Marriage and Love

BY

EMMA GOLDMAN

Price Ten Cents

MOTHER EARTH PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION

210 EAST 13th STREET, NEW YORK

1911

[1]

Marriage and Love

BY

EMMA GOLDMAN

Price Ten Cents

MOTHER EARTH PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION

210 EAST 13th STREET, NEW YORK

1911

[2]

MARRIAGE AND LOVE

[3]

The popular notion about marriage and love is that
they are synonymous, that they spring from the same
motives, and cover the same human needs. Like most
popular notions this also rests not on actual facts, but
on superstition.

Marriage and love have nothing in common; they
are as far apart as the poles; are, in fact, antagonistic
to each other. No doubt some marriages have been
the result of love. Not, however, because love could
assert itself only in marriage; much rather is it because
few people can completely outgrow a convention.
There are today large numbers of men and
women to whom marriage is naught but a farce, but
who submit to it for the sake of public opinion. At
any rate, while it is true that some marriages are based
on love, and while it is equally true that in some cases
love continues in married life, I maintain that it does
so regardless of marriage, and not because of it.

On the other hand, it is utterly false that love
results from marriage. On rare occasions one does
hear of a miraculous case of a married couple falling
in love after marriage, but on close examination it[4]
will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the
inevitable. Certainly the growing-used to each other
is far away from the spontaneity, the intensity, and
beauty of love, without which the intimacy of marriage
must prove degrading to both the woman and
the man.

Marriage is primarily an economic arrangement,
an insurance pact. It differs from the ordinary life
insurance agreement only in that it is more binding,
more exacting. Its returns are insignificantly small
compared with the investments. In taking out an
insurance policy one pays for it in dollars and cents,
always at liberty to discontinue payments. If, however,
woman’s premium is a husband, she pays for it
with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very
life, “until death doth part.” Moreover, the marriage
insurance condemns her to life-long dependency, to
parasitism, to complete uselessness, individual as well
as social. Man, too, pays his toll, but as his sphere is
wider, marriage does not limit him as much as woman.
He feels his chains more in an economic sense.

Thus Dante’s motto over Inferno applies with
equal force to marriage. “Ye who enter here leave all
hope behind.”

That marriage is a failure none but the very
stupid will deny. One has but to glance over the
statistics of divorce to realize how bitter a failure
marriage really is. Nor will the stereotyped Philistine
argument that the laxity of divorce laws and the
growing looseness of woman account for the fact that:
first, every twelfth marriage ends in divorce; second,
that since 1870 divorces have increased from 28 to 73[5]
for every hundred thousand population; third, that
adultery, since 1867, as ground for divorce, has increased
270.8 per cent.; fourth, that desertion increased
369.8 per cent.

Added to these startling figures is a vast amount of
material, dramatic and literary, further elucidating
this subject. Robert Herrick, in Together; Pinero, in
Mid-Channel; Eugene Walter, in Paid in Full, and
scores of other writers are discussing the barrenness,
the monotony, the sordidness, the inadequacy of marriage
as a factor for harmony and understanding.

The thoughtful social student will not content himself
with the popular superficial excuse for this phenomenon.
He will have to dig down deeper into the
very life of the sexes to know why marriage proves
so disastrous.

Edward Carpenter says that behind every marriage
stands the life-long environment of the two sexes; an
environment so different from each other that man
and woman must remain strangers. Separated by
an insurmountable wall of superstition, custom, and
habit, marriage has not the potentiality of developing
knowledge of, and respect for, each other, without
which every union is doomed to failure.

Henrik Ibsen, the hater of all social shams, was
probably the first to realize this great truth. Nora
leaves her husband, not—as the stupid critic would
have it—because she is tired of her responsibilities or
feels the need of woman’s rights, but because she has
come to know that for eight years she had lived with a
stranger and borne him children. Can there be anything
more humiliating, more degrading than a life-[6]long
proximity between two strangers? No need for
the woman to know anything of the man, save his income.
As to the knowledge of the woman—what is
there to know except that she has a pleasing appearance?
We have not yet outgrown the theologic myth
that woman has no soul, that she is a mere appendix to
man, made out of his rib just for the convenience of
the gentleman who was so strong that he was afraid
of his own shadow.

