Possessed Part 34

"'There is one thing you self-pitying ladies must learn,' he went on, 'that is to play the game of life according to the rules. You can't have your cake and eat it. You can't amuse yourselves with fire without getting burned.'

"I was silent.

"'You must stop flirting with temptation--that's what you all do, you pretty women, fascinating women. You can't deny it.'

"'I do deny it,' I said weakly.

"'Oh come now! How about dancing--when a woman has a sinuous, clinging body and wears no corsets and--you know what I mean. Isn't that temptation?'

"'It's horrid of you, Kendall Brown, to suggest such things. Only a person with evil thoughts--'

"His eyes twinkled at me good-humoredly but I refused to be conciliated.

"'And how about the ancient and honorable practice of kissing?' he persisted. 'Of course it is not done any more, I realize that. No pretty woman in these austere days ever thinks of allowing a man to kiss her--except her husband, but--seriously, isn't kissing a temptation?

Isn't it, Pen?'

"By this time my nerves were decidedly ruffled.

"'You are too foolis.h.!.+' I stormed. 'I wish you would go home. I am tired of your ex-cathedra statements and your self-sufficiency.'

"'No,' he flung back, studying me with his keen gray eyes, 'you are tired of the truth.'"

CONCERNING THE DOUBLE STANDARD

With great diffidence I venture to say a word about the most perplexing and embarra.s.sing question in the world:

_Shall men be allowed to do certain things without any particular punishment or social condemnation, while women are punished mercilessly for doing these same things--things that men compel them to do?_

The double standard!

Shall women try to change this standard, and, if so, in which direction--up or down?

Is it desirable that the weaker s.e.x be given more liberty in emotional matters, or that the stronger s.e.x be given less liberty?

I know that some distinguished women, great artists, stage favorites and others have succeeded brilliantly in spite of s.e.x irregularities; but this proves nothing. These women succeeded because they had genius or talent, not because they were immoral, just as certain men of genius have succeeded in spite of an addiction to various evil practices. They would probably have achieved more splendid careers had they been able to conquer these weaknesses. Besides, we are considering what is best for the majority of men and women, not for an exceptional few.

I have a friend, a public school teacher in Chicago,--Miss Jessie G----, who holds advanced views on these matters and admits that she herself has been a s.e.x transgressor. She has never been sordid or mercenary, she has always believed that she was actuated by sincere affection, but the fact remains that she has had several affairs with men. She has broken the moral law. And while she professes not to regret this and insists that she would repeat these affairs if she had to live her life over again, yet, I have felt in talking with her that this cannot possibly be true.

Miss G---- has fine instincts, is fond of music, is proud of her profession and shrinks from the thought that she might be considered _decla.s.see_; at the same time she _knows_ that on more than one occasion she has been treated coldly by men and women familiar with the facts of her life. For example, at summer hotels, in spite of her good looks and apparent respectability, she has been denied introductions to charming women who would disapprove of her behavior.

_That hurts!_

Even the bravest of our advanced women thinkers know in their hearts that they writhe under the pity or scorn of their sister women.

It is certain that a decent woman who enters into irregular relations with a man whom she loves must endure great distress of mind; her relations with this man are at best unsatisfactory. She accepts the disadvantages of wifehood and foregoes the advantages. She can see her adored one only with difficulty at uncertain times and places. She lives in constant fear of discovery. She is doomed to torturing loneliness for, in the nature of things, she cannot have her lover with her whenever she longs to have him, there must be days and weeks of the inevitable separation. Nor dare she write to him freely, lest the letters fall into wrong hands. In no way may she reveal her love, the proudest treasure in her life, but must hide it like a thing of shame.

"My poor child," I would say to such a woman, if I might, "remember that the hard test comes when things go wrong, when money fails, when beauty fades. Suppose your beloved falls ill. You cannot go to him, speak to him, minister to him on his bed of pain, though your heart is breaking.

Even if he is dying, you can only wait ... wait in anguish of soul for some cold or covert message. You have no rights at his side that the family respect--_his_ family. Who are you? Are you his wife? No! Then you are nothing, less than nothing; you are the temptress, _the mistress_! You love him? Bah! Can such a woman love?"

Miss G---- once acknowledged to me that while she has enjoyed the companions.h.i.+p of superior men whom she would never have known but for her moral laxity, yet she has paid a heavy price here, since she no longer values the acquaintance of men in her own sphere of life. From two such men (excellent, average men) she has received offers of marriage that she refused because their society no longer satisfied her after that of others more brilliant and highly placed; but she might easily have been happy with one of these two, had not her ideals been raised to a level beyond her legitimate attainment.

I might present other difficulties that must be faced by a woman who says she is tired of the old standards of virtue and will live her life as a man lives his, but I need not detail these difficulties. In her deepest soul every woman knows that the thought of a wayward existence is abhorrent to her better nature. She hates the double standard, she knows it has worked only evil in the world--it is a debas.e.m.e.nt of all that is n.o.blest, a betrayal of all that is most beautiful. _The double standard has done more harm to the human race than all the wars of history._

Women know this, but they are afraid to speak out, they are afraid to fight for their ideals, and pa.s.sing years find men clinging to hideous s.e.x privileges--one law of morality for men and another law for women.

