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York  Books  :    XXI 

Continuity   Tracts 


^     DIVORCE 

^  versus  T 

DEMOCRACY 


BY 


G.  K.  CHESTERTON 


X  oquere 
I  J  filiis 
Israel 


ut  proh- 
ciscantur 


i 


^ 


London 
THE  SOCIETY  OF 
SS.  PETER  &  PAUL 

Publish  fr$  to  the  Church  of  Englatid 

32  George  St.,  Hanover  Square,  •  j 

^y  V        and  302  Regent  St.,  W.       VV^ 


i 


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•     • 


1  t  J 


^  >^:K    ';()':)K5 


2.  xNAHOTH'S  VINEYAK!        > 

H.   Kkox.     6d. 

3.  i'HE  PASSION  OF  OUR  SAVIOUR.     From 

THE  Goodly  Primer,     6d, 

4.  THK  SHADOV/  OF  PETEX.    A  .,..m...s.    3.. 

5.  THE  X\^  OES  1  HE  Primer  OF  1539,     td. 

6.  REUNION    ALL   ROUND.      The   Authc- 

"  Absolute  and  Abitofhell.**     6<i. 
:.  A   REFORMED  ENGLISH  LITANV.     From 

THE  Goodly  Primer.     3//. 
S.  NONE   WILL    REMAIN.      \'       1         ,::.     4.:. 
EXPOSITION  ,i 


I'KOM  THE  Goodly   1'rimer.      3^. 

AN     EXPOSITION     OF     THl 

MANDMENTS,  from  the  Sam, 


CREED. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archiv, 

_^  in  2007  with  funding  from    , 

.  IVIicrosoft  Corooration^ 


I  'V  THE 

nERTj    09,    OF    WORWICH.       ^//. 

-I    IN   THE   XXXIX   ARTIi 
H.  Knox. 

lUPPIM  AN!  ' 

Marsox.     td. 
r.  GEORGI  MARTY  1: 

KRLIGIO 


.ne:ss. 

RAC- 

B.V.M. 


19.  A  LriTLL   WINU.     H.  R.  Gamblk.     3^. 
23.  MY    PEOPLE    LOVE    TO     HAVE     fT     .^O. 
'•  Anglicanus.*'     td. 

.    .  DIVORCE    "     r>-M  ,      '        ^HEJTER- 

TOU.       6d. 

COMPLETE   ILLUSTRATED  CATALOGUE 

2d.  post-free. 


ttD://www.ai;chive.ora/details/divorceversusdemOOchesuoft 


DIVORCE 


Versus 


DEMOCRACY 


PR 

Hue's 

ft  16 
H36' 

c  ,3. 


BY 


G.  K.  CHESTERTON 


Reprinted  from  ^^  Nash^s  Magazine''^ 


ut  profi- 
ciscantur 


London 
THE  SOCIETY   OF 
SS.  PETER  &  PAUL 

Publishers  to  the  Church  of  England 

32  George  St.,  Hanover  Square, 

and  302  Regent  St.,  W. 

1916 


I  HAVE  been  asked  to  put  forward  in  pamphlet  form 
this  rather  hasty  essay  as  it  appeared  in  "  Nash's 
Magazine";  and  I  do  so  by  the  kind  permission  of 
the  editor.  The  rather  chaotic  quaHty  of  its  journalism 
it  is  now  impossible  to  alter.  The  convictions  upon 
which  it  is  based  are  unaltered  and  unalterable.  In- 
deed, in  so  far  as  circumstances  have  since  affected 
them,  they  are  greatly  strengthened.  In  so  far  as 
there  was  something  sporadic  and  seemingly  irrelevant 
in  the  writing,  it  was  partly  because  I  was  contending 
against  an  evil  that  was  diffused  and  indefinable,  at 
once  tentative  and  ubiquitous.  Since  then  that 
disease  has  come  to  a  head  and  burst ;  primarily  in 
the  North  of  Europe.  By  that  historic  habit  which 
generally  makes  one  European  people  the  standard- 
bearer  of  a  social  tendency,  which  made  the  Empire 
a  Roman  Empire  and  the  Revolution  a  French  Revolu- 
tion, the  North  Germans  have  become  the  peculiar 
champions  of  that  modern  change  which  would  make 
the  State  infinitely  superior  to  the  Family.  It  is  even 
asserted  that  Prussian  political  authority  is  now  en- 
couraging the  abandonment  of  common  morality  for 
the  support  of  population  ;  and  even  if  this  horrible 
thing  be  untrae,  it  is  highly  significant  that  it  can  be 
plausibly  said  of  Prussia,  and  certainly  of  no  other 
Christian  State.  And  in  the  new  light  of  action  it  is 
possible  to  trace  more  clearly  the  trend  towards 
divorce,  as  also  that  trend  towards  the  other  pagan 
institution  of  slavery,  which  would  certainly  have 
accompanied  it.  But  the  enslaving  force  in  Europe 
struck  too  early  ;  and  the  whole  movement  has  been 
brought  to  a  standstill. 

The  same  circumstances  have  given  an  importance 
to  a  formula  of  my  own  which  I  still  think  rather 


5Dit)orce  versus  Democtacp 

important.  It  may  be  summarised  as  the  patriotism 
of  the  household.  In  the  experience  of  nationality 
we  do  not  admit  that  any  excess  of  despair  can  come 
into  the  same  logical  world  as  desertion.  No  amount 
of  tragedy  need  amount  to  treason.  The  Christian 
view  of  marriage  conceives  of  the  home  as  self- 
governing  in  a  manner  analogous  to  an  independent 
state  ;  that  is,  that  it  may  include  internal  reform 
and  even  internal  rebellion  ;  but  because  of  the  bond, 
not  against  it.  In  this  way  it  is  itself  a  sort  of  standing 
reformer  of  the  State  ;  for  the  State  is  judged  by 
whether  its  arrangements  bear  helpfully  or  bear 
hardly  on  the  human  fulness  and  fertility  of  the  free 
family.  Thus  the  Wicked  Ten  in  Rome  were  con- 
demned and  cast  down  because  their  public  powers 
permitted  a  wrong  against  the  purity  of  a  private 
family.  Thus  the  mediaeval  revolt  against  the  Poll 
Tax  began  by  the  authority  of  an  official  insulting 
the  authority  of  a  father.  Men  do  not  now,  any  more 
than  then,  become  sinless  by  receiving  a  post  in  a 
bureaucracy ;  and  if  the  domestic  affairs  of  the  poor 
were  once  put  into  the  hands  of  mere  lawyers  and 
inspectors,  the  poor  would  soon  find  themselves  in 
positions  from  which  there  is  no  exit  save  by  the 
sword  of  Virginius  and  the  hammer  of  Wat  Tyler. 
As  for  the  section  of  the  rich  who  are  still  seeking  a 
servile  solution,  they,  of  course,  are  still  seeking  the 
extension  of  divorce.  It  is  only  "  divide  et  impera  "  ; 
and  they  want  the  division  of  sex  for  the  division  of 
labour.  The  very  same  economic  calculation  which 
makes  them  encourage  tyranny  in  the  shop  makes 
them  encourage  licence  in  the  family.  But  now  the 
free  families  of  five  great  nations  have  risen  against 
them  ;   and  their  plot  has  failed. 

