Husband-Hunting

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Title:     Husband-Hunting
Author: E. Lynn Linton [More Titles by Linton]

What we have said in another place about the odium which attaches to "match-making" naturally applies in a far greater degree to "husband-hunting." Practically the two words mean much the same thing, since the successful result of a husband-hunt is of course a match, and match-making, in the common acceptation of the term, involves a husband-hunt. This latter fact is somewhat curious. There is no reason in the nature of things why the word match-making should be associated only with the pursuit of the unmarried male. On the contrary, the theory of marriage has always been that it is the woman who has to be hunted down. It is curious to note under what completely different circumstances, and occasionally in what grotesque forms, the same theory has been found all over the world, both in civilized and savage life. Sometimes the bride is carried away bodily from her home, as if nothing short of physical force could make a woman quit her maiden state. Sometimes the panting bridegroom has to run her down--no slight task if the adorer happens to be stout, and the adored one coquettish and fleet of foot. In marriage, this custom prevails only, we believe, among the savages, but visitors to the Crystal Palace may see how modern civilization has adapted it to courtship in the popular pastime of kiss-in-the-ring.

We have read of a savage tribe in which the bride is thought no better than she should be, if, on the day after the wedding, the bridegroom does not show signs of having been vigorously pinched and scratched. This custom, again, is perhaps represented in civilized life by the kissing and struggling which are supposed every Christmas to go on under the mistletoe. It is not unworthy of remark, as regards these two points of comparison between civilization and barbarism, that, as the woman gets more civilized, she seems more disposed to meet her pursuer halfway. In the game of kiss-in-the-ring, for instance, although the lady does not run after the gentleman, but, on the contrary, shows her maiden modesty by giving him as hard a chase as she can, she still delicately paves the way for osculation by throwing the pocket-handkerchief. And, in the Christmas fights under the mistletoe (if we may take Mr. Dickens as an authority), slapping, and even pinching in moderation, are considered allowable--perhaps we ought to say proper--on the lady's part; but scratching--serious scratching, we mean, which would make her admirer's face look next morning as if he had been taking liberties with a savage bird or a cat--is thought not merely unnecessary, but unfair.

The difference between civilized and savage woman may perhaps help to indicate the reason why, now-a-days, match-making should, as a matter of fact, be associated with husband-hunting in spite of the theory that it is the woman who has to be hunted, not the man. Popular phraseology has an awkward trick of making people unconsciously countenance the theories against which they most vehemently protest. Husband-hunting is a far more generally obnoxious word than even the much-injured match-making, simply because it flies in the face of the pet theory which we have described. But, if the theory really hold good in modern practice, why should man, not woman, be recognised as the professional match-maker's victim and legitimate game? Why does not wife-hunting, the word which this theory entitles us to expect, take its proper place in society? Heiress-hunting, indeed, is well known, but this can scarcely be considered a form of wife-hunting, for it is not the woman who is the object of pursuit, but her money-bags. We have the word heiress-hunting for the very obvious reason that heiresses are recognised game. The word husband-hunting exists for the same reason.

Are we to infer from the non-existence, or at any rate the non-appearance in good society, of the word wife-hunting, that the practice is anything but common--that, since a hunt necessarily implies pursuit on one side and flight on the other, a man cannot well be said to hunt a woman who is either engaged in hunting him, or else only too ready to meet him halfway? Are we gradually tending towards an advanced stage of civilization in which woman will be formally recognized as the pursuer, and man as the pursued? We are not bold enough to take under our protection a view so glaringly heterodox, but still we think it only common justice to point out that there are difficult problems in the present state of society which the view helps materially to solve. We fear, for instance, there can be no doubt that there is a good deal of truth in the Belgravian mother's lament that marriage is gradually ceasing to be considered "the thing" among the young men of the present day; that girls of good families and even good looks are taking to sisterhoods, and nursing-institutes, and new-fangled abominations, simply because there is no one to marry them.

It is not merely that the young men are getting every day rarer; though, unless there is some system, like Pharaoh's, for putting male infants to death, what can become of them all is a mystery. India and the colonies may absorb a good many, though these places also do duty in the absorption of spinsterhood. But this will not account for the alarming fact, that in almost every ball-room, no matter whether in the country or in town, there are usually at least three crinolines to one tail-coat, and that dancing bachelors are becoming so scarce that it is a question whether hostesses ought not, for their own peace of mind, to connive at the introduction of the Oriental nautch. Yet even the alarming scarcity of marriageable men is not so serious an evil as their growing disinclination to marry.

With the causes of this disinclination we are not now concerned. Some attribute it to the increase of luxurious and expensive habits among bachelors--habits specially fostered by "those hateful clubs;" some to the "snobbishness" which makes a woman consider it beneath her dignity to marry into an establishment less stylish than that which it has perhaps taken her father all his life to secure; some to the demi-monde--an explanation very like the theory that small-pox is caused by pustules. But, whatever may be the causes of the disinclination, there can be but little doubt that it exists, and the worst part of the matter is, that it is found among rich men no less than among poor. That really poor men should not wish to marry is, even the Belgravian mother must admit, an admirable arrangement of nature. But it is too bad that so many men-about-town should seem rich enough for yachting, or racing, or opera-boxes, or even diamond necklaces--for anything, in short, but a wife. The fact is, that in the eyes of poor men a wife is associated chiefly with handsome carriages, showy dresses, fine furniture, and other forbidden luxuries; and, inasmuch as there is not one law of association for the rich and another for the poor, this view spreads, until even rich men consider whether it is not possible to secure the luxuries without the wife.

Now, since marriage is, on the whole, an institution with which society cannot very well dispense--at any rate not until some good substitute has been found for it--it is clear that rich men ought not to be allowed to treat it in this way. If modern civilization tends to beget a disinclination to marry, it ought also, on the principle of compensation, to provide some means for counteracting this tendency, or keeping it under control. Is the increase of husband-hunting--we ask the question in a respectful and, we trust, purely philosophical spirit of inquiry--calculated to supply this great and obvious want? What are its merits, in this respect, as compared with the old-fashioned theory that woman should be wooed, not woo? Even the most inveterate hater of husband-hunting must admit that, so far as the great end of matrimony is concerned, the two sexes nowadays stand to each other in a most unnatural relation. It is alike the mission of both to marry, but whereas women are honorably anxious to fulfill this mission, men, as we have already seen, are too ready to shirk it. Yet, by a strange inversion of the usual order of things, to the very sex which evades the mission is its furtherance and chief control entrusted.

Besides, not only does woman take more kindly to the duty of matrimony than man--or at least nineteenth-century man--but she has comparatively nothing else to think about. A dozen occupations are open to him, but her one object in life, her whole being's end and aim, is to marry. Surely, if the art of marriage requires cultivation, it ought, like everything else, to be entrusted to those who can give their whole time to it, not to those who have so much else to do. Even when a bachelor is in a position to marry, and not unwilling to make the experiment, he is still far less fitted for the furtherance of matrimony than a woman. He, perhaps, meets a nice girl at a ball, is taken with her, and after a mild flirtation thinks, as he walks home in the moonlight, that she would make a charming wife. He dreams about her, and next morning at breakfast, as he pensively eats a pound of steak, resolves that on the same afternoon, or the next at the very latest, he will contrive an accidental meeting, or even find some excuse for a call. But then comes office-work, or the Times, or some other distraction, and later on perhaps a visit from some matter-of-fact friend with an unromantic taste for "bitter," or a weakness for the Burlington Arcade. One day slips away, and by the next the image of the evening's idol has waxed comparatively faint. At least it is not sufficiently vivid to inspire him with courage enough for a call, or a too suspicious-looking rencontre. In a week he bows to the image, as it is driven by, as coolly as if he had never had a thought of making his heart its shrine; and thus a golden opportunity for bringing together two young people, in whose auspicious union the whole community has an interest, has been cruelly thrown away.

How different might the case have been if fashion had allowed the lady to take the initiative, instead of compelling her to sit idly at home! She has no office-work, nor Times, nor any business but that of bringing last night's flirtation to a practical issue. Assuming her to be satisfied as to the eligibility of her partner, there is nothing to prevent her giving her whole time and attention to his capture. She is as little likely to throw away any chance of an interview calculated to help in bringing about this result as he is to neglect an opportunity for winning the lawn sleeves or silk gown. Marriage is of as much importance to her as either of these to him. It is, perhaps, not impossible that the mere notion of a woman's thus taking the initiative in courtship may to some appear outrageously immodest. But with this point we have nothing to do, as we have been discussing the theory of husband-hunting, not with any reference to its modesty, but solely and exclusively in its connexion with the great question, how marriage is to be carried on. We put together the three facts that nineteenth-century civilization makes men indisposed to marry, that it gives women no object in life but marriage, and yet that it assigns the furtherance of marriage, which we assume to be an institution deserving of careful cultivation, not to those whose interest it is to promote it, but to those who are comparatively averse to it. Modest or immodest, husband-hunting obviously tends to remedy this misdirection and waste of force.

We take this to be the right explanation--and we have endeavored to make it an impartial one--of the charge not uncommonly brought against the young ladies of the present day, that, as compared with their mothers and grandmothers, they are rather forward and fast, and that husband-hunting in their hands, is gradually being developed to an extent scarcely compatible with the old-fashioned theories about maidenly modesty and reserve. The change may be considered the effort of modern civilization to remedy an evil of its own creation. The tide advances in one direction because it recedes in another. If the men will not come forward, the women must. It is all very well for satirists to call this immodest, but even modesty could be more easily dispensed with than marriage. Besides, without quitting our position as impartial observers, we may point out that it is only fair to the professor of husband-hunting to remember that there are two kinds of immodesty, and that some actions are immodest merely because it is the custom to consider them so. It would, no doubt, be immodest for a young lady to ride through Hyde Park in man's fashion. Yet what is there in the nature of things to make a side-saddle more modest than any other? The Amazons were positive prudes, and would never have even spoken to man if they could have contrived to carry on society without him; yet they rode astraddle. And if fashion could make this practice feminine, why should it not some day do as much for husband-hunting?

[The end]
E. Lynn Linton's essay: Husband-Hunting

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