Perchance the poor quality of the material whence
woman comes is responsible for her inferiority. At
any rate, woman has no soul—what is there to know
about her? Besides, the less soul a woman has the
greater her asset as a wife, the more readily will she
absorb herself in her husband. It is this slavish acquiescence
to man’s superiority that has kept the marriage
institution seemingly intact for so long a period.
Now that woman is coming into her own, now that
she is actually growing aware of herself as a being
outside of the master’s grace, the sacred institution of
marriage is gradually being undermined, and no
amount of sentimental lamentation can stay it.

From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that
marriage is her ultimate goal; therefore her training
and education must be directed towards that end.
Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is prepared
for that. Yet, strange to say, she is allowed to
know much less about her function as wife and mother
than the ordinary artisan of his trade. It is indecent
and filthy for a respectable girl to know anything of
the marital relation. Oh, for the inconsistency of
respectability, that needs the marriage vow to turn[7]
something which is filthy into the purest and most
sacred arrangement that none dare question or criticize.
Yet that is exactly the attitude of the average upholder
of marriage. The prospective wife and mother
is kept in complete ignorance of her only asset in the
competitive field—sex. Thus she enters into life-long
relations with a man only to find herself shocked, repelled,
outraged beyond measure by the most natural
and healthy instinct, sex. It is safe to say that a large
percentage of the unhappiness, misery, distress, and
physical suffering of matrimony is due to the criminal
ignorance in sex matters that is being extolled as a
great virtue. Nor is it at all an exaggeration when I
say that more than one home has been broken up because
of this deplorable fact.

If, however, woman is free and big enough to learn
the mystery of sex without the sanction of State or
Church, she will stand condemned as utterly unfit to
become the wife of a “good” man, his goodness consisting
of an empty brain and plenty of money. Can
there be anything more outrageous than the idea that
a healthy, grown woman, full of life and passion, must
deny nature’s demand, must subdue her most intense
craving, undermine her health and break her spirit,
must stunt her vision, abstain from the depth and glory
of sex experience until a “good” man comes along to
take her unto himself as a wife? That is precisely
what marriage means. How can such an arrangement
end except in failure? This is one, though not the
least important, factor of marriage, which differentiates
it from love.[8]

Ours is a practical age. The time when Romeo
and Juliet risked the wrath of their fathers for love,
when Gretchen exposed herself to the gossip of her
neighbors for love, is no more. If, on rare occasions,
young people allow themselves the luxury of romance,
they are taken in care by the elders, drilled and
pounded until they become “sensible.”

The moral lesson instilled in the girl is not whether
the man has aroused her love, but rather is it, “How
much?” The important and only God of practical
American life: Can the man make a living? can he
support a wife? That is the only thing that justifies
marriage. Gradually this saturates every thought of
the girl; her dreams are not of moonlight and kisses,
of laughter and tears; she dreams of shopping tours
and bargain counters. This soul poverty and sordidness
are the elements inherent in the marriage institution.
The State and the Church approve of no other
ideal, simply because it is the one that necessitates the
State and Church control of men and women.

Doubtless there are people who continue to consider
love above dollars and cents. Particularly is this
true of that class whom economic necessity has forced
to become self-supporting. The tremendous change in
woman’s position, wrought by that mighty factor, is
indeed phenomenal when we reflect that it is but a
short time since she has entered the industrial arena.
Six million women wage workers; six million women,
who have the equal right with men to be exploited, to
be robbed, to go on strike; aye, to starve even. Anything
more, my lord? Yes, six million wage workers
in every walk of life, from the highest brain work to[9]
the mines and railroad tracks; yes, even detectives
and policemen. Surely the emancipation is complete.