I believe that American women could change all this, they could abolish the wicked double standard, as they have abolished saloons and houses of degradation, if they would face the facts of life instead of ignoring them. It is merely a matter of courage and organization. Suppose a hundred women in a single city should pledge themselves to bar from their homes and acquaintance notorious s.e.x offenders--men offenders? And to question clean-minded men of their acquaintance, influential men, about these things and to get honest answers? And to have these answers openly discussed--perhaps in the churches? Why not? What are churches for except to fight evil?

What would the average man say to a woman whom he respected and trusted if she asked him to tell her, on his honor as a good citizen, whether he believes that the double standard is helpful or harmful to the women of America? Helpful or harmful to the children of America? To the manhood of America? Whether he is glad or sorry to think of the effects that his double-standard pleasures have had upon American women? Whether he would wish his sons to follow in his double-standard footsteps? Whether he would be willing to give up his double-standard privileges, if by so doing, he could save ten American women like his mother or his daughter from destruction? Would he be willing to do that? _Will he give his pledge to do that?_

Think how such a leaven of decency and clean manhood might spread throughout the land! It might start a single-standard revival that would sweep the world. _By the power of courage and faith and the love of G.o.d!_

SHALL A WIFE FORGIVE HER HUSBAND FOR UNFAITHFULNESS?

I have thought deeply about this, remembering what I suffered with Julian. It is terribly hard to tell the truth; a woman is filled with shame for herself and for her whole s.e.x when she tries to tell the truth about the unfaithfulness of husbands.

_How long shall a wife forgive? How much shall she deliberately ignore?_

Many women say: "I would never forgive my husband if he deceived me."

Others say: "I would never forgive my husband if I _knew_ that he had deceived me." And still others say: "If my husband must deceive me, I hope he will never let me know it."

The tragic truth is (as all women vaguely suspect) that thousands of devoted husbands, hundreds of thousands of average husbands have at one time or another fallen from grace. Julian used to say that if all the men in America who have broken the seventh commandment were sent away to do penance on lonely mountain tops, we should run short of mountains.

He told me also that a man can love his wife so sincerely that he would gladly die for her, yet, in a moment of temptation, he may be untrue to her. Julian was an impossible person, but other clean-minded men, including my dear Christopher, have told me the same thing.

The truth is that most men have never learned to resist s.e.x temptation; they grow up with the knowledge that they need not resist temptation, which is the fault of society, as now organized, the fault of wrong teaching, of insincere preaching, of nation-wide hypocrisy.

I have come to see that women, so long as they have not set themselves as a body against this evil system (which they might evidently change if they would act together) have no right to complain of its inevitable consequences. Men will abandon s.e.x excesses, as they have abandoned drinking excesses, gradually, through education, through reasonable appeal, through the resistless force of public opinion intelligently aroused and directed by devoted women. And in no other way!

Meantime, it is the duty of individual wives to be merciful, as far as they can, towards erring husbands. The cure lies often in more love from the wife rather than in less love.

To any tortured wife who knows or half knows certain things about her husband, I say this--"Dear friend, as long as you love him, forgive him.

As long as he loves you, forgive him. Be patient--enduring. Make the hard fight against sensuality with your husband, but don't let him know you are making it. Make this fight exactly as you would a similar fight against alcohol or drugs."

A woman must be on her guard, however, lest she hide under a cloak of forgiveness, some base motive in her own heart. Alas! I know, better than anyone, how easily we women can deceive ourselves.

There is an ign.o.ble forgiveness that is based on love of material advantages--love of money. There are women who tolerate faithless husbands because they are too cowardly or indolent to fight the battle of life alone. What would they do if they left their sheltered homes?

Who would provide comforts and luxuries? How would they dress themselves? How would they live? Shall it be by working? But they hate to work. They have never learned to work. It was partly as a defense against this woman helplessness that I took up trained nursing while Julian was still alive.

A still more degrading forgiveness is based on sensuality. There are women married to brutes of husbands who will endure every humiliation, surrendering all their fine ideals and high purposes rather than leave these coa.r.s.e mates.

I first realized this just before I went abroad to nurse the soldiers. I had gone to the Adirondacks that summer for a rest, and one day on a motor trip I stopped for luncheon at a farm house, and there I recognized an old friend from my home town, Laura K----, who was to have had a brilliant musical career. It was she who had encouraged me to develop my voice; but I never could have been the great artist that Laura might have been. A famous impresario had judged her voice to be so fine--it was a glorious contralto--that he had offered to advance money for her musical studies abroad. He a.s.sured Laura that in three years she would be a blazing star on the grand opera stage.

That was the last I had heard of my old friend, and here suddenly I found her, married to a hulking mountaineer, half trapper, half guide.

Here was my wonderful, burning-eyed Laura, who might have had the world at her feet, a farm drudge taking in summer boarders! How was this possible?

I spent the afternoon seeking an answer to this riddle. We walked out into the forest and talked for hours, but whenever I pressed for an explanation, she halted in confusion. Her mother was old and ill and--she did not wish to leave her. But, I pointed out, she had never spoken of this before, she had always cared supremely about her voice, about her great musical triumph that was to be. Was not that true? Yes, of course, but--the mountain air was so good for her mother. And she made other trivial excuses.