G.    K.   CHESTERTON 


JBiborce  versus  Bemocrac^ 


N  this  question  of  divorce  I  do 
not  profess  to  be  impartial, 
for  I  have  never  perceived 
any  intelligent  meaning  in 
the  v^^ord.  I  merely  (and 
most  modestly)  profess  to 
be  right.  I  also  profess  to 
be  representative :  that  is, 
democratic.  Now,  one  may 
believe  in  democracy  or  dis- 
believe in  it.  It  would  be 
grossly  unfair  to  conceal  the  fact  that  there  are  diffi- 
culties on  both  sides.  The  difficulty  of  believing  in 
democracy  is  that  it  is  so  hard  to  believe — ^like  God 
and  most  other  good  things.  The  difficulty  of  dis- 
believing in  democracy  is  that  there  is  nothing  else  to 
believe  in.  I  mean  there  is  nothing  else  on  earth  or  in 
earthly  politics.  Unless  an  aristocracy  is  selected  by 
gods,  it  must  be  selected  by  men.  It  may  be  nega- 
tively and  passively  permitted,  but  either  heaven  or 
humanity  must  permit  it ;  otherwise  it  has  no  more 
moral  authority  than  a  lucky  pickpocket.  It  is  baby 
talk  to  talk  about  "  Supermen  "  or  "  Nature's  Aris- 
tocracy "  or  ''  The  Wise  Few."  "  The  Wise  Few  " 
must  be  either  those  whom  others  think  wise — ^who 
are  often  fools  ;  or  those  who  think  themselves  wise 
— ^who  are  always  fools. 

Well,  if  one  happens  to  believe  in  democracy  as  I 
do,  as  a  large  trust  in  the  active  and  passive  judgment 
of  the  human  conscience,  one  can  have  no  hesitation, 
no  "  impartiality,"  about  one's  view  of  divorce  ;  and 
especially  about  one's  view  of  the  extension  of  divorce 
among  the  democracy.  A  democrat  in  any  sense  must 
regard  that  extension  as  the  last  and  vilest  of  the 


Ditjotce  versus  Dcmocracp 

insults  offered  by  the  modern  rich  to  the  modern  poor. 
The  rich  do  largely  believe  in  divorce  ;  the  poor  do 
mainly  believe  in  fidelity.  But  the  modern  rich  are 
powerful  and  the  modern  poor  are  powerless.  There- 
fore for  years  and  decades  past  the  rich  have  been 
preaching  their  own  virtues.  Now  that  they  have 
begun  to  preach  their  vices  too,  I  think  it  is  time  to 
kick. 

There  is  one  enormous  and  elementary  objection  to 
the  popularising  of  divorce,  which  comes  before  any 
consideration  of  the  nature  of  marriage.  It  is  like  an 
alphabet  in  letters  too  large  to  be  seen.  It  is  this : 
That  even  if  the  democracy  approved  of  divorce  as 
strongly  and  deeply  as  the  democracy  does  (in  fact)  dis- 
approve of  it — any  man  of  common  sense  must  know 
that  nowadays  the  thing  will  be  worked  probably 
against  the  democracy,  but  quite  certainly  by  the 
plutocracy.  People  seem  to  forget  that  in  a  society 
where  power  goes  with  wealth  and  where  wealth  is  in 
an  extreme  state  of  inequality,  extending  the  powers 
of  the  law  means  something  entirely  different  from  ex- 
tending the  powers  of  the  public.  They  seem  to  forget 
that  there  is  a  great  deal  of  difference  between  what 
laws  define  and  what  laws  do.  A  poor  woman  in  a 
poor  public-house  was  broken  with  a  ruinous  fine  for 
giving  a  child  a  sip  of  shandy-gaff.  Nobody  supposed 
that  the  law  verbally  stigmatised  the  action  for  being 
done  by  a  poor  person  in  a  poor  public-house.  But 
most  certainly  nobody  will  dare  to  pretend  that  a  rich 
man  giving  a  boy  a  sip  of  champagne  would  have  been 
punished  so  heavily — or  punished  at  all.  I  have  seen 
the  thing  done  frequently  in  country  houses ;  and  my 
host  and  hostess  would  have  been  very  much  surprised 
if  I  had  gone  outside  and  telephoned  for  the  police. 
The  law  theoretically  condemns  any  one  who  tries  to 
frustrate  the  police  or  even  fails  to  assist  them.  Yet 
the  rich  motorists  are  allowed  to  keep  up  an  organised 
service  of  anti-police  detectives  —  wearing  a  con- 
spicuous uniform — for  the  avowed  purpose  of  showing 


