Behind all this lurks the
half-conscious idea that woman is man's inferior, and that idea really
does remain hidden even in the minds of some who would repudiate it. The
fact is that the ultimate value of marriage--the thing that makes it
good fun, as well as a noble thing--lies in the fact that men and women
are so different; that they have not the same powers, and can
alternately take the lead in their common life. It is comradeship, and
not mere occasional love-making, that they must achieve in order to be
permanently happy, and comradeship is a relation in which each must be
free to be his or her natural self.
Marriage _can_ be made a cramping thing, and then in time it becomes
almost an insufferable thing. But if each will give the other room to
grow it can be an enlarging experience. It may contain the sum of the
interests of two different people. If mutual learning is brought into
it, it dignifies the lives of both. I believe in obedient wives. But
then I also believe in obedient husbands. If I did not follow my wife's
lead in some departments of life, I should be neither more nor less
than a fool.
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