The physiology of marriage 1 by Honoré de Balzac.. - HTML preview

FOURTH EPOCH.--The wig is so skil fully put on that you deceive every one who does not know you.

The wig takes up all your attention, and _amour-propre_ makes you every morning as busy as the most skillful hairdresser.

FIFTH EPOCH.--The neglected wig. "Good heavens! How tedious it is, to have to go with bare head every evening, and to curl one's wig every morning!"

SIXTH EPOCH.--The wig allows certain white hairs to escape; it is put on awry and the observer perceives on the back of your neck a white line, which contrasts with the deep tints pushed back by the collar of your coat.

SEVENTH EPOCH.--Your wig is as scraggy as dog's tooth grass; and

--excuse the expression--you are making fun of your wig.

"Sir," said one of the most powerful feminine intelligences which have condescended to enlighten me on some of the most obscure passages in my book, "what do you mean by this wig?"

"Madame," I answered, "when a man fal s into a mood of indifference with regard to his wig, he is,--he is--what your husband probably is not."

"But my husband is not--" (she paused and thought for a moment). "He is not amiable; he is not--wel , he is not--of an even temper; he is not--"

"Then, madame, he would doubtless be indifferent to his wig!"

We looked at each other, she with a wel -assumed air of dignity, I with a suppressed smile.

"I see," said I, "that we must pay special respect to the ears of the little sex, for they are the only chaste things about them."

I assumed the attitude of a man who has something of importance to disclose, and the fair dame lowered her eyes, as if she had some reason to blush.

"Madame, in these days a minister is not hanged, as once upon a time, for saying yes or no; a Chateaubriand would scarcely torture Francoise de Foix, and we wear no longer at our side a long sword ready to avenge an insult. Now in a century when civilization has made such rapid progress, when we can learn a science in twenty-four lessons, everything must follow this race after perfection. We can no longer speak the manly, rude, coarse language of our ancestors. The age in which are fabricated such fine, such bril iant stuffs, such elegant furniture, and when are made such rich porcelains, must needs be the age of periphrase and circumlocution. We must try, therefore, to coin a new word in place of the comic expression which Moliere used; since the language of this great man, as a contemporary author has said, is too free for ladies who find gauze too thick for their garments. But people of the world know, as well as the learned, how the Greeks had an innate taste for mysteries. That poetic nation knew well how to invest with the tints of fable the antique traditions of their history. At the voice of their rhapsodists together with their poets and romancers, kings became gods and their adventures of gal antry were transformed into immortal al egories. According to M. Chompre, licentiate in law, the classic author of the _Dictionary of Mythology_, the labyrinth was 'an enclosure planted with trees and adorned with buildings arranged in such a way that when a young man once entered, he could no more find his way out.' Here and there flowery thickets were presented to his view, but in the midst of a multitude of al eys, which crossed and recrossed his path and bore the appearance of a uniform passage, among the briars, rocks and thorns, the patient found himself in combat with an animal called the Minotaur.

"Now, madame, if you will al ow me the honor of calling to your mind the fact that the Minotaur was of all known beasts that which Mythology distinguishes as the most dangerous; that in order to save themselves from his ravages, the Athenians were bound to deliver to him, every single year, fifty virgins; you wil perhaps escape the error of good M. Chompre, who saw in the labyrinth nothing but an English garden; and you wil recognize in this ingenious fable a refined allegory, or we may better say a faithful and fearful image of the dangers of marriage. The paintings recently discovered at Herculaneum have served to confirm this opinion. And, as a matter of fact, learned men have for a long time believed, in accordance with the writings of certain authors, that the Minotaur was an animal half-man, half-bul ; but the fifth panel of ancient paintings at Herculaneum represents to us this al egorical monster with a body entirely human; and, to take away al vestige of doubt, he lies crushed at the feet of Theseus. Now, my dear madame, why should we not ask Mythology to come and rescue us from that hypocrisy which is gaining ground with us and hinders us from laughing as our fathers laughed? And thus, since in the world a young lady does not very wel know how to spread the veil under which an honest woman hides her behavior, in a contingency which our grandfathers would have roughly explained by a single word, you, like a crowd of beautiful but prevaricating ladies, you content yourselves with saying, 'Ah! yes, she is very amiable, but,'--but what?--'but she is often very inconsistent--.' I have for a long time tried to find out the meaning of this last word, and, above al , the figure of rhetoric by which you make it express the opposite of that which it signifies; but al my researches have been in vain. Vert-Vert used the word last, and was unfortunately addressed to the innocent nuns whose infidelities did not in any way infringe the honor of the men. When a woman is _inconsistent_ the husband must be, according to me, _minotaurized_.