Ditjotce  versus  s:)emactacp 

motorists  how  to  avoid  capture.  No  one  supposes 
again  that  the  law  says  in  so  many  words  that  the 
right  to  organise  for  the  evasion  of  laws  is  a  privilege 
of  the  rich  but  not  of  the  poor.  But  take  the  same 
practical  test.  What  would  the  police  say,  what 
would  the  world  say,  if  men  stood  about  the  streets 
in  green  and  yellow  uniforms,  notoriously  for  the 
purpose  of  warning  pickpockets  of  the  presence  of  a 
plain-clothes  officer  ?  What  would  the  world  say  if 
recognised  officials  in  peaked  caps  watched  by  night  to 
warn  a  burglar  that  the  police  were  waiting  for  him  ? 
Yet  there  is  no  distinction  of  principle  between  the 
evasion  of  that  police-trap  and  the  other  police-trap 
— the  police-trap  which  prevents  a  motorist  from 
killing  a  child  like  a  chicken ;  which  prevents  the 
most  frivolous  kind  of  murder,  the  most  piteous  kind 
of  sudden  death. 

Well,  the  Poor  Man's  Divorce  Law  will  be  applied 
exactly  as  all  these  others  are  applied.  Everybody 
must  know  that  it  would  mean  in  practice  that  well- 
dressed  men,  doctors,  magistrates,  and  inspectors, 
would  have  more  power  over  the  family  lives  of  ill- 
dressed  men,  navvies,  plumbers,  and  potmen.  Nobody 
can  have  the  impudence  to  pretend  that  it  would  mean 
that  navvies,  plumbers,  and  potmen  would  (either  in- 
dividually or  collectively)  have  more  power  over  the 
family  lives  of  doctors,  magistrates,  and  inspectors. 
Nobody  dare  assert  that  because  divorce  is  a  State 
affair,  therefore  the  poor  citizen  will  have  any  power, 
direct  or  indirect,  to  divorce  a  duchess  from  a  duke  or 
a  banker  from  a  banker's  wife.  But  no  one  will  call  it 
inconceivable  that  the  power  of  rich  families  over  poor 
families,  which  is  already  great,  the  power  of  the  duke 
as  landlord,  the  power  of  the  banker  as  money-lender, 
might  be  considerably  increased  by  arming  magistrates 
with  more  powers  of  interference  in  private  life.  For 
the  dukes  and  bankers  often  are  magistrates,  always 
the  friends  and  relatives  of  magistrates.  The  navvies 
are  not.    The  navvy  will  be  the  subject  of  the  new 


Drtotce  ve7'S7is  Democracp 

experiments;  certainly  never  the  experimentalist.  It  is 
the  poor  man  who  will  show  to  the  imaginative  eye  of 
science  all  those  horrors  which,  according  to  newspaper 
correspondents,  cry  aloud  for  divorce — drunkenness, 
madness,  cruelty,  incurable  disease.  If  he  is  slow  in 
working  for  his  master,  he  will  be  "  defective."  If  he 
is  worn  out  by  working  for  his  master,  he  will  be 
"  degenerate."  If  he,  at  some  particular  opportunity, 
prefers  to  work  for  himself  to  working  for  his  master, 
he  will  be  obviously  insane.  If  he  never  has  any 
opportunity  of  worlang  for  any  masters  he  will  be 
"  unemployable."  All  the  bitter  embarrassments  and 
entanglements  incidental  to  extreme  poverty  will  be 
used  to  break  conjugal  happiness,  as  they  are  already 
used  to  break  parental  authority.  Marriage  will  be 
called  a  failure  wherever  it  is  a  struggle  ;  just  as 
parents  in  modern  England  are  sent  to  prison  for 
neglecting  the  children  whom  they  cannot  afford  to 
feed. 

