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It is easier to live too separate than too close, for one comes together freshly, and marriage feels less irremediable when it hardly exists. There really are couples who care for each other very well, who meet in a country house and say: “What! you here! How jolly!” That is an extreme case. In practice, separateness means conjugal acquaintanceship. Different pleasures, different friends, perhaps different worlds; indeed, one is mutually fresh, but traveling different roads, one may find that there is nothing in common. Of two evils, it is better perhaps to be too intimate than too distant, because there are many irritating things that with reminiscence become delightful. The dreadful day when he sat on the eggs in the train is not entirely dreadful, for he looked so silly when he stood up, removing the eggs, and though one was angry, one vaguely loved him for having made a fool of himself. (There are nine and sixty ways of gaining affection, and one of them is to be a good-tempered butt.)

Separateness, naturally, cannot coincide with the sense of mutual property. This is perhaps the cause of the greatest unhappiness in marriage, for so many forget that to be married is not to be one. They do not understand that however much they may love, whatever delights they may share, whatever common ambitions they may harbor, whatever they hope, or endeavor, or pray, two people are still two people. Or if they know it, they say, “He is mine.” “She is mine.” If one could give oneself entirely, it would be well enough, but however much one may want to do so one cannot, just because one is the axis of the earth. Because one cannot, one will not, and he that would absorb will never forgive. He will be jealous, he will be suspicious, tyrannical, he will watch and lay traps, he will court injury, he will air grievances, because the next best thing to complete possession is railing at his impotency to conquer. That jealousy is turned against everything, against work, against art, against relatives, friends, dead loves, little children, toy dogs: “Thou shalt have none other gods but me” is a human commandment.

Men do not, as a rule, suffer very much from this desire to possess, because they are so sure that they do possess, because they find it so difficult to conceive that their wife can find any other man attractive. They are too well accustomed to being courted, even if they are old and repulsive, because they have power and money; only they think it is because they are men. Beyond a jealous care for their wives’ fidelity, which I suspect arises mainly from the feeling that an unfaithful wife is a criticism, they do not ask very much. But women suffer more deeply because they know that man has lavished on them for centuries a condescending admiration, that the king who lays his crown at their feet knows that his is the crown to give. While men possess by right of possession, women possess only by right of precarious conquest. They feel it very bitterly, this fugitive empire, and their greatest tragedy is to find themselves growing a little older, uncertain of their power, for they know they have only one power; they are afraid, as age comes, of losing their man, while I have never heard of a husband afraid of losing his wife, or able to repress his surprise if she forsook him.

It would not matter so much if the feeling of property were that of a good landlord, who likes to see his property develop and grow beautiful, but mutual property is the feeling of the slave owner. Sometimes both parties suffer so, and by asking too much lose all. Man seldom asks much: if only a wife will not compromise his reputation for attractiveness while maintaining her own by flirtation, if she will accept his political views, acquire a taste for his favorite holiday resorts, and generally say, “Yes, darling”, or “No, darling”, opportunely, she need do nothing, she has only “beautifully to be.” He is not so fortunate, however, when she wants to possess him, for she demands that he should be active, that the pretty words, caresses, the anxious inquiries after health, the presents of flowers and of stalls should continue. It is not enough that he should love her; he must still be her lover. When she is not sure that he still is her lover, a madness of unrest comes over her; she will lacerate him, she will invent wishes so that he may thwart them, she will demand his society when she knows it is mortgaged to another occupation, so that she may suffer his refusal, exaggerate his indifference. Here are cases: