr 
 Reginald, maam. [He withdraws when Reginald en' 
 ters]. 
 
 The General [beside himself] Well, dash my but- 
 tons! ! 
 
 Reginald is just the man Lesbia has described. He is 
 hardened and tough 'physically, and hasty and boyish in 
 his manner and speech, belonging as he does to the large 
 class of English gentlemen of property (solicitor-man- 
 aged) who have never developed intellectually since their 
 schooldays. He is a muddled, rebellious, hasty, untidy, 
 forgetful, always late sort of man, who very evidently 
 needs the care of a capable woman, and has never been 
 lucky or attractive enough to get it. All the same, a 
 likeable man, from whom nobody apprehends any malice 
 nor expects any achievement. In everything but years 
 he is younger than his brother the General. 
 
 Reginald [coming forward between the General and 
 Mrs Bridgenorth] Alice: it's no use. I cant stay away 
 from Edith's wedding. Good morning, Lesbia. How are 
 you, Boxer? [He offers the General his hand]. 
 
 The General [with crushing stiffness] I was just 
 telling Alice, sir, that if you entered this house, I should 
 leave it. 
 
 Reginald. Well, dont let me detain you, old chap. 
 When you start calling people, Sir, youre not particu- 
 larly good company. 
 
 Lesbia. Dont you begin to quarrel. That wont 
 improve the situation. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. I think you might have waited 
 until you got my answer, Rej jy. 
 
 Reginald. It's so jolly easy to say No in a letter. 
 Wont you let me stay? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. How can I? Leo's coming.
 
 Getting Married 111 
 
 Reginald. Well, she wont mind. 
 
 The General. Wont mind ! ! ! ! ! 
 
 Lesbia. Dont talk nonsense, Rejjy; and be off with 
 you. 
 
 The General [with biting sarcasm] At school you 
 had a theory that women liked being knocked down, I 
 remember. 
 
 Reginald. Youre a nice, chivalrous, brotherly sort 
 of swine, you are. 
 
 The General. Mr Bridgenorth: are you going to 
 leave this house or am I? 
 
 Reginald. You are, I hope. [He emphasizes his in- 
 tention to stay by sitting down]. 
 
 The General. Alice: will you allow me to be driven 
 from Edith's wedding by this — 
 
 Lesbia [warningly] Boxer! 
 
 The General. — by this Respondent? Is Edith to 
 be given away by him? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Certainly not. Reginald: you 
 were not asked to come; and I have asked you to go. 
 You know how fond I am of Leo; and you know what 
 she would feel if she came in and found you here. 
 
 Collins [again apearing in the tower] Mrs Reg- 
 inald, maam. 
 
 Lesbia fNo, no. Ask her to — [All three 
 
 < Oh how unfortunate ! clamoring 
 Well, dash my buttons ! together]. 
 
 It is too late: Leo is already in the kitchen. Collins 
 goes out, mutely abandoning a situation which he de- 
 plores but has been unable to save. 
 
 Leo is very pretty, very youthful, very restless, and 
 consequently very charming to people who are touched by 
 youth and beauty, as well as to those who regard young 
 women as more or less appetizing lollipops, and dont re- 
 gard old women at all. Coldly studied, Leo*s restless- 
 
 Irs Bridgenorth 
 The General
 
 112 Getting Married 
 
 ness is much less lovable than the kittenishness which 
 comes from a rich and fresh vitality. She is a born 
 fusser about herself and everybody else for whom she 
 feels responsible; and her vanity causes her to exaggerate 
 her responsibilities officiously. All her fussing is about 
 little things; but she often calls them by big names, such 
 as Art, the Divine Spark, the world, motherhood, good 
 breeding, the Universe, the Creator, or anything else that 
 happens to strike her imagination as sounding intellectu- 
 ally important. She has more than common imagination 
 and no more than common conception and penetration; 
 so that she is always on the high horse about words and 
 always in the perambulator about things. Considering 
 herself clever, thoughtful, and superior to ordinary weak- 
 nesses and prejudices, she recklessly attaches herself to 
 clever men on that understanding, with the result that 
 they are first delighted, then exasperated, and finally 
 bored. When marrying Reginald she told her friends 
 that there was a great deal in him which needed bringing 
 out. If she were a middle-aged man she would be the 
 terror of his club. Being a pretty young woman, she is 
 forgiven everything, proving that " Tout comprendre, 
 c'est tout pardonner " is an error, the fact being that 
 the secret of forgiving everything is to understand 
 nothing. 
 
 She runs in fussily, full of her own importance, and 
 swoops on Lesbia, who is much less disposed to spoil her 
 than Mrs Bridgenorth is. But Leo affects a special in- 
 timacy with Lesbia, as of two thinkers among the Phil- 
 istines. 
 
 Leo [to Lesbia, kissing her] Good morning. [Com- 
 ing to Mrs Bridgenorth] How do, Alice? [Passing on 
 towards the hearth] Why so gloomy, General? [Reg- 
 inald rises between her and the General] Oh, Rejjy! 
 What will the King's Proctor say? 
 
 Reginald. Damn the King's Proctor!
 
 Getting Married 113 
 
 Leo. Naughty. Well, I suppose I must kiss you; 
 but dont any of you tell. [She kisses him. They can 
 hardly believe their eyes]. Have you kept all your 
 promises ? 
 
 Reginald. Oh, dont begin bothering about those — 
 
 Leo [insisting] Have? You? Kept? Your? Prom- 
 ises? Have you rubbed your head with the lotion every 
 night? 
 
 Reginald. Yes, yes. Nearly every night. 
 
 Leo. Nearly ! I know what that means. Have you 
 worn your liver pad? 
 
 The General [solmenly] Leo: forgiveness is one of 
 the most beautiful traits in a woman's nature; but there 
 are things that should not be forgiven to a man. When a 
 man knocks a woman down [Leo gives a little shriek of 
 laughter and collapses on a chair next Mrs Bridgenorth, 
 on her left] — 
 
 Reginald [sardonically] The man that would raise 
 his hand to a woman, save in the way of a kindness, is 
 unworthy the name of Bridgenorth. [He sits down at 
 the end of the table nearest the hearth]. 
 
 The General [much huffed] Oh, well, if Leo does 
 not mind, of course I have no more to say. But I think 
 you might, out of consideration for the family, beat your 
 wife in private and not in the presence of the gardener. 
 
 Reginald [out of patience] Whats the good of beat- 
 ing your wife unless theres a witness to prove it after- 
 wards? You dont suppose a man beats his wife for the 
 fun of it, do you? How could she have got her divorce 
 if I hadnt beaten her? Nice state of things, that! 
 
 The General [gasping] Do you mean to tell me 
 that you did it in cold blood? simply to get rid of your 
 wife ? 
 
 Reginald. No, I didn't: I did it to get her rid of 
 me. What would you do if you were fool enough to 
 marry a woman thirty years younger than yourself, and
 
 114 Getting Married 
 
 then found that she didnt care for you, and was in love 
 with a young fellow with a face like a mushroom. 
 
 Leo. He has not. [Bursting into tears] And you 
 are most unkind to say I didnt care for you. Nobody 
 could have been fonder of you. 
 
 Reginald. A nice way of shewing your fondness ! I 
 had to go out and dig that flower bed all over with my 
 own hands to soften it. I had to pick all the stones out 
 of it. And then she complained that I hadnt done it 
 properly, because she got a worm down her neck. I had 
 to go to Brighton with a poor creature who took a fancy 
 to me on the way down, and got conscientious scruples 
 about committing perjury after dinner. I had to put 
 her down in the hotel book as Mrs Reginald Bridge- 
 north : Leo's name ! Do you know what that feels like 
 to a decent man ? Do you know what a decent man feels 
 about his wife's name? How would you like to go into a 
 hotel before all the waiters and people with — with that 
 on your arm? Not that it was the poor girl's fault, of 
 course; only she started crying because I couldnt stand 
 her touching me ; and now she keeps writing to me. And 
 then I'm held up in the public court for cruelty and 
 adultery, and turned away from Edith's wedding by 
 Alice, and lectured by you! a bachelor, and a precious 
 green one at that. What do you know about it? 
 
 The General. Am I to understand that the whole 
 case was one of collusion? 
 
 Reginald. Of course it was. Half the cases are 
 collusions: what are people to do? [The General, pass- 
 ing his hand dazedly over his bewildered brow, sinks into 
 the railed chair]. And what do you take me for, that 
 you should have the cheek to pretend to believe all that 
 rot about my knocking Leo about and leaving her for — 
 for a — a — Ugh ! you should have seen her. 
 
 The General. This is perfectly astonishing to me. 
 Why did you do it? Why did Leo allow it?
 
 Getting Married 115 
 
 Reginald. Youd better ask her. 
 
 Leo [still in tears] I'm sure I never thought it would 
 be so horrid for Rej jy. ~T~offered honorably to do it my- 
 self, and let him divorce me; but he wouldnt. And he 
 said himself that it was the only way to do it — that it | 
 was the law that he should do it that way. I never saw 
 that hateful creature until that day in Court. If he had 
 only shewn her to me before, I should never have 
 allowed it. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. You did all this for Leo's sake, 
 Rejjy? 
 
 Reginald [with an unbearable sense of injury] 1\ 
 shouldnt mind a bit if it were for Leo's sake. But to f 
 have to do it to make room for that mushroom-faced serv 
 pent ! * — - i**" *c"jij i mm" — 
 
 The General [jumping up] What right had he to 
 be made room for? Are you in your senses? What 
 right? 
 
 Reginald. The right of being a young man, suitable 
 to a young woman. I had no right at my age to marry 
 Leo: she knew no more about life than a child. 
 
 Leo. I knew a great deal more about it than a great 
 baby like you. I'm sure I dont know how youll get on 
 with no one to take care of you: I often lie awake at night 
 thinking about it. And now youve made me thoroughly 
 miserable. 
 
 Reginald. Serve you right! [She weeps]. There: 
 dont get into a tantrum, Leo. 
 
 Lesbia. May one ask who is the mushroom-faced ser- 
 pent ? 
 
 Leo. He isnt. 
 
 Reginald. Sinjon Hotchkiss, of course. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Sinjon Hotchkiss! Why, he'i 
 coming to the wedding! 
 
 Reginald. What! In that case I'm off [he make* 
 for the tower].
 
 116 
 
 Getting Married 
 
 The General 
 
 Mrs Bridge- 
 north 
 
 Lesbia 
 
 [all four rush- 
 ing after him 
 and captur- 
 ing him on 
 the thresh- 
 old] 
 
 Leo "1 f [seizing him] No 
 
 you shant. You prom- 
 ised to be nice to 
 him. 
 
 No, dont go, old 
 chap. Not from 
 Edith's wedding. 
 
 Oh, do stay, Rej- 
 jy. I shall really be 
 hurt if you desert us. 
 Better stay, Reg- 
 inald. You must meet 
 ^him sooner or later. 
 Reginald. A moment ago, when I wanted to stay, 
 you were all shoving me out of the house. Now that I 
 want to go, you wont let me. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. I shall send a note to Mr Hotch- 
 kiss not to come. 
 
 Leo [weeping again] Oh, Alice! [She comes back 
 to her chair, heartbroken]. 
 
 Reginald [out of patience] Oh well, let her have her 
 way. Let her have her mushroom. Let him come. Let 
 them all come. 
 
 He crosses the kitchen to the oak chest and sits sulkily 
 on it. Mrs Bridgenorth shrugs her shoulders and sits at 
 the table in Reginald's neighborhood listening in placid 
 helplessness. Lesbia, out of patience with Leo's tears, 
 goes into the garden and sits there near the door, snuffing 
 up the open air in her relief from the domestic stuffi- 
 ness of Reginald's affairs. 
 
 Leo. It's so cruel of you to go on pretending that I 
 dont care for you, Rejjy. 
 
 Reginald [bitterly] She explained to me that it was 
 only that she had exhausted my conversation. 
 
 The General [coming paternally to Leo] My dear 
 girl: all the conversation in the world has been exhausted
 
 Getting Married 117 
 
 long ago. Heaven knows I have exhausted the conversa- 
 tion of the British Army these thirty years; but I dont / 
 leave it on that account. ' 
 
 Leo. It's not that Ive exhausted it; but he will keep 
 on repeating it when I want to read or go to sleep. And 
 Sin j on amuses me. He's so clever. 
 
 The General [stung] Ha! The old complaint.X/' 
 You all want geniuses to marry. This demand for clever<^ 
 men is ridiculous. Somebody must marry the plain, hony 
 est, stupid fellows. Have you thought of ^ that? 
 
 Leo. But there are such lots of stupid women to 
 marry. Why do they want to, marry us ? Besides, Rejjy 
 knows that I'm quite fond of him. I like him because he 
 wants me; and I like Sin j on because I want him. I feel 
 that I have a duty to Rejjy. 
 
 The General. Precisely: you have. 
 
 Leo. And, of course, Sin j on has the same duty to me. 
 
 The General. Tut, tut! 
 
 Leo. Oh, how silly the law is! Why cant I marry 
 them both? 
 
 The General [shocked] Leo! *v- 
 
 Leo. Well, I love them both. I should like toA 
 marry a lot of men. I should like to have Rejjy for I 
 every day, and Sin j on for concerts and theatres and/ 
 going out in the evenings, and some great austere saintx 
 for about once a year at the end of the season, and some j 
 perfectly blithering idiot of a boy to be quite wicked I 
 with. I so seldom feel wicked ; and, when I do, it's such \ 
 a pity to waste it merely because it's too silly to confess^/ 
 to a real grown-up man. 
 
 Reginald. This is the kind of thing, you know — 
 [Helplessly] Well, there it is! 
 
 The General [decisively] Alice: this is a job for 
 the Barmecide. He's a Bishop: it's his duty to talk to 
 Leo. I can stand a good deal; but when it comes to flat 
 polygamy and polyandry, we ought to do something.
 
 118 Getting Married 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [going to the study door] Do 
 come here a moment, Alfred. We're in a difficulty. 
 
 The Bishop [within] Ask Collins, I'm busy. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Collins wont do. It's something 
 very serious. Do come just a moment, dear. [When 
 she hears him coming she takes a chair at the nearest end 
 of the table]. 
 
 The Bishop comes out of his study. He is still a slim 
 active man, spare of flesh, and younger by temperament 
 than his brothers. He has a delicate shin, fine hands, a 
 salient nose with chin to match, a short beard which ac- 
 centuates his sharp chin by bristling forward, clever hu- 
 : morous eyes, not without a glint of mischief in them, 
 / ready bright speech, and the ways of a successful man 
 who is always interested in himself and generally rather 
 well pleased with himself. When Lesbia hears his voice 
 she turns her chair towards him, and presently rises and 
 stands in the doorway listening to the conversation. 
 
 The Bishop- [going to Leo] Good morning, my dear. 
 Hullo ! Youve brought Reginald with you. Thats very 
 nice of you. Have you reconciled them, Boxer? 
 
 The General. Reconciled them! Why, man, the 
 whole divorce was a put-up job. She wants to marry 
 some fellow named Hotchkiss. 
 
 Reginald. A fellow with a face like — 
 
 Leo. You shant, Rejjy. He has a very fine face. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. And now she says she wants to 
 marry both of them, and a lot of other people as well. 
 
 Leo. I didnt say I wanted to marry them: I only 
 said I should like to marry them. 
 
 The Bishop. Quite a nice distinction, Leo. 
 
 Leo. Just occasionally, you know. 
 
 The Bishop [sitting down cosily beside her] Quite 
 so. Sometimes a poet, sometimes a Bishop, sometimes a 
 fairy prince, sometimes somebody quite indescribable, 
 and sometimes nobody at alL
 
 Getting Married 119 
 
 Leo. Yes: thats just it. How did you know? 
 
 The Bishop. Oh, I should say most imaginative and 
 cultivated young women feel like that. I wouldnt give 
 a rap for one who didnt. Shakespear pointed out long "\ 
 ago that a woman wanted a Sunday husband as well as $ 
 a weekday one. But, as usual, he didnt follow up the * 
 idea. 
 
 The General [aghast] Am I to understand — 
 
 The Bishop [cutting him short] Now, Boxer, am I 
 the Bishop or are you? 
 
 The General [sulkily] You. 
 
 The Bishop. Then dont ask me are you to under- 
 stand. " Yours not to reason why : yours but to do and 
 die"— 
 
 The General. Oh, very well: go on. I'm not 
 clever. Only a silly soldier man. Ha ! Go on. [He 
 throws himself into the railed chair, as one prepared for 
 the worst]. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Alfred: dont tease Boxer. 
 
 The Bishop. If we are going to discuss ethical ques- 
 tions we must begin by giving the devil fair play. Boxer 
 never does. England never does. We always assume that 
 the devil is guilty; and we wont allow him to prove his 
 innocence, because it would be against public morals if 
 he succeeded. We used to do the same with prisoners 
 accused of high treason. And the consequence is that we 
 overreach ourselves; and the devil gets the better of us 
 . after all. Perhaps thats what most of us intend him 
 to do. 
 
 The General. Alfred : we asked you here to preach 
 to Leo. You are preaching at me instead. I am not con- 
 scious of having said or o\one anything that calls for that 
 unsolicited attention. 
 
 The Bishop. But poor little Leo has only told the 
 simple truth; whilst you, Boxer, are striking moral atti- 
 tudes. 
 
 /
 
 120 Getting Married 
 
 The General. I suppose thats an epigram. I dont 
 understand epigrams. I'm only a silly soldier man. Ha! 
 But I can put a plain question. Is Leo to be encouraged 
 to be a polygamist? 
 
 The Bishop. Remember the British Empire, Boxer. 
 Youre a British General, you know. 
 
 The General. What has that to do with polygamy? 
 
 The Bishop. Well, the great majority of our fellow- 
 subjects are polygamists. I cant as a British Bishop 
 insult them by speaking disrespectfully of polygamy. 
 It's a very interesting question. Many very interesting 
 men have been polygamists: Solomon, Mahomet, and our 
 friend the Duke of — of — hm! I never can remember 
 his name. 
 
 The General. It would become you better, Alfred, 
 
 to send that silly girl back to her husband and her duty 
 
 p than to talk clever and mock at your religion. " What 
 
 1 God hath joined together let no man put asunder." Re- 
 
 J member that. 
 
 The Bishop. Dont be afraid, Boxer. What God 
 hath joined together no man ever shall put asunder: God 
 will take care of that. [To Leo] By the way, who was 
 it that joined you and Reginald, my dear? 
 
 Leo. It was that awful little curate that afterwards 
 drank, and travelled first class with a third-class ticket, 
 and then tried to go on the stage. But they wouldnt 
 have him. He called himself Egerton Fotheringay. 
 
 The Bishop. Well, whom Egerton Fotheringay hath 
 joined, let Sir Gorell Barnes put asunder by all means. 
 
 The General. I may be a silly soldier man; but I 
 call this blasphemy. 
 
 The Bishop [gravely] Better for me to take the 
 name of Mr Egerton Fotheringay in earnest than for 
 you to take a higher name in vain. 
 
 Lesbia. Cant you three brothers ever meet without 
 quarrelling?
 
 Getting Married 121 
 
 The Bishop [mildly] This is not quarrelling, Les- 
 bia: it's only English family life. Good morning. 
 
 Leo. You know, Bishop, it's very dear of you to take 
 my part; but I'm not sure that I'm not a little shocked. 
 
 The Bishop. Then I think Ive been a little more 
 successful than Boxer in getting you into a proper frame 
 of mind. 
 
 The General [snorting] Ha! 
 
 Leo. Not a bit; for now I'm going to shock you 
 worse than ever. I think Solomon was an old beast. 
 
 The Bishop. Precisely what you ought to think of 
 him, my dear. Dont apologize. 
 
 The General [more shocked] Well, but hang it! 
 Solomon was in the Bible. And, after all, Solomon was 
 Solomon. 
 
 Leo. And I stick to it: I still want to have a lot of 
 interesting men to know quite intimately — to say every- 
 thing I think of to them, and have them say everything 
 they think of to me. 
 
 The Bishop. So you shall, my dear, if you are lucky. 
 But you know you neednt marry them all. Think of all 
 the buttons you would have to sew on. Besides, nothing 
 is more dreadful than a husband who keeps telling you 
 everything he thinks, and always wants to know what 
 you think. 
 
 Leo [struck by this] Well, thats very true of Rejjy: 
 in fact, thats why I had to divorce him. 
 
 The Bishop [condoling] Yes: he repeats himself 
 dreadfully, doesnt he? 
 
 Reginald. Look here, Alfred. If I have my faults, 
 let her find them out for herself without your help. 
 
