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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76976 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
+
+  Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=.
+
+  Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
+
+
+
+
+                       LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 988
+                     Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
+
+                         The Art of Courtship
+
+                             Clement Wood
+
+                        HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
+                            GIRARD, KANSAS
+
+
+
+
+                           Copyright, 1926,
+                       Haldeman-Julius Company.
+
+                PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                      Page
+  1. Why One Must Woo                    5
+      The Origin of Wooing               5
+      Reasons Against Wooing             8
+      Wooing by Women                   12
+      What Wooing Consists of           13
+  2. Whom to Woo                        15
+      Physical Mates                    15
+      Mental Mates                      19
+      Social Mates                      20
+      Special Problems                  22
+  3. How a Man Woos                     25
+      Whom to Woo                       25
+      Object and Method of Wooing       27
+      Problems of Wooing                32
+      The Proposal, and After           33
+      Courtship After Marriage          35
+  4. How a Woman Woos                   37
+      Fancy Flirtations                 37
+      Judging Men                       39
+      “Nice” Girl or Human Being        43
+  5. Conduct During the Engagement      47
+      Conduct in Public                 47
+      In Private                        50
+      Termination of Engagements        53
+  6. Famous Courtships                  57
+      Courting by Poetry                57
+      Great Lovers                      59
+
+
+
+
+THE ART OF COURTSHIP
+
+
+
+
+WHY ONE MUST WOO
+
+
+_The Origin of Wooing._--The normal man must woo the woman who attracts
+him, because of an instinct planted deep in his nature, which had
+its origin far down in the scale of life. The modern civilized woman
+must woo, because this obligation has been laid upon her by man’s
+rearrangement of society, dating from the savage hour when he ended the
+era of woman-rule, the matriarchate, and took the leadership himself.
+
+The first separate male appears at about the stage of the barnacle
+in the scale of animal life. The female barnacle, a shellfish
+attached permanently to a rock, pier, or the hull of a ship, gives
+birth to from two to seven little male consorts, or husbands, whom
+she keeps in little openings in her shell, like pockets. From among
+these pocket-husbands she picks out the one she pleases to mate with
+her; usually selecting the largest (for all are much smaller than
+herself), and, where sizes are equal, the one that she feels drawn to
+emotionally. From this emotion gradually emerges the esthetic sense,
+or sense of the beautiful. Thus the first male did not have to do any
+wooing: he was picked, like the apple that one day made Eden vanish
+away.
+
+As we rise higher in the scale of animal life, say among the spiders
+and insects like the grotesquely horrible praying mantis, the male
+has to woo: and a bloody and savage mate he must go after! The female,
+still larger than her male, sits back and waits for the audacious mate
+to approach. He feels one impelling biological purpose: to mate with
+her, and make sure that offspring will come. Nature has implanted
+this overpowering instinct in him. In the female, are two appetites;
+a fainter desire to mate, and ordinary hunger. Her male must satisfy
+both, in his wooing. As he approaches her, the Theda Bara among insects
+grasps the male and eats, first his head, then a leg or two, and a part
+of his body. When the edge has been taken off her appetite, she rests.
+At this time what is left of the male completes the mating. When her
+hunger returns again, the female finishes her devouring of the male.
+
+The male bee, who outflies the other males in the lofty nuptial flight
+of the queen bee, mates with her in thin high air far above the
+earth; and dies at the moment of mating, his husk of a body falling,
+like Lucifer out of heaven, to the earth far below. There are other
+cases where mating spells death for the male: but Nature is kinder
+in most matings, and the male survives. When we reach the birds and
+the mammals, the wooing is a gorgeous thing. For the male bird or
+beast, as a slow result of female selection based upon her esthetic or
+beauty-loving sense, has developed into a far more gorgeous creature
+than his mate. The bright glitter of the peacock, the gorgeous flame
+of the male tanager and cardinal bird, the glow of gay tropical bird
+males, the lion’s mane, the rooster’s comb and feather display, the
+stag’s branching antlers, the humble billygoat’s beard, the man’s
+beard, all have developed to stimulate the jaded eye of the female.
+The mating songs, from the bird carols to the whooping crane’s strange
+howls, with bill opened to the sky, neck stiff as a ramrod, and wings
+pumping out the weird noises, and from the tomcat’s caterwauling to
+the corner quartette’s strange agonies over “Sweet Adeline”--all have
+developed to stimulate the bored ear of the female. At mating time,
+the male is often a ridiculous sight, with his stiff formal dances and
+prancings before the female, even among the animals. He must woo: that
+is what he was made for. The female was not made primarily to woo: her
+task is to live, and to transmit life to the generations after her. The
+male, originally, was merely an incident in her life.
+
+Thus the normal boy and young man came to the wooing period with a
+tremendous inward urge, that gives them no release until they have
+wooed and won. The female matures earlier in the human race; and girls
+pass through a year or two of excessive curiosity and interest in
+the male sex, when their boy friends of the same age are ordinarily
+entirely cold to all female charms. The hidden hour comes when boy
+alters to man. His voice changes and lowers, in that ridiculous
+kaleidoscope of sound that is humorously called “the goslings.” A tiny
+fuzz appears on male lips, cheeks, and chin: the young man is as proud
+of the first hair of his incipient mustache as if he were entitled to
+credit for it. His body alters, and the mating impulse sweeps over him.
+No matter how much he has scoffed at mere girls before, they suddenly
+fill the whole horizon. Just as the animals strut to attract attention,
+so boys and young men during this transition and shortly afterwards
+will do anything to gain the gaze of even a passing girl. They talk
+in loud tones on the street, they jostle a passing girl, they cut up
+absurd capers--all to gain the first look from a woman’s eyes. Then
+this bubbling simmers down, and they set out on the long chase of the
+female, which may occupy much of their lives thereafter.
+
+If the boy or young man continues uninterested in girls, this is a bad
+sign. It may be bashfulness: we will take up that symptom and its cure
+later. It may indicate some inner twist, which makes him prefer his own
+company, or that of members of his own sex, to female company. This is,
+spiritually at least, a sort of perversion; it is a sterile attitude,
+contrary to the wide purposes of nature. In normal cases, he can no
+more avoid wooing than he can avoid feeling hungry and going after
+food. For that is what he is on earth for, from a physical point of
+view.
+
+
+_Reasons Against Wooing._--Lord Bacon, that prosy old cynic whom
+misguided persons have sought to identify as the author of the plays
+attributed to Shakespeare, says in his Essays: “A wife and children are
+impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.” There
+is the smoke of truth here, but it points to a fire very different
+from the one the sardonic old politician intended. Great enterprises
+gain much of their impetus, from the male’s desire to stand well
+in the female’s eyes. Another angle on the matter might be worded,
+that the energy which is implanted in man for wooing purposes may be
+deflected into enterprises, such as piratical and military careers,
+adventure trips and explorations. But more often than not, the spur
+that sends the man into building a house, or tilling a field, into
+slicing mountains apart to wed great oceans, discovering a pole or a
+hidden hinterland civilization, into achievement of any distinguished
+kind, is the desire to gain merit in the eyes of some specific woman,
+or of women in general. A great thinker has said that civilization is
+a sublimation, or expression in another form, of the primitive love
+desire. A man, because of his short height, or some physical diseases
+or disability, is rebuffed in youth by a woman: to provide against a
+repetition of the rebuff, he becomes a financial figure in Wall Street,
+or a conqueror of the world; or, at least, he tries to achieve this.
+Thus the spur of feminine approval is what goads the horse, man, to
+enterprises of virtue and mischief.
+
+Of course, wooing does not necessarily involve marriage, or the man’s
+assumption of responsibility for the children. Many men remain closer
+to the primitive, and are satisfied to enjoy the woman, often at great
+cost to her, and thereafter to abandon her with what children she
+may have as a result of the union. Such men lose the finer fruits of
+mating, the long comradeship of a compatible woman that makes life a
+complete enjoyment, rather than a fragmentary one. The fact that a man
+has accepted a wife and children may tone down his spirit of adventure:
+from absurd masculine displays, “playing to the galleries” of mankind,
+his energy is altered to proper continuing courtship of his wife, and
+the making of a home for her and the children. To that extent Bacon is
+right: “great,” in the sense of flashy and foolhardy, enterprises “of
+virtue or mischief” are replaced by ordinary sensible human living. But
+there is no loss to the man, rather a gain.
+
+Again, the fact of acquiring a wife and children, if the man is well
+mated, acts as his chief spur to steady achievement in whatever is
+his role in human life. The unmated man is a wild, reckless creature,
+taking any kind of absurd risk, sinking a year’s earnings in one
+night’s play at the gambling table, going on roaring drinking parties,
+regarding women as his prey rather than as possible companions. The
+well-mated man is a social unit, or a part of one, at least. The
+wanderlust is drained away in the humbler yet loftier task of building
+his own world toward his dreams, rather than skylarking over the world
+in the vain hope that somewhere he will find the world of his dreams
+already built for him.
+
+There are dangers in mating, grave dangers: the divorce records of the
+country indicate many of them. The chief one is where the man, at an
+early age, contracts a marriage with a woman who is a fit mate for him
+then, but lacks the capacity for growth along with him. This applies in
+many cases where the man makes a success thereafter in any line. When
+he was a ten-dollar-a-week man, he married a ten-dollar-a-week woman;
+when he became a ten thousand dollar a year man, the woman remained
+a ten-dollar-a-week woman, and became a distinct and draining load
+upon his back, and a deterrent to his continued success and happiness.
+Boswell, Johnson’s biographer, may have had this type in mind when he
+wrote:
+
+      Whilst courting, and in honeymoon,
+        With Kate’s allurements smitten,
+      I loved her late, I loved her soon,
+        And called her dearest kitten.
+
+      But now my kitten’s grown a cat,
+        And cross, like other wives.
+      Alas! alas! my honest Matt,
+        I fear she has nine lives.
+
+In “How to Love” (Little Blue Book No. 98), problems of this nature
+were taken up and discussed: the only remedy being, where a marriage
+becomes loveless, to terminate the marriage, for the benefit of
+the man, the woman, and the children concerned. From the woman’s
+standpoint, the chief danger in mating is that she will get a man
+lacking her sensitiveness, and unable to grow into an appreciation
+of it. She finds herself mated for life to a cruder, coarser, and
+incompatible male; and, when love dies, and cruelty and infidelity take
+its place, only the remedy indicated above will serve. There are all
+these dangers: but they call rather for a wiser courtship, than for an
+abolition of wooing and mating.
+
+Lastly, a man or woman is incomplete without courtship and mating.
+Those who say that a man or woman can become a perfected, rounded human
+being without human love, are deceivers, spreading a mental poison. The
+man or woman who goes too long without the practice of love contracts a
+case of ingrowing love, as painful and morbid as an ingrowing toenail.
+All the immense love energy stagnates and fouls into a diseased nature,
+hateful, spiteful, gossipy, perverted and warped from real humanness.
+There can be no ultimate reason against mating. The task is to woo well
+and mate wisely.
+
+
+_Wooing by Women._--Today, contrary to the custom in the sub-human
+world and among the earliest savage men, woman must woo as well as
+man. The reason lies in man’s alteration of the standards of society.
+The female animal is not as competent as her mate in the hunt and the
+kill, and in coping with life. Men have rendered women incompetent by
+thousands of years of hothouse sheltering and by servile toil for many
+more. The woman today realizes,--we speak of the less intelligent woman
+now--that her task in life is to obtain a husband, as a permanent meal
+ticket, and as provider of home, clothing, and all the rest of the
+tremendous trifles of civilization. Such a mistaught girl goes after a
+man as a fisherman goes after a brook trout, and more frequently than
+is good for the man lands the poor fish, and has him hooked thoroughly
+thereafter. Such a woman has been taught that marriage should be based,
+not upon love, but upon a man’s ability to care financially for the
+woman. Life’s highest crown is a satisfying human love. This she has
+not aimed for, and this she does not get. When she aims low, she scores
+low: and, if the man is wise, he will dump her and leave her high and
+dry, when it is too late for her to go after the finer goal.
+
+But even the wise woman today realizes that the whole social
+arrangement of mating between the sexes is overcast with absurd taboos
+and restrictions; and that, if she is to mate happily, she must regain
+part of woman’s lost privilege of choice. There is nothing “unladylike”
+in her doing the choosing, in her unostentatious wooing, and, if
+necessary, in her proposing marriage herself. We will take up woman as
+a wooer later.
+
+
+_What Wooing Consists Of._--From the standpoint of either sex, wooing
+superficially consists of only one thing: conquest of the woman or man
+pursued, the gaining of the ultimate favor, if the woman be pursued,
+with or without marriage, and the gaining of marriage, if the man
+is the pursued. If wooing is regarded in this light, it is possible
+that the pursuit is always limited, if not erroneous. For the matter
+of conquest is not the ultimate one in wooing and mating. The proper
+purpose of wooing is to choose and win the right mate.
+
+The matter of choosing brings up the second and far more important
+element of wooing, which might be described as education in the
+opposite sex. Society today makes no adequate provision for practical
+laboratory education in the characteristics of the opposite sex: a
+wiser civilization will supply ample facilities for this indispensable
+part of human education. The man comes to adolescence without any
+knowledge of woman, beyond his slight information concerning his mother
+and his sisters, if he has any, and casual contacts with other girls
+and women. The girl comes to adolescence as ill-informed. Yet soon
+thereafter man and girl are called upon to enter, without preliminary
+training, the game or gamble of securing a life mate, who will lift
+them up or drag them down thereafter, in all of their efforts. Socially
+this is a crime. The only thing that can partially supply the lack of
+information, today, is the wooing period. For, after marriage, it is
+difficult to end the relationship; and, before marriage, if the parties
+learn they are ill-suited, intelligent men and women still have a
+dignified chance to break off the unwise mating before it solidifies
+into the chains of marriage. Keep in mind, then, that the wooing period
+is primarily a time for learning about the other sex, and its traits
+and eccentricities. The young man or woman in love should study the
+subject, from books and from living teachers, as amply as possible: and
+should observe other men and women, unmarried and married, with eyes
+as clear as he or she can make them. If the wooing is regarded as an
+education in love, and especially in the person wooed, its value will
+be doubled.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+WHOM TO WOO
+
+
+_Physical Mates._--The lowest form of mating is that on the exclusively
+physical plane. Yet this is perhaps the most important aspect of all.
+If lovers are not physically pleasing and satisfactory to each other,
+all the financial and other inducements are worthless.
+
+The first problem concerns the respective ages of the parties. Should
+they be of the same ages? If not, which should be older? On this point,
+Shakespeare says:
+
+            Let still the woman take
+      An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
+      So sways she level in her husband’s heart.
+      For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
+      Our fancies are more giddy and inform,
+      More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,
+      Than woman’s are.
+
+The woman matures earlier; so the younger woman is the normal
+equivalent, especially physically, of the man a few years older.
+This is all right for the time of the mating: but thereafter the man
+overcomes the woman’s lead, and soon surpasses her; and when, at her
+change of life, she has largely finished her physical function of
+love-making, the man is still equipped as a wooer and lover. On the
+other side of the same question, the same poet wrote:
+
+      Crabbed Age and Youth
+      Cannot live together:
+      Youth is full or pleasance,
+      Age is full of care;
+      Youth like summer morn,
+      Age like winter weather,
+      Youth like summer brave,
+      Age like winter bare:
+      Youth is full of sport,
+      Age’s breath is short,
+      Youth is nimble, Age is lame;
+      Youth is hot and bold,
+      Age is weak and cold,
+      Youth is wild, and Age is tame:--
+      Age, I do abhor thee,
+      Youth, I do adore thee;
+      O! my Love, my Love is young!
+      Age, I do defy thee--
+      O sweet shepherd, hie thee,
+      For methinks thou stay’st too long.
+
+This is worth quoting in full to drive home, in the concentrated
+phrasing of a master, the extreme differences between youth and age.
+When an elderly well-to-do man marries a young and lovely girl, as
+often happens, this may apply; and when a young man marries a woman old
+enough to be his mother, this may also apply.