I  will  take  but  one  instance  of  the  enormity  and 
silliness  which  is  really  implied  in  these  proposals  for 
the  extension  of  divorce.  Take  the  case  quoted  by 
many  contributors  to  the  discussion  in  the  papers 
— the  case  of  what  is  called  "  cruelty."  Now  what  is. 
the  real  meaning  of  this  as  regards  the  prosperous  and 
as  regards  the  struggling  classes  of  the  community  ? 
Let  us  take  the  prosperous  classes  first.  Every  one 
knows  that  those  who  are  really  to  be  described  as 
gentlemen  all  profess  a  particular  tradition,  partly 
chivalrous,  partly  merely  modern  and  refined — a 
tradition  against  "  laying  hands  upon  a  woman,  save 
in  a  way  of  kindness."  I  do  not  mean  that  a  gentleman 
hates  the  cowing  of  a  woman  by  brute  force  :  any  one 
must  hate  that.  I  mean  he  has  a  ritual,  taboo  kind  of 
feeling  about  the  laying  on  of  a  finger.  If  a  gentleman 
(real  or  imitation)  has  struck  his  wife  ever  so  lightlv,  he 
feels  he  has  done  one  of  those  things  that  thrill  the 
thoughts  with  the  notion  of  a  border-line  ;  something 
like  saying  the  Lord's  Prayer  backwards,  touching  a 

8 


3Dit3arce  verms  Democracy 

hot  kettle,  reversing  the  crucifix,  or  "  breaking  the 
pledge."  The  wife  may  forgive  the  husband  more 
easily  for  this  than  for  many  things ;  but  the  husband 
will  find  it  hard  to  forgive  himself.  It  is  a  purely  class 
sentiment,  like  the  poor  folks'  dislike  of  hospitals. 
What  is  the  effect  of  this  class  sentiment  on  divorce 
among  the  higher  classes  ? 

The  first  effect,  of  course,  is  greatly  to  assist  those 
faked  divorces  so  common  among  the  fashionable. 
I  mean  that  where  there  is  a  collusion,  a  small  pat  or 
push  can  be  remembered,  exaggerated,  or  invented ; 
and  yet  seem  to  the  solemn  judges  a  very  solemn 
thing  in  people  of  their  own  social  class.  But  outside 
these  cases,  the  test  is  not  wholly  inappropriate  as 
applied  to  the  richer  classes.  For,  all  gentlemen  feeling 
or  affecting  this  special  horror,  it  does  really  look  bad 
if  a  gentleman  has  broken  through  it ;  it  does  look 
like  madness  or  a  personal  hatred  and  persecution.  It 
may  even  look  like  worse  things.  If  a  man  with 
luxurious  habits,  in  artistic  surroundings,  is  cruel  to 
his  wife,  it  may  be  connected  with  some  perversion  of 
sex  cruelty,  such  as  was  alleged  (I  know  not  how  truly) 
in  the  case  of  the  millionaire  Thaw.  We  need  not  deny 
that  such  cases  are  cases  for  separation,  if  not  for 
divorce. 

But  this  test  of  technical  cruelty,  which  is  rough  and 
ready  as  applied  to  the  rich,  is  absolutely  mad  and 
meaningless  as  applied  to  the  poor.  A  poor  woman 
does  not  judge  her  husband  as  a  bully  by  whether  he 
has  ever  hit  out.  One  might  as  well  say  that  a  school- 
boy judges  whether  another  schoolboy  is  a  bully  by 
whether  he  has  ever  hit  out.  The  poor  wife,  like  the 
schoolboy,  judges  him  as  a  bully  by  whether  he  is  a 
bully.  She  knows  that  while  wife-beating  may  really 
be  a  crime,  wife-hitting  is  sometimes  very  like  just  self- 
defence.  No  one  knows  better  than  she  does  that  her 
husband  often  has  a  great  deal  to  put  up  with  ;  some- 
times she  means  him  to ;  sometimes  she  is  justified. 
She  comes  and  tells  all  this  to  magistrates  again  and 