 The Bishop. She has found them all out already, 
 Reginald. 
 
 Leo [a little huffily] After all, there are worse men 
 than Reginald. I daresay he's not so clever as you; but 
 still he's not such a fool as you seem to think him!
 
 122 Getting Married 
 
 The Bishop. Quite right, dear: stand up for your 
 husband. I hope you will always stand up for all your 
 husbands. [He rises and goes to the hearth, where he 
 stands complacently with his back to the fireplace, beam- 
 ing at them all as at a roomful of children], 
 
 Leo. Please dont talk as if I wanted to marry a 
 whole regiment. For me there can never be more than 
 two. I shall never love anybody but Rejjy and Sinjon. 
 
 Reginald. A man with a face like a — 
 
 Leo. I wont have it, Rejjy. It's disgusting. 
 
 The Bishop. You see, my dear, youll exhaust Sin- 
 jon's conversation too in a week or so. A man is like a 
 phonograph with half-a-dozen records. You soon get 
 tired of them all; and yet you have to sit at table whilst 
 he reels them off to every new visitor. In the end you 
 have to be content with his common humanity ; and when 
 you come down to that, you find out about men what a 
 great English poet of my acquaintance used to say about 
 women: that they all taste alike. Marry whom you 
 please: at the end of a month he'll be Reginald over 
 again. It wasnt worth changing: indeed it wasnt. 
 
 Leo. Then it's a mistake to get married. 
 
 The Bishop. It is, my dear; but it's a much bigger 
 mistake not to get married. 
 
 The General [rising] Ha! You hear that, Lesbia ? 
 [He joins her at the garden door], 
 
 Lesbia. Thats only an epigram, Boxer. 
 
 The General. Sound sense, Lesbia. When a man 
 talks rot, thats epigram: when he talks sense, then I 
 agree with him. 
 
 Reginald [coming off the oak chest and looking at his 
 watch] It's getting late. Wheres Edith? Hasnt she 
 got into her veil and orange blossoms yet? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Do go and hurry her, Lesbia. 
 
 Lesbia [going out through the tower] Come with me, 
 Leo.
 
 Getting Married 128 
 
 Leo [following Lesbia out] Yes, certainly. 
 
 The Bishop goes over to his wife and sits down, taking 
 her hand and kissing it by way of beginning a conver- 
 sation with her. 
 
 The Bishop. Alice: Ive had another letter from the 
 mysterious lady who cant spell. I like that woman's 
 letters. Theres an intensity of passion in them that fas- 
 cinates me. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Do you mean Incognita Appas- 
 sionata ? 
 
 The Bishop. Yes. 
 
 The General [turning abruptly: he has been looking 
 out into the garden] Do you mean to say that women 
 write love-letters to you? 
 
 The Bishop. Of course. 
 
 The General. They never do to me. 
 
 The Bishop. The army doesnt attract women: the 
 Church does. 
 
 Reginald. Do you consider it right to let them? 
 They may be married women, you know. 
 
 The Bishop. They always are. This one is. [To 
 Mrs Bridgenorth] Dont you think her letters are quite 
 the best love-letters I get? [To the two men] Poor 
 Alice has to read my love-letters aloud to me at break- 
 fast, when theyre worth it. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. There really is something fasci- 
 nating about Incognita. She never gives her address. 
 Thats a good sign. 
 
 The General. Mf! No assignations, you mean? 
 
 The Bishop. Oh yes: she began the correspond- 
 ence by making a very curious but very natural assigna- 
 tion. She wants me to meet her in heaven. I hope I 
 shall. 
 
 The General. Well, I must say I hope not, Alfred. 
 I hope not 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. She says she is happily married,
 
 124 Getting Married 
 
 and that love is a necessary of life to her, but that she 
 must have, high above all her lovers — 
 
 The Bishop. She has several apparently — 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. — some great man who will 
 never know her, never touch her, as she is on earth, but 
 whom she can meet in heaven when she has risen above 
 all the everyday vulgarities of earthly love. 
 
 The Bishop [rising] Excellent. Very good for her; 
 and no trouble to me. Everybody ought to have one of 
 these idealizations, like Dante's Beatrice. [He clasps 
 his hands behind him, and strolls to the hearth and back, 
 singing]. J* 
 
 Lesbia appears in the tower, rather perturbed. 
 
 Lesbia. Alice: will you come upstairs? Edith is not 
 dressed. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [rising] Not dressed! Does she 
 know what hour it is? 
 
 Lesbia. She has locked herself into her room, read- 
 ing. 
 
 The Bishop's song ceases; he stops dead in his stroll. 
 
 The General. Reading! 
 
 The Bishop. What is she reading? 
 
 Lesbia. Some pamphlet that came by the eleven 
 o'clock post. She wont come out. She wont open the 
 door. And she says she doesnt know whether she's going 
 to be married or not till she's finished the pamphlet. Did 
 you ever hear such a thing? Do come and speak to her. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Alfred: you had better go. 
 
 The Bishop. Try Collins. 
 
 Lesbia. Weve tried Collins already. He got all that 
 Ive told you out of her through the keyhole. Come, 
 Alice. [She vanishes. Mrs Bridgenorth hurries after 
 her] . 
 
 The Bishop. This means a delay. I shall go back 
 to my work [he makes for the study door~\. 
 
 Reginald. What are you working at now?
 
 Getting Married 125 
 
 The Bishop [stopping'] A chapter in my history of 
 marriage. I'm just at the Roman business, you know. 
 
 The General [coming from the garden door to the 
 chair Mrs Bridgenorth has just left, and sitting down] 
 Not more Ritualism, I hope, Alfred? 
 
 The Bishop. Oh no. I mean ancient Rome. [He 
 seats himself on the edge of the table]. Ive just come 
 to the period when the propertied classes refused to get 
 married and went in for marriage settlements instead. A 
 few of the oldest families stuck to the marriage tradition 
 so as to keep up the supply of vestal virgins, who had to 
 be legitimate; but nobody else dreamt of getting married. 
 It's all very interesting, because we're coming to that 
 here in England; except that as we dont require any 
 vestal virgins, nobody will get married at all, except the 
 poor, perhaps. 
 
 The General. You take it devilishly coolly. Regi- 
 nald: do you think the Barmecide's quite sane? 
 
 Reginald. No worse than ever he was. 
 
 The General [to the Bishop] Do you mean to say 
 you believe such a thing will ever happen in England as 
 that respectable people will give up being married? 
 
 The Bishop. In England especially they will. In 
 other countries the introduction of reasonable divorce 
 laws will save the situation; but in EnglancLwe always 
 let an institution strain itseJf~untiT7it breaks, Ive told 
 our last four Prime Ministers that if they didnt make our 
 marriage laws reasonable there would be a strike against 
 marriage, and that it would begin among the propertied 
 classes, where no Government would dare to interfere 
 with it. ^-— *— 
 
 Reginald. What did they say to that? 
 
 The Bishop. The usual thing. Quite agreed with 
 me, but were sure that they were the only sensible men 
 in the world, and that the least hint of marriage reform 
 would lose them the next election. And then lost it all
 
 126 Getting Married 
 
 the same: on cordite, on drink, on Chinese labor in South 
 Africa, on all sorts of trumpery. 
 
 Reginald [lurching across the kitchen towards the 
 hearth with his hands in his pockets] It's no use: they 
 wont listen to our sort. [Turning on them] Of course 
 they have to make you a Bishop and Boxer a General, 
 because, after all, their blessed rabble of snobs and cads 
 and half-starved shopkeepers cant do government work; 
 and the bounders and week-enders are too lazy and vul- 
 gar. Theyd simply rot without us; but what do they 
 ever do for us ? what attention do they ever pay to what 
 we say and what we want? I take it that we Bridge- 
 norths are a pretty typical English family of the sort 
 that has always set things straight and stuck up for the 
 right to think and believe according to our conscience. 
 But nowadays we are expected to dress and eat as the 
 week-end bounders do, and to think and believe as the 
 converted cannibals of Central Africa do, and to lie down 
 and let every snob and every cad and every halfpenny 
 journalist walk over us. Why, theres not a newspaper 
 in England today that represents what I call solid 
 Bridgenorth opinion and tradition. Half of them read 
 as if they were published at the nearest mother's meet- 
 ing, and the other half at the nearest motor garage. Do 
 you call these chaps gentlemen ? Do you call them Eng- 
 lishmen? I dont. ,[He throws himself disgustedly into 
 the nearest chair]. 
 
 The General [excited by Reginald*s eloquence] Do 
 you see my uniform ? What did Collins say ? It strikes 
 the eye. It was meant to. I put it on expressly to give 
 the modern army bounder a smack in the eye. Some- 
 body has to set a right example by beginning. Well, let 
 it be a Bridgenorth. I believe in family blood and tradi- 
 tion, by George. 
 
 The Bishop [musing] I wonder who will begin the 
 stand against marriage. It must come some day. I was
 
 Getting Married 127 
 
 married myself before I'd thought about it; and even if 
 I had thought about it I was too much in love with Alice 
 to let anything stand in the way. But, you know, Ive 
 seen one of our daughters after another — Ethel, Jane, 
 Fanny, and Christina and Florence — go out at that door 
 in their veils and orange blossoms; and Ive always won- 
 dered whether theyd have gone quietly if theyd known 
 what they were doing. Ive a horrible misgiving about 
 that pamphlet. All progress means war with Society. 
 Heaven forbid that Edith should be one of the com- 
 batants ! 
 
 St John HotchJciss comes into the tower ushered by 
 Collins. He is a very smart young gentleman of twenty- 
 nine or thereabouts, correct in dress to the last thread 
 of his collar, but too much preoccupied with his ideas to 
 be embarrassed by any concern as to his appearance. He 
 talks about himself with energetic gaiety. He talks to 
 other people with a sweet forbearance {implying a kindly 
 consideration for their stupidity) which infuriates those 
 whom he does not succeed in amusing. They either lose 
 their tempers with him or try in vain to snub him. 
 
 Collins [announcing] Mr Hotchkiss. [He with- 
 draws]. 
 
 Hotchkiss [clapping Reginald gaily on the shoulder 
 as he passes him] Tootle loo, Rejjy. 
 
 Reginald [curtly, without rising or turning his head] 
 Morning. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Good morning, Bishop. 
 The Bishop [coming off the table]. What on earth 
 are you doing here, Sinjon? You belong to the bride- 
 groom's party: youve no business here until after the 
 ceremony. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Yes, I know: thats just it. May I have 
 a word with you in private? Rej j y or any of the fam- 
 ily wont matter; but — [he glances at the General, who 
 has risen rather stiffly, as he strongly disapproves of
 
 128 Getting Married 
 
 the part played by Hotchkiss in Reginald's domestic 
 affairs]. 
 
 The Bishop. All right, Sin j on. This is our brother, 
 General Bridgenorth. [He goes to the hearth and posts 
 himself there, with his hands clasped behind him], 
 
 Hotchkiss. Oh, good! [He turns to the General, 
 and takes out a card-case]. As you are in the service, 
 allow me to introduce myself. Read my card, please. 
 [He presents his card to the astonished General], 
 
 The General [reading] " Mr St John Hotchkiss, 
 the Celebrated Coward, late Lieutenant in the 165th 
 Fusiliers." 
 
 Reginald [with a chuckle] He was sent back from 
 South Africa because he funked an order to attack, and 
 spoiled his commanding officer's plan. 
 
 The General [very gravely] I remember the case 
 now. I had forgotten the name. I'll not refuse your 
 acquaintance, Mr Hotchkiss; partly because youre my 
 brother's guest, and partly because Ive seen too much 
 active service not to know that every man's nerve plays 
 him false at one time or another, and that some very hon- 
 orable men should never go into action at all, because 
 theyre not built that way. But if I were you I should 
 not use that visiting card. No doubt it's an honorable 
 trait in your character that you dont wish any man to 
 give you his hand in ignorance of your disgrace ; but you 
 had better allow us to forget. We wish to forget. It 
 isnt your disgrace alone : it's a disgrace to the army and 
 to all of us. Pardon my plain speaking. 
 
 Hotchkiss [sunnily] My dear General, I dont know 
 what fear means in the military sense of the word. Ive 
 fought seven duels with the sabre in Italy and Austria, 
 and one with pistols in France, without turning a hair. 
 There was no other way in which I could vindicate my 
 motives in refusing to make that attack at Smutsfontein. 
 I dont pretend to be a brave man. I'm afraid of wasps.
 
 Getting Married 129 
 
 I'm afraid of cats. In spite of the voice of reason, I'm 
 afraid of ghosts; and twice Ive fled across Europe from 
 false alarms of cholera. But afraid to fight I am not. 
 [He turns gaily to Reginald and slaps him on the shoul- 
 der]. Eh, Rejjy? [Reginald grunts']. 
 
 The General. Then why did you not do your duty 
 at Smutsfontein? 
 
 Hotchkiss. I did my duty — my higher duty. If I 
 had made that attack, my commanding officer's plan 
 would have been successful, and he would have been pro- 
 moted. Now I happen to think that the British Army 
 should be commanded by gentlemen, and by gentlemen 
 alone. This man was not a gentleman. I sacrificed my 
 military- career — I faced disgrace and social ostracism — 
 rather than give that man his chance. 
 
 The General [generously indignant] Your com- 
 manding officer, sir, was my friend Major Billiter. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Precisely. What a name! 
 
 The General. And pray, sir, on what ground do 
 you dare allege that Major Billiter is not a gentleman? 
 
 Hotchkiss. By an infallible sign: one of those tri- 
 fles that stamp a man. He eats rice pudding with a 
 spoon. 
 
 The General [very angry] Confound you, I eat 
 rice pudding with a spoon. Now! 
 
 Hotchkiss. Oh, so do I, frequently. But there are 
 ways of doing these things. Billiter's way was unmis- 
 takable. 
 
 The General. Well, I'll tell you something now. 
 When I thought you were only a coward, I pitied you, 
 and would have done what I could to help you back to 
 your place in Society — 
 
 Hotchkiss [interrupting him] Thank you: I havnt 
 lost it. My motives have been fully appreciated. I was 
 made an honorary member of two of the smartest clubs 
 in London when the truth came out.
 
 130 Getting Married 
 
 The General. Well, sir, those clubs consist of 
 snobs; and you are a jumping, bounding, prancing, 
 snorting snob yourself. 
 
 The Bishop [amused, but hospitably remonstrant] 
 My dear Boxer! 
 
 Hotchkiss [delighted] How kind of you to say so, 
 General! Youre quite right: I am a snob. Why not? 
 The whole strength of England lies in the fact that the 
 enormous majority of the English people are snobs. 
 They insult poverty. They despise vulgarity. They 
 love nobility. They admire exclusiveness. They will 
 not obey a man risen from the ranks. They never trust 
 one of their own class. I agree with them. I share their 
 instincts. In my undergraduate days I was a Republi- 
 can — a Socialist. I tried hard to feel toward a common 
 man as I do towards a duke. I couldnt. Neither can 
 you. Well, why should we be ashamed of this aspiration 
 towards what is above us ? Why dont I say that an hon- 
 est man's the noblest work of God? Because I dont 
 think so. If he's not a gentleman, I dont care whether 
 he's honest or not: I shouldnt let his son marry my 
 daughter. And thats the test, mind. Thats the test. 
 You feel as I do. You are a snob in fact: I am a snob, 
 not only in fact, but on principle. I shall go down in 
 history, not as the first snob, but as the first avowed 
 champion of English snobbery, and its first martyr in the 
 army. The navy boasts two such martyrs in Captains 
 Kirby and Wade, who were shot for refusing to fight 
 under Admiral Benbow, a promoted cabin boy. I have 
 always envied them their glory. 
 
 The General. As a British General, sir, I have to 
 inform you that if any officer under my command violated 
 the sacred equality of our profession by putting a single 
 jot of his duty or his risk on the shoulders of the hum- 
 blest drummer boy, I'd shoot him with my own hand. 
 
 Hotchkiss. That sentiment is not your equality,
 
 Getting Married 131 
 
 General, but your superiority. Ask the Bishop. [He 
 seats himself on the edge of the table]. 
 
 The Bishop. I cant support you, Sin j on. My pro- 
 fession also compels me to turn my back on snobbery. 
 You see, I have to do such a terribly democratic thing to 
 every child that is brought to me. Without distinction of 
 class I have to confer on it a rank so high and awful that 
 all the grades in Debrett and Burke seem like the medals 
 they give children in Infant Schools in comparison. I'm 
 not allowed to make any class distinction. They are all 
 soldiers and servants, not officers and masters. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Ah, youre quoting the Baptism service. 
 Thats not a bit real, you know. If I may say so, you 
 would both feel so much more at peace with yourselves 
 if you would acknowledge and confess your real convic- 
 tions. You know you dont really think a Bishop the 
 equal of a curate, or a lieutenant in a line regiment the 
 equal of a general. 
 
 The Bishop. Of course I do. I was a curate myself. 
 The General. And I was a lieutenant in a line regi- 
 ment. 
 
 Reginald. And I was nothing. But we're all our 
 own and one another's equals, arnt we? So perhaps 
 when youve quite done talking about yourselves, we shall 
 get to whatever business Sinjon came about. 
 
 Hotchkiss [coming off the table hastily'] Oh! true, 
 my dear fellow. I beg a thousand pardons. It's about 
 the wedding? 
 
 The General. What about the wedding? 
 Hotchkiss. Well, we cant get our man up to the 
 scratch. Cecil has locked himself in his room and wont 
 see or speak to any one. I went up to his room and 
 banged at the door. I told him I should look through 
 the keyhole if he didnt answer. I looked through the 
 keyhole. He was sitting on his bed, reading a book. 
 [Reginald rises in consternation. The General recoil*]. 
 
 \.
 
 132 Getting Married 
 
 I told him not to be an ass, and so forth. He said he 
 was not going to budge until he had finished the book. 
 I asked him did he know what time it was, and whether 
 he happened to recollect that he had a rather important 
 appointment to marry Edith. He said the sooner I 
 stopped interrupting him, the sooner he'd be ready. 
 Then he stuffed his fingers in his ears; turned over on 
 his elbows; and buried himself in his beastly book. I 
 couldnt get another word out of him; so I thought I'd 
 better come here and warn you. 
 
 Reginald. This looks to me like a practical joke. 
 Theyve arranged it between them. 
 
 The Bishop. No. Edith has no sense of humor. 
 And Ive never seen a man in a jocular mood on his wed- 
 ding morning. 
 
 Collins appears in the tower, ushering in the bride- 
 groom, a young gentleman with good looks of the serious 
 kind, somewhat careworn by an exacting conscience, and 
 just now distracted by insoluble problems of conduct. 
 
 Collins [announcing] Mr Cecil Sykes. [He retires], 
 
 Hotchkiss. Look here, Cecil: this is all wrong. 
 Youve no business here until after the wedding. Hang 
 it, man ! youre the bridegroom. 
 
 Sykes [coming to the Bishop, and addressing him 
 
 t with dogged desperation'] Ive come here to say this. 
 
 / When I proposed to Edith_I_was in utter ignorance of 
 
 -\ what I was letting mysel f in for iegallyT^Having given 
 
 • / my word, I wnT s!amrt?5TF. Tod have me at your mercy: 
 
 < marry me if you insist/ But tak e^qoticej that I protest. 
 
 [He sits down distractedly in the raUea r ~cliairj7 
 
 The General. f What the devil do you 
 
 ^ttoth mean hy this? Whflt 
 
 • highly - the — 
 
 incensed] Confound your imperti- 
 I nence, what do you — 
 
 Reginald.
 
 H 
 
 The Bishop. 
 
 Getting Married 133 
 
 38. [Easy, Rejjy. Easy, old man. Steady, 
 steady, steady. [Reginald subsides 
 into his chair. Hotchkiss sits on 
 his right, appeasing him], 
 Xo, please, Rej. Control yourself, 
 Boxer, I beg you. 
 
 The General. I tell you I cant control myself. 
 Ive been controlling myself for the last half-hour until 
 I feel like bursting, [if e sits down furiously at the end 
 of the table next the study], 
 
 Sykes [pointing to the simmering Reginald and the 
 boiling General] Thats just it, Bishop. Edith is her 
 uncle's niece. She cant control herself any more than 
 they can. And she's a Bishop's daughter. That means 
 that she's engaged in social work of all sorts : organizing 
 shop assistants and sweated work girls and all that. 
 When her blood boils about it (and it boils at least once 
 a week) she doesnt care what she says. 
 
 Reginald. Well: you knew that when you proposed 
 to her. 
 
