The Truth about Marriage

Front matter

THE TRUTH ABOUT MARRIAGE

THE TRUTH ABOUT MARRIAGE

By WALTER BROWN MURRAY

Chapter I

CHAPTER I

MODERN ATTITUDE TOWARDS MARRIAGE

Marriages in our day are entered into very lightly by many people.

And by such people they are quickly dissolved if the marriage ceases to be pleasant to the married partners.

What about the institution of marriage which our ancestors—possibly we ourselves—considered a holy and sacred relationship to be dissolved only by death or infidelity?

Well, for many that idea is like an old piece of furniture belonging in the attic. The continuance of marriage is for them merely a matter of whim or caprice.

We live in another age. People dare question anything.

The world in our generation is trying to think out from new angles every human problem.

The present investigation of marriage is a part of the universal inquiry in this new age into the basic character of all things. We are no longer willing to accept tradition. Men with hammers enter boldly into the sacred precincts of any temple and break down any and all idols. This is an age of vandalism.

Rather it is an age of inquiry, for it is a new age, and everything hitherto accepted must be questioned. Everywhere men are investigating, not always in a spirit to know what is true, but because the old is being attacked, and the breaking of idols is an interesting pastime.

But the old is being overturned, and with many the hope is to be able to rebuild on better foundations.

Probably this latter idea is the spirit of the age, to rebuild a better and a saner world, one more rational and worthy. And it seems necessary to discard everything that does not measure up to new standards.

Yes, the sacred institution of marriage is being attacked, attacked boldly, ruthlessly even.

In the past traditional marriage was too strongly entrenched to talk of investigating it. The mere suggestion of such a thing was somewhat like entering a temple in the presence of priest and worshippers and profaning the altar. The intruder would have been tom limb from limb.

And yet authority—even the authority of tradition in the matter of marriage—has been necessary. Standards are always necessary. Without the authority of church and state upholding tradition there would have been little order in the world.

But for the people who justly belong to the new age, who have thus accepted the scientific spirit, who want to know why they must do or not do the things that have always been done, the standard must inevitably be "Truth as authority, and not authority as truth."

It is in this spirit that we desire to investigate, and discover, if we can, the truth about marriage.

Chapter II

CHAPTER II

STARTING OUT ON OUR QUEST

Here is one thing that we know: People want to be happy in marriage, and from what we know of certain so called happy marriages we feel they have the right to expect to be happy.

The only plausible reason for the creation of human beings is that they were created to be happy.

Since marriage has proved in many cases to be one of the greatest agencies in all the world to bring about happiness, the question, of universal interest, is, What is the surest way to secure happiness through marriage?

Perhaps the most direct way to get at our subject is to ask what is the purpose back of marriage.

Biologically it is unmistakably the procreation of offspring.

In order that so important an end as the continuance of the human race on earth may be secured the relationship between man and woman is made so pleasurable that it cannot easily be cast aside.

To do so is to develop all kinds of so-called psychoses, or nervous and mental upsets, which prevent the living of a perfectly normal life.

Biologically the end of the perpetuation of the race is secured by what we know as the sex instinct, which has three developments: First, love of the opposite sex in general; second, love of one of the opposite sex, or what is called the mating instinct; and, third, love of offspring.

From the point of view of the human being love of the opposite sex is the reason for marriage. But that covers a great deal of territory.

Love of the opposite sex is with many, in the crudest and most animal-like stage, merely sense satisfaction, a satisfaction of the kind that men know as brute lust.

Now, here comes in an interpretation of marriage. With many marriage is only sensual and brute-like sex gratification. And biologically it will secure the end of the procreation of offspring, the continuance of the race. If we were animals only, and brutal animals at that, unworthy of our human inheritance, lacking in the finer feelings of the cultivated human being, let us say, uncouth, such a marriage would suffice, after a fashion, but leave us vaguely and miserably unsatisfied.

Something within us causes us to turn away from the suggestion of such a marriage, but let us not call it a marriage, instead, a gratification of pure animal lust.

And yet it is perfectly possible that the purely lustful spirit—the beastlike spirit—enters into many so-called marriages between human beings. Sometimes it exists in both parties to the union, sometimes only in the man, sometimes only in the woman.

If it exists in one only, it is unspeakably offensive to the one in whom it does not exist.

