Part 4

This is theoretically sound: but the element of human jealousy must be taken into account. If either of the parties is excessively jealous, since the lover’s desire is to remain attractive in the eyes of the other lover, there must be some compromise. Jealousy partakes of the nature of a malignant disease: rooted in a normal desire to possess the loved one, it may degenerate into an insanity that wrecks all happiness. If the jealousy of the other party is increasingly extreme, our advice is to end the relationship. If the decision is to continue it, compromises will have to come in: and the girl or man will retain the right to go with other people, only to the extent that the jealous one can be persuaded to permit. This calls for all the tact and sympathy in the world.

_In Private._--The conduct of engaged people in private must keep in mind the purpose of the engagement. This is the great testing period of compatibility and mutual adaptability. If both parties are not adaptable, a heavier burden is laid upon the one who is. If the burden of adjusting oneself to the whims, caprices, and crotchets of the other is too great, there is still the chance to terminate the engagement. And, if neither party is adaptable, there seems no other happy way out of the situation.

The chief problem confronting the engaged girl is to what extent she will experiment physically with love. As stated, many doctors say that most engaged couples, before marriage, have experienced love fully. This is not an indictment, but a statement of a fact. There are strong arguments in its favor. If a man and woman are not physically pleasing to one another, the happiness of the marriage is doomed from the start. If, for instance, one of the mates is sexually frigid, and one passionate, it is almost impossible for them to satisfy each other: and the constant temptation will be present to try to find satisfaction outside of the mating relationship, a temptation that is often yielded to, at times to the wreckage of the relationship. There is no way for people to know the physical nature of the other, without physical experimentation.

The danger in the procedure is that the man may turn out to be a predatory male, who becomes engaged to girl after girl for the mere pleasure of temporary enjoyment of her. This is a danger that the girl must run; and, if she has made it her task to study the man’s nature carefully, she should know by now whether or not her intended mate is to be trusted. There are many women who believe that, if a man is once given the ultimate favor, he at once regards the girl as cheapened in his eyes. The consensus of intelligent opinion seems to be to the very other extreme: that that many a girl has wrecked her chances for happiness, by refusing to grant the ultimate favor. Only an abnormal man will habitually regard a woman who yields to him as cheapened. As the time for the final mating draws near, and the mutual desires rise toward their crest, he may regard it as utterly unreasonable for the girl to withhold longer. The man is usually the aggressor in such cases; and, if the woman is the aggressor, she will have the same opinion of the man.

Yet, since there are risks on both sides of the matter, it remains a subject on which the wise will give no advice, but will leave it to the two concerned to work out their solution as wisely as they can, with the facts spread out before them.

It is a matter concerning the private relations of the engaged couple, when the attentions of outsiders pass the stage of the non-erotic, and approach the erotic. Whether a man should be engaged to two or more girls, and a woman to two or more men, at the same time, affects the parties concerned too intimately to be regarded as a matter of outsiders. Theoretically, there is much to be said on both sides. A real engagement--a definite pledge to marry--cannot coexist with an engagement to an outsider. The laws do not permit polygamy in this country. Yet what are we to say of a provisional engagement, where the parties merely assure each other that they think they will marry each other, yet at the same time offer themselves to the world as engaged? If such is the agreement, there is less objection to concurrent engagements. From the standpoint of education in sex, there is something to be said for the idea. Common sense would favor it, yet human nature runs counter to common sense too often to let us stop here. It is better, perhaps, to let the concurrent courtships take place before the formal engagement; and then let the choice, for the time being at least, be an exclusive choice. If either party is attracted outside, to the extent of believing that more happiness lies in the love of another, the engagement may be broken, and the other relationship commenced and tested.

_Termination of Engagements._--Should an engagement be short, or long? What is the proper length, for the happiness of the parties involved?

We have scriptural authority for the engagement lasting fourteen years: the story of Jacob can be stretched into this interpretation. Jacob, who loved Rachel, agreed with her father to serve seven years for her. Frankly, we have yet to meet the woman who is worth such a sacrifice; and, in this case, at the end of the seven years Jacob, tricked by his prospective father-in-law, found himself married to the elder sister Leah, instead of to his beloved. Accordingly, he put in another seven years serving for Rachel, and, fourteen years after his engagement started, was wed to her.

Especially in old-fashioned country districts, long engagements are often known, and laughed at. There is the story of the countryman who courted a schoolmate for years--until, in fact, both had drifted from youth toward the end of middle age.

“Why don’t you marry Sarah?” he was asked.

“Marry her!” in surprise and dismay. “Why, if I got married, where in tarnation could I go to spend my evenings?”

