ledge and armored only with illusion against truth,
while men enter it with experience, if not with tolerance born of
disappointment. I realize that these two conclusions are opposed to the
popular belief that a good home and a child or two are enough to make a
woman content. (A bad home and a child or nine is not considered by the
popular mind.)

There is no male clamor against marriage, from which one might conclude
that man is fairly well served. No doubt he attaches less weight to the
link; even love matters to him less than to women. I do not want to
exaggerate, for Romeo is a peer to Juliet, but it is possible to
conceive Romeo on the Stock Exchange, very busy in pursuit of money and
rank, while Juliet would remain merely Juliet. Juliet is not on the
Stock Exchange. If business is good, she has nothing to do, and if Satan
does not turn her hands to evil works, he may turn them to good ones,
which will not improve matters very much. Juliet, idle, can do nothing
but seek a deep and satisfying love: mostly it is a lifelong
occupation. All this makes Juliet very difficult, and no astronomer will
give her the moon.

Romeo is in better plight, for he makes less demands. Let Juliet be a
good housekeeper, fairly good looking and good tempered; not too stupid,
so as to understand him; not too clever, so that he may understand her;
such that he may think her as good as other men's wives, and he is
satisfied. The sentimental business is done; it is "Farewell! Farewell!
ye lovely young girls, we're off to Rio Bay." So to work--to money--to
ambition--to sport--to anything--but Juliet. While he forgets her, the
modern woman grows every day more attractive, more intellectually vivid.
She demands of her partner that he should give her stimulants, and he
gives her soporifics. She asks him for far too much; she is cruel, she
is unjust, and she is magnificent. She has not the many children on whom
in simpler days her mother used to vent an exacting affection, so she
vents it on her husband.

Yet it is not at first sight evident why so easily in England a lover
turns into a husband, that is to say, into a vaguely disagreeable person
who can be coaxed into paying bills. I suspect there are many
influences corrupting marriage, and most of them are mutual in their
action; they are of the essence of the contract; they are the mental
reservations of the marriage oath. So far as I can see, they fall into
sixteen classes:--

1. The w