If the minotaurized man is a fine fellow, if he enjoys a certain esteem,--and many husbands real y deserve to be pitied,--then in speaking of him, you say in a pathetic voice, 'M. A--- is a very estimable man, his wife is exceedingly pretty, but they say he is not happy in his domestic relations.' Thus, madame, the estimable man who is unhappy in his domestic relations, the man who has an inconsistent wife, or the husband who is minotaurized are simply husbands as they appear in Moliere. Well, then, O goddess of modern taste, do not these expressions seem to you characterized by a transparency chaste enough for anybody?"

"Ah! mon Dieu!" she answered, laughing, "if the thing is the same, what does it matter whether it be expressed in two syllables or in a hundred?"

She bade me good-bye, with an ironical nod and disappeared, doubtless to join the countesses of my preface and all the metaphorical creatures, so often employed by romance-writers as agents for the recovery or composition of ancient manuscripts.

As for you, the more numerous and the more real creatures who read my book, if there are any among you who make common cause with my conjugal champion, I give you notice that you wil not at once become unhappy in your domestic relations. A man arrives at this conjugal condition not suddenly, but insensibly and by degrees. Many husbands have even remained unfortunate in their domestic relations during their whole life and have never known it. This domestic revolution develops itself in accordance with fixed rules; for the revolutions of the honeymoon are as regular as the phases of the moon in heaven, and are the same in every married house. Have we not proved that moral nature, like physical nature, has its laws?

Your young wife will never take a lover, as we have elsewhere said, without making serious reflections. As soon as the honeymoon wanes, you wil find that you have aroused in her a sentiment of pleasure which you have not satisfied; you have opened to her the book of life; and she has derived an excellent idea from the prosaic dullness which distinguishes your complacent love, of the poetry which is the natural result when souls and pleasures are in accord. Like a timid bird, just startled by the report of a gun which has ceased, she puts her head out of her nest, looks round her, and sees the world; and knowing the word of a charade which you have played, she feels instinctively the void which exists in your languishing passion. She divines that it is only with a lover that she can regain the delightful exercise of her free will in love.

You have dried the green wood in preparation for a fire.

In the situation in which both of you find yourselves, there is no woman, even the most virtuous, who would not be found worthy of a _grande passion_, who has not dreamed of it, and who does not believe that it is easily kindled, for there is always found a certain _amour-propre_ ready to reinforce that conquered enemy--a jaded wife.

"If the role of an honest woman were nothing more than perilous," said an old lady to me, "I would admit that it would serve. But it is tiresome; and I have never met a virtuous woman who did not think about deceiving somebody."

And then, before any lover presents himself, a wife discusses with herself the legality of the act; she enters into a conflict with her duties, with the law, with religion and with the secret desires of a nature which knows no check-rein excepting that which she places upon herself. And then commences for you a condition of affairs total y new; then you receive the first intimation which nature, that good and indulgent mother, always gives to the creatures who are exposed to any danger. Nature has put a bell on the neck of the Minotaur, as on the tail of that frightful snake which is the terror of travelers. And then appear in your wife what we wil call the first symptoms, and woe to him who does not know how to contend with them. Those who in reading our book will remember that they saw those symptoms in their own domestic life can pass to the conclusion of this work, where they wil find how they may gain consolation.

The situation referred to, in which a married couple bind themselves for a longer or a shorter time, is the point from which our work starts, as it is the end at which our observations stop. A man of intel igence should know how to recognize the mysterious indications, the obscure signs and the involuntary revelation which a wife unwittingly exhibits; for the next Meditation wil doubtless indicate the more evident of the manifestations to neophytes in the sublime science of marriage.

MEDITATION VIII.

OF THE FIRST SYMPTOMS.

When your wife reaches that crisis in which we have left her, you yourself are wrapped in a pleasant and unsuspicious security. You have so often seen the sun that you begin to think it is shining over everybody. You therefore give no longer that attention to the least action of your wife, which was impelled by your first outburst of passion.

This indolence prevents many husbands from perceiving the symptoms which, in their wives, herald the first storm; and this disposition of mind has resulted in the minotaurization of more husbands than have either opportunity, carriages, sofas and apartments in town.

The feeling of indifference in the presence of danger is to some degree justified by the apparent tranquillity which surrounds you. The conspiracy which is formed against you by our million of hungry celibates seems to be unanimous in its advance. Although all are enemies of each other and know each other wel , a sort of instinct forces them into co-operation.

Two persons are married. The myrmidons of the Minotaur, young and old, have usual y the politeness to leave the bride and bridegroom entirely to themselves at first. They look upon the husband as an artisan, whose business it is to trim, polish, cut into facets and mount the diamond, which is to pass from hand to hand in order to be admired all around. Moreover, the aspect of a young married couple much taken with each other always rejoices the heart of those among the celibates who are known as _roues_; they take good care not to disturb the excitement by which society is to be profited; they also know that heavy showers to not last long. They therefore keep quiet; they watch, and wait, with incredible vigilance, for the moment when bride and groom begin to weary of the seventh heaven.

The tact with which celibates discover the moment when the breeze begins to rise in a new home can only be compared to the indifference of those husbands for whom the Red-moon rises. There is, even in intrigue, a moment of ripeness which must be waited for. The great man is he who anticipates the outcome of certain circumstances. Men of fifty-two, whom we have represented as being so dangerous, know very wel , for example, that any man who offers himself as lover to a woman and is haughtily rejected, will be received with open arms three months afterwards. But it may be truly said that in general married people in betraying their indifference towards each other show the same naivete with which they first betrayed their love. At the time when you are traversing with madame the ravishing fields of the seventh heaven--where according to their temperament, newly married people remain encamped for a longer or shorter time, as the preceding Meditation has proved--you go little or not at all into society. Happy as you are in your home, if you do go abroad, it will be for the purpose of making up a choice party and visiting the theatre, the country, etc. From the moment you the newly wedded make your appearance in the world again, you and your bride together, or separately, and are seen to be attentive to each other at bal s, at parties, at all the empty amusements created to escape the void of an unsatisfied heart, the celibates discern that your wife comes there in search of distraction; her home, her husband are therefore wearisome to her.

At this point the celibate knows that half of the journey is accomplished. At this point you are on the eve of being minotaurized, and your wife is likely to become inconsistent; which means that she is on the contrary likely to prove very consistent in her conduct, that she has reasoned it out with astonishing sagacity and that you are likely very soon to smel fire. From that moment she wil not in appearance fail in any of her duties, and wil put on the colors of that virtue in which she is most lacking. Said Crebil on:

"Alas!

Is it right to be heir of the man who we slay?"

Never has she seemed more anxious to please you. She will seek, as much as possible, to al ay the secret wounds which she thinks about inflicting upon your married bliss, she wil do so by those little attentions which induce you to believe in the eternity of her love; hence the proverb, "Happy as a fool." But in accordance with the character of women, they either despise their own husbands from the very fact that they find no difficulty in deceiving them; or they hate them when they find themselves circumvented by them; or they fal into a condition of indifference towards them, which is a thousand times worse than hatred. In this emergency, the first thing which may be diagnosed in a woman is a decided oddness of behavior. A woman loves to be saved from herself, to escape her conscience, but without the eagerness shown in this connection by wives who are thoroughly unhappy. She dresses herself with especial care, in order, she will tel you, to flatter your _amour-propre_ by drawing al eyes upon her in the midst of parties and public entertainments.

