called the problem of poverty, especially the dehumanized poverty
of modern industrialism
In the course of this crude study we shall have to touch on what is
called the problem of poverty, especially the dehumanized poverty
of modern industrialism. But in this primary matter of the ideal
the difficulty is not the problem of poverty, but the problem of wealth.
It is the special psychology of leisure and luxury that falsifies life.
Some experience of modern movements of the sort called 'advanced' has
led me to the conviction that they generally repose upon some experience
peculiar to the rich. It is so with that fallacy of free love of which I
have already spoken; the idea of sexuality as a string of episodes.
That implies a long holiday in which to get tired of one woman,
and a motor car in which to wander looking for others; it also implies
money for maintenances. An omnibus conductor has hardly time
to love his own wife, let alone other people"s. And the success with
which nuptial estrangements are depicted in modern 'problem plays'
is due to the fact that there is only one thing that a drama
cannot depict--that is a hard day"s work. I could give many other
instances of this plutocratic assumption behind progressive fads.
For instance, there is a plutocratic assumption behind the phrase
'Why should woman be economically dependent upon man?'
The answer is that among poor and practical people she isn"t;
except in the sense in which he is dependent upon her.
A hunter has to tear his clothes; there must be somebody to mend them.
A fisher has to catch fish; there must be somebody to cook them.
It is surely quite clear that this modern notion that woman is a mere
'pretty clinging parasite,' 'a plaything,' etc., arose through the somber
contemplation of some rich banking family, in which the banker, at least,
went to the city and pretended to do something, while the banker"s
wife went to the Park and did not pretend to do anything at all.
A poor man and his wife are a business partnership. If one partner
in a firm of publishers interviews the authors while the other
interviews the clerks, is one of them economically dependent?
Was Hodder a pretty parasite clinging to Stoughton? Was Marshall
a mere plaything for Snelgrove?