+
+And yet, each one’s problems of the choice of a mate is an individual
+problem: no general rules may be laid down. The man’s first vague
+ideal of the woman he wishes to love is made to imitate largely, in
+normal cases, his mother; the girl’s, her father. If this first ideal
+impression persists with great strength thereafter, youth will be
+happy only with age. If, in the more normal case, youth desires youth
+finally, then the invaluable courtship period should have taught this
+lesson: the young man or woman turns from the intended older mate,
+and the evil is corrected before it is too late. The person fully
+experienced in love will have experimented in courtship with people of
+various ages, to find where the ideal lies. Too much experimentation,
+of course, rubs off something of the bloom, but if enlightenment
+follows this rubbing off of the bloom, the thing is worthwhile.
+
+As to dispositions, again no general rule can be laid down. Biological
+science says those are most happily mated whose dispositions are
+opposite. Similarly, biological science says that blonde should
+mate with brunette, and tall with short: it making no difference to
+science whether the man is the tall or short one, or the woman the
+short or tall one. Biological science is true in generalities, and
+does not pretend to solve individual cases and preferences. The only
+recommendation is, try the one you are first attracted to; and, if
+the period of courtship indicates a mistake has been made, and that
+incompatibility comes from opposite temperaments, or from the same
+temperaments, try elsewhere.
+
+When should one woo and marry? Are early or late marriages advisable?
+Here society’s present financial arrangement comes in. Unless the
+man or woman is wealthy already--and few are--the man cannot afford
+to support a wife, in professional or white-collared business life,
+until he is from 25 to 30. Marriage on a very small income may work
+out successfully; in the majority of cases, it does not. The girl who
+marries at eighteen has hardly had time to know her own mind yet:
+there are arguments for waiting until she is 22 to 25, or even older.
+If the man or woman matures slowly, this is reason for later mating.
+The danger in late matings is that the man and woman have grown more
+fixed and rigid in minor matters: more crotchety, more old-maidish or
+old-mannish. The young are more adaptable. All of these things must be
+weighed. In general, courtship should begin soon after adolescence, and
+the mating should be entered upon as soon as the young man and young
+woman feel that they are completely unhappy unless living together.
+
+Health is an important matter. Some states require a health certificate
+from both man and woman; and this is a wise precaution. The man or
+woman venereally infected should not be permitted to marry, until
+medical science gives a clean bill of health. If a man marries a sickly
+and ailing woman, who will become an invalid, he is bound down to an
+excessive and unpleasing load for life. On the other hand, marriage may
+end the woman’s invalidism, which may have been assumed subconsciously
+as a protection against being overworked at home, or which may be a
+case of physical warping caused by non-expression of the love energy.
+If the woman marries an invalid man, unless she wishes to support him
+for life, more unhappiness will follow. Samuel Butler, in _Erewhon_,
+calls disease a crime; and crime, a mere disease, to be cured by
+doctors. For ill health, punishment should follow. This attitude,
+revolutionary in a high degree, is in the main sound. Except in rare
+cases, only the physically sound should mate. During the courtship,
+this should be gone into carefully.
+
+From the physical standpoint, a man should woo that woman or those
+women who attract him physically. The wooing period will indicate
+whether any one woman is congenial and increasingly desirable. No
+one but a congenial woman who is increasingly desirable should be
+permanently mated with. The girl should be guided by the same principle
+of choice.
+
+
+_Mental Mates._--The former conception was that the man was supposed
+to be the intellectual one, by training, and by contact with the
+broadening influences of his work, and of the world of men; and
+that the woman should be an intellectual weakling, tending toward
+imbecility. In the Oriental world, with its harems and harem favorites,
+this is at times the situation achieved. Such a method deprives love
+and mating of its chief glory: the intellectual companionship of
+congenial spirits.
+
+Woman is no longer forbidden an education. Elementary education is
+generally hers, required by law; she may have a college training, or
+its equivalent; and, in general, in life thereafter, if left with time
+on her hands at home, she is more literate, in the world of books and
+ideas, than the man; although she may have had less personal contact
+with large groups of minds, such as a man encounters in his business
+and social connections. The balance, for the ideal mating, should swing
+closer. A woman is the gainer by practical experience at working, so
+that she may realize from the standpoint of the earner the value of a
+dollar, and not measure it merely from the standpoint of the spender.
+
+A man once locked his business cares up when he left the office, and
+never brought them home; or, if he brought them home, brought them
+merely as complaints, unintelligible to his wife. The ideal mating
+is where the man and woman are equally interested and intelligent
+in the business welfare, and are, in effect, partners, as they must
+be in results. This state can rarely be entirely reached. But if,
+during the courtship, the girl turns out to be a chatter-tongued and
+scatter-brained little fool, this is a danger signal to the man, to
+get out while the getting is good. The girl who raves over the movies,
+dances like a feather, and thinks like one, is not likely to be a fit
+mate or mother to the man’s children. The man who turns out to be
+merely a would-be sheik, with no ideas above professional baseball or
+spending all he has made in a week in one night, is hardly to be chosen
+as a permanent mate. Unless such a pair woo and win each other: which
+makes two other people happy, who might have won these lemons and been
+unhappy thereafter. Courtship is the great testing time, to see whether
+the two concerned are congenial mentally, and whether they apparently
+have similar capacities of mental growth.
+
+
+_Social Mates._--Should a girl marry only a man well able to support
+her? Should a man marry only a girl who is well off financially? These
+questions would be absurd, if current standards of society did not let
+them largely dictate many of the most unhappy marriages among us. One
+should marry for love, primarily and almost entirely. The purpose of
+mating is to increase one’s happiness: love cannot be bought, and the
+thing called bought love cannot increase happiness. Love in poverty
+has a harder row to hoe than love in comparative opulence: but love
+in poverty is immeasurably better than sham love in opulence, which
+grows soon enough to hatred in opulence. Let physical attractiveness,
+plus mental congeniality, be the touchstones during the wooing period.
+The money will somehow come to those who are not utterly spiritual
+weaklings, and who present a loving and united front to the world. They
+may never be well off: but they will win more of the goal of mating and
+life, which is happiness, than well-to-do haters of their mates.
+
+The matter of social position is similar. The chance of happiness in
+marriage today is not great when all advantages are in favor of the
+mating parties. When to this is added a distinct difference in social
+standing, this makes the problem harder of solution. Let this fact,
+when ascertained, put you on your guard. But, at the same time, it is
+only one fact among many to be weighed; and, if the physical and mental
+attractions are strong enough, they should overweigh any inequality in
+rearing and background.
+
+Of all errors achieved in mating, perhaps marrying to reform a man is
+the worst. If a man cannot overcome his pet vices during the courting
+period, when he is free to fight the battle out within himself, it
+is almost a sure bet he will not alter after marriage. Even if he
+temporarily ends the faults or vices during the courting, he may slump
+later. Reforming a man (or a girl either) is a tremendous gamble. If
+you choose to gamble with your life, and enjoy the risk, that is an
+excellent reason for going ahead with it. But the more normal human
+beings will leave reformation to the person concerned, and marry for
+other and sounder reasons.
+
+
+_Special Problems._--Should a man be married who has sowed his wild
+oats? Or should a girl insist upon the man’s coming to the mating pure?
+Should a girl be married who has sowed her wild oats? Or should a man
+insist upon her coming to the mating pure?
+
+The average answer is that the man is the gainer by the sowing of
+wild oats; and that the girl is ruined by the practice. Needless to
+say, this angle of judgment is all wrong. If the sowing of wild oats
+consists in mere amorous experience with other women, or in this
+coupled with drinking, even to the point of moderate drunkenness, and
+gambling on a scale not too large, the man is not injured for marriage
+by these. Nor is the girl injured in the slightest. The object of
+life is to achieve happiness. The chief method of gaining this is by
+experiencing the world. Love experience is no more harmful (unless
+pregnancy results) than experience in sampling different food menus.
+If disease has come, that is a matter for the doctors to pass upon,
+and the discussion of health above covers it. If the girl has had an
+illegitimate child, society’s ban is so strong that the case is altered
+somewhat. This is a factor to be weighed by both parties: it does not
+of necessity make the girl any the less fit as a mate, than the man
+would be if he had had an illegitimate child by another woman.
