Jerome Jerome: Tea-table Talk

"It is you now who are playing with words," asserted the Old Maid. "The greater includes the less. Loving her, he would naturally desire―"

"With all his worldly goods her to endow," completed for her the Minor Poet. "In other words, he pays a price for her. So far as love is concerned, they are quits. In marriage, the man gives himself to the woman as the woman gives herself to the man. Man has claimed, I am aware, greater liberty for himself; but the claim has always been vehemently repudiated by woman. She has won her case. Legally and morally now husband and wife are bound by the same laws. This being so, her contention that she gives herself falls to the ground. She exchanges herself. Over and above, she alone of the twain claims a price."

"Say a living wage," corrected the Philosopher. "Lazy rubbish lolls in petticoats, and idle stupidity struts in trousers. But, class for class, woman does her share of the world's work. Among the poor, of the two it is she who labours the longer. There is a many-versed ballad popular in country districts. Often I have heard it sung in shrill, piping voice at harvest supper or barn dance. The chorus runs -

A man's work 'tis till set of sun, But a woman's work is never done!

"My housekeeper came to me a few months ago," said the Woman of the World, "to tell me that my cook had given notice. 'I am sorry to hear it,' I answered; 'has she found a better place?' 'I am not so sure about that,' answered Markham; 'she's going as general servant.' 'As general servant!' I exclaimed. 'To old Hudson, at the coal wharf,' answered Markham. 'His wife died last year, if you remember. He's got seven children, poor man, and no one to look after them.' 'I suppose you mean,' I said, 'that she's marrying him.' 'Well, that's the way she puts it,' laughed Markham. 'What I tell her is, she's giving up a good home and fifty pounds a year, to be a general servant on nothing a week. But they never see it.'"

"I recollect her," answered the Minor Poet, "a somewhat depressing lady. Let me take another case. You possess a remarkably pretty housemaid―Edith, if I have it rightly."

"I have noticed her," remarked the Philosopher. "Her manners strike me as really quite exceptional."

"I never could stand any one about me with carroty hair," remarked the Girton Girl.

"I should hardly call it carroty," contended the Philosopher. "There is a golden tint of much richness underlying, when you look closely."

"She is a very good girl," agreed the Woman of the World; "but I am afraid I shall have to get rid of her. The other woman servants don't get on with her."

"Do you know whether she is engaged or not?" demanded the Minor Poet.

"At the present moment," answered the Woman of the World, "she is walking out, I believe, with the eldest son of the 'Blue Lion.' But she is never adverse to a change. If you are really in earnest about the matter―"

"I was not thinking of myself," said the Minor Poet. "But suppose some young gentleman of personal attractions equal to those of the 'Blue Lion,' or even not quite equal, possessed of two or three thousand a year, were to enter the lists, do you think the 'Blue Lion' would stand much chance?"

"Among the Upper Classes," continued the Minor Poet, "opportunity for observing female instinct hardly exists. The girl's choice is confined to lovers able to pay the price demanded, if not by the beloved herself, by those acting on her behalf. But would a daughter of the Working Classes ever hesitate, other things being equal, between Mayfair and Seven Dials?"

"Let me ask you one," chimed in the Girton Girl. "Would a bricklayer hesitate any longer between a duchess and a scullery-maid?"

"But duchesses don't fall in love with bricklayers," returned the Minor Poet. "Now, why not? The stockbroker flirts with the barmaid―cases have been known; often he marries her. Does the lady out shopping ever fall in love with the waiter at the bun-shop? Hardly ever. Lordlings marry ballet girls, but ladies rarely put their heart and fortune at the feet of the Lion Comique. Manly beauty and virtue are not confined to the House of Lords and its dependencies. How do you account for the fact that while it is common enough for the man to look beneath him, the woman will almost invariably prefer her social superior, and certainly never tolerate her inferior? Why should King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid appear to us a beautiful legend, while Queen Cophetua and the Tramp would be ridiculous?"

"The simple explanation is," expounded the Girton Girl, "woman is so immeasurably man's superior that only by weighting him more or less heavily with worldly advantages can any semblance of balance be obtained."

"Then," answered the Minor Poet, "you surely agree with me that woman is justified in demanding this 'make-weight.' The woman gives her love, if you will. It is the art treasure, the gilded vase thrown in with the pound of tea; but the tea has to be paid for."

"It all sounds very clever," commented the Old Maid; "yet I fail to see what good comes of ridiculing a thing one's heart tells one is sacred."

"Do not be so sure I am wishful to ridicule," answered the Minor Poet. "Love is a wondrous statue God carved with His own hands and placed in the Garden of Life, long ago. And man, knowing not sin, worshipped her, seeing her beautiful. Till the time came when man learnt evil; then saw that the statue was naked, and was ashamed of it. Since when he has been busy, draping it, now in the fashion of this age, now in the fashion of that. We have shod her in dainty bottines, regretting the size of her feet. We employ the best artistes to design for her cunning robes that shall disguise her shape. Each season we fix fresh millinery upon her changeless head. We hang around her robes of woven words. Only the promise of her ample breasts we cannot altogether hide, shocking us not a little; only that remains to tell us that beneath the tawdry tissues still stands the changeless statue God carved with His own hands."

"I like you better when you talk like that," said the Old Maid; "but I never feel quite sure of you. All I mean, of course, is that money should not be her first consideration. Marriage for money―it is not marriage; one cannot speak of it. Of course, one must be reasonable."

"You mean," persisted the Minor Poet, "you would have her think also of her dinner, of her clothes, her necessities, luxuries."

"It is not only for herself," answered the Old Maid.

"For whom?" demanded the Minor Poet.

The white hands of the Old Maid fluttered on her lap, revealing her trouble; for of the old school is this sweet friend of mine.

"There are the children to be considered," I explained. "A woman feels it even without knowing. It is her instinct."

The Old Maid smiled on me her thanks.

"It is where I was leading," said the Minor Poet. "Woman has been appointed by Nature the trustee of the children. It is her duty to think of them, to plan for them. If in marriage she does not take the future into consideration, she is untrue to her trust."

"Before you go further," interrupted the Philosopher, "there is an important point to be considered. Are children better or worse for a pampered upbringing? Is not poverty often the best school?"

"It is what I always tell George," remarked the Woman of the World, "when he grumbles at the tradesmen's books. If Papa could only have seen his way to being a poor man, I feel I should have been a better wife."

"Please don't suggest the possibility," I begged the Woman of the World; "the thought is too bewildering."

"You were never imaginative," replied the Woman of the World.

"Not to that extent," I admitted.

"'The best mothers make the worst children,'" quoted the Girton Girl. "I intend to bear that in mind."

"Your mother was a very beautiful character―one of the most beautiful I ever knew," remarked the Old Maid.