Marriage is essentially a dialogue between man and wife. And if it is carried on different wavelengths, when communication breaks down then it is best not to persist in it.
As one who has been in and out of love many times but married only once, I am often asked by young people in love whether or not they should get married. My advice varies with what I know about their past and their temperaments. Some, like me, are forever falling in and out of love and would remain misfits in any monogamous union. Others who appear more steady and are marrying types tend to be possessive, jealous and more often than not, bores. So what advice am I to give them?
The commonest prevalent illusion is that people fall in love only once in their lifetimes. In the words of the poet Coventry Patmore from his poem Revelations:
Love wakes men, once a lifetime each;
They lift their heavy lids, and look;
And, lo, what one sweet page can teach,
They read with joy, then shut the book.
And some give thanks, and some blaspheme
And most forget; but, either way,
That and the Child’s unheeded dream
Is all the light of all their day.
Cyril Connolly subscribes to the one-life-love theory. He writes: ‘We love but once, for once only are we perfectly equipped for loving: we may appear to ourselves to be as much in love at other times – so will a day in early September, though it be six hours shorter, seem as hot as one in June. And on how that first true love affair will shape depends the pattern of our lives.’
Connolly is right in his analysis of real love: ‘The object of loving is release from love… Complete physical union between two people is the rarest sensation which life can provide – and yet not quite real for it stops when the telephone rings.’ Connolly’s telephone is metaphorical. What really happens is that the blissful physical union can never be repeated with the same person and the craving to experience it again tempts men and women to try it out with other people. They begin to fall apart. One or the other looks for excuses for misunderstandings that creep in; they begin to lie to each other; they pretend that their new attachments are platonic or emotional and not physical. That is the time for the wiser of the two to put an end to the relationship because the one who wishes to prolong it in the hope that it may be restored to its initial intensity, is the one who is going to be hurt. I agree with Connolly when he says: ‘When a love affair is broken off, the heaviest blow is to the vanity of the one who is left.’ So my advice to those in love, who begin to suspect that their affection is no longer being reciprocated in the same measure, is to take courage and be the first to say: ‘Go to hell - or in the arms of your new lover. Leave me alone, I do not want to have anything to do with you.’
With love being so chancy, is it sensible to go ahead and marry the person you love? Connolly thinks it is inadvisable: ‘… Every love affair must reach a point where it will attain marriage, and be changed, or decline, or wither.’ He advises that marriage is an experience everyone should go through and then live his own life. This amounts to advocating adultery to preserve a marriage. He is confused because a few pages later he condemns adultery as a token form of murder: ‘We do not murder the rival husband or wife but we murder their image.’ He thinks that two fears alternate in marriage, loneliness and bondage: ‘The dread of loneliness being keener than the fear of bondage, we get married.’
Having quoted all there is against marriage, what do I tell young people embarking on the venture? By all means take the plunge but do not expect too much out of it. If you discover that it may not work out in good time, that is, before a child is on its way, have the courage to call it off and not corrode each other’s existence. Marriage is essentially a dialogue between man and wife. And if it is carried on different wave-lengths, when communication breaks down then it is best not to persist in it. Therefore it is wise not to start having a family before you have known each other at least five years. But once you have children, you have to learn the art of appearing to them as being good parents. They must never be exposed to angry disagreements, and if you feel a compelling need to engage in extramarital relationships, make sure your children never get to know about them.