But there are myriads of others who would go further in what seems like pure animal gratification, and because of the pre-eminently human aesthetic instincts enhance the enjoyment by reason of association with enchanting surroundings.

They would find an added delight in the appeal of beauty in the woman or the man. They would intoxicate themselves further with the glow of wine and the stimulation of music. Perhaps there would be the preliminary of delicate feasting. Even there might be the beauty of sensuous poetry.

All of these delights are made use of sometimes in order to lift up what would otherwise be merely brutal lust, but which is at best largely animalism, for it has little of the high flavor of sincere and unselfish friendship, little of the better part of men and women that we vaguely call the spiritual. It has as its end chiefly the gratification of the physical man.

And with this kind of pure animal-like gratification there goes the love of variety. There may be indeed the promise of permanence in the relationship, but it is too often found to be merely promiscuous mating.

Some men, and some women, never rise to what is characteristic of some of the higher animals, namely, love of one of the sex, fidelity to what we know among humans as the marriage vow.

It is a characteristic of the lust of variety that a new face is needed constantly to keep up the stimulation of sense enjoyment, and, while such a union may produce offspring and thus serve the biological end, it does not do so in the way best calculated to provide for the offspring or the discarded mate. And these factors must be kept in mind.

Thus we see that merely the biological purpose in marriage—the procreation of offspring and the continuance of the race—is not sufficient in itself to justify mere animal-like lust or promiscuous mating. For human beings the truly human elements must enter in order that there may be a relationship worthy of being called human marriage.

Actually it is quite conceivable that there may be true marriage when the biological end of offspring is not possible.

Now we are perceiving that the biological reason for marriage—as important as it may be for those who have the love of offspring, and also for nature's purpose of the continuance of the race—may not enter in at all in what can, from the human viewpoint, be called a genuine marriage of the human variety.

But at the bottom of marriage there is always that instinct which is implanted by the Creator for the sake of the perpetuation of the race.

Chapter III

CHAPTER III

THE SOCIAL NATURE OF MARRIAGE

It is entirely obvious that marriage is the most fundamental and the most primary of human relationships.

No other relationship enters into comparison with it as to its basic character. For it is the fountain of all other relationships.

The relationship of father, mother, sister, brother, son, daughter, uncle, aunt, cousins, grandparents, and all blood relationships, proceed from it.

And more than that, from marriage proceed not only families and family life, but society itself, the nations, all humanity.

It would seem highly important to have the fountain from which proceeds all human life kept pure and protected by whatever useful means society may determine.

After all it is a question of society protecting itself.

The mistake that people today seem to be mak in their extreme individualism in the matter of marriage is that it is merely a personal matter. We grant that it is a personal matter, and we shall later show how largely personal it is.

But when people become careless of others involved in marriage, and indifferent to all that may socially proceed from marriage, society has the right to take a hand.

The individualist asks: "Is not one the master, or the mistress, of one's own life and destiny?"

Yes, one has the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness so long as his practice does not interfere with similar rights possessed by others.

If marriage is to descend to the level of brute mating, with no regard for offspring and the future,—descend into mere lust and temporary pleasure, it would mean that the fountain of all human life had ceased to be protected.

For licentious living destroys society itself as well as the individual.

We cannot allow the individual to pollute the fountain from which all drink. He may destroy himself, but he must not be allowed to destroy society. He cannot be allowed to make laws subversive of the common good, nor be a law unto himself.

One might want to build his house out in the middle of the city street, or to run his automobile without regard to traffic laws, or to violate other city ordinances which provide for the common good; but there is an order in human life without which life is not protected and no individual can be allowed wantonly to break those laws.

John Jones feels the instinctive or primitive urge of love of the sex. Nothing else matters to him.

He does not realize that love of the sex is given by the Creator to lead finally to love of one of the sex, and thus to mating, for the sake of the continuance of the human race. He thinks of his particular love of the sex as meant only for his individual delight, purely a private affair.

Is he unlike the rest of us? One of the most difficult things for the individual to realize is the fact of his social obligation.

We sometimes think that we have no obligations to society. Perhaps we do not have the social obligation to attend parties, receptions, and other things provided largely by the womenfolks to secure contacts between eligible men and women who are eternally on the lookout for a suitable mate for themselves or daughters, but we can never escape the social bearing of our love affairs.