 Sykes. Yes ; but I didnt know that when we were 
 married I should be legally responsible if she libelled 
 anybody, though all her property is protected against me 
 as if I were the lowest thief and cadger. This morning 
 somebody sent me Belfort Bax's essays on Men's 
 Wrongs ; and they have been a perfect eye-opener to me. 
 Bishop: I'm not thinking of myself: I would face any- 
 thing for Edith. But my mother and sisters are wholly 
 dependent on my property. I'd rather have to cut off 
 an inch from my right arm than a hundred a year from 
 my mother's income. I owe everything to her care of me. 
 
 Edith, in dressing-jacket and petticoat, comes in 
 through the tower, swiftly and determinedly, pamphlet 
 in hand, principles up in arms, more of a bishop than her 
 father, yet as much a gentlewoman as her mother. She 
 is the typical spoilt child of a clerical household: almost
 
 134 Getting Married 
 
 as terrible a product as the typical spoilt child of a Bo- 
 hemian household : that is, all her childish affectations of 
 conscientious scruple and religious impulse have been 
 applauded and deferred to until she has become an ethi- 
 cal snob of the first water. Her father's sense of humor 
 and her mother's placid balance have done something to 
 save her humanity; but her impetuous temper and ener- 
 getic will, unrestrained by any touch of humor or scep- 
 ticism, carry everything before them. Imperious and 
 dogmatic, she takes command of the party at once. 
 
 Edith [standing behind Cecil's chair] Cecil: I heard 
 your voice. I must speak to you very particularly. 
 Papa : go away. Go away everybody. 
 
 The Bishop [crossing to the study door] I think 
 there can be no doubt that Edith wishes us to retire. 
 Come. [He stands in the doorway, waiting for them to 
 follow]. 
 
 Sykes. Thats it, you see. It's just this outspoken- 
 ness that makes my position hard, much as I admire her 
 for it. 
 
 Edith. Do you want me to flatter and be untruthful? 
 
 Sykes. No, not exactly that. 
 
 Edith. Does anybody want me to flatter and be un- 
 truthful? 
 
 Hotchkiss. Well, since you ask me, I do. Surely 
 it's the very first qualification for tolerable social inter- 
 course. 
 
 The General [markedly] I hope you will always 
 tell me the truth, my darling, at all events. 
 
 Edith [complacently coming to the fireplace] You 
 can depend on me for that, Uncle Boxer. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Are you sure you have any adequate 
 idea of what the truth about a military man really is ? 
 
 Reginald [aggressively] Whats the truth about you, 
 I wonder? 
 
 Hotchkiss. Oh, quite unfit for publication in its en-
 
 Getting Married 135 
 
 tirety. If Miss Bridgenorth begins telling it, I shall 
 have to leave the room. 
 
 Reginald. I'm not at all surprised to hear it. [Ris- 
 ing] But whats it got to do with our business here 
 to-day? Is it you thats going to be married or is it 
 Edith? 
 
 Hotchkiss. I'm so sorry. I get so interested in my- 
 self that I thrust myself into the front of every discus- 
 sion in the most insufferable way. [Reginald, with an 
 exclamation of disgust, crosses the kitchen towards the 
 study door~\. But, my dear Rejjy, are you quite sure 
 that Miss Bridgenorth is going to be married? Arc 
 you, Miss Bridgenorth? 
 
 Before Edith has time to answer her mother return* 
 with Leo and Lesbia. 
 
 Leo. Yes, here she is, of course. I told you I heard 
 her dash downstairs. [She comes to the end of the table 
 next the fireplace], 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [transfixed in the middle of the 
 kitchen] And Cecil! ! 
 
 Lesbia. And Sin j on! 
 
 The Bishop. Edith wishes to speak to Cecil. [Mrs 
 Bridgenorth comes to him. Lesbia goes into the garden, 
 as before]. Let us gc into my study. 
 
 Leo. But she must come and dress. Look at the 
 hour! 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Come, Leo dear. [Leo follows 
 her reluctantly. They are about to go into the study 
 with the Bishop], 
 
 Hotchkiss. Do you know, Miss Bridgenorth, I 
 should most awfully like to hear what you have to say to 
 poor Cecil. 
 
 Reginald [scandalised] Well! 
 
 Edith. Who is poor Cecil, pray? 
 
 Hotchkiss. One always calls a man that on his wed- 
 ding morning: I dont know why. I'm his best man, you
 
 136 Getting Married 
 
 know. Dont you think it gives me a certain right to be 
 present in Cecil's interest? 
 
 The General [gravely] There is such a thing as 
 delicacy, Mr Hotchkiss. 
 
 Hotchkiss. There is such a thing as curiosity, Gen- 
 eral. 
 
 The General [furious] Delicacy is thrown away 
 here, Alfred. Edith: you had better take Sykes into the 
 study. 
 
 The group at the study door breaks up. The General 
 flings himself into the last chair on the long side of the 
 table, near the garden door. Leo sits at the end, next 
 him, and Mrs Bridgenorth next Leo. Reginald returns 
 to the oak chest, to be near Leo; and the Bishop goes to 
 his wife and stands by her. 
 
 Hotchkiss [to Edith] Of course I'll go if you wish 
 me to. But Cecil's objection to go through with it was 
 so entirely on public grounds — 
 
 Edith [with quick suspicion] His objection? 
 
 Sykes. Sin j on: you have no right to say that. I ex- 
 pressly said that I'm ready to go through with it. 
 
 Edith. Cecil: do you mean to say that you have 
 been raising difficulties about our marriage? 
 
 Sykes. I raise no difficulty. But I do beg you to be 
 careful what you say about people. You must remember, 
 my dear, that when we are married I shall be responsi- 
 ble for everything you say. Only last week you said on 
 a public platform that Slattox and Chinnery were scoun- 
 drels. They could have got a thousand pounds damages 
 apiece from me for that if we'd been married at the 
 time. 
 
 Edith [austerely~\ I never said anything of the sort. 
 I never stoop to mere vituperation : what would my girls 
 say of me if I did? I chose my words most carefully. I 
 said they were tyrants, liars, and thieves; and so they 
 are. Slattox is even worse.
 
 Getting Married 137 
 
 Hotchkiss. I'm afraid that would be at least five 
 thousand pounds. 
 
 Sykes. If it were only myself, I shouldnt care. But 
 my mother and sisters ! Ive no right to sacrifice 
 them. 
 
 Edith. You neednt be alarmed. I'm not going to be 
 married. 
 
 All the rest. Not! 
 
 Sykes [in consternation] Edith! Are you throwing 
 me over? 
 
 Edith. How can I ? you have been beforehand with 
 me. 
 
 Sykes.. On my honor, no. All I said was that I 
 didnt know the law when I asked you to be my 
 wife. 
 
 Edith. And you wouldnt have asked me if you had. 
 Is that it? 
 
 Sykes. No. I should have asked you for my sake to 
 be a little more careful — not to ruin me uselessly. 
 
 Edith. You think the truth useless? 
 
 Hotchkiss. Much worse than useless, I assure you. 
 Frequently most mischievous. 
 
 Edith. Sin j on: hold your tongue. You are a chat- 
 terbox and a fool! 
 
 t 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth ) r t t jm f Edith ! 
 
 I [shocked] | My lj 
 
 The Bishop [ l— « J | My love! 
 
 Hotchkiss [mildly] I shall not take an action, 
 Cecil. 
 
 Edith [to Hotchkiss] Sorry; but you are old enough 
 to know better. [To the others] And now since there is 
 to be no wedding, we had better get back to our work. 
 Mamma : will you tell Collins to cut up the wedding cake 
 into thirty-three pieces for the club girls ? My not being 
 married is no reason why they should be disappointed. V 
 [She turns to go].
 
 138 Getting Married 
 
 Hotchkis8 [gallantly] If youll allow me to take 
 Cecil's place, Miss Bridgenorth — 
 
 Leo. Sin j on! 
 
 Hotchkiss. Oh, I forgot. I beg your pardon. [To 
 Edith, apologetically] A prior engagement. 
 
 Edith. What! You and Leo! I thought so. Well, 
 hadnt you two better get married at once? I dont ap- 
 prove of long engagements. The breakfast's ready: the 
 cake's ready: everything's ready. I'll lend Leo my veil 
 and things. 
 
 The Bishop. I'm afraid they must wait until the 
 decree is made absolute, my dear. And the license is not 
 transferable. 
 
 Edith. Oh well, it cant be helped. Is there any- 
 thing else before I go off to the Club? 
 
 Sykes. You dont seem much disappointed, Edith. I 
 cant help saying that much. 
 
 Edith. And you cant help looking enormously re- 
 lieved, Cecil. We shant be any worse friends, shall we? 
 
 Sykes [distractedly] Of course not. Still — I'm per- 
 fectly ready — at least — if it were not for my mother — 
 Oh, I dont know what to do. Ive been so fond of you ; 
 and when the worry of the wedding was over I should 
 ^have been so fond of you again — 
 
 Edith [petting him] Come, come! dont make a scene, 
 dear. Youre quite right. I dont think a woman doing 
 public work ought to get married unless her husband 
 feels about it as she does. I dont blame you at all for 
 throwing me over. 
 
 Reginald [bouncing off the chest, and passing behind 
 the General to the other end of the table] No: dash it! 
 I'm not going to stand this. Why is the man always to 
 be put in the wrong? Be honest, Edith. Why werent 
 you dressed? Were you going to throw him over? If 
 you were, take your fair share of the blame; and dont 
 put it all on him.
 
 Getting Married 139 
 
 Hotchkiss [sweetly] Would it not be better — 
 
 Reginald [violently] Now look here, Hotchkiss. 
 Who asked you to cut in? Is your name Edith? Am I 
 your uncle? 
 
 Hotchkiss. I wish you were: I should like to have 
 an uncle, Reginald. 
 
 Reginald. Yah! Sykes: are you ready to marry 
 Edith or are you not? 
 
 Sykes. Ive already said that I'm quite ready. A 
 promise is a promise. 
 
 Reginald. We dont want to know whether a prom- 
 ise is a promise or not. Cant you answer yes or no with- 
 out spoiling it and setting Hotchkiss here grinning like 
 a Cheshire cat? If she puts on her veil and goes to 
 Church, will you marry her? 
 
 Sykes. Certainly. Yes. 
 
 Reginald. Thats all right. Now, Edie, put on your 
 veil and off with you to the church. The bridegroom's 
 waiting. [He sits down at the table], 
 
 Edith. Is it understood that Slattox and Chinnery 
 are liars and thieves, and that I hope by next Wednesday 
 to have in my hands conclusive evidence that Slattox is 
 something much worse? 
 
 Sykes. I made no conditions as to that when I pro- 
 posed to you; and now I cant go back. I hope Provi- 
 dence will spare my poor mother. I say again I'm ready 
 to marry you. 
 
 Edith. Then I think you shew great weakness of 
 character; and instead of taking advantage of it I shall 
 set you a better example. I want to know is this true. 
 [She produces a pamphlet and takes it to the Bishop; 
 then sits down between Hotchkiss and her mother]. 
 
 The Bishop [reading the title] Do you know what 
 
 YOU ARE GOING TO DO? By A WOMAN WHO HAS DONE IT. 
 
 May I ask, my dear, what she did? 
 
 Edith. She got married. When she had three chil-
 
 140 Getting Married 
 
 dren — the eldest only four years old — her husband com- 
 mitted a murder, and then attempted to commit suicide 
 but only succeeded in disfiguring himself. Instead of 
 hanging him, they sent him to penal servitude for life, 
 for the sake, they said, of his wife and infant children. 
 And she could not get a divorce from that horrible mur- 
 derer. They would not even keep him imprisoned for 
 life. For twenty years she had to live singly, bringing 
 up her children by her own work, and knowing that just 
 when they were grown up and beginning life, this dread- 
 ful creature would be let out to disgrace them all, and 
 prevent the two girls getting decently married, and drive 
 the son out of the country perhaps. Is that really the 
 law? (Am I to understand that if Cecil commits a mur- 
 der, or forges, or steals, or becomes an atheist, I cant get 
 divorced from him?^ 
 
 The Bishop. Yes, my dear. That is so. You must 
 take him for better for worse. 
 
 Edith. Then I most certainly refuse to enter into 
 any such wicked contract. What sort of servants? what 
 sort of friends? what sort of Prime Ministers should we 
 have if we took them for better for worse for all their 
 lives? We should simply encourage them in every sort 
 of wickedness. Surely my husband's conduct is of more 
 importance to me than Mr Balfour's or Mr Asquith's. 
 If I had known the law I would never have consented. 
 I dont believe any woman would if she realized what 
 she was doing. 
 
 Sykes. But I'm not going to commit murder. 
 Edith. How do you know? Ive sometimes wanted 
 to murder Slattox. Have ycu rtv n v wanted to murder 
 somebody, Uncle Rejjy? 
 
 Reginald [at Hotchkiss, with intense expression] 
 Yes. 
 
 Leo. Rejjy! 
 
 Reginald. I said yes; and I mean yes. There was
 
 Getting Married 141 
 
 one night, Hotchkiss, when I jolly near shot yon and 
 Leo and finished up with myself; and thats the truth. 
 
 Leo [suddenly whimpering] Oh Eejjy [she runs to 
 him and hisses him], 
 
 Reginald [wrathfully] Be off. [She returns weep- 
 ing to her seat], 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [petting Leo, but speaking to the 
 company at large] But isnt all this great nonsense? 
 What likelihood is there of any of us committing a 
 crime ? 
 
 Hotchkiss. Oh yes, I assure you. I went into the 
 matter once very carefully; and I found things I 
 have actually done — things that everybody does, I im- 
 agine — would expose me, if I were found out and prose- 
 cuted, to ten years' penal servitude, two years hard 
 labor, and the loss of all civil rights. Not counting that 
 I'm a private trustee, and, like all private trustees, a 
 fraudulent one. Otherwise, the widow for whom I am 
 trustee would starve occasionally, and the children get 
 no education. And I'm probably as honest a man as 
 any here. 
 
 The General [outraged[ Do you imply that I have 
 been guilty of conduct that would expose me to penal 
 servitude ? 
 
 Hotchkiss. I should think it quite likely. But of 
 course I dont know. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. But bless me ! marriage is not a 
 question of law, is it? Have you children no affection 
 for one another? Surely thats enough? 
 
 Hotchkiss. If it's enough, why get married? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Stuff, Sinjon! Of course people 
 must get married. [Uneasily] Alfred: why dont you 
 say something? Surely youre not going to let this go on. 
 
 The General. Ive been waiting for the last twenty 
 minutes, Alfred, in amazement ! in stupefaction ! to hear 
 you put a stop to all this. We look to you: it's your
 
 142 Getting Married 
 
 place, your office, your duty. Exert your authority at 
 once. 
 
 The Bishop. You must give the devil fair play, 
 Boxer. Until you have heard and weighed his case you 
 have no right to condemn him. I'm sorry you hav^ been 
 kept waiting twenty minutes; but I myself have waited 
 twenty years for this to happen. Ive often wrestled 
 with the temptation to pray that it might not happen in 
 my own household. Perhaps it was a presentiment that 
 it might become a part of our old Bridgenorth burden 
 that made me warn our Governments so earnestly that 
 unless the law of marriage were first made human, it 
 could never become divine. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Oh, do be sensible about this. 
 People must get married. What would you have said if 
 Cecil's parents had not been married? 
 
 The Bishop. They were not, my dear. 
 
 Hotchkiss. 
 
 Reginald. 
 
 The General. 
 
 Leo. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. 
 
 >< 
 
 j v. 
 
 Hallo ! 
 
 What d'ye mean? 
 
 Eh? 
 
 Not married! 
 
 What! 
 
 Sykes [rising in amazement] What on earth do you 
 mean, Bishop? My parents were married. 
 
 Hotchkiss. You cant remember, Cecil. 
 
 Sykes. Well, I never asked my mother to shew me 
 her marriage lines, if thats what you mean. What man 
 ever has? I never suspected — I never knew — Are you 
 joking? Or have we all gone mad? 
 
 The Bishop. Dont be alarmed, Cecil. Let me ex- 
 plain. Your parents were not Anglicans. You were 
 not, I think, Anglican yourself, until your second year at 
 Oxford. They were Positivists. They went through the 
 Positivist ceremony at Newton Hall in Fetter Lane after 
 entering into the civil contract before the Registrar of
 
 Getting Married 143 
 
 the West Strand District. I ask you, as an Anglican 
 Catholic, was that a marriage? 
 
 Sykes [overwhelmed] Great Heavens, no! a thou- 
 sand times, no. I never thought of that. I'm a child 
 of sin. [He collapses into the railed chair]. 
 
 The Bishop. Oh, come, come ! You are no more a 
 child of sin than any Jew, or Mohammedan, or Noncon- 
 formist, or anyone else born outside the Church. But 
 you see how it affects my view of the situation. To me 
 there is only one marriage that is holy: the Church's sac- 
 rament of marriage. Outside that } I can recognize no 
 distinction between one civil contract and another. 
 There was a time when all marriages were made in 
 Heaven. But because the Church was unwise and would 
 not make its ordinances reasonable, its power over men 
 and women was taken away from it; and marriages gave 
 place to contracts at a registry office. And now that our 
 Governments refuse to make these contracts reasonable, 
 those whom we in our blindness drove out of the Church 
 will be driven out of the registry office; and we shall 
 have the history of Ancient Rome repeated. We shall be 
 joined by our solicitors for seven, fourteen, or twenty- 
 one years — or perhaps months. Deeds of partnership 
 will replace the old vows. 
 
 The General. Would you, a Bishop, approve of 
 such partnerships? 
 
 The Bishop. Do you think that I, a Bishop, approve 
 of the Deceased Wife's Sister Act? That did not pre- 
 vent its becoming law. 
 
 The General. But when the Government sounded 
 you as to whether youd marry a man to his deceased 
 wife's sister you very naturally and properly told them 
 youd see them damned first. 
 
 The Bishop [horrified] No, no, really, Boxer! You 
 must not — 
 
 The General [impatiently] Oh, of course I dont
 
 144 Getting Married 
 
 mean that vou used those words. But that was the 
 meaning and the spirit of it. 
 
 The Bishop. Not the spirit, Boxer, I protest. But 
 never mind that. The point is that State marriage is 
 already divorced from Church marriage. The relations 
 between Leo and Rejjy and Sinjon are perfectly legal; 
 but do you expect me, as a Bishop, to approve of them? 
 
 The General. I dont defend Reginald. He should 
 have kicked you out of the house, Mr. Hotchkiss. 
 
 Reginald [ming] How could I kick him out of the 
 house? He's stronger than me: he could have kicked me 
 out if it came to that. He did kick me out: what else 
 was it but kicking out, to take my wife's affections from 
 me and establish himself in my place? [He comes to 
 the hearth], 
 
 Hotchkiss. I protest, Reginald, I said all that a 
 man could to prevent the smash. 
 
 Reginald. Oh, I know you did: I dont blame you: 
 people dont do these things to one another: they happen 
 and they cant be helped. What was I to do ? I was old : 
 she was young. I was dull: he was brilliant. I had a 
 face like a walnut: he had a face like a mushroom. I 
 was as glad to have him in the house as she was: he 
 amused me. And we were a couple of fools: he gave 
 us good advice — told us what to do when we didnt know. 
 She found out that I wasnt any use to her and he was; 
 so she nabbed him and gave me the chuck. 
 
 Leo. If you dont stop talking in that disgraceful 
 way about our married life, I'll leave the room and never 
 speak to you again. 
 
 Reginald. Youre not going to speak to me again, 
 anyhow, are you? Do you suppose I'm going to visit 
 you when you marry him ? 
 
 Hotchkiss. I hope so. Surely youre not going to be 
 vindictive, Rejjy. Besides, youll have all the advan- 
 tages I formerly enjoyed. Youll be the visitor, the re-
 
 Getting Married 145 
 
 lief, the new face, the fresh news, the hopeless attach- 
 ment: I shall only he the husband. 
 
 Reginald [savagely] Will you tell me this, any of 
 you? how is it that we always get talking about Hotch- 
 kiss when our business is about Edith? [He fumes up 
 the kitchen to the tower and back to his chair], 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Will somebody tell me how the 
 world is to go on if nobody is to get married? 
 
 Sykes. Will somebody tell me what an honorable 
 man and a sincere Anglican is to propose to a woman 
 whom he loves and who loves him and wont marry him? 
 