+
+In general, the man is better off for having sowed some wild oats
+before marriage: he is less liable to plow a field of post-marital wild
+oats. The same is true, although in a slightly less degree, of the
+girl. The only difference is caused by the weight of social standards
+upon the two sexes today.
+
+Should a bashful man or woman woo or be wooed? Bashfulness is in no
+wise discreditable; it is in general a nervous trait which may be
+remedied. It comes in general from a want of self-confidence. In
+general, the bashful continue plugging away in humble self-effacement;
+and, at times, suddenly burst forth with an achievement far ahead of
+that of the brassiest individual, self-confident from birth. The cure
+for bashfulness is contact with crowds, which brings sooner or later
+the realization that you are not inferior in the slightest to the run
+of humanity, and are superior to many of your associates. Something of
+the Coué method--repeating to yourself, without intentional compulsion,
+“I am important, I believe in myself,” might help. Luckily for the
+bashful, they ordinarily attract the opposite temperament. If the
+husband of the bashful woman does not make fun of her peculiarity, but
+sympathetically brings her out, and if the wife of the bashful man does
+the same, the effort becomes more than twice as successful. In general,
+the bashful make mates as satisfactory, or more satisfactory, than the
+self-confident.
+
+Is love at first sight a possibility? Of course, and a frequent one.
+The normal man falls in love, at first sight, with every attractive
+woman he sees. If this is an error, take it as a confession. Many a
+woman falls in love at first sight with a man who satisfies her ideal,
+hitherto unrealized. If both feel the emotion simultaneously, we have
+the perfect case. The subsequent wooing will indicate whether this is
+enduring love, or an illusion.
+
+Should a man or woman woo several persons at once? In general,
+especially in the earlier stages of the wooing, this is an advantage.
+If you wish to buy a jewel, you are wise if you examine several, before
+making your final choice. The same applies to wooing for a mate. We say
+at once, because successive wooing permits choice really only of some
+subsequent love object; whereas the first may be, after all, the most
+suited. Wooing should be done in honesty; so the element of deception
+of the parties concerned should not ordinarily be used. This is not
+because it is ethically wrong, but because, if found out, unpleasant
+consequences may ensue. But, in general, the wider the choice, the more
+satisfactory the mating that follows. People who marry the first woman
+or man they are infatuated with are seldom well mated. Since trial
+wooings are socially accepted, they should be taken advantage of.
+
+We can now proceed to the technique of wooing.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+HOW A MAN WOOS
+
+
+_Whom to Woo._--The first thing to emphasize is that you are wooing
+the girl, and not her father, her mother, her aunts, or her family in
+general. Since the objects of the wooing are (1) to learn whether the
+girl is congenial, and (2) to persuade her that you are congenial, and
+should be accepted, you will find that the second object is achieved
+best by making yourself attractive to her. In cases where she cares
+for the opinion of her mother, or father, or family, it is the part of
+wisdom to court, within reason, the family as well. But the main thing
+is to woo the girl.
+
+The girl must be willing to be wooed, sooner or later, or you had best
+cease your efforts. In normal cases, she will not object from the
+start. If she objects, because she is interested in someone else, or
+thinks she does not care to be made love to or to marry, or because
+she thinks there is some personal reason why you are distasteful,
+your first task is to continue courteously in your suit, until you
+test out whether or not you can remove this preliminary bar. If she
+is interested in some one else, this becomes the old conflict between
+males for the female’s favor: and you will use the methods indicated
+hereafter. If she professes to be entirely uninterested in love and
+mating, unless she is abnormal fundamentally this is easy to overcome.
+Lay aside your obvious wooing, interest yourself in whatever she is
+interested in, and qualify as a friend and companion in her own
+interests. She will soon, if she is normal, recognize the great value
+of your companionship, and from this love should speedily grow.
+
+If the objection is that she finds some trait in the man that is
+distasteful to her, this dislike must be overcome. Perhaps the
+objection is to some mannerism of the man’s, some error of speech, or
+some habit which may be altered by him. In such cases, if he desires to
+win the girl’s favor, he must either change the trait, or convince her
+that she does not really object to it. Of course, her very objection
+may be an education to the young man, both as to her nature, and as to
+how others look upon his actions. If, for objection, she objects to his
+friendship with a certain man, or to his going to baseball games, he
+may, after studying out the matter, decide that the girl is too narrow
+in her ideas to be his desired mate. He should, of course, first try
+to educate her attitude toward an acceptance of his trait; but, if he
+fails, the world is full of girls, and he may find much more happiness
+elsewhere. Suppose her objection is to some error of speech that the
+man constantly commits. In this case, his task is to correct it, not
+only to please the girl, but because her objection has given him an
+insight into how other people regard the mistake which he may have
+always heard made and made himself, without exciting comment.
+
+Six months ago, a girl whom I know met a young man, of good family,
+fairly well-to-do, fairly educated (a couple of college degrees, I
+think), and a man who had traveled rather extensively in Europe and
+South America. He played a good hand of bridge, was interested in the
+same artistic things that the girl was, and was smitten with her from
+the first. After playing around with him for a couple of months, she
+refused to see him thereafter, except in a large party; and absolutely
+refused to let him court her further. The reason can be gathered
+from this typical specimen of his conversation. “I was at the club,
+see? A lot of the fellows were there, see? And we decided to shoot a
+little bridge, see? On the very first hand, see? I had four honors in
+diamonds, and I bid two diamonds, see?” Tactfully the girl had pointed
+out that the constantly reiterated “see” just was not done by literate
+people. The man could not or would not change it: and yet that small
+irksome trait was what cost him the girl he wanted.
+
+In more usual cases, however, the girl is willing to be wooed from the
+start. Then your task is easier.
+
+
+_Object and Methods of Wooing._--The object of wooing, in addition to
+its value as education in the opposite sex, is to win the regard of the
+other person, if you continue to desire her, and to win her consent
+to the mating. What is the practical method of doing this? The easy
+and only wholly satisfactory way is to make yourself attractive to the
+girl, so that you become indispensable to her happiness, her enjoyment
+of any experience, and her contented living.
+
+Let it be repeated, that the man must stand high in the girl’s eyes,
+to give the mating a chance for success. If the girl takes a man as
+a last chance, because she fears she can get no other suitor, the
+chance for happiness is lessened: if at any time later she meets a more
+attractive man who persuades her that he would have proposed, if she
+had waited, regret and dissatisfaction may set in, and the whole love
+and marriage relationship may be curdled. When a man singles out a girl
+for his attention, he cannot avoid transplanting the situation back
+to the old savage days, when the male preened and strutted before the
+female, anxious for her approval. What are some of the obvious ways to
+win her approval, which at times are neglected so disastrously that the
+man’s chances end at once?
+
+Notice the man’s difficult task: to look at himself with the girl’s
+eyes, and furnish her with an increasingly attractive picture of
+himself. Some genius uttered the brilliant half truth that love is
+blind. Luckily for all of us, this is largely true. But a girl’s
+parents and relatives, friends, and rival suitors, will obligingly
+lend their eyes as glasses to her: and the man may expect to find what
+faults he has magnified almost out of recognition. What, then, from the
+girls’ standpoint, will she look for in the man?
+
+First of all, girls are by nature neater than men. Girls will allow
+much latitude to a man for carelessness in attire. But the man who
+neglects such simple toilet matters as the care of his nails, and
+presents himself with a black rim under them; who lets his shirts
+and collars remain in service till they are sooty; whose shoes are
+unnecessarily unpolished, on occasions when she may expect to be
+judged by other eyes from the standpoint of her escort,--such a
+neglectful man may as well know that any one of these things may damn
+him more in the eyes of the girl than if he had committed murder.