Ditjotcc  versm  Dcmoctacp 

again  ;  in  police  court  after  police  court  women  with 
black  eyes  try  to  explain  the  thing  to  judges  with  no 
eyes.  In  street  after  street  women  turn  in  anger  on 
the  hapless  knight-errant  who  has  interrupted  an 
instantaneous  misunderstanding.  In  these  people's 
lives  the  rooms  are  crowded,  the  tempers  are  torn  to 
rags,  the  natural  exits  are  forbidden.  In  such  societies 
it  is  as  abominable  to  punish  or  divorce  people  for  a 
blow  as  it  would  be  to  punish  or  divorce  a  gentleman 
for  slamming  the  door.  Yet  who  can  doubt,  if  ever 
divorce  is  applied  to  the  populace,  it  would  be  applied 
in  the  spirit  which  takes  the  blow  quite  seriously  ?  If 
any  one  doubts  it,  he  does  not  know  what  world  he  is 
living  in. 

It  is  common  to  meet  nowadays  men  who  talk  of 
what  they  call  Free  Love  as  if  it  were  something  like 
Free  Silver — a  new  and  ingenious  political  scheme. 
They  seem  to  forget  that  it  is  as  easy  to  judge  what  it 
would  be  like  as  to  judge  of  what  legal  marriage  would 
be  like.  "Free  Love"  has  been  going  on  in  every  town 
and  village  since  the  beginning  of  the  world ;  and  the  first 
fact  that  every  man  of  the  world  knows  about  it  is  plain 
enough.  It  never  does  produce  any  of  the  wild  purity 
and  perfect  freedom  its  friends  attribute  to  it.  If  any 
paper  had  the  pluck  to  head  a  column  "  Is  Concubinage 
a  Failure  ?  "  instead  of  "  Is  Marriage  a  Failure  ?  "  the 
answer  "  Yes  "  would  be  given  by  the  personal  memory 
of  many  men,  and  by  the  historic  memory  of  all. 
Modern  people  perpetually  quote  some  wild  expression 
of  monks  in  the  wilderness  (when  a  whole  civilisation 
was  maddened  by  remorse)  about  the  perilous  quality 
of  Woman,  about  how  she  was  a  spectre  and  a  serpent 
and  a  destroying  fire.  Probably  the  establishment  of 
nuns,  situated  a  few  miles  off,  described  Man  also  as 
a  serpent  and  a  spectre  ;  but  their  works  have  not 
come  down  to  us. 

Now  all  this  old-world  wit  against  Benedick  the 
married  man  was  sensible  enough.  But  so  was  the 
bachelorhood  of  the  old  monks,  who  said  it,  sensible 

lO 


Ditjorce  verms  Democracp 

enough.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  to  entangle  yourself 
with  another  soul  in  the  most  tender  and  tragic  degree 
is  to  make,  in  all  rational  possibility,  a  martyr  or  a  fool 
of  yourself.  Most  of  the  modern  denunciations  of 
marriage  might  have  been  copied  direct  from  the 
maddest  of  the  monkish  diaries.  The  attack  on 
marriage  is  an  argument  for  celibacy.  It  is  not  an 
argument  for  divorce.  For  that  entanglement  which 
celibacy  avowedly  avoids,  divorce  merely  reduplicates 
and  repeats.  It  may  have  been  a  sort  of  solemn  comfort 
to  a  gentleman  of  Africa  to  reflect  that  he  had  no  wife. 
It  cannot  be  anything  but  a  discomfort  to  a  gentleman 
of  America  to  wonder  which  wife  he  really  has.  If 
progress  means,  as  in  the  ludicrous  definition  of 
Herbert  Spencer,  "  an  advance  from  the  simple  to  the 
complex,"  then  certainly  divorce  is  a  part  of  progress. 
Nothing  can  be  conceived  more  complex  than  the 
condition  of  a  man  who  has  settled  down  finally  four 
or  five  times.  Nothing  can  be  conceived  more  com- 
plex than  the  position  of  a  profligate  who  has  not  only 
had  ten  liaisons,  but  ten  legal  liaisons.  There  is  a  real 
sense  in  which  free  love  might  free  men.  But  freer 
divorce  would  catch  them  in  the  most  complicated 
net  ever  woven  in  this  wicked  world. 

