all its strength from its
exclusivism. As soon as a woman begins to realize that there is charm in
the society of men other than her uncles, her brothers, and her
cousins, the solid, four-square attitude of the family is menaced.
Welcome the stranger, and legal hymen is abashed.

All this springs from woman's new estate--that of human being. She must
be considered almost as much as a man. Where there is wealth her tastes
must be consulted, and more than one man has been sentenced by a
tyrannous wife to wear blue coats and blue ties all his life. She is
coming to consider that the husband who dresses in his wife's bedroom
should be flogged, while the one who shaves there should be
electrocuted. And she defends her view with entirely one-sided logic and
an extended vocabulary. Here again is a good, a necessary thing; but
where is the old family where a husband could in safety, when slightly
overcome, retire to bed with his boots on? He is no longer king of the
castle, but a menaced viceroy in an insurgent land.

All through society this loosening of the marriage bond is operative. By
being freer within matrimony men and women view more tolerantly breaches
of the matrimonial code. There was a time when a male co-respondent was
not received: that is over. In those days a divorcee was not received
either, even when the divorce was pronounced in her favor. Nowadays, in
most social circles, the decree absolute is coming to be looked upon as
an absolution. I do not refer to the United States, where (I judge only
from your novels) divorce outlaws nobody, but to steady old England, who
still pretends that she frowns on the rebels and finally takes them back
with a sigh and wonders what she is coming to. What England is coming to
is to a lesser regard for the marriage bond, to a recognition that
people have the right to rebel against their yoke. There totters the
family--for marriage is its base, and the more English society receives
in its ranks those who have flouted it, the more it will be shaken by
the new spirit which bids human creatures live together, but also with
the rest of the world. Woman was kept within the family by threats, by
banishment, by ostracism, but now she easily earns forgiveness. At least
English society is deciding to forget if it cannot forgive the guilt--a
truly British expedient. At the root is a decaying respect for the
marriage bond, a growing respect for rebellion. That tendency is
everywhere, and