+
+Secondly, a girl will judge the man by how she thinks he will look
+in the eyes of her friends and associates. If the man is slightly
+ungrammatical, and so are she and her friends, this makes no
+difference. But, if she has more booklearning than he, and if her
+friends are critical in this regard, and regard themselves as at
+all highbrowish, the man must make it his job to grow up to her
+literate standards. “I don’t like that there show,” “them sort of
+pictures,” “moving pitchers,” “I ought to of went,” and all the rest
+of the verbal atrocities that the ungrammatical blunder into, must be
+corrected. Winning and keeping a girl’s regard must be regarded as
+seriously as getting ahead in business. Wooing thus includes a course
+in self-improvement, along every line. It will do no harm to obtain a
+book of handy helps in grammar, in etiquette, and the like. Don’t eat
+peas with your knife, or wear a red tie with a dinner jacket: unless
+the girl prefers it. In that case, the advice is the reverse: study
+the proper mistakes to make. Later on, you can gradually lead the girl
+toward improving herself. Make yourself attractive in every way in the
+eyes of the girl, and of the relatives or friends on whose judgment she
+relies.
+
+The moral qualities go along with this. The normal girl will prefer a
+man who stands well in men’s eyes: that is, who has the reputation of
+a he-man, equipped with at least an average amount of human courage. As
+a matter of fact, if the last sentence were truer, it would be better
+for girls. A large number of them, unfortunately, prefer instead the
+man whom women like, and men dislike: the parlor lizard type, the
+afternoon tea snake specimen, the namby-pamby woman-pleaser who never
+makes a success of anything in life except wooing women. There is a
+thrill, beyond doubt, in being wooed and kissed by such a man: there is
+much unhappiness in a continuing relationship with him.
+
+Having made yourself attractive, the next thing is to make yourself
+important and indispensable in the girl’s eyes. If the girl is
+sensible, a display of sensible ideas on matters of life will aid; if
+she is frivolous minded, a display of a frivolous, spendthrift nature
+is more shrewd. Do the things she expects of you: date her up as often
+as she desires--it may take all of your shrewdness to ascertain the
+fact, too. Take her, not essentially where you want to, but where she
+wants to go. If you adore boxing matches, and she prefers Coney Island
+and art museums, postpone the boxing matches and take in the others. If
+you like good music, and she cares only for the movies and baseball,
+first make up your mind whether you want to continue to woo her; and,
+if you do, especially at first, take her where she wants to go, and
+only slowly and tactfully sprinkle in with the cinema thrills and the
+paid athletics a small dose of Brahms and Beethoven. Do what she
+expects of you: and always do a little more. That is, do the unexpected
+thoughtful little things. Find out her favorite foods, chewing gums,
+cigarettes, people, amusements; and go out of your way to provide
+her with these. If you like chewy chocolates, and she detests candy
+and adores pickles, do not provide her with an elegant two pound box
+of chewy chocolates. Don’t be like the married man who presents his
+timid old-fashioned wife with a box of cigars for Christmas, and then
+smokes them himself. Be more courteous and thoughtful to her in public
+that she has a right to expect. This advice is sound, unless the girl
+is of the rare clinging vine type who wants a man to bang her around
+in alleged he-man style. If that is what she wants, give her all the
+banging she can stand. Make your motto, “We Strive to Please”--and do
+more than strive.
+
+You will want, and she will expect, some physical love from the start.
+Among different strata of society, customs as to kissing and caressing
+differ. Never give the girl less than she expects. After you have found
+out that she likes to be kissed, you will disappoint her permanently
+if you give her the sort of kiss you would give dear old Aunt Tabbie,
+aged ninety-eight in the shade. Yet remember to think of her wishes
+primarily: don’t give her the sort of kisses you want first, but the
+kind that she wants. Your artistry will come in subtly leading her to
+want things that you want. And, once a woman is generally satisfied
+with a wooer, and wants his approval, she moves swiftly to the place
+where she wants to please her lover in every way. Then the desires
+coincide: and the man can read his own wishes, and know them for the
+girl’s as well.
+
+
+_Problems of Wooing._--The man should find out what he wants from the
+girl--whether a mere flirtation, a temporary mating, or a permanent
+one--and adapt his technique to gaining his goal. For instance, in the
+question of letters. He should do his best to satisfy a girl’s craving
+for love letters, if separations occur. In all probability, he cannot
+satisfy her desires here: what she really wants is his presence, and
+a thousand-page letter does not give the thrill of that. Ordinarily
+it is not the best tactics to spill over endlessly in a love letter:
+a chatty, companionable letter, with artistically worded love phrases
+that hint a vast withheld reservoir of love, is better as a rule than
+pages of sugary sentimentality. Except at the very first, when all
+rules of sanity are laid aside. And yet, recall that, if you desire
+subsequently to retire from the courtship, love letters may be very
+embarrassing. Try to phrase your letters so that they mean everything
+to the girl, and nothing to the outside world, which may have the
+pleasure of reading them in newspaper columns featuring a breach of
+promise case. It is well to keep this possibility in mind from the
+start. Don’t store up trouble for yourself in this fashion. Be cryptic
+and allusive, leaving more than half for the girl to read between the
+lines. It may save you trouble in the long run.
+
+As for wooing and proposing by proxy, even the most bashful person had
+just as well learn that it is suicidal. The proxy brings a message
+to the girl that should come from the beloved man: insensibly her
+emotion goes out to the bearer of the message. Captain Miles Standish
+sent John Alden to woo Priscilla for him, and the maiden wisely said,
+“Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?” King Edgar’s trusted courier
+wrote the king that the maiden he desired to wed was ugly and wholly
+unattractive, and then proceeded to marry her himself for her beauty,
+for which the king later lopped off the man’s head. Wooing by proxy is
+much worse than not wooing at all.
+
+As for quarrels, the more experienced wooer will have few or none of
+them. Beginners in love will insensibly drift into them. Now quarrels
+have no place in most real loves: they are a sign of some concealed
+dislike or aversion, which may take a more virulent and costly form
+after the wooing has been made irrevocable, or comparatively so, by
+marriage. If the quarrel can be easily patched up, well and good; but
+if quarrels constantly come, it is a bad omen. The only exception is
+where both man and girl enjoy a quarrel more than peace, and mate in
+order to have a mate to quarrel with for life. This is abnormal; and,
+if you are a normal man or girl, understand that quarrels, especially
+if they are usually over trifles, are a good warning to break off the
+courtship and look elsewhere.
+
+
+_The Proposal, and After._--No sensible girl today wants the man to
+propose to her father, or her parents, before he proposes to her. After
+all, he is not marrying the father, or the parents; he is marrying the
+girl. The father or parents are consulted after the plans are made, for
+ratification and aid: the goal is the mutual consent of the lovers.
+Again, customs as to the seriousness with which proposals are regarded
+differ strikingly in certain localities and at certain seasons. In the
+South, from which I came, a girl is proposed to almost as easily as she
+is asked for a dance; she becomes engaged as casually as she accepts a
+drink of water, and breaks it off whenever the mood strikes her. During
+college days and the girl’s early debutante days, she may be “engaged”
+to several or half a dozen men at a time. In the North, the custom
+is ordinarily different. Again, there are seasonal variations: young
+couples who meet at a summering place may become engaged for their
+mutual pleasure during the summer, with no intention of ever seeing
+each other when they return to their regular homes in the autumn. All
+of these things must be taken into account.
+
+Don’t study a book of etiquette as to how to propose. The more stilted
+and formal a proposal is, the easier it is for the girl to laugh at the
+ridiculousness of the situation. Real lovers know, without the words
+having been said, that their equivalent in deeds has been achieved.
+Even a slang proposal, “Well, honey, shall we hit it off together?”
+may be far more effective than “May I have the honor of making you
+my wife?” Be natural in this, unless you have ascertained that the
+girl desires the frills. In that case, give her what she desires. The
+acceptance may be given with a kiss, or with mere words. More usually,
+the girl will ask for time to consider the matter. If she means yes by
+this, proceed to make that clear to her. If not, keep after her until
+you win the acceptance, or her friendly refusal.
+
+It is not hard to read from a girl’s refusal whether she means a real
+objection, or merely a delay. If you really desire her, she will be
+flattered by your continuing to woo her, and to make yourself more and
+more attractive in her eyes. In any case, if she is worthy at all, she
+will word her rejection so as never to wound the man unnecessarily. If
+the parties are suitable as mates, a rejection alters soon enough to an
+acceptance.
