The Man‐Made World
As a matter of fact the major interests of life are in line with its major processes; and these—in our stage of human development—are
more varied than our fiction would have us believe. Half the world
consists of women, we should remember, who are types of human life as well as men, and their major processes are not those of conflict and adventure, their love means more than mating. Even on so poor
a line of distinction as the “woman‘s column” offers, if women are to be kept to their four Ks, there should be a “men‘s column” also; and all the “sporting news” and fish stories be put in that; they are not world interests; they are male interests.
Now for the main branch—the Love Story. Ninety per cent. of fiction is In this line; this is preeminently the major interest of life—given in fiction. What is the love‐story, as rendered by this art?
It is the story of the pre‐marital struggle. It is the Adventures of Him in Pursuit of Her—and it stops when he gets her! Story after story, age after age, over and over and over, this ceaseless repetition of the Preliminaries.
Here is Human Life. In its large sense, its real sense, it is a matter of inter‐relation between individuals and groups, covering all
emotions, all processes, all experiences. Out of this vast field of human life fiction arbitrarily selects one emotion, one process, one experience, as its necessary base.
“Ah! but we are persons most of all!” protests the reader. “This is personal experience—it has the universal appeal!”
Take human life personally then. Here is a Human Being, a life, covering some seventy years; involving the changing growth of many faculties; the ever new marvels of youth, the long working time of middle life, the slow ripening of age. Here is the human soul, in the human body, Living. Out of this field of personal life, with all of its emotions, processes, and experiences, fiction arbitrarily selects one emotion, one process, one experience, mainly of one sex.
The “love” of our stories is man‘s love of woman. If any dare dispute this, and say it treats equally of woman‘s love for man, I answer,
“Then why do the stories stop at marriage?”
There is a current jest, revealing much, to this effect: