Ought we to marry a silly, an intelligent, or a literary woman?
If this question were to be answered by public vote we should probably have the following ratio:
For the silly woman, 10 votes.
For the literary woman, 0 vote.
For the intelligent woman (that is, of normal ability), 90 votes.
In this century, in which the voice of the majority takes the place of right and reason, the problem would be solved by that meeting of which I have guaranteed the result.
[Pg 155]
In all cases, however, this verdict ought to be preceded by many and varied comments if it is to be converted into practical counsels to those about to take a wife.
The ten who have voted for the silly woman would say that they did not desire an idiot, but, on the contrary, a woman slightly foolish, but not too much so. But together with this defect they would wish to have her handsome, young, and very good-tempered. They seek above all a companion who helps them to keep healthy and merry. There is nothing more charming, more sympathetic, more irresistible, than a little absurdity from a pretty mouth. It makes one laugh; and when our laugh provokes that of the one who has uttered [Pg 156] it, and she shows her beautiful teeth in rows like pearls, oh! bless the folly and her who spoke it.
The ninety who have given no vote to the literary woman wish us to understand that they like an educated woman, but detest pedantry, and that nothing in the world could make them desire a bas-bleu; much less a choupette-bleue, a variety of the first, so named by Balzac.
Having heard these comments, let us now make ours. It is only too true that in our Italian society the general culture is much below that which one meets with in France, Germany, England, and the United States. We have the courage to confess this in our own home if for no other reason than with the hope [Pg 157] that the shame which mounts to our faces may induce us to remove this national blot from our children.
Men of little culture desire even less in their wives, in order that at least in their family circle their credit may be unimpugned. From this arises a general repugnance to teach our girls too many things, from this comes the antipathy to the higher girls’ schools and to all that tends to elevate the intellectual level of our companions. Up to the present time the hasty and ill-digested attempts have not helped to modify public opinion for the better; the only people who dedicate themselves to higher learning in one way or another are the ugly, hysterical, or very poor.
We all open our eyes very widely [Pg 158] before a lady doctor or a literary woman as before some wonderful phenomenon which perhaps may change our “Ah!” of astonishment to an “Oh!” of admiration; but the woman will always be a phenomenon to us.
And she is really a phenomenon, an idol to put on altars amidst the incense of our adoration; she is a woman who thinks as much as a man, has the learning of a professor, writes books that are read, or paints pictures and makes statues to which are awarded prizes; an idol to be admired if beauty be added to this virtue and if grace accompany it; a half goddess or a goddess if the talent does not go arm in arm with pride, and if genius is surrounded by [Pg 159] a fragrant and flowering womanliness. But who finds these phenomena, and who, having found them, marries them? Then if the literary woman is ugly, and impolite, if her body and voice proclaim the certificate of her baptism, which makes her more man than woman, oh! then we are all agreed in not wishing to have her for a wife. It is a new species, a psycho-physico hermaphrodite, whose books, pictures, and statues we admire, but whom we have no desire to share a room with.
?
In sexual union the harmonies of relation ought to show themselves, in thought as well as act, in order that there may be happiness. Therefore [Pg 160] it is that man was made by nature more intelligent than woman. Perfect harmony is only to be found with a man who thinks vigorously, does what he wishes with energy; who rules and guides the woman in the paths of life and the glories of conquest. The inversion of these relations means to be out of tune and in discord; it is an humiliation on the part of the man, and (let us admit it) on the part of the woman also, who in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred wishes to be loved, caressed, and also adored, but who likes to feel herself ruled.
Woe to those women of intellect superior to the husband, whom they must pity, correct when in error, and too often pardon for his folly and absurdities!
[Pg 161]
Love is a chemical affinity; and its composition is proportionately stronger the more widely different are the elements in the combination. The ideal of perfect marriage is the combination of a man thoroughly a man, exceedingly so, and a woman thoroughly a woman, exceedingly so. Whenever a man acquires a feminine tendency of character and a woman a virile one the chemical affinity diminishes in intensity, the combination alters at the least touch or first contact of a third body which comes near and has a greater affinity for one or the other of the two elements.
