as his wife; and all marriages as his marriage.  When one has had the honour of receiving the confidence of a succession of such prophets and heard them pronounce in turn, but in an entirely different sense, upon the difficulties or easinesses of sex-relationships, always with a full assurance that they are right, not only in their own case but universally, one begins to make a few tentative generalizations oneself in the hope that they will at least provoke discussion and engender light.

X

“THE SIN OF THE BRIDEGROOM”

     “A deathless bubble from the fresh lips blown
     Of Cherubim at play about God’s throne
     Seemed her virginity.  She dreamed alone
     Dreams round and sparkling as some sea-washed stone. 
     Then an oaf saw and lusted at the sight. 
     They smashed the thing upon their wedding night.”

     Dunch,
     Susan Miles.

Something has been said by others of one of the most fruitful sources of misunderstanding between men and women, where misunderstanding is likely to have the most disastrous results—­what has been called by Rosegger “the sin of the bridegroom.”  Perhaps “sin” is a mistaken word.  If irreparable harm is often done on the wedding night, it is quite as much due to ignorance as to cruelty.  Nothing is more astonishing than the widespread ignorance of men and women of the fact that courtship is not a mere convention, or a means of flattering the vanity of women, but a physiological necessity if there is to be any difference at all between the union of lovers and a rape.

It is all, I suppose, part of the old possessive idea which, making of a woman something less than a human personality with wishes, desires and temperament of her own, forbade the man to realize or even to know that her body has its needs as well as his, and that to regard it merely as an instrument is to be in danger of real cruelty.

You can bargain for the possession of a violin and the moment it is yours, may play upon it.  It is yours.  If you are in the mood to play, it must be ready for you.  If it is not, then tune it, and it will be.[G] But a human being cannot be treated so in any human relationship.  It needs mutual patience and mutual respect to make a relationship human.

[Footnote G:  But even a violin will need to be tuned.]

This simple fact, however, has been so little understood of lovers, that husbands have, in genuine ignorance of the cruelty they were committing, raped their wives on their wedding night.  Judging by what one knows of wedding-days, it could hardly be supposed that there could be a more unpropitious moment for the consummation of marriage.  And when to the fatigue and strain of the day is added—­as is still quite often the case—­blank though uneasy ignorance as to what marriage involves, or the thunderbolt of knowledge (sic) launched by the