Yet with all that, but a very small number of the
vast army of women wage workers look upon work
as a permanent issue, in the same light as does man.
No matter how decrepit the latter, he has been taught
to be independent, self-supporting. Oh, I know that
no one is really independent in our economic treadmill;
still, the poorest specimen of a man hates to be a parasite;
to be known as such, at any rate.

The woman considers her position as worker transitory,
to be thrown aside for the first bidder. That
is why it is infinitely harder to organize women than
men. “Why should I join a union? I am going to get
married, to have a home.” Has she not been taught
from infancy to look upon that as her ultimate calling?
She learns soon enough that the home, though not so
large a prison as the factory, has more solid doors
and bars. It has a keeper so faithful that naught can
escape him. The most tragic part, however, is that the
home no longer frees her from wage slavery; it only
increases her task.

According to the latest statistics submitted before
a Committee “on labor and wages, and congestion of
population,” ten per cent. of the wage workers in New
York City alone are married, yet they must continue
to work at the most poorly paid labor in the world.
Add to this horrible aspect the drudgery of housework,
and what remains of the protection and glory of the
home? As a matter of fact, even the middle-class girl
in marriage can not speak of her home, since it is the
man who creates her sphere. It is not important[10]
whether the husband is a brute or a darling. What I
wish to prove is that marriage guarantees woman a
home only by the grace of her husband. There she
moves about in his home, year after year, until her
aspect of life and human affairs becomes as flat, narrow,
and drab as her surroundings. Small wonder if
she becomes a nag, petty, quarrelsome, gossipy, unbearable,
thus driving the man from the house. She
could not go, if she wanted to; there is no place to go.
Besides, a short period of married life, of complete
surrender of all faculties, absolutely incapacitates the
average woman for the outside world. She becomes
reckless in appearance, clumsy in her movements, dependent
in her decisions, cowardly in her judgment, a
weight and a bore, which most men grow to hate and
despise. Wonderfully inspiring atmosphere for the
bearing of life, is it not?

But the child, how is it to be protected, if not for
marriage? After all, is not that the most important
consideration? The sham, the hypocrisy of it! Marriage
protecting the child, yet thousands of children
destitute and homeless. Marriage protecting the child,
yet orphan asylums and reformatories overcrowded, the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children keeping
busy in rescuing the little victims from “loving”
parents, to place them under more loving care, the
Gerry Society. Oh, the mockery of it!

Marriage may have the power to bring the horse
to water, but has it ever made him drink? The law
will place the father under arrest, and put him in convict’s
clothes; but has that ever stilled the hunger of
the child? If the parent has no work, or if he hides[11]
his identity, what does marriage do then? It invokes
the law to bring the man to “justice,” to put him safely
behind closed doors; his labor, however, goes not to
the child, but to the State. The child receives but a
blighted memory of its father’s stripes.

As to the protection of the woman,—therein lies
the curse of marriage. Not that it really protects her,
but the very idea is so revolting, such an outrage and
insult on life, so degrading to human dignity, as to
forever condemn this parasitic institution.

It is like that other paternal arrangement—capitalism.
It robs man of his birthright, stunts his growth,
poisons his body, keeps him in ignorance, in poverty,
and dependence, and then institutes charities that
thrive on the last vestige of man’s self-respect.

The institution of marriage makes a parasite of
woman, an absolute dependent. It incapacitates her
for life’s struggle, annihilates her social consciousness,
paralyzes her imagination, and then imposes its gracious
protection, which is in reality a snare, a travesty
on human character.