When she returns to the bosom of her stupid home you will see that, at times, she is gloomy and thoughtful, then suddenly laughing and gay as if beside herself; or assuming the serious expression of a German when he advances to the fight. Such varying moods always indicate the terrible doubt and hesitation to which we have already referred. There are women who read romances in order to feast upon the images of love cleverly depicted and always varied, of love crowned yet triumphant; or in order to familiarize themselves in thought with the perils of an intrigue.

She will profess the highest esteem for you, she will tel you that she loves you as a sister; and that such reasonable friendship is the only true, the only durable friendship, the only tie which it is the aim of marriage to establish between man and wife.

She will adroitly distinguish between the duties which are all she has to perform and the rights which she can demand to exercise.

She views with indifference, appreciated by you alone, all the details of married happiness. This sort of happiness, perhaps, has never been very agreeable to her and moreover it is always with her. She knows it wel , she has analyzed it; and what slight but terrible evidence comes from these circumstances to prove to an intelligent husband that this frail creature argues and reasons, instead of being carried away on the tempest of passion.

LX.

The more a man judges the less he loves.

And now wil burst forth from her those pleasantries at which you will be the first to laugh and those reflections which wil startle you by their profundity; now you wil see sudden changes of mood and the caprices of a mind which hesitates. At times she will exhibit extreme tenderness, as if she repented of her thoughts and her projects; sometimes she wil be sullen and at cross-purposes with you; in a word, she will fulfil the _varium et mutabile femina_ which we hitherto have had the folly to attribute to the feminine temperament.

Diderot, in his desire to explain the mutations almost atmospheric in the behavior of women, has even gone so far as to make them the offspring of what he cal s _la bete feroce_; but we never see these whims in a woman who is happy.

These symptoms, light as gossamer, resemble the clouds which scarcely break the azure surface of the sky and which they call flowers of the storm. But soon their colors take a deeper intensity.

In the midst of this solemn premeditation, which tends, as Madame de Stael says, to bring more poetry into life, some women, in whom virtuous mothers either from considerations of worldly advantage of duty or sentiment, or through sheer hypocrisy, have inculcated steadfast principles, take the overwhelming fancies by which they are assailed for suggestions of the devil; and you wil see them therefore trotting regularly to mass, to midday offices, even to vespers. This false devotion exhibits itself, first of all in the shape of pretty books of devotion in a costly binding, by the aid of which these dear sinners attempt in vain to fulfil the duties imposed by religion, and long neglected for the pleasures of marriage.

Now here we will lay down a principle, and you must engrave it on your memory in letters of fire.

When a young woman suddenly takes up religious practices which she has before abandoned, this new order of life always conceals a motive highly significant, in view of her husband's happiness. In the case of at least seventy-nine women out of a hundred this return to God proves that they have been inconsistent, or that they intend to become so.

But a symptom more significant stil and more decisive, and one that every husband should recognize under pain of being considered a fool, is this:

At the time when both of you are immersed in the il usive delights of the honeymoon, your wife, as one devoted to you, would constantly carry out your will. She was happy in the power of showing the ready wil , which both of you mistook for love, and she would have liked for you to have asked her to walk on the edge of the roof, and immediately, nimble as a squirrel, she would have run over the tiles.

In a word, she found an ineffable delight in sacrificing to you that _ego_ which made her a being distinct from yours. She had identified herself with your nature and was obedient to that vow of the heart, _Una caro_.

Al this delightful promptness of an earlier day gradual y faded away.

Wounded to find her will counted as nothing, your wife wil attempt, nevertheless, to reassert it by means of a system developed gradually, and from day to day, with increased energy.

This system is founded upon what we may cal the dignity of the married woman. The first effect of this system is to mingle with your pleasures a certain reserve and a certain lukewarmness, of which you are the sole judge.