The precise form of the ceremony of marriage is not the important thing, but the fact of some form which will make marriage more or less binding, binding enough to compel the fulfillment of the obligations which follow from it, which are inherent in it and inseparable from it.

One may borrow money from another and feel that the essence of the loan is the verbal promise, or the mental intention, to repay the money. It is, but it is also indispensable for the protection of the lender that there shall be some visible evidence of the loan and the conditions of repayment. Otherwise the loan may prove to be as unimportant to the borrower as it too often is when there is no formality about it.

The same principle is true of marriage. Therefore it is always regarded as a social contract.

And when a young man tells a young girl that the essence of marriage is their mutual love, he is correct, but if he fails to protect her rights and the rights of possible offspring by a social contract which binds him, he is a scoundrel.

But we are getting new ideas in the matter of marriage in our day. Getting married has become a very commonplace thing. If one does not like one's partner, it is easy to get another, and start all over again. It is like taking a meal in a chance restaurant, he can find another restaurant for the next meal. If one does not like one's husband or wife, accepted on the spur of the moment, there are plenty of others. Why be serious about it? It is old-fashioned to take such things seriously.

And yet, as we have seen, marriage is the most serious thing in the world, the most important step in life, affecting human society as well as individuals for time and eternity.

It has always existed, as far as human records go, and it has always been entered into with much ceremony and consideration.

It seems right to question many customs and traditions that have become embedded in the life of the nations. For example, the Chinese did right to question the custom of binding the feet of their little girls and thus deforming them for life. We think they did right to dispense with their once cherished pigtails.

It is certain that we did well to dispense with the universal practice of dueling.

We are doing well to question the wisdom of war.

But those things are destructive, and marriage is constructive. It is inherent in the nature of man and indispensable for the conservation of human society, yes, and indispensable for human happiness as dueling and war are not.

It is perfectly right to question marriage as an institution, even to consider abolishing the marriage ceremony. Why not? How can we know what is good or bad unless we investigate them? It is not enough to be told that marriage has always existed as an institution and been preceded by a ceremony of one kind or another.

If marriage cannot withstand the investigation, why not know the facts in the case? But it may prove that marriage is one of those institutions, like parenthood and childhood, that cannot be discarded or disregarded.

We have already seen its social nature. We realize that because of its social nature it must be protected from ruthless iconoclasts who have nothing in mind except the joy of destruction or the lust of plundering marriage sweets.

When the boy who is innocent says to the girl in these modern days, "Let's get married," thinking as he does so that it does not make any particular difference if a mistake is temporarily made, he does not realize that he is playing with parenthood and childhood as if they were temporary things. Possibly he is doing the girl an irreparable injury, and cheapening his own ideals. Probably he is doing irreparable wrong to his own offspring.

Most of the cases that come to my attention as needing the advice of a psychologist, because of many kinds of complexes, have had a childhood which was marred by an unhappy marriage between the parents.

Chapter IV

CHAPTER IV

EASY MARRIAGE AND EASY DIVORCE

As a result of the attacks on marriage, we have many new ideas, many new plans to bring about happy marriages.

The advocates of new plans say that marriage is after all a gamble. One can never know whether the man or the woman is going to be happy. The only way to be sure is to try marriage out first with one, then with another, until the right mates are united. Then marriage will be as happy as the most ardent lovers could desire.

One of the new plans to remedy marital unhappiness is trial marriage, oftentimes for a definite term.

Another plan is companionate marriage, which is after all precisely the same thing as trial marriage, except that it is not for a definite term; it can be dissolved when mutually desired, provided there are no children.

The idea back of the whole matter is how to take the gamble out of monogamic marriage. For most people are agreed in the matter of monogamic marriages—of one man to one woman at a time—as ideal. To those people who look upon marriage as largely an individual matter, the new plans proposed appeal with great force.

Frankly, how can the gamble be taken out of marriage?

The advocates of new ideas say that marriage must always be, in the very nature of the case, a gamble, and the only way to eliminate the hazard is to gamble again and again until the player wins.

This can be done, it is claimed, by making divorce an easy thing, obtainable by mutual consent when both partners are satisfied that their union is a failure.

But birth control should be practiced as long as there is an element of doubt as to the final success of the marriage. In this way permanently unhappy marriages will be avoided and everyone may be sure of getting eventually his or her true mate.

