Husbands and Wives : Part 1

The Family and it's Members
by Anna Garlin Spencer

(Page 8 of 22)

"First, the love of wedded souls; next, neighbor loves and civic,
All reddened, sweetened from the central heart."
- E.B. Browning.

"Two shall be born the whole wide world apart
And speak in different tongues, and have no thought
Each of the other's being and no heed;
And those o'er unknown seas to unknown lands
Shall come, escaping wreck, defying death,
And all unconsciously shape every act
And bend each wandering step to this one end - That
one day, out of darkness, they shall stand
And read life's meaning in each other's eyes."
- Susan Marr Spaulding.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light."
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

"A home is not an accidental or natural coming together of human souls under the same roof in certain definite relationships; it is a work of art, to be builded upon fixed principles of life and action." - Henry Ware, in Home Life.

"True love is but a humble, low-born thing,
142 And hath its food served up in earthenware;
It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand,
Through the every-dayness of this work-day world,
Baring its tender feet to every roughness,
Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray
From Beauty's law of plainness and content;
A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile
Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home."
- Lowell.

Not Fancied but Genuine Happiness in Marriage Now Demanded. - The fairy tales ended with the wedding and "they lived happily forever after." The dramas and novels of to-day are often devoted to telling how they did not live happily ever after and what or who caused the unhappiness. Although no one need be alarmed that some people get divorced when marital unhappiness becomes acute, every right-minded person wishes that every marriage should turn out happily. We now, however, demand that it shall be genuine, not make-believe happiness, and that places a heavier strain upon all concerned. We have grown wise enough to see that holding people together who should never have been brought into close relationship does not really conduce to high family morality or social well-being. That, however, only makes it seem the more important that we should somehow learn how to prevent the marriage of those who cannot make their union a success. The part that social control can play in preventing the attempt to marry by the wholly unfit in body, mind, or work-capacity has been already suggested, and that pressure of the community upon the individual choice will, without doubt, largely increase as the bad results of too great individualism in the family relation are more clearly perceived.

Social Restrictions on Marriage Choices. - There will, in time, be a narrowing of the circle within which personal choices can be made, so that the markedly defective in mind, the victims of disease inimical to family well-being, and the pauper strains of inheritance will be ruled out before young people have a chance to marry according to their own inclination.

With such helpful narrowing of choices there would still remain many dangers to be avoided if the divorce statistics are to be held within bounds of social safety.

The part that the family elders once played in settling vital questions of adjustment within the marriage bond has now, for the most part, to be undertaken for consideration and decision by the young people themselves. To name these most important questions of adjustment and discuss them in the light of modern ideals and desires is to get a better impression of the difficulties they indicate.

Shall the Wife Take the Husband's Name? - In the first place, the matter of the name for the married couple must be now considered. Shall it be one or two? Shall the new sense of personal dignity, so common to the modern woman, increase the already spreading fashion of retention of the maiden name, her inherited family name, as permanently her own, untouched by the fact of marriage union? No one can be cognizant of the conviction and practice of many feminists without understanding that this is a real problem to be settled surely before the marriage ceremony. There is already in the field a "Lucy Stone League" to give the support of the practice of a great and beloved woman to the fashion of keeping one's own name. The question of the desirability of having children bear the same name as both parents is left for the most part in abeyance by those who thus advocate two names for the married couple. It may be that each child is expected to bear as a second name his mother's and as a last name his father's family name, as, for example, John Jones Jackson, Jones being the mother's and Jackson the father's personal signature; but when the child marries, by what name shall the family line be carried on?

To most of us who see in the family name adopted by both husband and wife at marriage a sign of family unity not to be lost without serious embarrassment to offspring, and some danger of easy drifting apart without the knowledge of others, the name seems not to be of vital importance. Why, then, it is asked, should the woman always give up her family connection as indicated by inherited name, and the man retain his? The fact that the custom has grown up by reason of the legal absorption of the wife's life in that of the husband is obvious, and gives much color to the claim that now, when a woman is a recognized personality in the law whether married or single, she should keep the name by which her personality has become known. That is easily seen to be advantageous in the case of professional women of wide influence. The great singer, the great writer, any creative genius or artist, continues, as a rule, to be known by the name under which greatness has been achieved. In such cases, however, women often bear two names, the professional name either of family inheritance or a chosen nom de plume, and the social name, which is their husband's and engraved on calling cards. The tendency now is increasing to keep the one designation to which one is born and make no concessions to conventional nomenclature. It must be remembered that in such cases it is the father's name by which the married daughter is called and the mother's maiden name is lost with all the rest of the silent majority of her sex. The fact that men have given the wedded name for ages, and that men are most often senior partners in the marriage firm, and the fact that any other suggested plan gives two names for one family instead of one seems to make that a part of the old inheritance that may not cause great uneasiness if one accepts it without revolt. There is a compromise method which long has been a custom among Friends and is growing even more rapidly than that of holding permanently to the full maiden name. That is the plan of keeping the father's name, or the "maiden name," as a middle one, and adding the husband's name; so that Miss Mary Jane Wood shall, on marrying John Hartley Stone, become, not Mrs. John Hartley Stone, but Mrs. Mary Wood Stone. That keeps in memory her family designation and yet gives her children a chance to call themselves by the one name which is a sign of the family unity. However the settlement may be made, the point is that such a vital question, entering into the legal signature for business purposes as well as into all social relationship, shall reach conclusion before the two enter upon the marriage bond.

Copyright, 1923 by J.B. Lippincott Company

About the Author

Anna Garlin Spencer (1851-1931) was an American educator, feminist, and Unitarian minister. Born in Attleboro, MA, she married the Rev. William H. Spencer in 1878. She was a leader in the women's suffrage and peace movements. In 1891 she became the first woman ordained as a minister in the state of Rhode Island.