 Leo. Will somebody tell me how I'm to arrange to 
 take care of Rejjy when I'm married to Sinjon. Rejjy 
 must not be allowed to marry anyone else, especially 
 that odious nasty creature that told all those wicked lies 
 about him in Court.. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Let us draw up the first English part- 
 nership deed. 
 
 Leo. For shame, Sinjon! 
 
 The Bishop. Somebody must begin, my dear. Ive 
 a very strong suspicion that when it is drawn up it will 
 be so much worse than the existing law that you will all 
 prefer getting married. We shall therefore be doing 
 the greatest possible service to morality by just trying 
 how the new system would work. 
 
 Lesbia [suddenly reminding them of her forgotten 
 presence as she stands thoughtfully in the garden door- 
 way] Ive been thinking. 
 
 The Bishop [to Hotchkiss] Nothing like making 
 people think: is there, Sinjon? 
 
 Lesbia [coming to the table, on the General* s left] 
 A woman has no right to refuse motherhood. That is 
 clear, after the statistics given in The Times by Mr Sid- 
 ney Webb. 
 
 The General. Mr Webb has nothing to do with it. 
 It is the Voice of Nature.
 
 146 Getting Married 
 
 Lesbia. But if she is an English lady it is her right 
 and her duty to stand out for honorable conditions. If 
 we can agree on the conditions, I am willing to enter 
 into an alliance with Boxer. 
 
 The General staggers to his feet, momentarily stupent 
 and speechless, 
 
 Edith [rising] And I with Cecil. 
 
 Leo [rising] And I with Rejjy and St John. 
 
 The General [aghast] An alliance! Do you mean 
 a — a — a — 
 
 Reginald. She only means bigamy, as I understand 
 her. 
 
 The General. Alfred: how long more are you 
 going to stand there and countenance this lunacy? 
 Is it a horrible dream or am I awake? In the name 
 of common sense and sanity, let us go back to real 
 life— 
 
 Collins comes in through the tower, in alderman's 
 robes. The ladies who are standing sit down hastily, and 
 look as unconcerned as possible. 
 
 Collins. Sorry to hurry you, my lord; but the 
 Church has been full this hour past; and the organist 
 has played all the wedding music in Lohengrin three 
 times over. 
 
 The General. The very man we want. Alfred: 
 I'm not equal to this crisis. You are not equal to it. 
 The Army has failed. The Church has failed. I shall 
 put aside all idle social distinctions and appeal to the 
 Municipality. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Do, Boxer. He is sure to get 
 us out of this difficulty. 
 
 Collins, a little puzzled, comes forward affably to 
 Hotchhiss's left. 
 
 Hotchkiss [rising, impressed by the aldermanic 
 gown] Ive not had the pleasure. Will you introduce 
 me?
 
 Getting Married 147 
 
 Collins [confidentially] All right, sir. Only the 
 greengrocer, sir, in charge of the wedding breakfast. 
 Mr Alderman Collins, sir, when I'm in my gown. 
 
 Hotchkiss [staggered] Very pleased indeed [he sits 
 down again]. 
 
 The Bishop. Personally I value the counsel of my 
 old friend, Mr Alderman Collins, very highly. If Edith 
 and Cecil will allow him — 
 
 Edith. Collins has known me from my childhood: I'm 
 sure he will agree with me. 
 
 Collins. Yes, miss: you may depend on me for that. 
 Might I ask what the difficulty is? 
 
 Edith. Simply this. Do you expect me to get mar- 
 ried in the existing state of the law ? 
 
 Sykes [rising and coming to Collin*s left elbow] I 
 put it to you as a sensible man: is it any worse for her 
 than for me? 
 
 Reginald [leaving his place and thrusting himself 
 between Collins and Sykes, who returns to his chair] 
 Thats not the point. Let this be understood, Mr Collins. 
 It's not the man who is backing out: it's the woman. 
 [He posts himself on the hearth], 
 
 Lesbia. We do not admit that, Collins. The women 
 are perfectly ready to make a reasonable arrangement. 
 
 Leo. With both men. 
 
 The General. The case is now before you, Mr Col- 
 lins. And I put it to you as one man to another : did you 
 ever hear such crazy nonsense? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. The world must go on, mustnt 
 it, Collins? 
 
 Collins [snatching at this, the first intelligible propo- 
 sition he has heard] Oh, the world will go on, maam: 
 dont you be afraid of that. It aint so easy to stop it as 
 the earnest kind of people think. 
 
 Edith. I knew you would agree with me, Collins. 
 Thank you.
 
 148 Getting Married 
 
 Hotchkiss. Have you the least idea of what they 
 are talking about, Mr Alderman? 
 
 Collins. Oh, thats all right, sir. The particulars 
 dont matter. I never read the report of a Committee: 
 after all, what can they say that you dont know? You 
 pick it up as they go on talking. \He goes to the corner 
 of the table and speaks across it to the company]. Well, 
 my Lord and Miss Edith and Madam and Gentlemen, 
 it's like this. Marriage is tolerable enough in its way 
 if youre easygoing and dont expect too much from it. 
 But it doesnt bear thinking about. The great thing is 
 to get the young people tied up before they know what 
 theyre letting themselves in for. Theres Miss Lesbia 
 now. She waited till she started thinking about it; and 
 then it was all over. If you once start arguing, Miss 
 Edith and Mr Sykes, youll never get married. Go and 
 get married first: youll have plenty of arguing after- 
 wards, miss, believe me. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Your warning comes too late. Theyve 
 started arguing already. 
 
 The General. But you dont take in the full — well, 
 I dont wish to exaggerate; but the only word I can find 
 is the full horror of the situation. These ladies not only 
 refuse our honorable offers, but as I understand it — and 
 I'm sure I beg your pardon most heartily, Lesbia, if I'm 
 wrong, as I hope I am — they actually call on us to enter 
 into — I'm sorry to use the expression; but what can I 
 say? — into alliances with them under contracts to be 
 drawn up by our confounded solicitors. 
 
 Collins. Dear me, General: thats something new 
 when the parties belong to the same class. 
 
 The Bishop. Not new, Collins. The Romans 
 did it. 
 
 Collins. Yes: they would, them Romans. When 
 youre in Rome do as the Romans do, is an old saying. 
 But we're not in Rome at present, my lord.
 
 Getting Married 149 
 
 The Bishop. We have got into many of their ways. 
 What do you think of the contract system, Collins? 
 
 Collins. Well, my lord, when theres a question of 
 a contract, I always say, shew it to me on paper. If it's 
 to be talk, let it be talk ; but if it's to be a contract, down 
 with it in black and white; and then we shall know what 
 we're about. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Quite right, Mr Alderman. Let us 
 draft it at once. May I go into the study for writing 
 materials, Bishop? 
 
 The Bishop. Do, Sin j on. 
 
 Hotchkiss goes into the library. 
 
 Collins. If I might point out a difficulty, my lord — 
 
 The Bishop. Certainly. [He goes to the fourth 
 chair from the General's left, but before sitting down, 
 courteously points to the chair at the end of the table 
 next the hearth]. Wont you sit down, Mr Alderman? 
 [Collins, very appreciative of the Bishop's distinguished 
 consideration, sits down. The Bishop then takes his 
 seat], 
 
 Collins. We are at present six men to four ladies. 
 Thats not fair. 
 
 Reginald. Not fair to the men, you mean. 
 
 Leo. Oh! Rejjy has said something clever! Can I 
 be mistaken in him? 
 
 Hotchkiss comes back with a blotter and some paper. 
 He takes the vacant place in the middle of the table be- 
 tween Lesbia and the Bishop. 
 
 Collins. I tell you the truth, my lord and ladies and 
 gentlemen: I dont trust my judgment on this subject. 
 Theres a certain lady that I always consult on delicate 
 points like this. She has a very exceptional experience, 
 and a wonderful temperament and instinct in affairs of 
 the heart. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Excuse me, Mr Alderman: I'm a snob; 
 and I warn you that theres no use consulting anyone who
 
 ! 
 
 150 Getting Married 
 
 will not advise us frankly on class lines. Marria ge is 
 good enough for the lower classes.; .they have facilities 
 for desertion that are denied to us. What is the social 
 position of this lady? 
 
 Collins. The highest in the borough, sir. She is 
 the Mayoress. But you need not stand in awe of her, 
 sir. She is my sister-in-law. [To the Bishop] Ive 
 often spoken of her to your lady, my lord. [To Mrs 
 Bridgenorth] Mrs George, maam. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [startled] Do you mean to say, 
 Collins, that Mrs George is a real person? 
 
 Collins [equally startled] Didnt you believe in her, 
 maam? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Never for a moment. 
 The Bishop. We always thought that Mrs George 
 was too good to be true. I still dont believe in her, Col- 
 lins. You must produce her if you are to convince me. 
 Collins [overwhelmed] Well, I'm so taken aback by 
 this that — Well I never ! ! ! Why! shes at the church 
 at this moment, waiting to see the wedding. 
 
 The Bishop. Then produce her. [Collins shakes his 
 
 head]. Come, Collins! confess. Theres no such person. 
 
 Collins. There is, my lord: there is, I assure you. 
 
 You ask George. It's true / cant produce her; but you 
 
 can, my lord. 
 
 The Bishop. I! 
 
 Collins. Yes, my lord, you. For some reason that I 
 never could make out, she has forbidden me to talk about 
 you, or to let her meet you. Ive asked her to come here 
 of a wedding morning to help with the flowers or the 
 like; and she has always refused. But if you order her 
 to come as her Bishop, she'll come. She has some very 
 strange fancies, has Mrs George. Send your ring to 
 her, my lord — the official ring — send it by some very 
 stylish gentleman — perhaps Mr Hotchkiss here would be 
 good enough to take it — and she'll come.
 
 Getting Married 151 
 
 The Bishop [taking off his ring and handing it to 
 Hotchkiss] Oblige me by undertaking the mission. 
 
 Hotchkiss. But how am I to know the lady? 
 
 Collins. She has gone to the church in state, sir, 
 and will be attended by a Beadle with a mace. He will 
 point her out to you; and he will take the front seat of 
 the carriage on the way back. 
 
 Hotchkiss. No, by heavens! Forgive me, Bishop; 
 but you are asking too much. I ran away from the 
 Boers because I was a snob. I run away from the 
 Beadle for the same reason. I absolutely decline the 
 mission. 
 
 The General [rising impressively] Be good enough 
 to give me that ring, Mr Hotchkiss. 
 
 Hotchkiss. With pleasure. [He hands it to him]. 
 
 The General. I shall have the great pleasure, Mr 
 Alderman, in waiting on the Mayoress with the Bishop's 
 orders; and I shall be proud to return with municipal 
 honors. [He stalks out gallantly, Collins rising for a 
 moment to bow to him with marked dignity]. 
 
 Reginald. Boxer is rather a fine old josser in his 
 way. 
 
 Hotchkiss. His uniform gives him an unfair ad- 
 vantage. He will take all the attention off the 
 Beadle. 
 
 Collins. I think it would be as well, my lord, to go 
 on with the contract while we're waiting. The truth is, 
 we shall none of us have much of a look-in when Mrs 
 George comes ; so we had better finish the writing part of 
 the business before she arrives. 
 
 Hotchkiss. I think I have the preliminaries down 
 all right. [Reading] ' Memorandum of Agreement 
 made this day of blank blank between blank blank of 
 blank blank in the County of blank, Esquire, hereinafter 
 called the Gentleman, of the one part, and blank blank 
 of blank in the County of blank, hereinafter called the
 
 152 Getting Married 
 
 Lady, of tl e other part, whereby it is declared and agreed 
 as follows.' 
 
 Leo [rising] You might remember your manners, 
 Sin j on. The lady comes first. [She goes behind him 
 and stoops to look at the draft over his shoulder]. 
 
 Hotchkiss. To be sure. I beg your pardon. [He 
 alters the draft], 
 
 Leo. And you have got only one lady and one gen- 
 tleman. There ought to be two gentlemen. 
 
 Collins. Oh, thats a mere matter of form, maam. 
 Any number of ladies or gentlemen can be put in. 
 
 Leo. Not any number of ladies. Only one lady. 
 Besides, that creature wasnt a lady. 
 
 Reginald. You shut your head, Leo. This is a gen- 
 eral sort of contract for everybody: it's not your con- 
 tract. 
 
 Leo. Then what use is it to me? 
 
 Hotchkiss. You will get some hints from it for your 
 own contract. 
 
 Edith. I hope there will be no hinting. Let us have 
 the plain straightforward truth and nothing but the 
 truth. 
 
 Collins. Yes, yes, miss : it will be all right. Theres 
 nothing underhand, I assure you. It's a model agree- 
 ment, as it were. 
 
 Edith [unconvinced] I hope so. 
 
 Hotchkiss. What is the first clause in an agreement, 
 usually? You know, Mr Alderman. 
 
 Collins [at a loss] Well, sir, the Town Clerk always 
 sees to that. Ive got out of the habit of thinking for 
 myself in these little matters. Perhaps his lordship 
 knows. 
 
 The Bishop. I'm sorry to say I dont. But Soames 
 will know. Alice, where is Soames? 
 
 Hotchkiss. He's in there [pointing to the study]. 
 
 The Bishop [to his wife] Coax him to join us, my
 
 Getting Married 153 
 
 love. [Mrs Bridgenorth goes into the study}. Soames 
 is my chaplain, Mr Collins. The great difficulty about 
 Bishops in the Church of England to-day is that the af- 
 fairs of the diocese moke it necessary that a Bishop 
 should be before everything a man of business, capable 
 of sticking to his desk for sixteen hours a day. But the 
 result of having Bishops of this sort is that the spiritual 
 interests of the Church, and its influence on the souls 
 and imaginations of the people, very soon begins to go 
 rapidly to the devil — 
 
 Edith [shocked] Papa! 
 
 The Bishop. I am speaking technically, not in Box- 
 er's manner. Indeed the Bishops themselves went so far 
 in that direction that they gained a reputation for being 
 spiritually the stupidest men in the country and commer- 
 cially the sharpest. I found a way out of this difficulty. 
 Soames was my solicitor. I found that Soames, though a 
 very capable man of business, had a romantic secret his- 
 tory. His father was an eminent Nonconformist divine 
 who habitually spoke of the Church of England as The 
 Scarlet Woman. Soames became secretly converted to 
 Anglicanism at the age of fifteen. He longed to take 
 holy orders, but didnt dare to, because his father had a 
 weak heart and habitually threatened to drop dead if 
 anybody hurt his feelings. You may have noticed that 
 people with weak hearts are the tyrants of English fam- 
 ily life. So poor Soames had to become a solicitor. 
 When his father died — by a curious stroke of poetic jus- 
 tice he died of scarlet fever, and was found to have had 
 a perfectly sound heart — I ordained Soames and made 
 him my chaplain. He is now quite happy. He is a celi- 
 bate; fasts strictly on Fridays and throughout Lent; 
 wears a cassock and biretta ; and has more legal business 
 to do than ever he had in his old office in Ely Place. 
 And he sets me free for the spiritual and scholarly pur- 
 suits proper to a Bishop.
 
 154 Getting Married 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [coining back from the study rvith 
 a knitting basket] Here he is. [She resumes her seat, 
 and knits], 
 
 Soames comes in in cassock and biretta. He salutes 
 the company by blessing them with two fingers. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Take my place, Mr Soames. [He gives 
 up his chair to him, and retires to the oak chest, on which 
 he seats himself]. 
 
 The Bishop. No longer Mr Soames, Sin j on. Father 
 Anthony. 
 
 Soames [taking his seat] I was christened Oliver 
 Cromwell Soames. My father had no right to do it. I 
 have taken the name of Anthony. When you become 
 parents, young gentlemen, be very careful not to label 
 a helpless child with views which it may come to hold in 
 abhorrence. 
 
 The Bishop. Has Alice explained to you the nature 
 of the document we are drafting? 
 
 Soames. She has indeed. ' 
 
 Lesbia. That sounds as if you disapproved. 
 
 Soames. It is not for me to approve or disapprove. 
 I do the work that comes to my hand from my ecclesias- 
 tical superior. 
 
 The Bishop. Dont be uncharitable, Anthony. You 
 must give us your best advice. 
 
 Soames. My advice to you all is to do your duty by 
 taking the Christian vows of celibacy and poverty. The 
 Church was founded to put an end to marriage and to 
 put an end to property. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. But how could the world go on, 
 Anthony ? 
 
 Soames. Do your duty and see. Doing your duty is 
 your business: keeping the world going is in higher 
 hands. 
 
 Lesbia. Anthony: youre impossible. 
 
 Soames [taking up his pen] You wont take my ad-
 
 Getting M^S^i^^^V- 
 
 MTV*" K*^^ 
 
 vice. I didnt expect you would. Well, I await your 
 instructions. 
 
 Reginald. We got stuck on the first clause. What 
 should we begin with? 
 
 Soames. It is usual to begin with the term of the 
 contract. 
 
 Edith. What does that mean? 
 
 Soames. The term of years for which it is to hold 
 good. 
 
 Leo. But this is a marriage contract. 
 
 Soames. Is the marriage to be for a year, a week, or 
 a day? 
 
 Reginald. Come, I say, Anthony! Youre worse 
 than any of us. A day ! 
 
 Soames. Off the path is off the path. An inch or a 
 mile: what does it matter? 
 
 Leo. If the marriage is not to be for ever, I'll have 
 nothing to do with it. I call it immoral to have a mar- 
 riage for a term of years. If the people dont like it they 
 can get divorced. 
 
 Reginald. It ought to be for just as long as the two 
 people like. Thats what I say. 
 
 Collins. They may not agree on the point, sir. It's 
 often fast with one and loose with the other. 
 
 Lesbia. I should say for as long as the man behaves 
 himself. 
 
 The Bishop. Suppose the woman doesnt behave her- 
 self? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. The woman may have lost all 
 her chances of a good marriage with anybody else. She 
 should not be cast adrift. 
 
 Reginald. So may the man ! What about his 
 home? 
 
 Leo. The wife ought to keep an eye on him, and see 
 that he is comfortable and takes care of himself properly. 
 The other man wont want her all the time.
 
 ^ 
 
 >: 
 
 
 .^•156 Getting Married 
 
 Lesbia. There may not be another man. 
 Leo. Then why on earth should she leave him? 
 Lesbia. Because she wants to. 
 
 Leo. Oh, if people are going to be let do what they 
 want to, then I call it simple immorality. [She goes 
 indignantly to the oak chest, and perches herself on it 
 close beside Hotchkiss], 
 
 Reginald [watching them sourly] You do it your- 
 self, dont you? 
 
 Leo. Oh, thats quite different. Dont make foolish 
 witticisms, Rejjy. 
 
 The Bishop. We dont seem to be getting on. What 
 do you say, Mr Alderman? 
 
 Collins. Well, my lord, you see people do persist in 
 y / talking as if marriages was all of one sort. But theres 
 *^ / almost as many different sorts of marriages as theres dif- 
 ferent sorts of people. Theres the young things that 
 \ marry for love, not knowing what theyre doing, and the 
 \ old things that marry for money and comfort and com- 
 •panionship. Theres the people that marry for children. 
 ) Theres the people that dont intend to have children and 
 / that arnt fit to have them. Theres the people that marry 
 / because theyre so much run after by the other sex that 
 ^n they have to put a stop to it somehow: Theres the peo- 
 ple that want to try a new experience, and the people 
 /that want to have done with experiences. How are you 
 / to please them all? Why, youll want half a dozen dif- 
 j ferent sorts of contract. 
 
 •. The Bishop. Well, if so, let us draw them all up. 
 \* Let us face it. 
 
 Reginald. Why should we be held togeijier whether 
 we like it or not? Thats the question thats at the bottom 
 of it all. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Because of the children, Rejjy. 
 
 Collins. But even then, maam, why should we be 
 
 held together when thats all over — when the girls are
 
 Getting Married 157 
 
 married and the boys out in the world and in business 
 for themselves ? When thats done with, the real work of 
 the marriage is done with. If the two like to stay to- 
 gether, let them stay together. But if not, let them part, 
 as old people in the workhouses do. Theyve had enough 
 of one another. Theyve found one another out. Why 
 should they be tied together to sit there grudging 
 and hating and spiting one another like so many do? 
 Put it twenty years from the birth of the youngest 
 child. 
 
 Soames. How if there be no children? 
 
 Collins. Let em take one another on liking. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Collins! 
 
 Leo. You wicked old man ! 
 
 The Bishop [remonstrating] My dear, my dear! 
 
 Lesbia. And what is a woman to live on, pray, when 
 she is no longer liked, as you call it? 
 
 Soames [with sardonic formality] It is proposed that 
 the term of the agreement be twenty years from the birth 
 of the youngest child when there are children. Any 
 amendment ? 
 