My own personal idea of the way that the gamble can be taken out of marriage and permanent happiness secured is by a scientfic study of the subject, finding out just why marriages are not happy, and providing an education for young people in the most important matter of their lives which shall instruct them as to the means to avoid unhappiness and un secure happiness. Why not be scientific in this matter as in every other of our day?

Marriage may be likened to buying a farm. Some people know how to buy a farm. They understand farming, and soil, and seed, and conditions that make farming successful.

The trouble with marriage is that most people who enter into it are as ignorant as most city people are of farming. They undertake to buy a farm without knowing any of the conditions governing success. They know nothing about land in general, about soils in particular, they know nothing of seed or planting or cultivation or harvesting or marketing, and all the many elements that go into successful farming. How can they make a success of it? Would we expect farming under such conditions to be anything else but a gamble?

And similarly how can we expect marriage to be a success when those who plan to enter it know nothing about the subject except that people get married, and that some are happy, and a great many others unhappy?

They have never studied themselves. They do not know what they are, what they like, what they want to do or be, except, in some vague way, to be happy. They do not know what kind of a person will make them happy. They do not study the people who appeal to them vaguely for one reason or another. When the great rush of sex urge becomes strong and they become conscious of the element of sex in the other, they think, Well, I guess this is the real thing. I guess I ought to be getting married now while I have a good chance. John, or Mary, seems to be all right. After all, marriage is a gamble, or a lottery. Who knows but what I may draw the capital prize?

I had a letter recently from a young girl in a distant city, thousands of miles away. She felt that I was a safe person to write to because of my interest in my fellowmen. She wanted to find out whether she ought to marry a certain young man who was deeply in love with her.

Most girls do not welcome advice at such a time provided they reciprocate the love that is offered.

But this girl did not want to make a mistake. Can you blame her, reading as she does every day about unhappy marriages? She knew certain things about the young man's family which she thought might affect his character. She realized the importance of the step which faced her.

Of course, she might argue that she could get a divorce, but somehow the idea of getting married with divorce as the easy way out fortunately does not appeal to every young girl who is giving up her , body, mind and spirit. She did not want to yield her body unless she gave also her mind and soul.

I shall not tell you what I told her, for that is a matter between ourselves, but I trust that she will go forward, or stand still, or retreat, according to the outlook for happiness.

I cannot fancy myself saying to a pure young soul like that, Enter into a trial marriage, or a companionate one, if you like to call it that; practice birth control until you find out whether you want to live permanently with your husband; but always keep in mind that you can dissolve your marriage at any time by mutual consent. An honest study of yourself and your sweetheart and of marriage itself is not at all necessary; for, after living together awhile you can separate and try it out with someone else. Enjoy life. Take a chance. What have you to lose?

Well, what does a young girl have to lose in a trial marriage? I am not going to try to answer that question yet. But from what I know of young girls I fancy that many of them would lose the glory of a dream, for one thing, and a loveliness of spirit that would make life thereafter rather sordid.

But there are other difficulties in the way.

Biologically, and thus nominally, a marriage is intended to produce offspring. Deliberately to enter marriage with the provision that there shall be no offspring unless desired is to enter it selfishly and cold-bloodedly. Only sophisticated people could do it. It places the individual's sexual pleasure above the normal purpose of marriage, above the normal instincts of human beings as lovers and potential parents, it degrades marriage into a mere animal condition.

Furthermore, easy divorce is the last thing in the minds of those who truly love each other, and love is the only basis for marriage. Lust is no basis at all.

It is perfectly true that marriage as it now exists is often a failure, but it is too often a failure because it is entered into as lust sanctioned by law. People with bestial passions desire one another's bodies. Lust is cruel and filled with the spirit of hate as soon as it is gratified.

If marriages are failures now, will it improve matters to invite people to enter them more freely by taking away responsibilities and offering easy divorce? If modern conditions are degenerate, what benefit will ensue from legalizing degeneracy? Sex-relationship in itself is not evil, nor wicked, if orderly and in harmony with the laws of human nature and society; but there is nothing more disorderly or terrible in its effects if animated by a bestial spirit.

Shall we not endeavor to restrain and eliminate bestiality and have our laws conform to the inherent law of our inner nature?

To change old laws and customs, frankly to meet modern demands in the matter of greater freedom in sex relationship, because people are not living up to the old ideals of marriage, would seem to be lowering our ideals to a degenerate age and would represent a descent into depravity. Can our civilization withstand such a lowering of standards?