The  tragedy  of  love  is  in  love,  not  in  marriage. 
There  is  no  unhappy  marriage  that  might  not  be  an 
equally  unhappy  concubinage,  or  a  far  more  unhappy 
seduction.  Whether  the  tie  be  legal  or  no,  matters 
something  to  the  faithless  party ;  it  matters  nothing 
to  the  faithful  one.  The  pathos  reposes  upon  the 
perfectly  simple  fact  that  if  any  one  deliberately 
provokes  either  passions  or  affections,  he  is  responsible 
for  them  as  long  as  they  go  on,  as  the  man  is  responsible 
for  letting  loose  a  flood  or  setting  fire  to  a  city.  His 
remedy  is  not  to  provoke  them,  like  the  hermit.  His 
punishment,  when  he  deserves  punishment,  is  to  spend 
the  rest  of  his  life  in  trying  to  undo  any  ill  he  has 
done.  His  escape  is  despair — ^which  is  called,  in  this 
connection,  divorce.    For  every  healthy  man  feels  one 

II 


5Dit)otce  verms  2;)emocracp 

fundamental  fact  in  his  soul.  He  feels  that  he  must  have 
a  life,  and  not  a  series  of  lives.  He  would  rather  the 
human  drama  were  a  tragedy  than  that  it  were  a  series 
of  Music-hall  Turns  and  Potted  Plays.  A  man  wishes 
to  save  the  souls  of  all  the  men  that  he  has  been :  of 
the  dirty  little  schoolboy  ;  of  the  doubtful  and  morbid 
youth;  of  the  lover;  of  the  husband.  Re-incarnation 
has  always  seemed  to  me  a  cold  creed  ;  because  each 
incarnation  must  forget  the  other.  It  would  be  worse 
still  if  this  short  human  life  were  broken  up  into  yet 
shorter  lives,  each  of  which  was  in  its  turn  forgotten. 

If  you  are  a  democrat  who  likes  also  to  be  an  honest 
man — if  (in  other  words)  you  want  to  know  what  the 
people  want  and  not  merely  what  you  can  somehow 
induce  them  to  ask  for — then  there  is  no  doubt  at  all 
that  this  is  what  they  want.  You  can  only  realise  it 
by  looking  for  human  nature  elsewhere  than  in  election 
reports ;  but  when  you  have  once  looked  for  it  you  see 
it  and  you  never  forget  it.  From  the  fact  that  every 
one  thinks  it  natural  that  young  men  and  women 
should  carve  names  on  trees,  to  the  fact  that  every  one 
thinks  it  unnatural  that  old  men  and  women  should 
be  separated  in  workhouses,  millions  and  millions  of 
daily  details  prove  that  people  do  regard  the  relation 
as  normally  permanent ;   not  as  a  vision,  but  as  a  vow. 

Now  for  the  exceptions,  true  or  false.  I  would  note 
a  strange  and  even  silly  oversight  in  the  discussion  of 
such  exceptions,  which  has  haunted  most  arguments 
for  further  divorce.  The  ordinary  emancipated  prig 
or  poet  who  urges  this  side  of  the  question  always 
talks  to  one  tune.  "  Marriage  may  be  the  best  for 
most  men,"  he  says,  "  but  there  arc  exceptional  natures 
that  demand  a  more  undulating  experience  ;  con- 
stancy will  do  for  the  common  herd,  but  there  are 
complex  natures  and  complex  cases  where  no  one 
could  recommend  constancy.  I  do  not  ask  (at  the 
present  Stage  of  Progress)  for  the  abolition  of  marriage; 
I  hereby  ask  that  it  may  be  remitted  in  such  individual 
and  extreme  examples." 