If motherhood is the highest fulfillment of woman’s
nature, what other protection does it need, save love
and freedom? Marriage but defiles, outrages, and
corrupts her fulfillment. Does it not say to woman,
Only when you follow me shall you bring forth life?
Does it not condemn her to the block, does it not degrade
and shame her if she refuses to buy her right to
motherhood by selling herself? Does not marriage
only sanction motherhood, even though conceived in
hatred, in compulsion? Yet, if motherhood be of free
choice, of love, of ecstasy, of defiant passion, does it[12]
not place a crown of thorns upon an innocent head
and carve in letters of blood the hideous epithet, Bastard?
Were marriage to contain all the virtues claimed
for it, its crimes against motherhood would exclude
it forever from the realm of love.

Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life,
the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the
defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest,
the most powerful moulder of human destiny; how can
such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that
poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?

Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man
has bought brains, but all the millions in the world
have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but
all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love.
Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies
could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered
the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before
love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and
pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and
desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the
poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and
color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a
beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no
other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly,
abundantly, completely. All the laws on
the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear
it from the soil, once love has taken root. If, however,
the soil is sterile, how can marriage make it bear fruit?
It is like the last desperate struggle of fleeting life
against death.[13]

Love needs no protection; it is its own protection.
So long as love begets life no child is deserted, or
hungry, or famished for the want of affection. I
know this to be true. I know women who became
mothers in freedom by the men they loved. Few
children in wedlock enjoy the care, the protection,
the devotion free motherhood is capable of bestowing.

The defenders of authority dread the advent of a
free motherhood, lest it will rob them of their prey.
Who would fight wars? Who would create wealth?
Who would make the policeman, the jailer, if woman
were to refuse the indiscriminate breeding of children?
The race, the race! shouts the king, the president,
the capitalist, the priest. The race must be
preserved, though woman be degraded to a mere
machine,—and the marriage institution is our only
safety valve against the pernicious sex awakening of
woman. But in vain these frantic efforts to maintain
a state of bondage. In vain, too, the edicts
of the Church, the mad attacks of rulers, in vain
even the arm of the law. Woman no longer wants
to be a party to the production of a race of sickly,
feeble, decrepit, wretched human beings, who have
neither the strength nor moral courage to throw off
the yoke of poverty and slavery. Instead she desires
fewer and better children, begotten and reared
in love and through free choice; not by compulsion,
as marriage imposes. Our pseudo-moralists have yet
to learn the deep sense of responsibility toward the
child, that love in freedom has awakened in the breast
of woman. Rather would she forego forever the[14]
glory of motherhood than bring forth life in an atmosphere
that breathes only destruction and death.
And if she does become a mother, it is to give to
the child the deepest and best her being can yield.
To grow with the child is her motto; she knows
that in that manner alone can she help build true
manhood and womanhood.

Ibsen must have had a vision of a free mother,
when, with a master stroke, he portrayed Mrs. Alving.
She was the ideal mother because she had outgrown
marriage and all its horrors, because she had broken
her chains, and set her spirit free to soar until it
returned a personality, regenerated and strong. Alas,
it was too late to rescue her life’s joy, her Oswald;
but not too late to realize that love in freedom is the
only condition of a beautiful life. Those who, like
Mrs. Alving, have paid with blood and tears for their
spiritual awakening, repudiate marriage as an imposition,
a shallow, empty mockery. They know, whether
love last but one brief span of time or for eternity,
it is the only creative, inspiring, elevating basis for
a new race, a new world.

In our present pygmy state love is indeed a
stranger to most people. Misunderstood and shunned,
it rarely takes root; or if it does, it soon withers and
dies. Its delicate fiber can not endure the stress and
strain of the daily grind. Its soul is too complex to
adjust itself to the slimy woof of our social fabric.
It weeps and moans and suffers with those who have
need of it, yet lack the capacity to rise to love’s
summit.[15]

Some day, some day men and women will rise,
they will reach the mountain peak, they will meet
big and strong and free, ready to receive, to partake,
and to bask in the golden rays of love. What fancy,
what imagination, what poetic genius can foresee even
approximately the potentialities of such a force in the
life of men and women. If the world is ever to
give birth to true companionship and oneness, not
marriage, but love will be the parent.