 Leo. I protest. It must be for life. It would not 
 be a marriage at all if it were not for life. 
 
 Soames. Mrs Reginald Bridgenorth proposes life. 
 Any seconder? 
 
 Leo. Dont be soulless, Anthony. 
 
 Lesbia. I have a very important amendment. If 
 there are any children, the man must be cleared com- 
 pletely out of the house for two years on each occasion. 
 At such times he is superfluous, importunate, and ri- 
 diculous. 
 
 Collins. But where is he to go, miss ? 
 
 Lesbia. He can go where he likes as long as he does 
 not bother the mother. 
 
 Reginald. And is she to be left lonely — 
 
 Lesbia. Lonely! With her child. The poor woman
 
 ■> 
 
 158 Getting Married 
 
 would be only too glad to have a moment to herself. 
 Dont be absurd, Rejjy. 
 
 Reginald. That father is to be a wandering 
 wretched outcast, living at his club, and seeing nobody 
 but his friends' wives! 
 
 Lesbia [ironically] Poor fellow! 
 /Hotchkiss. The friends' wives are perhaps the solu- 
 y4ion of the problem. You see, their husbands will also 
 / be outcasts; and the poor ladies will occasionally pine 
 V. for male society. 
 
 /**' Lesbia. There is no reason why a mother should not 
 \ >have male society. What she clearly should not have is 
 \a husband. 
 
 Soames. Anything else, Miss Grantham? 
 
 x \/" Lesbia. Yes : I must have my own separate house, or 
 
 ,>\( my own separate part of a house. Boxer smokes : I cant 
 
 » \ endure tobacco. Boxer believes that an open window 
 
 ^J means death from cold and exposure to the night air: I 
 
 ) must have fresh air always. We can be friends; but we 
 
 I cant live together; and that must be put in the agree- 
 
 / ment. 
 
 Edith. Ive no objection to smoking; and as to open- 
 ing the windows, Cecil will of course have to do what is 
 best for his health. 
 
 The Bishop. Who is to be the judge of that, my 
 dear? You or he? 
 
 Edith. Neither of us. We must do what the doctor 
 orders. 
 
 Reginald. Doctor be — ! 
 Leo [admonitorily] Rejjy! 
 
 Reginald [to Soames] You take my tip, Anthony. 
 Put a clause into that agreement that the doctor is to 
 have no say in the job. It's bad enough for the two peo- 
 ple to be married to one another without their both being 
 married to the doctor as well. 
 
 Lesbia. That reminds me of something very impor- 
 
 f
 
 Getting Married 159 
 
 tant. Boxer believes in vaccinnation : I do not. There 
 must be a clause that I am to decide on such questions 
 as I think best. 
 
 Leo [to the Bishop] Baptism is nearly as important 
 as vaccination: isnt it? 
 
 The Bishop. It used to be considered so, my dear. 
 
 Leo. Well, Sin j on scoffs at it: he says that god- 
 fathers are ridiculous. I must be allowed to decide. 
 
 Reginald. Theyll be his children as well as yours, 
 you know. 
 
 Leo. Dont be indelicate, Rejjy. 
 
 Edith. You are forgetting the very important matter 
 of money. 
 
 Collins. Ah ! Money ! Now we're coming to it ! 
 
 Edith. When I'm married I shall have practically no 
 money except what I shall earn. 
 
 The Bishop. I'm sorry, Cecil. A Bishop's daughter 
 is a poor man's daughter. 
 
 Sykes. But surely you dont imagine that I'm going 
 to let Edith work when we're married. I'm not a rich 
 man; but Ive enough to spare her that; and when my 
 mother dies — 
 
 Edith. What nonsense! Of course I shall work 
 when I'm married. I shall keep your house. 
 
 Sykes. Oh, that! 
 
 Reginald. You call that work? 
 
 Edith. Dont you ? Leo used to do it for nothing; 
 so no doubt you thought it wasnt work at all. Does your 
 present housekeeper do it for nothing? 
 
 Reginald. But it will be part of your duty as 
 a wife. 
 
 Edith. Not under this contract. I'll not have it so. 
 If I'm to keep the house, I shall expect Cecil to pay me 
 at least as well as he would pay a hired housekeeper. 
 I'll not go begging to him every time I want a new dress 
 or a cab fare, as so many women have to do.
 
 160 Getting Married 
 
 Sykes. You know very well I would grudge you 
 nothing, Edie. 
 
 Edith. Then dont grudge me my self-respect and 
 independence. I insist on it in fairness to you, Cecil, 
 because in this way there will be a fund belonging solely 
 to me; and if Slattox takes an action against you for 
 anything I say, you can pay the damages and stop the 
 interest out of my salary. 
 
 Soames. You forget that under this contract he will 
 not be liable, because you will not be his wife in law. 
 
 Edith. Nonsense ! Of course I shall be his wife. 
 
 Collins [his curiosity roused] Is Slattox taking an 
 action against you, miss? Slattox is on the Council with 
 me. Could I settle it? 
 
 Edith. He has not taken an action ; but Cecil says he 
 will. 
 
 Collins. What for, miss, if I may ask? 
 
 Edith. Slattox is a liar and a thief ; and it is my duty 
 to expose him. 
 
 Collins. You surprise me, miss. Of course Slattox 
 is in a manner of speaking a liar. If I may say so with- 
 out offence, we're all liars, if it was only to spare one 
 another's feelings. But I shouldnt call Slattox a thief. 
 He's not all that he should be, perhaps; but he pays his 
 way. 
 
 Edith. If that is only your nice way of saying that 
 Slattox is entirely unfit to have two hundred girls in his 
 power as absolute slaves, then I shall say that too about 
 him at the very next public meeting I address. He steals 
 their wages under pretence of fining them. He steals 
 their food under pretence of buying it for them. He lies 
 when he denies having done it. And he does other 
 things, as you evidently know, Collins. Therefore I give 
 you notice that I shall expose him before all England 
 without the least regard to the consequences to myself. 
 
 Sykes. Or to me?
 
 Getting Married 161 
 
 Edith. I take equal risks. Suppose you felt it to 
 be your duty to shoot Slattox, what would become of me 
 and the children? I'm sure I dont want anybody to be 
 shot : not even Slattox ; but if the public never will take 
 any notice of even the most crying evil until somebody 
 is shot, what are people to do but shoot somebody? 
 
 So ames [inexorably] I'm waiting for my instructions 
 as to the term of the agreement. 
 
 Reginald [impatiently, leaving the hearth and going 
 behind Soames~\ It's no good talking all over the shop 
 like this. We shall be here all day. I propose that the 
 agreement holds good until the parties are divorced. 
 
 Soames. They cant be divorced. They will not be 
 married. 
 
 Reginald. But if they cant be divorced, then this 
 will be worse than marriage. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Of course it will. Do stop this 
 nonsense. Why, who are the children to belong to? 
 
 Lesbia. We have already settled that they are to be- 
 long to the mother. 
 
 Reginald. No: I'm dashed if you have. I'll fight 
 for the ownership of my own children tooth and nail; 
 and so will a good many other fellows, I can tell you. 
 
 Edith. It seems to me that they should be divided 
 between the parents. If Cecil wishes any of the children 
 to be his exclusively, he should pay a certain sum for 
 the risk and trouble of bringing them into the world: say 
 a thousand pounds apiece. The interest on this could go 
 towards the support of the child as long as we live to- 
 gether. But the principal would be my property. In 
 that way, if Cecil took the child away from me, I should 
 at least be paid for what it had cost me. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [putting down her knitting in 
 amazement] Edith! Who ever heard of such a thing!! 
 
 Edith. Well, how else do you propose to settle it? 
 
 The Bishop. There is such a thing as a favorite
 
 162 Getting Married 
 
 child. What about the youngest child — the Benjamin— 
 the child of its parents' matured strength and charity, 
 always better treated and better loved than the unfortu- 
 nate eldest children of their youthful ignorance and wil- 
 fulness? Which parent is to own the youngest child, 
 payment or no payment? 
 
 Collins. Theres a third party, my lord. Theres the 
 child itself. My wife is so fond of her children that 
 they cant call their lives their own. They all run 
 away from home to escape from her. A child hasnt a 
 grown-up person's appetite for affection. A little of 
 it goes a long way with them; and they like a good 
 imitation of it better than the real thing, as every nurse 
 knows. 
 
 Soames. Are you sure that any of us, young or old, 
 like the real thing as well as we like an artistic imitation 
 of it? Is not the real thing accursed? Are not the best 
 beloved always the good actors rather than the true suf- 
 ferers? Is not love always falsified in novels and plays 
 to make it endurable? I have noticed in myself a great 
 delight in pictures of the Saints and of Our Lady; but 
 when I fall under that most terrible curse of the priest's 
 lot, the curse of Joseph pursued by the wife of Potiphar, 
 I am invariably repelled and terrified. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Are you now speaking as a saint, Father 
 Anthony, or as a solicitor? 
 
 Soames. There is no difference. There is not one 
 Christian rule for solicitors and another for saints. Their 
 hearts are alike; and their way of salvation is along the 
 same road. 
 
 The Bishop. But " few there be that find it." Can 
 you find it for us, Anthony? 
 
 Soames. It lies broad before you. It is the way to 
 destruction that is narrow and tortuous. Marriage is an 
 abomination which the Church was founded to cast out 
 and replace by the communion of saints. I learnt that
 
 Getting Married 163 
 
 from every marriage settlement I drew up as a solicitor 
 no less than from inspired revelation. You have set 
 yourselves here to put your sin before you in black and 
 white; and you cant agree upon or endure one article 
 of it. 
 
 Sykes. It's certainly rather odd that the whole thing 
 seems to fall to pieces the moment you touch it. 
 
 The Bishop. You see, when you give the devil fair 
 play he loses his case. He has not been able to produce 
 even the first clause of a working agreement; so I'm 
 afraid we cant wait for him any longer. 
 
 Lesbia. Then the community will have to do without 
 my children. 
 
 Edith. And Cecil will have to do without me. 
 
 Leo [getting off the chest] And I positively will 
 not marry Sin j on if he is not clever enough to make 
 some provision for my looking after Rejjy. [She leaves 
 Hotchhiss, and goes back to her chair ct the end of the 
 table behind Mrs Bridgenorth]. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. And the world will come to an 
 end with this generation, I suppose. 
 
 Collins. Cant nothing be done, my lord? 
 
 The Bishop. You can make divorce reasonable and 
 decent: that is all. 
 
 Lesbia. Thank you for nothing. If you will only 
 make marriage reasonable and decent, you can do as 
 you like about divorce. I have not stated my deepest 
 objection to marriage; and I dont intend to. There are 
 certain rights I will not give any person over me. 
 
 Reginald. Well, I think it jolly hard that a man 
 should support his wife for years, and lose the chance 
 of getting a really good wife, and then have her refuse 
 to be a wife to him. 
 
 Lesbia. I'm not going to discuss it with you, Rejjy. 
 If your sense of personal honor doesnt make you under- 
 stand, nothing will.
 
 164 Getting Married 
 
 So ames [implacably] I'm still awaiting my instruc- 
 tions. 
 
 They look at one another, each waiting for one of the 
 others to suggest something. Silence. 
 
 Reginald [blankly] I suppose, after all, marriage is 
 better than — well, than the usual alternative. 
 
 So ames [turning fiercely on him] What right have 
 you to say so? You know that the sins that are wasting 
 and maddening this unhappy nation are those committed 
 in wedlock. 
 
 Collins. Well, the single ones cant afford to in- 
 dulge their affections the same as married people. 
 
 Soames. Away with it all, I say. You have your 
 Master's commandments. Obey them. 
 
 Hotchkiss [rising and leaning on the back of the 
 chair left vacant by the General] I really must point 
 out to you, Father Anthony, that the early Christian rules 
 of life were not made to last, because the early Christians 
 did not believe that the world itself was going to last. 
 Now we know that we shall have to go through with it. 
 We have found that there are millions of years behind 
 us; and we know^ that that there are millions before us. 
 Mrs Bridgenorth's question remains unanswered. How 
 is the world to go on? You say that that is our business 
 — that it is the business of Providence. But the 
 modern Christian view is that we are here to do the 
 business of Providence and nothing else. The question is, 
 how. Am I not to use my reason to find out why? 
 Isnt that what my reason is for? Well, all my reason 
 tells me at present is that you are an impracticable 
 lunatic. 
 
 Soames. Does that help? 
 Hotchkiss. No. 
 Soames. Then pray for light. 
 ^ Hotchkiss. No: I am a snob, not a beggar. [He 
 sits down in the General's chair].
 
 Getting Married 165 
 
 Collins. We dont seem to be getting on, do we? 
 Miss Edith: you and Mr Sykes had better go off to 
 church and settle the right and wrong of it afterwards. 
 Itll ease your minds, believe me: I speak from experi- 
 ence. You will burn your boats, as one might say. 
 
 Soames. We should never burn our boats. It is 
 death in life. 
 
 Collins. Well, Father, I will say for you that yon 
 have views of your own and are not afraid to out with 
 them. But some of us are of a more cheerful disposition. 
 On the Borough Council now, you would be in a minority 
 of one. You must take human nature as it is. 
 
 Soames. Upon what compulsion must I? I'll take 
 divine nature as it is. I'll not hold a candle to the devil. 
 
 The Bishop. Thats a very unchristian way of treat- 
 ing the devil. 
 
 Reginald. Well, we dont seem to be getting any fur- 
 ther, do we? 
 
 The Bishop. Will you give it up and get married, 
 Edith ? 
 
 Edith. No. What I propose seems to me quite rea- 
 sonable. 
 
 The Bishop. And you, Lesbia? 
 
 Lesbia. Never. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. Never is a long word, Lesbia. 
 Dont say it. 
 
 Lesbia [with a flash of temper] Dont pity me, Alice, 
 please. As I said before, I am an English lady, quite 
 prepared to do without anything I cant have on hon- 
 orable conditions. 
 
 Soames [after a silence expressive of utter deadlock] 
 I am still awaiting my instructions. 
 
 Reginald. Well, we dont seem to be getting along, 
 do we? 
 
 Leo [out of patience] You said that before, Rejjy. 
 Do not repeat yourself.
 
 166 Getting Married 
 
 Reginald. Oh, bother! [He goes to the garden 
 door and looks out gloomily]. 
 
 Soames [rising with the paper in his hands] Psha! 
 [He tears it in pieces]. So much for the contract! 
 
 The Voice of The Beadle. By your leave there, 
 gentlemen. Make way for the Mayoress. Way for the 
 worshipful the Mayoress, my lords and gentlemen. [He 
 comes in through the tower, in cocked hat and gold- 
 braided overcoat, bearing the borough mace, and posts 
 himself at the entrance]. By your leave, gentlemen, way 
 for the worshipful the Mayoress. 
 
 Collins [moving back towards the wall] Mrs 
 George, my lord. 
 
 Mrs George is every inch a Mayoress in point of sty- 
 lish dressing; and she does it very well indeed. There 
 is nothing quiet about Mrs George: she is not afraid of 
 colors, and knows how to make the most of them. Not 
 at all a lady in Lesbia's use of the term as a class label, 
 she proclaims herself to the first glance as the triumph- 
 ant, pampered, wilful, intensely alive woman who has 
 always been rich among poor people. In a historical 
 museum she would explain Edward the Fourth's taste for 
 shopkeepers' wives. Her age, which is certainly 40, and 
 might be 50, is carried off by her vitality, her resilient 
 figure, and her confident carriage. So far, a remarkably 
 well-preserved woman. But her beauty is wrecked, like 
 an ageless landscape ravaged by long and fierce war. 
 Her eyes are alive, arresting and haunting; and there is 
 still a turn of delicate beauty and pride in her indom- 
 itable chin; but her cheeks are wasted and lined, her 
 mouth writhen and piteous. The whole face is a battle- 
 field of the passions, quite deplorable until she speaks, 
 when an alert sense of fun rejuvenates her in a moment, 
 and makes her company irresistible. 
 
 All rise except Soames, who sits down. Leo joins 
 Reginald at the garden door. Mrs Bridgenorth hurries
 
 Getting Married 167 
 
 l G 
 
 to the tower to receive her guest, and gets as far at 
 Soames's chair when Mrs George appears. Hotchkiss, 
 apparently recognizing her, recoils in consternation to 
 the study door at the furthest corner of the room from 
 her. 
 
 Mrs George [coming straight to the Bishop with the 
 ring in her hand] Here is your ring, my lord; and here 
 am I. It's your doing, remember: not mine. 
 
 The Bishop. Good of you to come. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. How do you do, Mrs Collins? 
 
 Mrs George [going to her past the Bishop, and gaz- 
 ing intently at her] Are you his wife? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. The Bishop's wife? Yes. 
 
 Mrs George. What a destiny! And you look like 
 any other woman ! 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [introducing Lesbia] My sister, 
 Miss Grantham. 
 
 Mrs George. So strangely mixed up with the story 
 of the General's life? 
 
 The Bishop. You know the story of his life, then? 
 
 Mrs George. Not all. We reached the house be- 
 fore he brought it up to the present day. But enough 
 to know the part played in it by Miss Grantham. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [introducing Leo] Mrs Reginald 
 Bridgenorth. 
 
 Reginald. The late Mrs Reginald Bridgenorth. 
 
 Leo. Hold your tongue, Rejjy. At least have the 
 decency to wait until the decree is made absolute. 
 
 Mrs George [to Leo] Well, youve more time to get 
 married again than he has, havnt you? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [introducing Hotchkiss] Mr St 
 John Hotchkiss. 
 
 Hotchkiss, still far aloof by the study door, bows. 
 
 Mrs George. What! That! [She makes a half 
 tour of the kitchen and ends right in front of him]. 
 Young man: do you remember coming into my shop and
 
 168 Getting Married 
 
 telling me that my husband's coals were out of place in 
 your cellar, as Nature evidently intended them for the 
 roof? 
 
 Hotchkiss. I remember that deplorable impertinence 
 with shame and confusion. You were kind enough to 
 answer that Mr Collins was looking out for a clever 
 young man to write advertisements, and that I could take 
 the job if I liked. 
 
 Mrs George. It's still open. [She turns to Edith], 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. My daughter Edith. [She comes 
 towards the study door to make the introduction], 
 
 Mrs George. The bride ! [Looking at Edith's 
 dressing-jacket] Youre not going to get married like 
 that, are you? 
 
 The Bishop [coming round the table to Edith's left] 
 Thats just what we are discussing. Will you be so good 
 as to join us and allow us the benefit of your wisdom 
 and experience? 
 
 Mrs George. Do you want the Beadle as well? 
 He's a married man. 
 
 They all turn involuntarily and contemplate the 
 Beadle, who sustains their gaze with dignity. 
 
 The Bishop. We think there are already too many 
 men to be quite fair to the women. 
 
 Mrs George. Right, my lord. [She goes back to 
 the tower and addresses the Beadle] Take away that 
 bauble, Joseph. Wait for me wherever you find yourself 
 most comfortable in the neighborhood. [The Beadle 
 withdraws. She notices Collins for the first time]. 
 Hullo, Bill: youve got em all on too. Go and hunt up a 
 drink for Joseph : theres a dear. [ Collins goes out. She 
 looks at Soames's cassock and biretta] What! Another 
 uniform! Are you the sexton? [He rises]. 
 
 The Bishop. My chaplain, Father Anthony. 
 
 Mrs George. Oh Lord! [To Soames, coaxingly] 
 You dont mind, do you?
 
 Getting Married 169 
 
 Soames. I mind nothing but my duties. 
 
 The Bishop. You know everybody now, I think. 
 
 Mrs George [turning to the railed chair] Who's this? 
 
 The Bishop. Oh, I beg your pardon, Cecil. Mr 
 Sykes. The bridegroom. 
 
 Mrs George [to Sykes] Adorned for the sacrifice, 
 arnt you? 
 
 Sykes. It seems doubtful whether there is going to 
 be any sacrifice. 
 
 Mrs George. Well, I want to talk to the women 
 first. Shall we go upstairs and look at the presents and 
 dresses ? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. If you wish, certainly. 
 
 Reginald. But the men want to hear what you have 
 to say too. 
 
 Mrs George. I'll talk to them afterwards: one by 
 one. 
 
 Hotchkiss [to himself] Great heavens! 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. This way, Mrs Collins. [She 
 leads the way out through the tower, followed by Mrs 
 George, Lesbia, Leo, and Edith], 
 
 The Bishop. Shall we try to get through the last 
 batch of letters whilst they are away, Soames? 
 
