The choice of a mate.

  • Anthony Ludovici
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details
    31/546 (page 1)
    CHAPTER I ON CHOICE IN GENERAL AND THE OBSTACLES IN THE WAY OF A SOUND CHOICE HIS book deals with the only phase in the adult relationship of the sexes, which has retained its natural features almost unimpaired. Choice, chase, capture—these are its three exciting stages, upon which even the most unhappy couples look back with delight. We may even suspect that conjugal infidelity is more often due to the wish to experience this joyous phase over again with some new quarry, than to any conscious desire to start a fresh permanent union with another partner. No aspect of the sex question, however, could, in its complex ity, be more baffling to the modern civilized being, than the choice of a mate, because, as we shall see, there are exceptional conditions which now make a permanent association with a member of the opposite sex perhaps more hazardous than it has ever been before. It was never an easy undertaking. “ S'aimer toujours ,” said Balzac, “est le plus téméraire des entreprises .” 1 And few who have tried it are in any doubt as to the large range and variety of its pitfalls. To be so romantic as to choose a mate as if you proposed entering heaven together, when you are only entering matri mony, is, therefore, as sensible as choosing garments for a ball when you only intend using them for gardening. To enter matrimony, in fact, in the spirit with which people pursue pleasure, is hardly rational. 2 And yet what with the romantic tradition in fiction and the films, and the reprehensible reluctance of middle-aged folk to speak out truthfully before their juniors about marriage, modern youth is usually given a picture of matrimony which is no more like reality than a fairy tale. 1 P.M., p. 21. 2 See B.M., p. 13, where Keyserling says: “Marriage as a solution of the problem of happiness is misconceived from the start.” B I