A very intelligent woman and a man of less than mediocre intellect are combinations of bodies which can [Pg 162] only have an exceedingly weak affinity between them. The first has a mode of thought which is virile, and the second has a feminine one. And only too often the third element comes to correct the elective affinity, and the literary woman takes a man of genius, who rules her, for a lover, or a robust man, who calms her; and the husband of small intellect comforts himself in making love to an illiterate peasant woman, or a maid without grammar, with whom he can show his intellectual pre-eminence and revenge himself on the superiority of his wife.
?
I ask pardon (on my knees if necessary, for I know that my sin [Pg 163] is great) for treating of a more and a less in the measure of thought.
This is really an infantile or Australasian psychology; but the much or the little are always the first approximations to the solution of every problem, and the how much always goes before the when and the how.
I admit, then, that in the harmony of thought between the man and woman the amount must always be greater on the man’s side. The culture of the man is always progressing, and with it inevitably that of the woman also, but this ought always to remain a step below ours, not because we do not wish to lose the pre-eminence of potency, but because the labour of the brain is more [Pg 164] difficult and perilous in the woman’s case than in the man’s, and her energy naturally less.
Look around without leaving Italy and tell me how many normal women, how many healthy and perfect women, there are in our literary circle. I will not continue on this theme lest I draw upon myself a shower of poisoned darts. Several are my venerated and admired friends, and I wish to keep their friendship until my last breath. But if I should say that many of them are sterile, and many very nervous, ought they to feel themselves offended? I esteem them too much to believe it! Man is so accustomed to consider himself superior to the woman in the world of thought that if he [Pg 165] finds an error in the orthography of a lady’s letter he is as pleased as if he had found a diamond in the sand of a river. That little error, which was made in the hysterical haste of a moment of love’s expansion, is really a diamond, because it confirms and assures us of our intellectual superiority, and shows us all at once the feminine and seductive grace of the being we love. An error of orthography or even of grammar in a feminine handwriting is a wayward little foot, which peeps out from under the skirt of the dress, and hints to us the glories of the sex, the inexhaustible delights of voluptuousness. It is a coquettish curve which in spite of the thick clothing whispers in the ear palpitating [Pg 166] with desire: Eve lies underneath, Eve who is awaiting Adam—and desires him.
?
Harmony of thought between the sexes ought to spring from the agreement of the unlike, and in such a way that no pride should be offended, and each one be satisfied to make a sum instead of a subtraction.
A scientific man and a female artist can form a delightful harmony upon two notes; a naturalist also and a woman who adores music; a psychologist, an inexorable analyst, and a woman who sees the comic side of things at once; and thus there are a hundred other combinations of [Pg 167] different intellectual values, which, summed up, leave each one contented with his own. Besides special fitness, there is a sexual character which impresses itself upon the thought of the man and woman. Man discovers, finds, creates; woman divines, distinguishes, analyses. Man reaps, woman gleans. Man with too great haste, often with too great pride, grasps too much and lets it fall from its hands; woman walks behind and gathers up what he has lost.
Man has less tact in judging his surroundings, and often gives a cuff when he means a caress; woman, on the contrary, like a delicate galvanometer, feels the slightest electric or magnetic oscillation in the air [Pg 168] which surrounds her, and for this reason she is a most valuable instrument to a politician, a writer, or an artist who attempts new roads to beauty, and must conquer the resistance of the majority. Unhappy the man who before printing a book, exhibiting a picture, or making a speech in parliament has no loved woman from whom to draw life and warmth. If a sailor never leaves port without consulting the barometer, so man never ought to prepare himself for any undertaking without having first consulted that barometer of all barometers, the woman who loves him. How many ships have been wrecked from want of this precaution, neglecting to take it, through pride or inattention!
[Pg 169]
You may be the greatest man of genius and your work the fruit of long and profound meditation; and yet you may rest assured that in the great polyhedron of truth some plane has escaped your sight which will be seen by the woman who loves you, because she is a woman, and sees many little things a man does not see; and because she loves you she has a magnifying lens before the eyes of her heart which makes all that may injure or benefit you appear gigantic.
?
It is very rare when a woman has conquered our moral and physical sympathies that we love her less for some discord of thought; but if we [Pg 170] want ideal perfection we must marry bodies, hearts, and intellects. In this case we must seek in our companion a discreet culture, an exquisite taste for the beautiful, a delicate spirit of observation, a divination of human character. If you find all this in one woman, and if she is beautiful and good, you may deem yourself the most fortunate man in the world, and may declare to the whole earth that you have not one but three wives, having married intellect, heart, and thought.