According to the greater or lesser violence of your sensual passion, you have perhaps discerned some of those twenty-two pleasures which in other times created in Greece twenty-two kinds of courtesans, devoted especially to these delicate branches of the same art. Ignorant and simple, curious and full of hope, your young wife may have taken some degrees in this science as rare as it is unknown, and which we especially commend to the attention of the future author of _Physiology of Pleasure_.

Lacking all these different kinds of pleasure, all these caprices of soul, all these arrows of love, you are reduced to the most common of love fashions, of that primitive and innocent wedding gait, the calm homage which the innocent Adam rendered to our common Mother and which doubtless suggested to the Serpent the idea of taking them in. But a symptom so complete is not frequent. Most married couples are too good Christians to fol ow the usages of pagan Greece, so we have ranged, among the last symptoms, the appearance in the calm nuptial couch of those shameless pleasures which spring generally from lawless passion.

In their proper time and place we wil treat more fully of this fascinating diagnostic; at this point, things are reduced to a listlessness and conjugal repugnance which you alone are in a condition to appreciate.

At the same time that she is ennobling by her dignity the objects of marriage, your wife will pretend that she ought to have her opinion and you yours. "In marrying," she wil say, "a woman does not vow that she wil abdicate the throne of reason. Are women then really slaves?

Human laws can fetter the body; but the mind!--ah! God has placed it so near Himself that no human hand can touch it."

These ideas necessarily proceed either from the too liberal teachings which you have al owed her to receive, or from some reflections which you have permitted her to make. A whole Meditation has been devoted to _Home Instruction_.

Then your wife begins to say, "_My_ chamber, _my_ bed, _my_

apartment." To many of your questions she wil reply, "But, my dear, this is no business of yours!" Or: "Men have their part in the direction of the house, and women have theirs." Or, laughing at men who meddle in household affairs, she wil affirm that "men do not understand some things."

The number of things which you do not understand increases day by day.

One fine morning, you will see in your little church two altars, where before you never worshiped but at one. The altar of your wife and your own altar have become distinct, and this distinction wil go on increasing, always in accordance with the system founded upon the dignity of woman.

Then the fol owing ideas wil appear, and they wil be inculcated in you whether you like it or not, by means of a living force very ancient in origin and little known. Steam-power, horse-power, man-power, and water-power are good inventions, but nature has provided women with a moral power, in comparison with which all other powers are nothing; we may cal it _rattle-power_. This force consists in a continuance of the same sound, in an exact repetition of the same words, in a reversion, over and over again, to the same ideas, and this so unvaried, that from hearing them over and over again you wil admit them, in order to be delivered from the discussion. Thus the power of the rattle will prove to you:

That you are very fortunate to have such an excel ent wife; That she has done you too much honor in marrying you; That women often see clearer than men;

That you ought to take the advice of your wife in everything, and almost always ought to fol ow it;

That you ought to respect the mother of your children, to honor her and have confidence in her;

That the best way to escape being deceived, is to rely upon a wife's refinement, for according to certain old ideas which we have had the weakness to give credit, it is impossible for a man to prevent his wife from minotaurizing him;

That a lawful wife is a man's best friend; That a woman is mistress in her own house and queen in her drawing-room, etc.

Those who wish to oppose a firm resistance to a woman's conquest, effected by means of her dignity over man's power, fal into the category of the predestined.

At first, quarrels arise which in the eye of wives give an air of tyranny to husbands. The tyranny of a husband is always a terrible excuse for inconsistency in a wife. Then, in their frivolous discussions they are enabled to prove to their families and to ours, to everybody and to ourselves, that we are in the wrong. If, for the sake of peace, or from love, you acknowledge the pretended rights of women, you yield an advantage to your wife by which she wil profit eternally. A husband, like a government, ought never to acknowledge a mistake. In case you do so, your power will be outflanked by the subtle artifices of feminine dignity; then al wil be lost; from that moment she will advance from concession to concession until she has driven you from her bed.

The woman being shrewd, intelligent, sarcastic and having leisure to meditate over an ironical phrase, can easily turn you into ridicule during a momentary clash of opinions. The day on which she turns you into ridicule, sees the end of your happiness. Your power has expired.