12 


aDitJorce  versus  Democracp 

Now  it  is  perfectly  astounding  to  me  that  any  one 
who  has  walked  about  this  world  should  make  such  a 
blunder  about  the  breed  we  call  mankind.  Surely  it 
is  plain  enough  that  if  you  ask  for  dreadful  exceptions, 
you  will  get  them — too  many  of  them.  Let  me  take 
once  again  a  rough  parable.  Suppose  I  advertised  in 
the  papers  that  I  had  a  place  for  any  one  who  was  too 
stupid  to  be  a  clerk.  Probably  I  should  receive  no 
replies  ;  possibly  one.  Possibly  also  (nay,  probably)  it 
would  be  from  the  one  man  who  was  not  stupid  at 
all.  But  suppose  I  had  advertised  that  I  had  a  place 
for  any  one  who  was  too  clever  to  be  a  clerk.  My 
office  would  be  instantly  besieged  by  all  the  most 
hopeless  fools  in  the  four  kingdoms.  To  advertise  for 
exceptions  is  simply  to  advertise  for  egoists.  To 
advertise  for  egoists  is  to  advertise  for  idiots.  It  is 
exactly  the  bore  who  does  think  that  his  case  is  in- 
teresting. It  is  precisely  the  really  common  person 
who  does  think  that  his  case  is  uncommon.  It  is 
always  the  dull  man  who  does  think  himself  rather 
wild.  To  ask  solely  for  strange  experiences  of  the 
soul  is  simply  to  let  loose  all  the  imbecile  asylums  about 
one's  ears.  Whatever  other  theory  is  right,  this  theory 
of  the  exceptions  is  obviously  wrong — or  (what 
matters  more  to  our  modern  atheists)  is  obviously 
unbusinesslike.  It  is,  moreover,  to  any  one  with 
popular  political  sympathies,  a  very  deep  and  subtle 
sort  of  treason.  By  thus  putting  a  premium  on  the 
exceptional  we  grossly  deceive  the  unconsciousness  of 
the  normal.  It  seems  strangely  forgotten  that  the  in- 
difference of  a  nation  is  sacred  as  well  as  its  differences. 
Even  public  apathy  is  a  kind  of  public  opinion — and  in 
many  cases  a  very  sensible  kind.  If  I  ask  everybody  to 
vote  about  Mineral  Meals  and  do  not  get  a  single  ballot- 
paper  returned,  I  may  say  that  the  citizens  have  not 
voted.     But  they  have. 

The  principle  held  by  the  populace,  against  which 
this  plutocratic  conspiracy  is  being  engineered,  is 
simply  the  principle  expressed  in  the  Prayer  Book  in 

13 


Ditjotce  vcrsiis  Democracy 

the  words  "  for  better,  for  worse."  It  is  the  principle 
that  all  noble  things  have  to  be  paid  for,  even  if  you 
only  pay  for  them  with  a  promise.  One  does  not  take 
one's  interest  out  of  England  as  one  takes  it  out  of 
Consols.  A  man  is  not  an  Englishman  unless  he  can 
endure  even  the  decay  and  death  of  England.  And 
just  as  every  citizen  is  a  potential  soldier,  so  every  wife 
or  husband  is  a  potential  hospital  nurse — or  even 
asylum  attendant.  For  though  we  should  all  approve 
of  certain  tragedies  being  mitigated  by  a  celibate 
separation — yet  the  more  real  love  and  honour  there 
has  been  in  the  marriage,  the  less  real  mitigation  there 
will  be  in  the  parting.  But  this  sound  public  instinct 
both  about  patriotism  and  marriage  also  insists  that 
the  first  vow  or  obligation  shall  be  mitigated,  not 
merely  erased  and  forgotten.  Many  a  good  woman 
has  loved  and  refused  a  doubtful  man,  with  the 
proviso  that  she  would  marry  no  one  else  ;  the  old 
institution  of  marriage  has  the  same  feeling  about  the 
tragedy  that  is  post-matrimonial.  The  thing  remains 
real ;  it  binds  one  to  something.  If  I  am  exiled  from 
England  I  will  go  and  live  on  an  island  somewhere  and 
be  as  jolly  as  I  can.  I  will  not  become  a  patriot  of  any 
other  land. 


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'Vs^t:y'^>^'^^