 Soames. Yes, certainly. [To Hotchkiss, who is in 
 his way] Excuse me. 
 
 The Bishop and Soames go into the study, disturbing 
 Hotchkiss, who, plunged in a strange reverie, has for- 
 gotten where he is. Awakened by Soames, he stares dis- 
 tractedly; then, with sudden resolution, goes swiftly to 
 the middle of the kitchen. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Cecil. Rejjy. [Startled by his urgency, 
 they hurry to him], I'm frightfully sorry to desert on 
 this day; but I must bolt. This time it really is pure 
 cowardice. I cant help it. 
 
 Reginald. What are you afraid of? 
 
 Hotchkiss. I dont know. Listen to me. I was a
 
 170 Getting Married 
 
 young fool living by myself in London. I ordered my 
 first ton of coals from that woman's husband. At that 
 time I did not know that it is not true economy to buy 
 the lowest priced article: I thought all coals were alike, 
 and tried the thirteen shilling kind because it seemed 
 cheap. It proved unexpectedly inferior to the family 
 Silkstone ; and in the irritation into which the first scuttle 
 threw me, I called at the shop and made an idiot of 
 myself as she described. 
 
 Sykes. Well, suppose you did! Laugh at it, man. 
 
 Hotchkiss. At that, yes. But there was something 
 worse. Judge of my horror when, calling on the coal 
 merchant to make a trifling complaint at finding my 
 grate acting as a battery of quick-firing guns, and being 
 confronted by his vulgar wife, I felt in her presence an 
 extraordinary sensation of unrest, of emotion, of unsat- 
 isfied need. I'll not disgust you with details of the mad- 
 ness and folly that followed that meeting. But it went 
 as far as this: that I actually found myself prowling 
 past the shop at night under a sort of desperate neces- 
 sity to be near some place where she had beerrr A hide- 
 ous temptation to kiss the doorstep because her foot had 
 pressed it made me realize how mad I was. I tore my- 
 self away from London by a supreme effort; but I was 
 on the point of returning like a needle to the lodestone 
 when the outbreak of the war saved me. On the field of 
 battle the infatuation wore off. The Billiter affair made 
 a new man of me: I felt that I had left the follies and 
 puerilities of the old days behind me for ever. But half- 
 an-hour ago — when the Bishop sent off that ring — a sud- 
 den grip at the base of my heart filled me with a name- 
 less terror — me, the fearless ! I recognized its cause 
 when she walked into the room. Cecil: this woman is a 
 harpy, a siren, a mermaid, a vampire. There is only 
 one chance for me: flight, instant precipitate flight. 
 Make my excuses. Forget me. Farewell. [He makes
 
 Getting Married 171 
 
 for the door and is confronted by Mrs George entering]. 
 Too late: I'm lost. [He turns back and throws himself 
 desperately into the chair nearest the study door; that 
 being the furthest away from her]. 
 
 Mrs George [coming to the hearth and addressing 
 Reginald] Mr Bridgenorth: will you oblige me by leav- 
 ing me with this young man. I want to talk to him like 
 a mother, on your business. 
 
 Reginald. Do, maam. He needs it badly. Come 
 along, Sykes. [He goes into the study]. 
 
 Sykes [looks irresolutely at Hotchkiss] — ? 
 
 Hotchkiss. Too late: you cant save me now, Cecil. 
 Go. 
 
 Sykes goes into the study. Mrs George strolls across 
 to Hotchkiss and contemplates him curiously. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Useless to prolong this agony. [Ris- 
 ing] Fatal woman — if woman you are indeed and not a 
 fiehd in human form — 
 
 Mrs George. Is this out of a book? Or is it your 
 usual society small talk? 
 
 Hotchkiss [recklessly] Jibes are useless: the force 
 that is sweeping me away will not spare you. I must 
 know the worst at once. What was your father? 
 
 Mrs George. A licensed victualler who married his 
 barmaid. You would call him a publican, most likely. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Then you are a woman totally beneath 
 me. Do you deny it? Do you set up any sort of pre- 
 tence to be my equal in rank, in age, or in culture? 
 
 Mrs George. Have you eaten anything that has dis- 
 agreed with you? 
 
 Hotchkiss [witheringly] Inferior! 
 
 Mrs George. Thank you. Anything else? 
 
 Hotchkiss. This. I love you. My intentions are 
 not honorable. [She shows no dismay]. Scream. Ring 
 the bell. Have me turned out of the house. 
 
 Mrs George [with sudden depth of feeling] Oh, if
 
 172 Getting Married 
 
 you could restore to this wasted exhausted heart one ray 
 of the passion that once welled up at the glance — at the 
 touch of a lover ! It's you who would scream then, young 
 man. Do you see this face, once fresh and rosy like your 
 own, now scarred and riven by a hundred burnt-out 
 fires ? 
 
 Hotchkiss [wildly] Slate fires. Thirteen shillings a 
 ton. Fires that shoot out destructive meteors, blinding 
 and burning, sending men into the streets to make fools 
 of themselves. 
 
 Mrs George. You seem to have got it pretty bad, 
 Sin j on. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Dont dare call me Sinjon. 
 
 Mrs George. My name is Zenobia Alexandrina. You 
 may call me Polly for short. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Your name is Ashtoreth — Durga — there 
 is no name yet invented malign enough for you. 
 
 Mrs George [sitting down comfortably] Come! Do 
 you really think youre better suited to that young sauce- 
 box than her husband? You enjoyed her company when 
 you were only the friend of the family — when there was 
 the husband there to shew off against and to take all the 
 responsibility. Are you sure youll enjoy it as much 
 when you are the husband? She isnt clever, you know. 
 She's only silly-clever. 
 
 Hotchkiss [uneasily leaning against the table and 
 holding on to it to control his nervous movements] Need 
 you tell me ? fiend that you are ! 
 
 Mrs George. You amused the husband, didnt you? 
 
 Hotchkiss. He has more real sense of humor than 
 she. He's better bred. That was not my fault. 
 
 Mrs George. My husband has a sense of humor 
 too. 
 
 Hotchkiss. The coal merchant? — I mean the slate 
 merchant. 
 
 Mrs George [appreciatively] He would just love to
 
 Getting Married 173 
 
 hear you talk. He's been dull lately for want of a change 
 of company and a bit of fresh fun. 
 
 Hotchkiss [flinging a chair opposite her and sitting 
 down with an overdone attempt at studied insolence] 
 And pray what is your wretched husband's vulgar con- 
 viviality to me? 
 
 Mrs George. You love me? 
 
 Hotchkiss. I loathe yon. 
 
 Mrs George. It's the same thing. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Then I'm lost. 
 
 Mrs George. You may come and see me if yon 
 promise to amuse George. 
 
 Hotchkiss. I'll insult him, sneer at him, wipe my 
 boots on him. 
 
 Mrs George. No you wont, dear boy. Youll be a 
 perfect gentleman. 
 
 Hotchkiss [beaten: appealing to her mercy] Zeno- 
 bia — 
 
 Mrs George. Polly, please. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Mrs Collins — 
 
 Mrs George. Sir? 
 
 Hotchkiss. Something stronger than my reason and 
 common sense is holding my hands and tearing me along. 
 I make no attempt to deny that it can drag me where 
 you please and make me do what you like. But at least 
 let me know your soul as you seem to know mine. Do 
 you love this absurd coal merchant? 
 
 Mrs George. Call him George. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Do you love your Jorjy Porjy? 
 
 Mrs George. Oh, I dont know that I love him. He's 
 my husband, you know. But if I got anxious about 
 George's health, and I thought it would nourish him, I< 
 would fry you with onions for his breakfast and think 
 nothing of it. George and I are good friends. George 
 belongs to me. Other men may come and go ; but George 
 goes on for ever.
 
 174 Getting Married 
 
 Hotchkis8. Yes: a husband soon becomes nothing 
 but a habit. Listen: I suppose this detestable fascina- 
 tion you have for me is love. 
 
 Mrs George. Any sort of feeling for a woman is 
 called love nowadays. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Do you love me? 
 
 Mrs George [promptly] My love is not quite so 
 cheap an article as that, my lad. I wouldnt cross the 
 street to have another look at you — not yet. I'm not 
 starving for love like the robins in winter, as the good 
 ladies youre accustomed to are. Youll have to be very 
 clever, and very good, and very real, if you are to inter- 
 est me. If George takes a fancy to you, and you amuse 
 him enough, I'll just tolerate you coming in and out oc- 
 casionally for — well, say a month. If you can make a 
 friend of me in that time so much the better for you. 
 If you can touch my poor dying heart even for an in- 
 stant, I'll bless you, and never forget you. You may try- 
 — if George takes to you. 
 
 Hotchkiss. I'm to come on liking for the month? 
 
 Mrs George. On condition that you drop Mrs Reg- 
 inald. 
 
 Hotchkiss. But she wont drop me. Do you suppose 
 I ever wanted to marry her ? I was a homeless bachelor ; 
 and I felt quite happy at their house as their friend. 
 Leo was an amusing little devil; but I liked Reginald 
 much more than I liked her. She didnt understand. 
 One day she came to me and told me that the inevitable 
 had happened. I had tact enough not to ask her what 
 the inevitable was ; and I gathered presently that she had 
 told Reginald that their marriage was a mistake and that 
 she loved me and could no longer see me breaking my 
 heart for her in suffering silence. What could I say? 
 What could I do ? What can I say now ? What can I do 
 now? 
 
 Mrs George. Tell her that the habit of falling in
 
 Getting Married 175 
 
 love with other men's wives is growing on you; and that 
 I'm your latest. 
 
 Hotchkiss. What! Throw her over when she has 
 thrown Reginald over for me! 
 
 Mrs George [rising] You wont then? Very well. 
 Sorry we shant meet again: I should have liked to see 
 more of you for George's sake. Good-bye [she moves 
 away from him towards the hearth], 
 
 Hotchkiss [appealing] Zenobia — 
 
 Mrs. George. I thought I had made a difficult con- 
 quest. Now I see you are only one of those poor petti- 
 coat-hunting creatures that any woman can pick up. Not 
 for me, thank you. [Inexorable, she turns towards the 
 tower to go]. 
 
 Hotchkiss [following] Dont be an ass, Polly. 
 
 Mrs George [stopping] Thats better. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Cant you see that I maynt throw Leo 
 over just because I should be only too glad to. It would 
 be dishonorable. 
 
 Mrs George. Will you be happy if you marry her? 
 
 Hotchkiss. No, great heaven, NO ! 
 
 Mrs George. Will she be happy when she finds you 
 
 out? 
 
 Hotchkiss. She's incapable of happiness. But she's 
 not incapable of the pleasure of holding a man against 
 his will. 
 
 Mrs George. Right, young man. You will tell her, 
 please, that you love me: before everybody, mind, the 
 very next time you see her. 
 
 Hotchkiss. But — 
 
 Mrs George. Those are my orders, Sin j on. I cant 
 have you marry another woman until George is tired of 
 
 you. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Oh, if I only didnt selfishly want to 
 
 obey you! 
 
 The General comes in from the garden. Mrs George
 
 176 Getting Married 
 
 goes half way to the garden door to speak to him. 
 Hotchkiss posts himself on the hearth. 
 
 Mrs George. Where have you been all this time? 
 
 The General. I'm afraid my nerves were a little 
 upset by our conversation. I just went into the garden 
 and had a smoke. I'm all right now [he strolls down to 
 the study door and presently takes a chair at that end of 
 the big table]. 
 
 Mrs George. A smoke ! Why, you said she couldnt 
 bear it. 
 
 The General. Good heavens! I forgot! It's such 
 a natural thing to do, somehow. 
 
 Lesbia comes in through the tower. 
 
 Mrs George. He's been smoking again. 
 
 Lesbia. So my nose tells me. [She goes to the end 
 of the table nearest the hearth, and sits down]. 
 
 The General. Lesbia: I'm very sorry. But if I 
 gave it up, I should become so melancholy and irritable 
 that you would be the first to implore me to take to it 
 again. 
 
 Mrs George. Thats true. Women drive their hus- 
 bands into all sorts of wickedness to keep them in good 
 humor. Sinjon: be off with you: this doesnt concern 
 you. 
 
 Lesbia. Please dont disturb yourself, Sinjon. Box- 
 er's broken heart has been worn on his sleeve too long 
 for any pretence of privacy. 
 
 The General. You are cruel, Lesbia: devilishly 
 cruel. [He sits down, wounded]. 
 
 Lesbia. You are vulgar, Boxer. 
 
 Hotchkiss. In what way? I ask, as an expert in 
 vulgarity. 
 
 Lesbia. In two ways. First, he talks as if the only 
 thing of any importance in life was which particu- 
 lar woman he shall marry. Second, he has no self- 
 control.
 
 Getting Married 177 
 
 The General. Women are not all the same to me, 
 Lesbia. 
 
 Mrs George. Why should they be, pray? Women 
 are all different: it's the men who are all the same. Be- 
 sides, what does Miss Grantham know about either men 
 or women? She's got too much self-control. 
 
 Lesbia [widening her eyes and lifting her chin haugh- 
 tily] And pray how does that prevent me from knowing 
 as much about men and women as people who have no 
 self-control ? 
 
 Mrs George. Because it frightens people into behav- 
 ing themselves before you; and then how can you tell 
 what they really are ? Look at me ! I was a spoilt 
 child. My brothers and sisters were well brought up, 
 like all children of respectable publicans. So should I 
 have been if I hadnt been the youngest: ten years 
 younger than my youngest brother. My parents were 
 tired of doing their duty by their children by that time; 
 and they spoilt me for all they were worth. I never knew 
 what it was to want money or anything that money could 
 buy. When I wanted my own way, I had nothing to do 
 but scream for it till I got it. When I was annoyed J 
 didnt control myself : I scratched and called names. Did 
 you ever, after you were grown up, pull a grown-up 
 woman's hair? Did you ever bite a grown-up man? 
 Did you ever call both of them every name you could 
 lay your tongue to ? 
 
 Lesbia [shivering with disgust] No. 
 
 Mrs George. Well, I did. I know what a woman is 
 like when her hair's pulled. I know what a man is like 
 when he's bit. I know what theyre both like when you 
 tell them what you really feel about them. And thats how 
 I know more of the world than you. 
 
 Lesbia. The Chinese know what a man is like when 
 he is cut into a thousand pieces, or boiled in oil. That 
 sort of knowledge is of no use to me. I'm afraid we
 
 178 Getting Married 
 
 shall never get. on with one another, Mrs George. I live 
 like a fencer, always on guard. I like to be confronted 
 with people who are always on guard. I hate sloppy 
 people, slovenly people, people who cant sit up straight, 
 sentimental people. 
 
 Mrs George. Oh, sentimental your grandmother! 
 You dont learn to hold your own in the world by stand- 
 ing on guard, but by attacking, and getting well ham- 
 mered yourself. 
 
 Lesbia. I'm not a prize-fighter, Mrs. Collins. If I 
 cant get a thing without the indignity of fighting for 
 it, I do without it. 
 
 Mrs George. Do you? Does it strike you that if 
 we were all as clever as you at doing without, there 
 wouldnt be much to live for, would there? 
 
 The General. I'm afraid, Lesbia, the things you 
 do without are the things you dont want. 
 
 Lesbia [surprised at his wit] Thats not bad for the 
 silly soldier man. Yes, Boxer: the truth is, I dont want 
 you enough to make the very unreasonable sacrifices re- 
 quired by marriage. And yet that is exactly why I 
 ought to be married. Just because I have the qualities 
 my country wants most I shall go barren to my grave; 
 whilst the women who have neither the strength to resist 
 marriage nor the intelligence to understand its infinite 
 dishonor will make the England of the future. [She 
 rises and walks towards the study]. 
 
 The General [as she is about to pass him] Well, I 
 shall not ask you again, Lesbia. 
 
 Lesbia. Thank you, Boxer. [She passes on to the 
 study door]. 
 
 Mrs George. Youre quite done with him, are 
 you? 
 
 Lesbia. As far as marriage is concerned, yes. The 
 field is clear for you, Mrs George. [She goes into the 
 study].
 
 Getting Married 179 
 
 The General buries his face in his hands. Mrs George 
 comes round the table to him. 
 
 Mrs George [sympathetically] She's a nice woman, 
 that. And a sort of beauty about her too, different from 
 anyone else. 
 
 The General [overwhelmed] Oh Mrs Collins, thank 
 you, thank you a thousand times. [He rises effusively']. 
 You have thawed the long-frozen springs [he kisses her 
 hand]. Forgive me; and thank you: bless you — [he again 
 takes refuge in the garden, choked with emotion]. 
 
 Mrs George [looking after him triumphantly] Just 
 caught the dear old warrior on the bounce, eh? 
 
 Hotchkiss. Unfaithful to me already! 
 
 Mrs George. I'm not your property, young man: 
 dont you think it. [She goes over to him and faces him]. 
 You understand that? [He suddenly snatches her into 
 his arms and kisses her]. Oh! You dare do that again, 
 you young blackguard; and I'll jab one of these chairs in 
 your face [she seizes one and holds it in readiness]. 
 Now you shall not see me for another month. 
 
 Hotchkiss [deliberately] I shall pay my first visit 
 to your husband this afternoon. 
 
 Mrs George. Youll see what he'll say to you when I 
 tell him what youve just done. 
 
 Hotchkiss. What can he say? What dare he say? 
 
 Mrs George. Suppose he kicks you out of the house? 
 
 Hotchkiss. How can he? Ive fought seven duels 
 with sabres. Ive muscles of iron. Nothing hurts me: 
 not even broken bones. Fighting is absolutely uninter- 
 esting to me because it doesnt frighten me or amuse me; 
 and I always win. Your husband is in all these respects 
 an average man, probably. He will be horribly afraid 
 of me; and if under the stimulus of your presence, and 
 for your sake, and because it is the right thing to do 
 among vulgar people, he were to attack me, I should sim- 
 ply defeat him and humiliate him [he gradually get* his
 
 180 Getting Married 
 
 hands on the chair and takes it from her, as his words 
 go home phrase by phrase]. Sooner than expose him 
 to that, you would suffer a thousand stolen kisses, 
 wouldnt you? 
 
 Mrs George [in utter consternation] You young 
 viper! 
 
 Hotchkiss. Ha ha ! You are in my power. That is 
 one of the oversights of your code of honor for husbands: 
 the man who can bully them can insult their wives with 
 impunity. Tell him if you dare. If I choose to take 
 ten kisses, how will you prevent me? 
 
 Mrs George. You come within reach of me and I'll 
 not leave a hair on your head. 
 
 Hotchkiss [catching her wrists dexterously'] Ive got 
 your hands. 
 
 Mrs George. Youve not got my teeth. Let go; or 
 I'll bite. I will, I tell you. Let go. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Bite away: I shall taste quite as nice 
 as George. 
 
 Mrs George. You beast. Let me go. Do you call 
 yourself a gentleman, to use your brute strength against 
 a woman? 
 
 Hotchkiss. You are stronger than me in every way 
 but this. Do you think I will give up my one advantage ? 
 Promise youll receive me when I call this afternoon. 
 
 Mrs George. After what youve just done? Not if it 
 was to save my life. 
 
 Hotchkiss. I'll amuse George. 
 
 Mrs George. He wont be in. 
 
 Hotchkiss [taken aback] Do you mean that we 
 should be alone? 
 
 Mrs George [snatching away her hands triumphantly 
 as his grasp relaxes] Aha! Thats cooled you, has it? 
 
 Hotchkiss [anxiously] When will George be at 
 home? 
 
 Mrs George. It wont matter to you whether he's at
 
 Getting Married 181 
 
 home or not. The door will be slammed in your face 
 whenever you call. 
 
 Hotchkiss. No servant in London is strong enough 
 to close a door that I mean to keep open. You cant es- 
 cape me. If you persist, I'll go into the coal trade; 
 make George's acquaintance on the coal exchange; and 
 coax him to take me home with him to make your ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 Mrs George. We have no use for you, young man: 
 neither George nor I [she sails away from him and sits 
 down at the end of the table near the study door], 
 
 Hotchkiss [following her and taking the next chair 
 round the corner of the table] Yes you have. George 
 cant fight for you: I can. 
 
 Mrs George [turning to face him] You bully. You 
 low bully. 
 
 Hotchkiss. You have courage and fascination: I 
 have courage and a pair of fists. We're both bullies, 
 Polly. 
 
 Mrs George. You have a mischievous tongue. Thats 
 enough to keep you out of my house. 
 
 Hotchkiss. It must be rather a house of cards. A 
 word from me to George — just the right word, said in 
 the right way — and down comes your house. 
 
