| | | | | It has been agreed by a unanimous consensus of | Mammas that the great problem of modern times is to | get young ladies married. What the cause of the | increasing scarcity of husbands can be, the maternal | mind has in vain bent its energies to ascertain. Some | people say that the Imperial regime, | discouraging all permanent investments, has put | marriages out of fashion ~~ others that the cigar is | gradually supplying the place of the companionship | after which the male heart yearns, without the costly | establishment on which the female heart insists. Others | ~~ but these are daughterless, and therefore envious | matrons ~~ suggest that the mammas have cried their | wares too lustily, and that the competition is so keen | that the customers are becoming fanciful. Something of | difficulty is necessary to lend to the transaction that | romantic halo which is required to blind the eyes of our | too wary youth to its inevitable financial drawbacks. | There was a time ~~ at least so the poets and our own | youthful recollections tell us ~~ when love-making had | something of the excitement of a chase. But now it is | Daphne that runs after Apollo. Hunting would be very | poor fun if the fox were to meet the hounds half-way ~~ | or rather, if the fox were to chase the hounds madly | over hedge and ditch, imploring them to eat him. | Whatever the explanation, the consentient groans of | countless dowagers attest the fact that the men will not | propose. Celibacy is receiving year by year into its | cold and cheerless solitudes numbers of willing, waiting, | but alas! groomless brides. The effects of this famine of | husbands are horrible and heartrending. As men in the | last stages of hunger will eat grass and chew old shoes, | so young ladies, who came out dreaming of strawberry | leaves, are fain to put up at last with the incumbents of | Peel districts. There are of course a few eldest sons still | to be had; but what are they among so many? Their | aspect and sufferings in London ball-rooms are | described by the travelers who venture into those | regions to be truly pitiable. The English passenger who | lands for the first time on Boulogne pier, and begins to | look about him for an hotel, is not more bewildered by | the abundant welcome and unsolicited attentions with | which he meets. He moves through the crowd with the | trembling caution of a health walking through a | lazaretto. He looks on every old woman as one who | may ask his intentions, on every young one as one to | whom he may be forced to propose. To speak is | dangerous, to dance is fatal. At last, reversing the part | of Amary Pas, he flies to the supper-room, wishing that | he may not be seen. So far the evil is working its own | cure. Very few articles of this kind, at least of prime | quality ~~ we do not speak of Irish samples ~~ are | disposed of now at the ball-room auctions. They are | generally negotiated in wholly unexpected quarters by | private contract. Even worse results are said by | competent authorities to have followed from this | backwardness of the English youth. The most innocent | portion of the imitativeness which Juvenal ascribes to | the wife of Claudius is becoming fashionable among | English young ladies. An inverted hypocrisy is the | homage which virtue now pays to vice. Sterling silver, | it is found, cannot be sold without an electro-plate of | very different metal. The Haymarket gives the law of | tone, dress, manner, to Rotten-row. In that aristocratic | retreat the reign of universal reconciliation is being | foreshadowed. The sucking child plays on the hole of | the asp, and the weaned child puts her hand on the | cockatrice's den, in the full confidence that they shall | not hurt nor destroy. And the semi-acquaintance results | in a loan of weapons. A species of poaching is now | only too common in the matrimonial chase. The | legitimate sportswoman no longer brings down her | game in the old fashion, but borrows the snares and | gins of her less recognised sister. In fact, the old | weapons are thought to have failed, and the others are | known in their own sphere to have succeeded. To vary | the metaphor, skating over thin ice is a favourite | maidenly accomplishment of the present day. So at | least, in far blunter terms, it has been averred by a | contemporary, qualified beyond all others to reveal to | the outer world the secrets of fashion. Whether the | full-blown Messalina will make her appearance among her | partial imitators, whether the thin ice will not give way | beneath some of the less nimble feet, remains to be seen. | If Paterfamilias is not ambitious for such results, he had | better open his eyes. There is no doubt that the evil is | both grave and growing. | To suggest a remedy for this one-sided admiration of | celibacy is not very easy. The policy of charging | bachelors extra for their footmen has been given up as | futile. The lex Julia has not | left a brilliant reputation behind it, and would be even | less successful in the present day. The monopoly of the | front opera-stalls would be a small consolation for the | resigned latch-key and the abandoned Cremorne. | Anxious, however, to bring our contribution to the | common stock of consolation, we will suggest to the | desolated mothers one mode of alleviating their | misfortunes. Let them see if they cannot do something | to mitigate the absurdities of marriage settlements. The | bold bridegroom has terrors enough to face. The long | period of engagement, during which he is something | between a lion and a laughing-stock to a score of | inquisitive acquaintances ~~ the batch of new relations | of whom it is morally certain that he will not take to all | ~~ and the possible mother-in-law, are a perspective | which it requires a stronger imagination than the cold | youth of this age posses to clothe in golden colours. | But they are trifles compared to settlements. It is | fortunate that all young men do not know what | settlements are, or marriages would become still rarer. | They appear to be a relic of the times of which | ethnologists tell us so much, when our forefathers | wandered on the slopes of the Hindoo Koosh. They | embody completely the Oriental theory of marriage. A | woman is dealt with as a valuable security, to be | exchanged for due consideration. The consideration | takes the form of a reversionary interest in money | offered by the husband, and secured to her and her | family in case she survives. Starting from this principle, | a marriage conducted according to the approved | principles is a matter of sharp, close bargaining. No | sooner is the romantic part of it over than it is | surrendered to the lawyers, who proceed to chaffer over | it and | | cheapen their adversary's claim, as they might do if | they were purchasing a cow. If one side brings money | into settlement, his or her lawyer expects that the other | side shall bring the same sum too. If the simple | difficulty of the said sum not being procurable should | defeat this claim, he will probably advise his principal | to break off the marriage, and declare that the other side | are acting very shabbily. If the principal has common | sense, he pooh-poohs these suggestions, and sends the | lawyer back to his wrangling. Then the lawyer tries for | three-quarters of the sum claimed, and again goes to his | principal with a long face if it is refused. Then he tries | for half, and so on. In some cases he probably succeeds | in inducing his principal to adopt his complaints, and a | great deal of unhappiness is the result. In the vast | majority of cases he only produces endless worry, a | great deal of angry correspondence, and a few frightful | storms of household politics. Fathers-in-law threaten, | sisters-in-law gossip, brothers-in-law growl. | Accusations of sordid intentions are guardedly, but still | abundantly, exchanged. All the follies which pride of | family begets in an Englishman are brought to the | surface. The match is canvassed, not as something | which concerns the happiness of two individuals, but as | an instrument by which one family is permitted to share | in the superior pedigree, or caste, or antiquity, or title, | of another family. At last, after quarrels about | respective contributions, quarrels about trustees, | quarrels about investments, the struggle is concluded. | The husband is brought into church, manacled, fettered, | strait-waistcoated, as far as parchments can do it. | Every possible security is taken that over their common | property he shall have no power during his life or after | his death. His possible caprices, or errors, or vices in | this respect are guarded against as rigorously as if he | were a ticket-of-leave man or an idiot. Consequently, | when the marriage is over, he finds himself in this | position ~~ that he may commit towards his wife every | inhumanity short of what will bring him into Sir | Cresswell Cresswell's court, but he may not invest her | money in a five percent. security. He has unlimited | liberty to ill-treat her during her life, but he may not | change the destination of her money after her death. | The settlement struggles have probably had the | foundation of a coolness for life between him and some | of his new relations, and have at least cost him weeks of | as much worry as any man would be inclined to | encounter; and probably also throughout his whole life, | he feels the inconvenience of not being master of his | own fortune. But they have not interposed the slightest | obstacle to his making his wife as miserable as he may | think fit. | The enormous lawyers' bills which always follow these | formalities probably explain why they have been kept | up. They confer no real benefit on a woman: for all | that is necessary for her safety is that her own money | should be secured to her. But few men look forward to | them without horror, or submit to them without | indignation. In many professions they are a heavy clog | round a man's leg. They require a limitation of | investment to which only the rich can submit without | inconvenience, and which has a tendency to make the | mercantile classes a caste by themselves. More than | anything else they have hampered landed proprietors, | restrained improvement, and perpetuated neglect. Are | the matrons of the London world surprised that | marriages fall off? ~~ that Aspasia is becoming a | commoner character, and her part more openly avowed? | Does it not occur to them that a Morganatic marriage, | free from settlements, lawyers, and preliminary battles, | and all the artificial worries with which marriage, | properly so called, has been surrounded, may have | charms with which exacting respectability competes in | vain? Surely, if they make up their minds to trust a | man with their daughter's happiness, they might trust | him with his own money.