+
+
+_Courtship After Marriage._--_How to Love_ (Little Blue Book No. 98)
+takes up the problem of how to act after the mate has been won. It
+may be briefly summarized here thus: the real lover, man or woman,
+continues the courtship as long as the mating lasts. All that has been
+said about making oneself attractive in the eyes of the other, applies
+with especial force to this wooing after marriage. Do your best to make
+a success of the mating; if your efforts fail, and a separation or
+divorce is necessary, you can never reproach yourself afterwards with
+the accusation that you did not try your best.
+
+As for courtship of other women after marriage, or a woman’s courtship
+of other men after marriage, both of these are known; and, in our
+present organization of society, are natural. The man who is by nature
+promiscuous, or the woman who has the same nature, for his or her
+happiness will be as faithful as possible. If love comes toward another
+woman or man, the lover will come to it with more artistry and more
+experience than in the earlier attempts; and the technique of wooing
+should be correspondingly improved.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+HOW A WOMAN WOOS
+
+
+_Fancy Flirtations._--Most textbooks on wooing and courtship devote
+their space allotted to woman’s wooing to such absurd devices as
+flirtation by parasol, fan, glove, handkerchief, dining table signals,
+window flirtation, and flower flirtation. The number of people who read
+such silly books is limited; the number among these who remember what
+they have read is far smaller; and perhaps no men are included in the
+latter number. Thus no man will understand what your signals mean. A
+few of the choice instructions given are as follows:
+
+
+_Parasol Flirtations_
+
+  Carrying it elevated in left hand--Desiring acquaintance.
+
+  Carrying it closed in left hand--Meet on the first crossing.
+
+  Carrying it closed in right hand by the side--Follow me.
+
+  Closing it up--I want to speak to you, love.
+
+  Swinging to and fro on the handle, on right side--I am married.
+
+  With handle to lips--Kiss me.
+
+The trouble is, all women must carry their parasols somehow, and in
+more than nine cases out of ten, they have no faintest dream of these
+so-called signals. If you ignore them, and they are intended, you
+insult the lady; if you act on them--as, for instance, stepping up and
+kissing a stranger who has nervously brought the handle of her parasol
+to her lips--you are liable to be fined $750 in Pennsylvania, $2,500 in
+New York State, and the vast sum of $1.15 in New Jersey. This whole
+procedure is a bit too dumb even for Rotary Club members and old maid
+school teachers, the two classes who seem to know least about life.
+
+Now for the fan:
+
+
+_Fan Flirtations_
+
+  Drawing across the forehead--We are watched.
+
+  Fanning fast--I am engaged.
+
+  Open and shut--You are cruel.
+
+  Dropping--We will be friends.
+
+It fills space in the books, but don’t try to follow it, unless you
+wish to get the most unpleasant surprise of your career.
+
+We learn that a girl who drops both gloves means thereby “I love you”;
+that the right hand with the naked thumb exposed means “Kiss me,” and
+so interminably on. So anything done with the handkerchief is supposed
+to mean some tender message. There are 21 tender messages conveyed
+with napkin, knife, fork, spoon, and cup; there are 40 tender signals
+conveyed by finger signals through a window, perhaps the dumbest being:
+
+  Closing hand to the eye, _a la_ telescope--I would see you.
+
+Or take the elaborate language of flowers. If a man sends a girl white
+roses, quite a possible gift if they are the most attractive things
+in the florist’s shop, his message, also is, “I am too young to marry
+yet”! If he presents her with tansy, one of the loveliest of the daisy
+family, his message is “I declare war against you.” The books omit a
+few of the more useful flowers and vegetables, so we add them here as a
+supplement, urging that they be tried out at least. Send your girl one
+of the following (or send it to your man), with the meaning indicated:
+
+  _Chrysanthemum_--I prefer Norma Talmadge to kissing at Coney Island.
+
+  _Cauliflower_--My sister is married to a retired butcher with a cork
+  leg.
+
+  _Onion_--You will weep if you don’t marry me.
+
+  _Japanese Persimmon_--Kiss me, my lips are ripe.
+
+  _Apple_--I’ll be your Eve, if you care, Adam.
+
+  _Wild Leek_--Please ’phone the plumber for mother.
+
+Having carefully memorized this list, proceed to forget it, and go
+ahead and woo naturally without it.
+
+
+_Judging Men._--In general, men have a fairly easy time in judging
+the girls they go with. For, common opinion to the contrary
+notwithstanding, a man is more secretive and shrewder in hiding his
+faults than a woman. A girl who is sparing in her use of paint and
+cosmetics ordinarily is sensible and fit to be a mate. A girl who
+over-rouges and over-paints is one of two things: either typically
+“fast” or an imitator of her favorite movie heroine. Either may make a
+good mate. In either case, the progress of the wooing will soon teach
+the man whether the girl has any conception of happy mating, or is
+only a parasite who wants to be decked in fine feathers and princessed
+through life, with the man paying the bills.
+
+When a girl comes to judge a man, her task is harder. The man who is
+liked by other men is, in most cases, to be preferred to the man
+who is despised by men, and adored by vapid women. There is a class
+of women who are mere men-hunters, ranging from the out-and-out
+gold-digger, who sells her charms as shrewdly as she can for outright
+gifts amounting to support--and who may remain, in the eyes of society,
+a “good girl” in spite of it--to the girl who protests vehemently that
+she despises the gold-digger, yet spends all her energies in securing
+men to take her to dinner and the theater, and to give her gifts
+sufficient for her support, or at least sufficient to give her the
+luxuries she would not otherwise get. These parasitic or sponging women
+are to be avoided, except by the man who wants them frankly, being
+willing to pay the price for the temporary stimulus of their company.
+
+There is a far larger class of men who prey on women. These men are
+the vestiges of the social system that is already dying--the system
+of the double standard of morals for men and women, by which a man
+was allowed to sow as extensive a crop of wild oats as he could, with
+social sanction; and by which the woman who strayed a trifle from the
+narrow path of rectitude was thereafter regarded as a “fallen woman,”
+and any man’s legitimate prey. To such men, women are the goal of man’s
+predatory instincts. It was a man’s imperative to seek out innocent
+girls, and seduce as many of them as possible, taking no thought
+for their welfare, and caring only to shield himself. The girl who
+resisted the seductions (and she was equipped for resistance only with
+an intense and abiding ignorance of all things concerning sex life)
+was qualified to be a man’s wife; the other, the girl who was deceived
+by glib promises and a suave exterior into a surrender of her body,
+and the girl who was willing to experiment with love, were henceforth
+regarded as fallen women, and were disqualified as permanent mates.
+Such men exist today: the general class of traveling salesman, not
+quite fairly, is taken as an example of such men of prey. Needless to
+say, the girl’s task is to ascertain at once if her would-be suitor
+belongs to this class. If he does, she must decide whether or not she
+wishes to play with such unworthy fire. It is a safe gamble that, if
+she gets him to the point of marrying, with any intention of reforming
+him, she will fail in the last undertaking by a tremendous margin. If
+she wants the experience of being seduced, she may go ahead and undergo
+it, for the man will be found willing. And modern standards of judgment
+hold that the girl who has sowed her wild oats is no more “fallen” than
+the man who has sowed his wild oats. Society is only slowly accepting
+this point of view; but as more and more women become wage-earners,
+as managers and owners of businesses, as office workers and store
+workers, they are reaching the point where they can buy their will of
+the world, and insist that their wild oats be judged no more harshly
+than a man’s. The girl supported by others, as the girl living at home,
+cannot afford to run such risks. Furthermore, even the working girl has
+to face blackmail from the seducer, the possible loss of her job, and
+the unpleasantnesses and expense of bearing an illegitimate child. But
+if she understands matters of sex, and desires to go ahead, that is her
+business.
+
+The more normal girl will regard such a man as the vestigial
+anachronism that he is, and will promptly give him his walking papers.
+She will confine her acceptance of courtship, and her wooing itself, to
+a man with more intelligence and a more modern outlook upon life.