 Mrs George. Thats why I'll die sooner than let you 
 into it. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Then as surely as you live, I enter the 
 coal trade to-morrow. George's taste for amusing com- 
 pany will deliver him into my hands. Before a month 
 passes your home will be at my mercy. 
 
 Mrs George [rising, at bay] Do you think I'll let 
 myself be driven into a trap like this ? 
 
 Hotchkiss. You are in it already. Marriage is a 
 trap. You are married. Any man who has the power 
 to spoil your marriage has the power to spoil your life. 
 I have that power over you.
 
 182 Getting Married 
 
 Mrs George [desperate] You mean it? 
 Hotchkiss. I do. 
 
 Mrs George [resolutely] Well, spoil my marriage 
 and be — 
 
 Hotchkiss [springing up] Polly! 
 Mrs George. Sooner than be your slave I'd face 
 any unhappiness. 
 
 Hotchkiss. What! Even for George? 
 Mrs George. There must be honor between me 
 and George, happiness or no happiness. Do your 
 worst. 
 
 Hotchkiss [admiring her] Are you really game, 
 Polly? Dare you defy me? 
 
 Mrs George. If you ask me another question I shant 
 be able to keep my hands off you [she dashes distract- 
 edly past him to the other end of the table, her fingers 
 crisping] . 
 
 Hotchkiss. That settles it. Polly: I adore you: we 
 were born for one another. As I happen to be a gentle- 
 man, I'll never do anything to annoy or injure you ex- 
 cept that I reserve the right to give you a black eye if 
 you bite me; but youll never get rid of me now to the 
 end of your life. 
 
 Mrs George. I shall get rid of you if the beadle has 
 to brain you with the mace for it [she makes for the 
 tower] . 
 
 Hotchkiss [running between the table and the oak 
 
 chest and across to the tower to cut her off] You shant. 
 
 Mrs George [panting] Shant I though? 
 
 Hotchkiss. No you shant. I have one card left to 
 
 play that youve forgotten. Why were you so unlike 
 
 yourself when you spoke to the Bishop? 
 
 Mrs George [agitated beyond measure] Stop. Not 
 that. You shall respect that if you respect nothing else. 
 I forbid you. [He kneels at her feet]. What are you 
 doing ? Get up : dont be a fool.
 
 Getting Married 183 
 
 Hotchkiss. Polly: I ask you on my knees to let me 
 make George's acquaintance in his home this afternoon; 
 and I shall remain on my knees till the Bishop comes in 
 and sees us. What will he think of you then? 
 
 Mrs George [beside herself] Wheres the poker? 
 
 She rushes to the fireplace; seizes the poker; and 
 makes for Hotchkiss, who flies to the study door. The 
 Bishop enters just then and finds himself between them, 
 narrowly escaping a blow from the poker. 
 
 The Bishop. Dont hit him, Mrs Collins. He is my 
 guest. 
 
 Mrs George throws down the poker; collapses into the 
 nearest chair; and bursts into tears. The Bishop goes 
 to her and pats her consolingly on the shoulder. She 
 shudders all through at his touch. 
 
 The Bishop. Come! you are in the house of your 
 friends. Can we help you? 
 
 Mrs George [to Hotchkiss, pointing to the study] 
 Go in there, you. Youre not wanted here. 
 
 Hotchkiss. You understand, Bishop, that Mrs Col- 
 lins is not to blame for this scene. I'm afraid Ive been 
 rather irritating. 
 
 The Bishop. I can quite believe it, Sinjon. 
 
 Hotchkiss goes into the study. 
 
 The Bishop [turning to Mrs George with great kind- 
 ness of manner] I'm sorry you have been worried [he 
 sits down on her left]. Never mind him. A little pluck, 
 a little gaiety of heart, a little prayer; and youll be 
 laughing at him. 
 
 Mrs George. Never fear. I have all that. It was 
 as much my fault as his; and I should have put him in 
 his place with a clip of that poker on the side of his head 
 if you hadnt come in. 
 
 The Bishop. You might have put him in his coffin 
 that way, Mrs Collins. And I should have been very 
 sorry; because we are all fond of Sinjon.
 
 184 Getting Married 
 
 Mrs George. Yes : it's your duty to rebuke me. But 
 do you think I dont know? 
 
 The Bishop. I dont rebuke you. Who am I that I 
 should rebuke you? Besides, I know there are discus- 
 sions in which the poker is the only possible argument. 
 
 Mrs George. My lord: be earnest with me. I'm a 
 very funny woman, I daresay ; but I come from the same 
 workshop as you. I heard you say that yourself years 
 ago. 
 
 The Bishop. Quite so; but then I'm a very funny 
 Bishop. Since we are both funny people, let us not for- 
 get that humor is a divine attribute. 
 
 Mrs George. I know nothing about divine attributes 
 or whatever you call them; but I can feel when I am 
 being belittled. It was from you that I learnt first to 
 respect myself. It was through you that I came to be 
 able to walk safely through many wild and wilful paths. 
 Dont go back on your own teaching. 
 
 The Bishop. I'm not a teacher: only a fellow-trav- 
 eller of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead 
 — ahead of myself as well as of you. 
 
 Mrs George [rising and standing over him almost 
 threateningly] As I'm a living woman this day, if I find 
 you out to be a fraud, I'll kill myself. 
 
 The Bishop. What! Kill yourself for finding out 
 something ! For becoming a wiser and therefore a better 
 woman ! What a bad reason ! 
 
 Mrs George. I have sometimes thought of killing 
 you, and then killing myself. 
 
 The Bishop. Why on earth should you kill yourself 
 — not to mention me? 
 
 Mrs George. So that we might keep our assignation 
 in Heaven. 
 
 The Bishop [rising and facing her, breathless] Mrs. 
 Collins! You are Incognita Appassionata ! 
 
 Mrs George. You read my letters, then? [With a
 
 Getting Married 185 
 
 sigh of grateful relief, she sits down quietly, and says] 
 Thank you. 
 
 The Bishop [remorsefully] And I have broken the 
 spell by making you come here [sitting down again]. 
 Can you ever forgive me? 
 
 Mrs George. You couldnt know that it was only the 
 coal merchant's wife, could you? 
 
 The Bishop. Why do you say only the coal mer- 
 chant's wife? 
 
 Mrs George. Many people would laugh at it. 
 
 The Bishop. Poor people ! It's so hard to know the 
 right place to laugh, isnt it? 
 
 Mrs George. I didnt mean to make you think the 
 letters were from a fine lady. I wrote on cheap paper; 
 and I never could spell. 
 
 The Bishop. Neither could I. So that told me 
 nothing. 
 
 Mrs George. One thing I should like you to know. 
 
 The Bishop. Yes? 
 
 Mrs George. We didnt cheat your friend. They 
 were as good as we could do at thirteen shillings a ton. 
 
 The Bishop. Thats important. Thank you for tell- 
 ing me. 
 
 Mrs George. I have something else to say; but will 
 you please ask somebody to come and stay here while we 
 talk? [He rises and turns to the study door]. Not a 
 woman, if you dont mind. [He nods understandingly 
 and passes on]. Not a man either. 
 
 The Bishop [stopping] Not a man and not a 
 woman! We have no children left, Mrs Collins. They 
 are all grown up and married. 
 
 Mrs George. That other clergyman would do. 
 
 The Bishop. What! The sexton? 
 
 Mrs George. Yes. He didnt mind my calling him 
 that, did he ? It was only my ignorance. 
 
 The Bishop. Not at all. [He opens the study door
 
 186 Getting Married 
 
 and calls] Soames! Anthony! [To Mrs George] Call 
 him Father: he likes it. [Soames appears at the study 
 door]. Mrs Collins wishes you to join us, Anthony. 
 
 Soames looks puzzled. 
 
 Mrs George. You dont mind, Dad, do you? [As 
 this greeting visibly gives him a shock that hardly bears 
 out the Bishop's advice, she says anxiously] That was 
 what you told me to call him, wasnt it? 
 
 Soames. I am called Father Anthony, Mrs Collins. 
 But it does not matter what you call me. [He comes in, 
 and walks past her to the hearth]. 
 
 The Bishop. Mrs Collins has something to say to 
 me that she wants you to hear. 
 
 Soames. I am listening. 
 
 The Bishop [going back to his seat next her] Now. 
 
 Mrs George. My lord: you should never have mar- 
 ried. 
 
 Soames. This woman is inspired. Listen to her, my 
 lord. 
 
 The Bishop [taken aback by the directness of the at- 
 tack] I married because I was so much in love with 
 Alice that all the difficulties and doubts and dangers of 
 marriage seemed Xj6 me the merest moonshine. 
 
 Mrs George. Yes: it's mean to let poor things in 
 for so much while theyre in that state. Would you 
 marry now that you know better if you were a wid- 
 ower? 
 
 The Bishop. I'm old now. It wouldnt matter. 
 
 Mrs George. But would you if it did matter? 
 
 The Bishop. I think I should marry again lest any- 
 one should imagine I had found marriage unhappy with 
 Alice. 
 
 Soames [sternly] Are you fonder of your wife than 
 of your salvation? 
 
 The Bishop. Oh, very much. When you meet a man 
 who is very particular about his salvation, look out for a
 
 Getting Married 187 
 
 woman who is very particular about her character; and 
 marry them to one another: theyll make a perfect pair. 
 I advise you to fall in love, Anthony. 
 Soames [with horror] I!! 
 
 The Bishop. Yes, you! think of what it would do 
 for you. For her sake you would come to care un- 
 selfishly and diligently for money instead of being 
 selfishly and lazily indifferent to it. For her sake you 
 would come to care in the same way for preferment. For 
 her sake you would come to care for your health, your 
 appearance, the good opinion of your fellow creatures, 
 and all the really important things that make men work 
 and strive instead of mooning and nursing their sal- 
 vation. 
 
 Soames. In one word, for the sake of one deadly sin I 
 should come to care for all the others. 
 
 The Bishop. Saint Anthony! Tempt him, Mrs 
 Collins: tempt him. 
 
 Mrs George [rising and looking strangely before 
 her] Take care, my lord: you still have the power to 
 make me obey your commands. And do you, Mr Sexton, 
 beware of an empty heart. 
 
 The Bishop. Yes. Nature abhors a vacuum, An- 
 thony. I would not dare go about with an empty heart: 
 why, the first girl I met would fly into it by mere at- 
 mospheric pressure. Alice keeps them out now. Mrs 
 Collins knows. 
 
 Mrs George [a faint convulsion passing like a wave 
 over her] I know more than either of you. One of you 
 has not yet exhausted his first love : the other has not yet 
 reached it. But I — I — [she reels and is again con- 
 vulsed]. 
 
 The Bishop [saving her from falling] Whats the 
 matter? Are you ill, Mrs Collins? [He gets her back 
 into her chair]. Soames: theres a glass of water in the 
 study — quick. [Soames hurries to the study door].
 
 188 Getting Married 
 
 Mrs George. No. [Soames stops]. Dont call. 
 Dont bring anyone. Cant you hear anything? 
 
 The Bishop. Nothing unusual. [He sits by her, 
 watching her with intense surprise and interest]. 
 
 Mrs George. No music? 
 
 Soames. No. [He steals to the end of the table and 
 sits on her right, equally interested], 
 
 Mrs George. Do you see nothing — not a great light? 
 
 The Bishop. We are still walking in darkness. 
 
 Mrs George. Put your hand on my forehead: the 
 hand with the ring. [He does so. Her eyes close]. 
 
 Soames [inspired to prophesy] There was a certain 
 woman, the wife of a coal merchant, which had been a 
 great sinner — 
 
 The Bishop, startled, takes his hand away. Mrs 
 George*s eyes open vividly as she interrupts Soames. 
 
 Mrs George. You prophesy falsely, Anthony: never 
 in all my life have I done anything that was not or- 
 dained for me. [More quietly] Ive been myself. Ive 
 not been afraid of myself. And at last I have escaped 
 from myself, and am become a voice for them that are 
 afraid to speak, and a cry for the hearts that break in 
 silence. 
 
 Soames [whispering] Is she inspired? 
 
 The Bishop. Marvellous. Hush. 
 
 Mrs George. I have earned the right to speak. I 
 have dared: I have gone through: I have not fallen with- 
 ered in the fire: I have come at last out beyond, to the 
 back of Godspeed? 
 
 The Bishop. And what do you see there, at the back 
 of Godspeed? 
 
 Soames [hungrily] Give us your message. 
 
 Mrs George [with intensely sad reproach] When 
 you loved me I gave you the whole sun and stars to play 
 with. I gave you eternity in a single moment, strength 
 of the mountains in one clasp of your arms, and the vol-
 
 Getting Married 189 
 
 ume of all the seas in one impulse of your souls. A mo- 
 ment only; but was it not enough? Were you not paid 
 then for all the rest of your struggle on earth? Must 
 I mend your clothes and sweep your floors as well? Was 
 it not enough? I paid the price without bargaining: I 
 bore the children without flinching: was that a reason 
 for heaping fresh burdens on me? I carried the child 
 in my arms: must I carry the father too? When I 
 opened the gates of paradise, were you blind? was it 
 nothing to you? When all the stars sang in your ears 
 and all the winds swept you into the heart of heaven, 
 were you deaf? were you dull? was I no more to you 
 than a bone to a dog? Was it not enough? We spent 
 eternity together; and you ask me for a little lifetime 
 more. We possessed all the universe together; and you 
 ask me to give you my scanty wages as well. I have 
 given you the greatest of all things; and you ask me 
 to give you little things. I gave you your own soul: 
 you ask me for my body as a plaything. Was it not 
 enough? Was it not enough? 
 
 Soames. Do you understand this, my lord? 
 
 The Bishop. I have that advantage over you, An- 
 thony, thanks to Alice. [He takes Mrs George's hand]. 
 Your hand is very cold. Can you come down to earth? 
 Do you remember who I am, and who you are? 
 
 Mrs George. It was enough for me. I did not ask 
 to meet you — to touch you — [the Bishop quickly releases 
 her hand]. When you spoke to my soul years ago from 
 your pulpit, you opened the doors of my salvation to me ; 
 and now they stand open for ever. It was enough: I 
 have asked you for nothing since: I ask you for nothing 
 now. I have lived: it is enough. I have had my wages; 
 and I am ready for my work. I thank you and bless you 
 and leave you. You are happier in that than I am; for 
 when I do for men what you did for me, I have no 
 thanks, and no blessing: I am their prey; and there is
 
 190 Getting Married 
 
 no rest from their loving and no mercy from their 
 loathing. 
 
 The Bishop. You must take us as we are, Mrs 
 Collins. 
 
 Soames. No. Take us as we are capable of be- 
 coming. 
 
 Mrs George. Take me as I am: I ask no more. 
 [She turns her head to the study door and cries] Yes: 
 come in, come in. 
 
 Hotchkiss comes softly in from the study. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Will you be so kind as to tell me whether 
 I am dreaming? In there I have heard Mrs Collins say- 
 ing the strangest things, and not a syllable from you 
 two. 
 
 Soames. My lord; is this possession by the devil? 
 
 The Bishop. Or the ecstasy of a saint? 
 
 Hotchkiss. Or the convulsion of the pythoness on 
 the tripod? 
 
 The Bishop. May not the three be one? 
 
 Mrs George [troubled] You are paining and tiring 
 me with idle questions. You are dragging me back to 
 myself. You are tormenting me with your evil dreams 
 of saints and devils and — what was it? — [striving to 
 fathom it] the pythoness — the pythoness — [giving it 
 up] I dont understand. I am a woman: a human crea- 
 ture like yourselves. Will you not take me as I am? 
 
 Soames. Yes; but shall we take you and burn you? 
 
 The Bishop. Or take you and canonize you? 
 
 Hotchkiss [gaily] Or take you as a matter of course? 
 [Swiftly to the Bishop] We must get her out of this: 
 it's dangerous. [Aloud to her] May I suggest that 
 you shall be Anthony's devil and the Bishop's saint 
 and my adored Polly? [Slipping behind her, he picks 
 up her hand from her lap and kisses it over her 
 shoulder] . 
 
 Mrs George [waking] What was that? Who kissed
 
 Getting Married 191 
 
 my hand? [To the Bishop, eagerly] Was it you? [He 
 shakes his head. She is mortified]. I beg your 
 pardon. 
 
 The Bishop. Not at all. I'm not repudiating that 
 honor. Allow me [he kisses her hand]. 
 
 Mrs George. Thank you for that. It was not the 
 sexton, was it? 
 
 Soames. I ! 
 
 Hotchkiss. It was I, Polly, your ever faithful. 
 
 Mrs George [turning and seeing him] Let me catch 
 you doing it again: thats all. How do you come there? 
 I sent you away. [With great energy, becoming quite 
 herself again] What the goodness gracious has been 
 happening? 
 
 Hotchkiss. As far as I can make out, you have been 
 having a very charming and eloquent sort of fit. 
 
 Mrs George [delighted] What! My second sight! 
 [To the Bishop] Oh, how I have prayed that it might 
 come to me if ever I met you! And now it has come. 
 How stunning! You may believe every word I said: I 
 cant remember it now; but it was something that was just 
 bursting to be said; and so it laid hold of me and said 
 itself. Thats how it is, you see. 
 
 Edith and Cecil Sykes come in through the toner. 
 She has her hat on. Leo follows. They have evidently 
 been out together. Sykes, with an unnatural air, half 
 foolish, half rakish, as if he had lost all his self-respect 
 and were determined not to let it prey on his spirits, 
 throws himself into a chair at the end of the table near 
 the hearth and thrusts his hands into his pockets, like 
 Hogarth's Rake, without waiting for Edith to sit down. 
 She sits in the railed chair. Leo takes the chair nearest 
 the tower on the long side of the table, brooding, with 
 closed lips. 
 
 The Bishop. Have you been out, my dear? 
 
 Edith. Yes.
 
 192 Getting Married 
 
 The Bishop. With Cecil? 
 
 Edith. Yes. 
 
 The Bishop. Have you come to an understanding? 
 
 No reply. Blank silence. 
 
 Sykes. You had better tell them, Edie. 
 
 Edith. Tell them yourself. 
 
 The General comes in from the garden. 
 
 The General [coming forward to the table] Can 
 anybody oblige me with some tobacco? Ive finished 
 mine; and my nerves are still far from settled. 
 
 The Bishop. Wait a moment, Boxer. Cecil has 
 something important to tell us. 
 
 Sykes. Weve done it. Thats alL 
 
 Hotchkiss. Done what, Cecil? 
 
 Sykes. Well, what do you suppose? 
 
 Edith. Got married, of course. 
 
 The General. Married! Who gave you away? 
 
 Sykes [jerking his head towards the tower] This 
 gentleman did. [Seeing that they do not understand, he 
 looks round and sees that there is no one there]. Oh! I 
 thought he came in with us. Hes gone downstairs, I 
 suppose. The Beadle. 
 
 The General. The Beadle ! What the devil did he 
 do that for? 
 
 Sykes. Oh, I dont know: I didnt make any bargain 
 with him. [To Mrs George] How much ought I to give 
 him, Mrs Collins? 
 
 Mrs George. Five shillings. [To the Bishop] I 
 want to rest for a moment : there ! in your study. I saw 
 it here [she touches her forehead]. 
 
 The Bishop [opening the study door for her] By all 
 means. Turn my brother out if he disturbs you. 
 Soames: bring the letters out here. 
 
 Sykes. He wont be offended at my offering it, will 
 he? 
 
 Mrs George. Not he ! He touches children with the
 
 Getting Married 193 
 
 mace to cure them of ringworm for fourpence apiece. 
 [She goes into the study. Soames follows her]. 
 
 The General. Well, Edith, I'm a little disap- 
 pointed, I must say. However, I'm glad it was done by 
 somebody in a public uniform. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth and Lesbia come in through the 
 tower. Mrs Bridgenorth makes for the Bishop. He 
 goes to her, and they meet near the oak chest. Lesbia 
 comes between Sykes and Edith. 
 
 The Bishop. Alice, my love, theyre married. 
 Mrs Bridgenorth [placidly] Oh, well, thats all 
 right. Better tell Collins. 
 
 Soames comes back from the study with his writing 
 materials. He seats himself at the nearest end of the 
 table and goes on with his work. Hotchkiss sits down 
 in the next chair round the table corner, with his bach 
 to him. 
 
 Lesbia. You have both given in, have you? 
 Edith. Not at all. We have provided for every- 
 thing. 
 
 Soames. How? 
 
 Edith. Before going to the church, we went to the 
 office of that insurance company — whats its name, 
 Cecil? 
 