Long engagements are not wise. If the two are separated by distance--if, for instance, the young man goes to the city to make his financial way, so that marriage is possible--there is strong chance that either he or she will find a more suitable mate. In such cases, if the original engagement is carried out, happiness is almost inevitable; and the breaking of the engagement may bring unhappiness to at least one of the parties concerned. If the girl and man remain in the same city, they gradually grow old, apart from each other. Their little tricks and idiosyncrasies, which living together could have smoothed out, become permanent--hardened into unbendable things. They come to regard each other as matters of course, without the exquisite physical thrill which love should mean. They have, in brief, all of the discomfort and monotony of marriage without any of its joys.

Too brief engagements are at times more dangerous. This is especially true where the man and girl have not known each other before. If they have been raised side by side, there is small danger of being mated to a person who will turn out, on closer acquaintance, to be everything unworthy. The wisest thing is to let the engagement last a month or longer, and then, if the mating is desired, take the plunge even on a moderate income, than risk the danger of letting the engagement become a tedious habit.

The normal termination of an engagement is marriage. Any book of etiquette will tell you the formal ways to accept the mad gamble of marriage, with all of the frills of such service, receptions, honeymoons, and the like. The honeymoon, it may be pointed out, or the period in which the deluded man and woman try to live on love alone, is one of the most cruel inventions ever made by man. Its almost invariable result (unless it be merely a brief trip, or a trip which the parties desired to take anyhow) is to send them back to the city thoroughly bored and disgusted with each other, and avid to interest themselves, perhaps unduly, in parties outside the mated relationship. For those who do not like the antique pomp of the marriage in church, there is always the simpler ceremony of being married by a justice of the peace, mayor, or alderman.

And there is, luckily for men and women, another termination possible, and that is to break the engagement. This should not be done without grave reason--but far more frequently than the actual breakings of engagements, such a reason exists. The problem simply is, which is better: to act wisely and terminate an unwise mating, which would result in unhappiness, at the cost of some slight temporary unhappiness; or to enter upon a life-time of unhappiness, or at best a long stretch of it, breakable only by the costly and elaborate method of separation or divorce, which may require the assumption by one party or the other of a guilt not actually earned. Where the case is so clear, there should be no hesitation: the engagement should be terminated, the man accepting the blame out of a chivalrous insincerity socially understood, and the parties parting, if possible, as friends. If the matter is still uncertain, better a postponement than a marriage, which may be repented soon enough. Only a mating which will bring increasing happiness is wise, for that is the object of life, and of its playtime, courtship.

VI

FAMOUS COURTSHIPS

_Courting by Poetry._--One of the invariable effects of the love emotion is to inspire, in the amorous breast, the delusion that the man or woman who is in love can write poetry. Most people can feel poetry, but writing it is another story. Yet, whenever any celebrated case of breach of promise comes up, we have the poetic effusions of him and her published in the papers, for the delectation of the multitude. There is good propaganda in courting the lady of your heart, or in replying to the man of your heart, in the words of Shelley or some other great lover--but your own words may not be as efficacious. Countless poetic first volumes (and later ones, too), however, are filled up with the overflow at wooing time, and occasionally such books are books which the world would not willingly spare.

A favorite record of courtship by rhyme is _Lilies of the Valley_, by Percival W. Wells, of Wantagh, New York. Could any woman resist strains like this:

Life’s just begun! the flowing tide Of love has stirred it into motion. Farewell to bachelorhood’s calm pride, And welcome, love’s intense emotion!

Faulty as the rhyme may be, the sentiment is flawless. Again,

Put thy hand in mine, and kiss me tenderly, Beautiful Lilian, fashioned so slenderly; Place a kiss upon my lips with thy dear lips so soft, And do not stop with one, but kiss me oft.

How magically the “soft” evokes its rhyming mate, “oft.” “Soft,” which at times is applied to brains, here refers to the lips. But for the magic of rhyme, could we have had the picture of “Lilian” in the last two words of this masterly confession?

I love thee, O I love thee, Lily; stay Beside thy Percival and with sweet kisses say That thou wilt always love him. Dearer than day Art thou to me, O Lily--wanton fay!

Yet a poet out of the Village Milton class, say Shakespeare, might be a safer guide in your own Muse flights. Shakespeare’s plays are saturated with gorgeous examples of courtship. Othello’s magical wooing of Desdemona is one type. Here the simple warrior and conqueror used no method but the plain unadorned story of his deeds of daring. The maiden’s heart capitulated to his indirect siege at the first attack. A different love is Romeo’s, saturated with poetry:

Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye Than twenty of their swords; look thou but sweet, And I am proof against their enmity.... Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast! Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!