As to the matter of morality in marriage, which seems to be involved in this discussion, morality is after all merely what has become established custom, the word "morals" is from the Latin "mores" and really means the manners and customs of a people.

But actually morality is based upon the highest ethical views of a people, their notions of right and wrong, of their duties to their fellowman and to God.

And so we are to think of the question of morality in marriage, not because of established custom only, but because of the factors of right and wrong, of order and disorder, of the harm done to individuals and to society by a disregard of its sacred and binding character, which are imbedded in marriage morals.

A man may live as a hermit, and get away with it, but as soon as he marries he becomes a social being and ceases to be able to live solely as an individ consulting individual caprice. Unrestricted individualism cannot be permitted in marriage, because of the fact that marriage is the beginning of community life. Men who marry must be governed by laws designed to promote the good of the community.

Chapter V

CHAPTER V

UNSATISFACTORY REMEDIES

Laws which bring about some stabilization of human rights are always necessary in society. Individual judgment and desires cannot be relied upon to conserve the good of society.

The individual who enters upon companionate marriage is becoming a law unto himself. He is determining what responsibilities he owes to society. He may induce a woman to share such an uncertain future as he offers her, but in so doing is he fair to her?

Let us say that they have no children, but the woman in entering upon marriage is giving far more than the man. They are not biologically the same. She is changed even as to her appearance. She is changed in feelings. She can never be the same woman as before. The man shows little change either in appearance or physical structure. Does not the woman become the victim, however much she may be inclined to delight the man?

Incompatibility in marriage is by no means discovered at the very first. It has its basis in many conditions which often are not apparent for a long time after marriage. The plan of companionate marriage could not possibly be a universal solution for unhappy marriages. It would affect only a certain percentage and bring in a train of evils that would far outweigh the supposed benefits.

Will a marriage deliberately entered into for the purpose of making a trial of it develop the right attitude towards marriage? Will not the first anger or discontent lead to a quick divorce? It is not an easy matter for any two individuals to live together constantly in the close intimacy of marriage. What must be the result if there is an easy chance to escape from its bonds? The coming of children is often the one thing that binds people together closely enough to enable them to understand each other. Marriage practically in every case, after the honeymoon is past, becomes a matter of mutual adjustment.

The remedy for unhappy marriage does not seem to be a trial marriage with easy divorce, but in choosing a mate who is adapted by all the conditions to enter into a marriage with the one who chooses.

Universal education along this line would seem to be the most useful requirement for happy marri . Careful study of conditions beforehand need not be accompanied by sex indulgence.

Another difficulty that comes to mind is the fact of easy divorce. If a divorce be granted in the case of a companionate marriage, what is there to prevent a divorce by mutual consent in the case of unhappiness developing after children come, when the marriage has become a "family marriage?" Provided of course that in the separation agreed upon provision is made for the maintenance of wife and children, as now?

In other words, if we once admit that marriage may be ended at the will of both parties in a given case, what is to prevent easy divorce for everybody? Does not the plan, whatever its appearance, mean only universal divorce, an easy divorce, and that without a trial to ascertain the facts as to justice or injustice done?

Suppose in a companionate marriage one of the parties continues to be in love, how will it relieve the other partner of a disagreeable situation? If the woman to the agreement—I hesitate to call her a wife when she has not assumed the responsibilities of wifehood—desires to become a mother and thereby continue with the man who, secretly or openly, desires his freedom to enter into a new relationship, what is to prevent her becoming a mother and thereby compelling her unwilling mate to continue with her in a family marriage? Will he be happy? Will he not strive to break away?

Does not the character of men and women who enter into marriage have a great deal to do with its happiness or unhappiness? And is not the supreme thing the need to change human character?

The remedy would not seem to be to tear down the barriers of protection to human rights that now exist. Marriage will continue to be imperfect as long as the people entering it are imperfect. We can improve it only as we improve people.

And now what would the probable effect be upon the minds of young people if told that living together as man and wife, without the necessity to continue as such, was the law of the land? Would it not be apt to stimulate promiscuous sex indulgence? Young people would say, even as now they have been known to say when strongly tempted, "Marriage is after all only a form;" and the result would be complete demoralization in society with no forms at all. Unbridled lust would rule. Now we have public opinion and law to uphold the custom of a permanent marriage and make it seem to be a marriage.