 Sykes. The British Family Insurance Corporation. J , 
 It insures you against poor relations and all sorts of J * 
 family contingencies. 
 
 Edith. It has consented to insure Cecil against libel 
 actions brought against him on my account. It will give 
 us specially low terms because I am a Bishop's daughter. 
 Sykes. And I have given Edie my solemn word that 
 if I ever commit a crime I'll knock her down before a 
 witness and go off to Brighton with another lady. 
 
 Lesbia. Thats what you call providing for every- 
 thing! [She goes to the middle of the table on the gar- 
 den side and sits down].
 
 194 Getting Married 
 
 Leo. Do make him see there are no worms before he 
 knocks you down, Edith. Wheres Rejjy? 
 
 Reginald [coming in from the study] Here. Whats 
 the matter? 
 
 Leo [springing up and flouncing round to him] 
 Whats the matter ! You may well ask. While Edie and 
 Cecil were at the insurance office I took a taxy and went 
 off to your lodgings ; and a nice mess I found everything 
 in. Your clothes are in a disgraceful state. Your liver- 
 pad has been made into a kettle-holder. Youre no more 
 fit to be left to yourself than a one-year old baby. 
 
 Reginald. Oh, I cant be bothered looking after 
 things like that. I'm all right. 
 
 Leo. Youre not: youre a disgrace. You never con- 
 sider that youre a disgrace to me: you think only of 
 yourself. You must come home with me and be taken 
 proper care of: my conscience will not allow me to let 
 you live like a pig. [She arranges his necktie]. You 
 must stay with me until I marry St John; and then we 
 can adopt you or something. 
 
 Reginald [breaking loose from her and stumping off 
 past Hotchkiss towards the hearth] No, I'm dashed if 
 I'll be adopted by St John. You can adopt him if you 
 like. 
 
 Hotchkiss [rising] I suggest that that would really 
 be the better plan, Leo. Ive a confession to make to you. 
 I'm not the man you took me for. Your objection to 
 Rejjy was that he had low tastes. 
 
 Reginald [turning] Was it? by George! 
 
 Leo. I said slovenly habits. I never thought he had 
 really low tastes until I saw that woman in court. How 
 he could have chosen such a creature and let her write 
 to him after — 
 
 Reginald. Is this fair? I never — 
 
 Hotchkiss. Of course you didnt, Rejjy. Dont be 
 silly, Leo. It's I who really have low tastes.
 
 Getting Married 195 
 
 Leo. You ! 
 
 Hotchkiss. Ive fallen in love with a coal merchant's 
 wife. I adore her. I would rather have one of her 
 boot-laces than a lock of your hair. [He folds his arms 
 and stands like a rock]. 
 
 Reginald. You damned scoundrel, how dare you 
 throw my wife over like that before my face? [He 
 seems on the point of assaulting Hotchkiss when Leo 
 gets between them and draws Reginald away towards the 
 study door], 
 
 Leo. Dont take any notice of him, Rejjy. Go at 
 once and get that odious decree demolished or annulled 
 or whatever it is. Tell Sir Gorell Barnes that I have 
 changed my mind. [To Hotchkiss] I might have 
 known that you were too clever to be really a gentleman. 
 [She takes Reginald away to the oak chest and seats 
 him there. He chuckles. Hotchkiss resumes his seat, 
 brooding] . 
 
 The Bishop. All the problems appear to be solving 
 themselves. 
 
 Lesbia. Except mine. 
 
 The General. But, my dear Lesbia, you see what 
 has happened here to-day. [Coming a little nearer and 
 bending his face towards hers] Now I put it to you, 
 does it not shew you the folly of not marrying? 
 
 Lesbia. No: I cant say it does. And [rising] you 
 have been smoking again. 
 
 The General. You drive me to it, Lesbia. I cant 
 help it. 
 
 Lesbia [standing behind her chair with her hands on 
 the back of it and looking radiant] Well, I wont scold 
 you to-day. I feel in particularly good humor just 
 now. 
 
 The General. May I ask why, Lesbia? 
 
 Lesbia [drawing a large breath] To think that after 
 all the dangers of the morning I am still unmarried ! still
 
 196 Getting Married 
 
 independent! still my own mistress! still a glorious 
 strong-minded old maid of old England! 
 
 Soames silently springs up and makes a long stretch 
 from his end of the table to shake her hand across it. 
 
 The General. Do you find any real happiness in 
 being your own mistress? Would it not be more gen- 
 erous — would you not be happier as some one else's mis- 
 tress — 
 
 Lesbia. Boxer ! 
 
 The General [rising, horrified] No, no, you must 
 know, my dear Lesbia, that I was not using the word in 
 its improper sense. I am sometimes unfortunate in my 
 choice of expressions; but you know what I mean. I 
 feel sure you would be happier as my wife. 
 
 Lesbia. I daresay I should, in a frowsy sort of 
 way. But I prefer my dignity and my independence. 
 I'm afraid I think this rage for happiness rather 
 vulgar. 
 
 The General. Oh, very well, Lesbia. I shall not 
 ask you again. [He sits down huffily]. 
 
 Lesbia. You will, Boxer; but it will be no use. [She 
 also sits down again and puts her hand almost affec- 
 tionately on his]. Some day I hope to make a friend of 
 you; and then we shall get on very nicely. 
 
 The General [starting up again] Ha ! I think you 
 are hard, Lesbia. I shall make a fool of myself if I re- 
 main here. Alice: I shall go into the garden for a 
 while. 
 
 Collins [appearing in the tower] I think everything 
 is in order now, maam. 
 
 The General [going to him] Oh, by the way, could 
 you oblige me — [the rest of the sentence is lost in a 
 whisper], 
 
 Collins. Certainly, General. [He takes out a to- 
 bacco pouch and hands it to the General, who takes it 
 and goes into the garden].
 
 Getting Married 197 
 
 Lesbia. I dont believe theres a man in England who / 
 really and truly loves his wife as much as he loves hisj 
 pipe. 
 
 The Bishop. By the way, what has happened to the 
 wedding party? 
 
 Sykes. I dont know. There wasnt a soul in the 
 church when we were married except the pew opener 
 and the curate who did the job. 
 
 Edith. They had all gone home. 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. But the bridesmaids? 
 
 Collins. Me and the beadle have been all over the 
 place in a couple of taxies, maam; and weve collected 
 them all. They were a good deal disappointed on ac- 
 count of their dresses, and thought it rather irregu- 
 lar; but theyve agreed to come to the breakfast. 
 The truth is, theyre wild with curiosity to know how 
 it all happened. The organist held on until the or- 
 gan was nigh worn out, and himself worse than the 
 organ. He asked me particularly to tell you, my lord, 
 that he held back Mendelssohn till the very last; but 
 when that was gone he thought he might as well go 
 too. So he played God Save The King and cleared 
 out the church. He's coming to the breakfast to ex- 
 plain. 
 
 Leo. Please remember, Collins, that there is no truth 
 whatever in the rumor that I am separated from my hus- 
 band, or that there is, or ever has been, anything between 
 me and Mr Hotchkiss. 
 
 Collins. Bless you, maam ! one could always see 
 that. [To Mrs Bridgenorth] Will you receive here or 
 in the hall, maam? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. In the hall. Alfred: you and 
 Boxer must go there and be ready to keep the first ar- 
 rivals talking till we come. We have to dress Edith. 
 Come, Lesbia: come, Leo: we must all help. Now, 
 Edith. [Lesbia, Leo, and Edith go out through the
 
 198 Getting Married 
 
 tower], Collins: we shall want you when Miss Edith's 
 dressed to look over her veil and things and see that 
 theyre all right 
 
 Collins. Yes, maam. Anything you would like 
 mentioned about Miss Lesbia, maam? 
 
 Mrs Bridgenorth. No. She wont have the Gen- 
 eral. I think you may take that as final. 
 
 Collins. What a pity, maam! A fine lady wasted, 
 maam. [They shake their heads sadly; and Mrs Bridge- 
 north goes out through the tower]. 
 
 The Bishop. I'm going to the hall, Collins, to re- 
 ceive. Rejjy: go and tell Boxer; and come both of you 
 to help with the small talk. Come, Cecil. [He goes out 
 through the tower, followed by Sykes], 
 
 Reginald [to Hotchkiss] Youve always talked a 
 precious lot about behaving like a gentleman. Well, if 
 you think youve behaved like a gentleman to Leo, youre 
 mistaken. And I shall have to take her part, remember 
 that. 
 
 Hotchkiss. I understand. Your doors are closed 
 to me. 
 
 Reginald [quickly] Oh no. Dont be hasty. I think 
 I should like you to drop in after a while, you know. 
 She gets so cross and upset when theres nobody to liven 
 up the house a bit. 
 
 Hotchkiss. I'll do my best. 
 
 Reginald [relieved] Righto. You dont mind, old 
 chap, do you? 
 
 Hotchkiss. It's Fate. Ive touched coal; and my 
 hands are black; but theyre clean. So long, Rejjy. 
 [They shake hands; and Reginald goes into the garden 
 to collect Boxer], 
 
 Collins. Excuse me, sir; but do you stay to break- 
 fast? Your name is on one of the covers; and I should 
 like to change it if youre not remaining. 
 
 Hotchkiss. How do I know? Is my destiny any
 
 Getting Married 199 
 
 longer in my own hands? Go: ask she who must be 
 
 OBEYED. 
 
 Collins [awestruck] Has Mrs George taken a fancy 
 to you, sir? 
 
 Hotchkiss. Would she had! Worse, man, worse: 
 Ive taken a fancy to Mrs George. 
 
 Collins. Dont despair, sir: if George likes your 
 conversation youll find their house a very pleasant one: 
 livelier than Mr Reginald's was, I daresay. 
 
 Hotchkiss [calling] Polly. 
 
 Collins [promptly] Oh, if it's come to Polly already, 
 sir, I should say you were all right. 
 
 Mrs George appears at the door of the study. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Your brother-in-law wishes to know 
 whether I'm to stay for the wedding breakfast. Tell 
 him. 
 
 Mrs George. He stays, Bill, if he chooses to behave 
 himself. 
 
 Hotchkiss [to Collins] May I, as a friend of the 
 family, have the privilege of calling you Bill? 
 
 Collins. With pleasure, sir, I'm sure, sir. 
 
 Hotchkiss. My own pet name in the bosom of my 
 family is Sonny. 
 
 Mrs George. Why didnt you tell me that before? 
 Sonny is just the name I wanted for you. [She pats his 
 cheek familiarly: he rises abruptly and goes to the 
 hearth, where he throws himself moodily into the ruled 
 chair] Bill: I'm not going into the hall until there are 
 enough people there to make a proper little court for me. 
 Send the Beadle for me when you think it looks good 
 enough. 
 
 Collins. Right, maam. [He goes out through the 
 tower], 
 
 Mrs George left alone with Hotchlciss and Soames, 
 suddenly puts her hands on Soames's shoulders and 
 bends over him.
 
 200 Getting Married 
 
 Mrs George. The Bishop said I was to tempt you, 
 Anthony. 
 
 Soames [without looking round] Woman: go away. 
 Mrs George. Anthony: 
 
 " When other lips and other hearts 
 Their tale of love shall tell 
 Hotchkiss [sardonically] 
 
 In language whose excess imparts 
 The power they feel so well. 
 Mrs George. 
 
 Though hollow hearts may wear a mask 
 Twould break your own to see, 
 In such a moment I but ask 
 That youll remember me." 
 And you will, Anthony. I shall put my spell on you. 
 
 Soames. Do you think that a man who has sung the 
 Magnificat and adored the Queen of Heaven has any 
 ears for such trash as that or any eyes for such trash as 
 you — saving your poor little soul's presence. Go home 
 to your duties, woman. 
 
 Mrs George [highly approving his fortitude] An- 
 thony : I adopt you as my father. Thats the talk ! Give 
 me a man whose whole life doesnt hang on some scrubby 
 woman in the next street; and I'll never let him go [she 
 slaps him heartily on the back], 
 
 Soames. Thats enough. You have another man to 
 talk to. I'm busy. 
 
 Mrs George [leaving Soames and going a step or two 
 nearer Hotchkiss] Why arnt you like him, Sonny? 
 Why do you hang on to a scrubby woman in the next 
 street ? 
 
 Hotchkiss [thoughtfully] I must apologize to 
 Billiter. 
 
 Mrs George. Who is Billiter? 
 
 Hotchkiss. A man who eats rice pudding with a 
 spoon. Ive been eating rice pudding with a spoon ever
 
 Getting Married 201 
 
 since I saw you first. [He rises]. We all eat our rice 
 pudding with a spoon, dont we, Soames? 
 
 Soames. We are members of one another. There is 
 no need to refer to me. In the first place, I'm busy: in 
 the second, youll find it all in the Church Catechism, 
 which contains most of the new discoveries with which 
 the age is bursting. Of course you should apologize to 
 Billiter. He is your equal. He will go to the same 
 heaven if he behaves himself and to the same hell if he 
 doesnt. 
 
 Mrs George [sitting down] And so will my husband 
 the coal merchant. 
 
 Hotchkiss. If I were your husband's superior here 
 I should be his superior in heaven or hell: equality lies 
 deeper than that. The coal merchant and I are in love 
 with the same woman. That settles the question for me 
 for ever. [He prowls across the kitchen to the garden 
 door, deep in thought], 
 
 Soamfs. Psha ! 
 
 Mrs George. You dont believe in women, do you, 
 Anthony? He might as well say that he and George 
 both like fried fish. 
 
 Hotchkiss. I do not like fried fish. Dont be low, 
 Polly. 
 
 Soames. Woman : do not presume to accuse me of un- 
 belief. And do you, Hotchkiss, not despise this woman's 
 soul because she speaks of fried fish. Some of the vic- 
 tims of the Miraculous Draught of Fishes were fried. 
 And I eat fried fish every Friday and like it. You are 
 as ingrained a snob as ever. 
 
 Hotchkiss [impatiently] My dear Anthony: I find 
 you merely ridiculous as a preacher, because you keep 
 referring me to places and documents and alleged occur- 
 rences in which, as a matter of fact, I dont believe. I 
 dont believe in anything but my own will and my own 
 pride and honor. Your fishes and your catechisms and
 
 202 Getting Married 
 
 all the rest of it make a charming poem which you call 
 your faith. It fits you to perfection; but it doesnt fit 
 me. I happen, like Napoleon, to prefer Mohammedanism. 
 [Mrs George, associating Mohammedanism with polyg- 
 amy, looks at him with quick suspicion]. I believe the 
 whole British Empire will adopt a reformed Moham- 
 medanism before the end of the century. The character 
 of Mahomet is congenial to me. I admire him, and share 
 his views of life to a considerable extent. That beats you, 
 you see, Soames. Religion is a great force — the only real 
 motive force in the world ; but what you fellows dont un- 
 derstand is that you must get at a man through his own 
 religion and not through yours. Instead of facing that 
 fact, you persist in trying to convert all men to your 
 own little sect, so that you can use it against them after- 
 wards. You are all missionaries and proselytizers trying 
 to uproot the native religion from your neighbor's flower- 
 beds and plant your own in its place. You would rather 
 let a child perish in ignorance than have it taught by a 
 rival sectary. You can talk to me of the quintessential 
 equality of coal merchants and British officers; and yet 
 you cant see the quintessential equality of all the re- 
 ligions. Who are you, anyhow, that you should know 
 better than Mahomet or Confucius or any of the other 
 Johnnies who have been on this job since the world 
 existed ? 
 
 Mrs George [admiring his eloquence] George will 
 like you, Sonny. You should hear him talking about the 
 Church. 
 
 Soames. Very well, then: go to your doom, both of 
 you. There is only one religion for me: that which my 
 soul knows to be true; but even irreligion has one tenet; 
 and that is the sacredness of marriage. You two are 
 on the verge of deadly sin. Do you deny that? 
 
 Hotchkiss. You forget, Anthony: the marriage it- 
 self is the deadly sin according to you.
 
 Getting Married 203 
 
 Soames. The question is not now what I believe, but 
 what you believe. Take the vows with me; and give up 
 that woman if you have the strength and the light. But 
 if you are still in the grip of this world, at least respect 
 its institutions. Do you believe in marriage or do you 
 not? 
 
 Hotchkiss. My soul is utterly free from any such 
 superstition. I solemnly declare that between this 
 woman, as you impolitely call her, and me, I see no bar- 
 rier that my conscience bids me respect. I loathe the 
 whole marriage morality of the middle classes with all 
 my instincts. If I were an eighteenth century marquis 
 I could feel no more free with regard to a Parisian cit- 
 izen's wife than I do with regard to Polly. I despise all 
 this domestic purity business as the lowest depth of nar- 
 row, selfish, sensual, wife-grabbing vulgarity. 
 
 Mrs George [rising promptly] Oh, indeed. Then 
 youre not coming home with me, young man. I'm sorry; 
 for its refreshing to have met once in my life a man who 
 wasnt frightened by my wedding ring; but I'm looking 
 out for a friend and not for a French marquis ; so youre 
 not coming home with me. 
 
 Hotchkiss [inexorably] Yes, I am. 
 
 Mrs George. No. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Yes. Think again. You know your set 
 pretty well, I suppose, your petty tradesmen's set. You 
 know all its scandals and hypocrisies, its jealousies and 
 squabbles, its hundred of divorce cases that never come 
 into court, as well as its tens that do. 
 
 Mrs George. We're not angels. I know a few scan- 
 dals; but most of us are too dull to be anything but 
 good. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Then you must have noticed that just 
 as all murderers, judging by their edifying remarks on 
 the scaffold, seem to be devout Christians, so all liber- 
 tines, both male and female, are invariably people over-
 
 204 Getting Married 
 
 flowing with domestic sentimentality and professions of 
 respect for the conventions they violate in secret. 
 
 Mrs George. Well, you dont expect them to give 
 themselves away, do you? 
 
 Hotchkiss. They are people of sentiment, not of 
 honor. Now, I'm not a man of sentiment, but a man of 
 honor. I know well what will happen to me when once 
 I cross the threshold of your husband's house and break 
 bread with him. This marriage bond which I despise 
 will bind me as it never seems to bind the people who 
 believe in it, and whose chief amusement it is to go to 
 the theatres where it is laughed at. Soames: youre a 
 Communist, arnt you? 
 
 Soames. I am a Christian. That obliges me to be a 
 Communist. 
 
 Hotchkiss. And you believe that many of our landed 
 estates were stolen from the Church by Henry the 
 eighth ? 
 
 Soames. I do not merely believe that: I know it 
 as a lawyer. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Would you steal a turnip from one of 
 the landlords of those stolen lands? 
 
 Soames [fencing with the question] They have no 
 right to their lands. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Thats not what I ask you. Would you 
 steal a turnip from one of the fields they have no 
 right to? 
 
 Soames. I do not like turnips. 
 
 Hotchkiss. As you are a lawyer, answer me. 
 
 Soames. I admit that I should probably not do so. 
 I should perhaps be wrong not to steal the turnip: I 
 cant defend my reluctance to do so; but I think I should 
 not do so. I know I should not do so. 
 
 Hotchkiss. Neither shall I be able to steal George's 
 wife. I have stretched out my hand for that forbidden 
 fruit before ; and I know that my hand will always come
 
 Getting Married 20^ 
 
 back empty. To disbelieve in marriage is easy: to love 
 a married woman is easy; but to betray a comrade, to/ 
 be disloyal to a host, to break the covenant of bread anc 
 salt, is impossible. You may take me home with yoi 
 Polly: you have nothing to fear. 
 
 Mrs George. And nothing to hope? 
 
 Hotchkiss. Since you put it in that more than kind 
 way, Polly, absolutely nothing. 
 
 Mrs George. Hm! Like most men, you think you 
 know everything a woman wants, dont you? But the 
 thing one wants most has nothing to do with marriage at 
 all. Perhaps Anthony here has a glimmering of it. Eh, 
 Anthony ? 
 
 Soames. Christian fellowship? 
 
 Mrs George. You call it that, do you? 
 
 Soames. What do you call it? 
 
 Collins [appearing in the tower with the Beadle\ 
 Now, Polly, the hall's full; and theyre waiting for you. 
 
 The Beadle. Make way there, gentlemen, please. 
 Way for the worshipful the Mayoress. If you please, 
 my lords and gentlemen. By your leave, ladies and gen- 
 tlemen : way for the Mayoress. 
 
 Mrs George takes Hotchkiss's arm, and goes out, pre' 
 ceded by the Beadle. 
 
 Soames resumes his writing tranquilly.
 
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