A woman who has laughed at her husband cannot henceforth love him. A man should be, to the woman who is in love with him, a being ful of power, of greatness, and always imposing. A family cannot exist without despotism. Think of that, ye nations!

Now the difficult course which a man has to steer in presence of such serious incidents as these, is what we may cal the _haute politique_

of marriage, and is the subject of the second and third parts of our book. That breviary of marital Machiavelism will teach you the manner in which you may grow to greatness within that frivolous mind, within that soul of lacework, to use Napoleon's phrase. You may learn how a man may exhibit a soul of steel, may enter upon this little domestic war without ever yielding the empire of his wil , and may do so without compromising his happiness. For if you exhibit any tendency to abdication, your wife will despise you, for the sole reason that she has discovered you to be destitute of mental vigor; you are no longer a _man_ to her.

But we have not yet reached the point at which are to be developed those theories and principles, by means of which a man may unite elegance of manners with severity of measures; let it suffice us, for the moment, to point out the importance of impending events and let us pursue our theme.

At this fatal epoch, you wil see that she is adroitly setting up a right to go out alone.

You were at one time her god, her idol. She has now reached that height of devotion at which it is permitted to see holes in the garments of the saints.

"Oh, mon Dieu! My dear," said Madame de la Valliere to her husband,

"how badly you wear your sword! M. de Richelieu has a way of making it hang straight at his side, which you ought to try to imitate; it is in much better taste."

"My dear, you could not tell me in a more tactful manner that we have been married five months!" replied the Duke, whose repartee made his fortune in the reign of Louis XV.

She will study your character in order to find weapons against you.

Such a study, which love would hold in horror, reveals itself in the thousand little traps which she lays purposely to make you scold her; when a woman has no excuse for minotaurizing her husband she sets to work to make one.

She will perhaps begin dinner without waiting for you.

If you drive through the middle of the town, she wil point out certain objects which escaped your notice; she will sing before you without feeling afraid; she wil interrupt you, sometimes vouchsafe no reply to you, and wil prove to you, in a thousand different ways, that she is enjoying at your side the use of al her faculties and exercising her private judgment.

She will try to abolish entirely your influence in the management of the house and to become sole mistress of your fortune. At first this struggle wil serve as a distraction for her soul, whether it be empty or in too violent commotion; next, she wil find in your opposition a new motive for ridicule. Slang expressions wil not fail her, and in France we are so quickly vanquished by the ironical smile of another!

At other times headaches and nervous attacks make their appearance; but these symptoms furnish matter for a whole future Meditation. In the world she wil speak of you without blushing, and will gaze at you with assurance. She wil begin to blame your least actions because they are at variance with her ideas, or her secret intentions. She wil take no care of what pertains to you, she wil not even know whether you have all you need. You are no longer her paragon.

In imitation of Louis XIV, who carried to his mistresses the bouquets of orange blossoms which the head gardener of Versailles put on his table every morning, M. de Vivonne used almost every day to give his wife choice flowers during the early period of his marriage. One morning he found the bouquet lying on the side table without having been placed, as usual, in a vase of water.

"Oh! Oh!" said he, "if I am not a cuckold, I shall very soon be one."

You go on a journey for eight days and you receive no letters, or you receive one, three pages of which are blank.--Symptom.

You come home mounted on a valuable horse which you like very much, and between her kisses your wife shows her uneasiness about the horse and his fodder.--Symptom.

To these features of the case, you wil be able to add others. We shal endeavor in the present volume always to paint things in bold fresco style and leave the miniatures to you. According to the characters concerned, the indications which we are describing, veiled under the incidents of ordinary life, are of infinite variety. One man may discover a symptom in the way a shawl is put on, while another needs to receive a fil ip to his intel ect, in order to notice the indifference of his mate.

Some fine spring morning, the day after a ball, or the eve of a country party, this situation reaches its last phase; your wife is listless and the happiness within her reach has no more attractions for her. Her mi