+
+Should a girl woo, when she is convinced that the man is worthy to
+be her mate? There is no reason in the world why she should not. Her
+object is to make herself attractive to the man: and this usually
+involves preserving a certain amount of dignity. Thus her wooing
+should, as a rule, be less obtrusive and more subtle than a man’s. But,
+once having decided that she desires a man for a mate, she should use
+every method of proving herself his invaluable companion--a campaign
+that the man should use in a similar situation. A little tactful
+questioning on her part will soon discover where the man’s ideals lie.
+If he really wants a home-maker, and she is willing to give this rather
+subservient role a trial, she can emphasize her domestic capabilities,
+cook him tasty dishes if there is an opportunity, embroider his
+handkerchiefs, and otherwise show that she fits into the role of his
+desired mate. If he wants an intellectual companion primarily, she can
+indicate that she qualifies in this respect.
+
+In general, there is a prejudice against a woman’s taking the
+aggressive in the actual wooing, and the final proposing. This
+prejudice is dissolving. Wooing and mating should be matters of mutual
+choice: and if, for instance, the man is the more backward and bashful
+of the two, it is the duty of the girl to aid him over the difficult
+spot, even to the extent of doing the proposing. Just so she preserves
+the role of being pleasing and attractive, there is no limit to what
+she may ethically do.
+
+This altering standard carries with it a change in the man’s attitude.
+There was once a so-called chivalrous attitude, which would prevent a
+man’s refusing a woman, in such a situation. Now such chivalry is based
+upon a false assumption, and tends to produce lifelong unhappiness,
+rather than happiness. After the preliminaries have been finished, the
+course of the courtship and the mating should be marked by as high a
+degree of honesty and sincerity as is possible. Insincere chivalry is
+a wrecker of happiness. If the man does not want to marry the girl,
+it is his duty to say so, just as sincerely as a girl would refuse,
+if the roles were reversed. He will, of course, phrase his rejection
+finally, but at the same time so tactfully that the girl will not feel
+insulted. In such cases, a good way is to refuse on the ground that the
+man regards himself as unworthy: a courteous insincerity which both
+will understand, if the man makes it clear that his decision upon this
+ground is final.
+
+
+_“Nice” Girl or Human Being?_--The old-fashioned training of girls
+developed them into “nice” girls, with Victorian prejudices, ignorant
+of everything essential to life. The pendulum has swung to the other
+extreme: the modern generation of petters and neckers, who have the
+forefront of today’s picture, are the very reverse of this. There
+are still enough girls today, who have much of the old so-called
+“niceness,” and hardly tend at all to the petting type. Many of them
+retain this finicky and meticulous niceness, because they are assured,
+by their dumb elders, that this makes them more attractive in the eyes
+of men.
+
+It does not. Unless you desire your man to continue to divide womankind
+into two classes--“nice” women like his wife, to whom he may not tell
+a clever risque story, whom he will love physically only in a “nice
+way”; and the other type of women, to whom he probably will turn sooner
+or later, and thereafter increasingly, for the solid human comfort
+of utter physical mating--unless you wish your husband to share his
+physical love with less worthy and more human women, you had best get
+over your “niceness” as soon as possible, and graduate into the class
+of human beings.
+
+Here is a typical problem. A young friend of mine was tremendously
+intrigued by an attractive young girl. He told her censored versions of
+some of his favorite stories, such as the story of the negro preacher
+who announced to his congregation: “Breddren an’ sistren, I aim to take
+my text, dis mawnin’, from de text ‘De widder’s mite.’” As he paused
+impressively, a deacon in the front row rose. “Brudder, dere’s only one
+thing wrong wid dat text: Dey do!” This is a delightfully clever story,
+with a subtle and inoffensive double meaning. The girl put on her
+“nicest” expression, and said, with finicky distaste in her face, “How
+revolting!”
+
+When she had made the same response to all efforts on his part to
+interest her in matters which men regard as almost too mild for a
+laugh, and which other girls of his acquaintance were highly amused at,
+he came to the wise conclusion that this was not the girl for him. He
+had no intention of being saddled for life with a girl whose attitude
+was “How revolting!” He ceased to pay attentions to her, and soon found
+a much more admirable girl, with whom he is at present happily married.
+The “How revolting!” girl still thinks that her conduct was right; that
+the man has lowered himself; and will continue to delude herself so
+until she wastes into a vinegary old-maidhood.
+
+If a girl has had a normal rearing, she will not make the mistake of
+thinking that the Puritans were right: that bodies end at the neck
+and at the shoe-tops, with nothing between, and that ordinary human
+matters, especially those touching the tabooed facts of life, are never
+to be mentioned intimately between men and women. No matter what the
+taboo before mating, after mating the happy lovers speak with utter
+frankness to each other. A certain amount of coarseness, in its place,
+is a splendid release for energy that would otherwise fester and
+warp, and lead the lovers to seek satisfaction outside of the mating
+relationship. And, since this will come after mating in well-mated
+couples, even before the mating an increasing frankness will mark the
+intercourse of an intelligent young man and young woman.
+
+There is one other thing to be remembered by the girl, both as wooer
+and as wooed. Courtship is an education in the opposite sex, and in
+love: and this education should not be superficial. It is a common
+statement of doctors that engaged people as a rule know each other
+physically before the marriage. I will take this up in the next
+chapter.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+CONDUCT DURING THE ENGAGEMENT
+
+
+_Conduct in Public._--An engagement is a pledge, mutually given by two
+people, that their courtship is to terminate in mating or marriage.
+This is both a private and a public matter. Personal reasons may
+make it necessary to keep this secret, at least for a time. It is
+preferable, from many standpoints, that it be announced as soon as
+possible. Intimate friends, at least, should be let in on the secret.
+Whenever possible, it should be made public. For it affects other
+people, and their conduct toward the engaged couple, as well as the two
+themselves.
+
+An engagement, luckily for men and women, is not irrevocable: I will
+take up the breaking of engagements later. But it should not be entered
+upon too casually. This is especially true when, for instance, two
+men woo one girl. If one man persuades her to decide in his favor and
+against the other man, he should weigh more carefully than usual his
+proposal. For, if he gets her to surrender something tangible--the
+courtship of the other man--for his own courtship, it is less fair to
+her thereafter to break the engagement. She has actually surrendered
+something; it may be impossible for her subsequently to accept the
+attentions of the other man, who will not renew an offer once rejected.
+A breakage in such cases should only be urged by the man, when the
+happiness of both clearly demands it.
+
+The matter of an engagement ring comes up, as the conventional way
+of announcing to the world that the girl is engaged. There is a
+decided feeling today against wedding rings, originating as symbols
+of servitude; and this extends, among some girls, to a dislike of
+engagement rings as well. For all their jeweled state, they represent
+a subjection, a surrender of freedom to the other party. The sting of
+the subjection is lessened, if both man and woman wear wedding rings,
+and both wear engagement rings. Yet there are men who are not willing
+to wear rings: and, if the girl objects, it may be better for neither
+to wear them. As to choice of ring, the girl is wisest who makes sure
+that the young man does not exceed his legitimate income for spending,
+in purchasing her a ring. The object should not be to secure a ring
+slightly larger than any worn by her girl friends; it should be to wear
+an attractive token of an inner affection. There is no sense in going
+into love blindly, even at this stage: it is the girl’s duty to find
+out what her fiancé’s financial prospects are, and for him to find out
+hers. Since they propose to share financial life together, there is no
+sense in even starting this blindly.
+
+As to the ring, it is true that it symbolizes a loss of freedom. But
+it is also true that this loss of freedom is an actual thing. Parties
+to an engagement must of necessity surrender much, when they decide to
+proceed with a courtship into a mating or marriage. Before the proposal
+is given and accepted, the man and the girl as well have the whole
+world of women and men to choose from: the proposal and its acceptance
+definitely mark a surrender of all the other possibilities, in favor
+of this one. When you scan a menu of desserts, you can select pie, ice
+cream, pudding, or many another choice. The choice of one, as a rule,
+must mean the surrender of the right to choose any of the others. This
+is, as a rule, as true of lovers as it is of desserts. Since, then, the
+loss of freedom is actual, there is no great extrinsic objection to the
+custom of the wearing of rings by both.