Then there is the caveman-wooing of Catherine the shrew by Petruchio the roistering gallant--the most amusing courtship in Shakespeare, with the possible exception of his bluff English king, who knows no French, and his wooing of the spirited French princess, who knows no English. But love speaks a language of its own and even this bar did not keep the royal lovers from understanding each other. There is the simple, childlike wooing of Ferdinand and Miranda in _The Tempest_, and there is the passionate wooing--by the woman this time--of Adonis by Venus:

“Vouchsafe, thou, wonder, to alight thy steed, And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow; If thou wilt deign this favor, for thy meed A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know: Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses, And being set, I’ll smother thee with kisses.

“Art thou ashamed to kiss! Then wink again, And I will wink; so shall the day seem night; Love keeps his revels where there are but twain; Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight: These blue-vein’d violets whereon we lean Never can blab, nor know not what we mean....”

And having felt the sweetness of the spoil, With blindfold fury she begins to forage; Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil, And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage; Planting oblivion, beating reason back, Forgetting shame’s pure blush and honor’s wrack.

Timid maids and men may well be reassured by this tempest of passion on the part of love’s queen, and by the whole gallery of Shakespeare’s great lovers.

_Great Lovers._--The world has its long roll of great lovers, whose names are sweet on the tongues of the generations that come after them. The Bible, in the _Song of Solomon_, has one of the greatest series of love lyrics in all literature. David loved his Bath-Sheba as a king loves; and Solomon was at least efficient, with his seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines. Helen of Sparta eloped with Paris of Troy, and lighted the conflagration that burned the topless towers of Troy to the ground, and embroiled the world in the Trojan War and inspired the first two Greek epics. Dante saw the girl Beatrice passing him on the street and as a result, he worshipped her thereafter from a distance, and lifted her in imagination, in his _Divine Comedy_, to the high throne of heaven. Don Juan was the great predatory lover, putting on a new love as easily as he slipped on a new garment. Bluebeard (or Gilles de Rais) was the bloodthirsty lover; Cleopatra was the world’s queen, with Pompey, Caesar, and Antony successively at her feet. In more modern times, Casanova was the gentlest great lover of all time, with a roll of loves as long as Solomon’s, and far more varied. Great secular popes, like Alexander VI, the Borgia, were great in love; many of the Roman emperors were chiefly distinguished in the lists of Cupid. Caesar himself was nicknamed “the husband of all women.” Such men and women have made the history of love. Read their love stories, as aids in your own suits.

Among the poets, we have had many great lovers. Shelley spent his life in a high idealistic pursuit of the ideal woman, pouring out his deathless lyrics to some Harriet or Mary or Jane or Emilia who captured his fancy for the moment. Byron loved all over Europe, Keats burned out his young life in a wild adoration of Fanny Brawne, as in this sonnet:

I cry you mercy--pity--love!--ay, love! Merciful love that tantalizes not, One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love, Unmask’d, and being seen--without a blot! O! let me have thee whole,--all--all--be mine! That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest Of love, your kiss,--those hands, those eyes divine, That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast-- Yourself--your soul--in pity give me all, Withhold no atom’s atom or I die, Or living on, perhaps, your wretched thrall, Forget, in the midst of idle misery, Life’s purposes,--the palate of my mind Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!

Burns was a magnificent voice of love, who enriched man with many of his choicest love-songs. Poe not only was a great lover, but used the same poems successively with a number of desired women. Edna St. Vincent Millay, among modern poets, has a charming cleverness in her love-songs; and, indeed, modern poetry is full of excellent love material. One of the most effective modern love sonnets is the dramatic _Pirate Song_, from “Leaf Buds Turning Rose,” by the author of _The Eagle Sonnets_:

Ahoy, there, you slim craft with the virgin ensign! Heave to--we are boarding! You’re a fancy prey To tread the slippery plank, or do your dancing On air, over the wind-bedevilled spray. Low in the water--you’ll be rotten with treasure! Ay, there’ll be hot blood foulin’ your clean decks When we shall tread you in our lordly pleasure Then scuttle you with all the plundered wrecks. Yet you’re a rakish craft.... How would you like it To make one more of the buccaneering tell, To raise the Jolly Roger, and not strike it In the face of all the punishing fleets of hell? By God, we’ll take you, then! Fair or foul weather, Two of the black gentry, off together!

An amusing love story in rhyme is _The Lang Coortin’_, by Lewis Carroll, best known for _Alice in Wonderland_. The lover for years wooed the lady, saying no word of his love. She used his gold rings as a chain for her doggie; stuffed the dog’s pillow with his repeated locks of hair; and when he sent love letters from a far country, with the postage still due on them, she had the postman take them all away. For thirty years he had kept up this courtship: and now at last he has come to propose. But the lady tells him, that, since he has lived so satisfactorily for thirty years, he can wait a bit longer yet. He repents, as he leaves her:

“O, if I find another lady,” He said with sighs and tears, “I am sure my courtin’ shall not be Another thirty years;

“For if I find a lady gay Exactly to my taste, I’ll pop the question, aye or nay, In twenty years, at most!”

There is a real lesson for lovers here. Do not postpone your proposal until your grandchildren are old enough to laugh at your tardiness.

The first lovers were Adam and Eve, according to the Genesis story; and Milton, in his largely unread _Paradise Lost_, has told their love in resounding lines. The most recent lovers assumably include you who are reading this book. Love is an art, as courtship and wooing is an art: and your task is to perfect yourself in the art. You should make your wooing serve the double function of winning the mate you desire at the moment, and at the same time serve as an education to you in the loved one, and the opposite sex in general. Both the educational function, and the task of winning the desired one, call for your highest abilities: and these abilities will be sharpened and increased by a knowledge of man’s lore upon love, and the ups and downs of the great lovers of the past. So saturate yourself, during the loving period, with the literature of love: read carefully the love stories of the world’s great lovers, and constantly increase your technique as wooer, in the beginning of the courtship, in the actual engagement, and in the most perilous of all periods--that period after the marriage has commenced.

There is a third purpose, which hardly needs mention, and that is, the pleasure that you yourself have in wooing. Pleasure consists in the satisfying of an appetite--not in the satisfaction of it; when the appetite is satisfied, your feeling becomes negative. The chase is the fun; the gaining of the goal is a mere sense of accomplishment, far below the joy of the running. Man has not only the appetite to enjoy love, but the added appetite for the chase: and woman, daughter of man, has this delight too, and an implanted pleasure in her part of the wooing. Her part is, in general, more passive than man’s: she gets her thrill from seeing the male or males cavorting before her, in the endeavor to gain her approval. Yet, at times, when the worthy male is backward or bashful, or young and inexperienced, she will assume the aggressive, and be a very Venus in action. As a matter of fact, no matter who does the actual wooing and proposing, it is today, largely, woman who rules the field. How else explain her elaborate and seductive dressing, to win man’s approval? Her concealment of this, and display of that charm, her alluring perfume, her flattering pretense that the man is the wisest being in the universe, her continuing attentions to him in a thousand subtle little ways? These collectively weave a net which even the wariest male fish may not often escape. Go to your wooing, men, with all the courage you can: it is hardly the time to reflect that you are being summoned to the slaughter, as the spider nets her prey, as the spider nets her mate. It is pleasant to be a victim of love: and some men found it a pleasure to be such a victim constantly.

And when you have made yourself an artist in wooing, both in theory and practice, do not be stingy with your lore, but pass it on to other men and women, who lack it. For only the great in love are great in life, and great in joy.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Page 6: “and the male surivives” changed to “and the male survives”. Page 20: “when the left the office,” changed to “when he left the office,” Page 26: “how other people regared” changed to “how other people regard” Page 26: “have always hear dmade” changed to “have always heard made” Page 30: “in mens’ eyes:” changed to “in men’s eyes:” Page 31: “box of chewy chololates” changed to “box of chewy chocolates” Page 32: “or a permanent one:” changed to “or a permanent one--” Page 33: “wholly unattractive:” changed to “wholly unattractive,” Page 35: “ask time to consider” changed to “ask for time to consider” Page 37: “Fancy Flitations.” changed to “Fancy Flirtations.” Page 37: “space alloted to” changed to “space allotted to” Page 48: “out what her fiancée’s” changed to “out what her fiancé’s” Page 49: “can elect pie” changed to “can select pie” Page 52: “The concensus of intelligent” changed to “The consensus of intelligent” Page 53: “of to his beloved” changed to “of to his beloved.” Page 57: “VI. FAMOUS COURTSHIPS” changed to “VI FAMOUS COURTSHIPS” Page 58: “peril in this eye” changed to “peril in thine eye” Page 58: “against their enmity. .” changed to “against their enmity....” Page 59: “Forgetting shames’ pure” changed to “Forgetting shame’s pure” Page 61: “cleverness in her love songs” changed to “cleverness in her love-songs”