+
+The compensations for the loss of freedom should overbalance the
+surrender. A man cannot forever balance in his mind the rival
+possibilities of settling in Florida, California, Chicago, New York, or
+some village: he must sooner or later make up his mind, choose one, and
+do his best to make his life a success there. It is so with love. The
+engaged couple have given up the rest of the world as potential mates:
+and they step at once, and increasingly, into the pleasure-garden of
+mated human love. A mere choice of all the women in the world is not
+to be compared with the actual embrace of the one among these that you
+desire. Only the man or woman with an insatiable physical wanderlust
+will prefer the wandering to the arrival at the goal of love.
+
+Mating does not mean slavery to the other party: it means, as a rule,
+exclusive physical love with one person, but constant human intercourse
+with many more. There is not even the slightest ethical offense in a
+girl’s acceptance of attentions from other men, which stop short of
+the erotic. She can go to dances, plays, meals, with them; and a man
+can do the same with other girls. Life after mating will be monotonous
+enough, in most cases: if the engaged couple dance exclusively with
+each other, the monotony may commence so soon that it will frighten the
+pair off from ultimate marriage. As a rule, other people incline to
+leave an engaged couple alone anyhow: it will be up to the man and girl
+to encourage reasonable attentions from others.
+
+This is theoretically sound: but the element of human jealousy must be
+taken into account. If either of the parties is excessively jealous,
+since the lover’s desire is to remain attractive in the eyes of the
+other lover, there must be some compromise. Jealousy partakes of the
+nature of a malignant disease: rooted in a normal desire to possess
+the loved one, it may degenerate into an insanity that wrecks all
+happiness. If the jealousy of the other party is increasingly extreme,
+our advice is to end the relationship. If the decision is to continue
+it, compromises will have to come in: and the girl or man will retain
+the right to go with other people, only to the extent that the jealous
+one can be persuaded to permit. This calls for all the tact and
+sympathy in the world.
+
+
+_In Private._--The conduct of engaged people in private must keep in
+mind the purpose of the engagement. This is the great testing period
+of compatibility and mutual adaptability. If both parties are not
+adaptable, a heavier burden is laid upon the one who is. If the burden
+of adjusting oneself to the whims, caprices, and crotchets of the other
+is too great, there is still the chance to terminate the engagement.
+And, if neither party is adaptable, there seems no other happy way out
+of the situation.
+
+The chief problem confronting the engaged girl is to what extent she
+will experiment physically with love. As stated, many doctors say that
+most engaged couples, before marriage, have experienced love fully.
+This is not an indictment, but a statement of a fact. There are strong
+arguments in its favor. If a man and woman are not physically pleasing
+to one another, the happiness of the marriage is doomed from the
+start. If, for instance, one of the mates is sexually frigid, and one
+passionate, it is almost impossible for them to satisfy each other: and
+the constant temptation will be present to try to find satisfaction
+outside of the mating relationship, a temptation that is often yielded
+to, at times to the wreckage of the relationship. There is no way for
+people to know the physical nature of the other, without physical
+experimentation.
+
+The danger in the procedure is that the man may turn out to be a
+predatory male, who becomes engaged to girl after girl for the mere
+pleasure of temporary enjoyment of her. This is a danger that the girl
+must run; and, if she has made it her task to study the man’s nature
+carefully, she should know by now whether or not her intended mate is
+to be trusted. There are many women who believe that, if a man is once
+given the ultimate favor, he at once regards the girl as cheapened
+in his eyes. The consensus of intelligent opinion seems to be to the
+very other extreme: that that many a girl has wrecked her chances for
+happiness, by refusing to grant the ultimate favor. Only an abnormal
+man will habitually regard a woman who yields to him as cheapened.
+As the time for the final mating draws near, and the mutual desires
+rise toward their crest, he may regard it as utterly unreasonable for
+the girl to withhold longer. The man is usually the aggressor in such
+cases; and, if the woman is the aggressor, she will have the same
+opinion of the man.
+
+Yet, since there are risks on both sides of the matter, it remains a
+subject on which the wise will give no advice, but will leave it to the
+two concerned to work out their solution as wisely as they can, with
+the facts spread out before them.
+
+It is a matter concerning the private relations of the engaged couple,
+when the attentions of outsiders pass the stage of the non-erotic,
+and approach the erotic. Whether a man should be engaged to two or
+more girls, and a woman to two or more men, at the same time, affects
+the parties concerned too intimately to be regarded as a matter of
+outsiders. Theoretically, there is much to be said on both sides.
+A real engagement--a definite pledge to marry--cannot coexist with
+an engagement to an outsider. The laws do not permit polygamy in
+this country. Yet what are we to say of a provisional engagement,
+where the parties merely assure each other that they think they
+will marry each other, yet at the same time offer themselves to the
+world as engaged? If such is the agreement, there is less objection
+to concurrent engagements. From the standpoint of education in sex,
+there is something to be said for the idea. Common sense would favor
+it, yet human nature runs counter to common sense too often to let us
+stop here. It is better, perhaps, to let the concurrent courtships
+take place before the formal engagement; and then let the choice, for
+the time being at least, be an exclusive choice. If either party is
+attracted outside, to the extent of believing that more happiness lies
+in the love of another, the engagement may be broken, and the other
+relationship commenced and tested.
+
+
+_Termination of Engagements._--Should an engagement be short, or long?
+What is the proper length, for the happiness of the parties involved?
+
+We have scriptural authority for the engagement lasting fourteen years:
+the story of Jacob can be stretched into this interpretation. Jacob,
+who loved Rachel, agreed with her father to serve seven years for her.
+Frankly, we have yet to meet the woman who is worth such a sacrifice;
+and, in this case, at the end of the seven years Jacob, tricked by his
+prospective father-in-law, found himself married to the elder sister
+Leah, instead of to his beloved. Accordingly, he put in another seven
+years serving for Rachel, and, fourteen years after his engagement
+started, was wed to her.
+
+Especially in old-fashioned country districts, long engagements are
+often known, and laughed at. There is the story of the countryman who
+courted a schoolmate for years--until, in fact, both had drifted from
+youth toward the end of middle age.
+
+“Why don’t you marry Sarah?” he was asked.
+
+“Marry her!” in surprise and dismay. “Why, if I got married, where in
+tarnation could I go to spend my evenings?”
+
+Long engagements are not wise. If the two are separated by
+distance--if, for instance, the young man goes to the city to make
+his financial way, so that marriage is possible--there is strong
+chance that either he or she will find a more suitable mate. In such
+cases, if the original engagement is carried out, happiness is almost
+inevitable; and the breaking of the engagement may bring unhappiness to
+at least one of the parties concerned. If the girl and man remain in
+the same city, they gradually grow old, apart from each other. Their
+little tricks and idiosyncrasies, which living together could have
+smoothed out, become permanent--hardened into unbendable things. They
+come to regard each other as matters of course, without the exquisite
+physical thrill which love should mean. They have, in brief, all of the
+discomfort and monotony of marriage without any of its joys.
+
+Too brief engagements are at times more dangerous. This is especially
+true where the man and girl have not known each other before. If they
+have been raised side by side, there is small danger of being mated to
+a person who will turn out, on closer acquaintance, to be everything
+unworthy. The wisest thing is to let the engagement last a month or
+longer, and then, if the mating is desired, take the plunge even on a
+moderate income, than risk the danger of letting the engagement become
+a tedious habit.
+
+The normal termination of an engagement is marriage. Any book of
+etiquette will tell you the formal ways to accept the mad gamble
+of marriage, with all of the frills of such service, receptions,
+honeymoons, and the like. The honeymoon, it may be pointed out, or the
+period in which the deluded man and woman try to live on love alone,
+is one of the most cruel inventions ever made by man. Its almost
+invariable result (unless it be merely a brief trip, or a trip which
+the parties desired to take anyhow) is to send them back to the city
+thoroughly bored and disgusted with each other, and avid to interest
+themselves, perhaps unduly, in parties outside the mated relationship.
+For those who do not like the antique pomp of the marriage in church,
+there is always the simpler ceremony of being married by a justice of
+the peace, mayor, or alderman.
+
+And there is, luckily for men and women, another termination possible,
+and that is to break the engagement. This should not be done without
+grave reason--but far more frequently than the actual breakings of
+engagements, such a reason exists. The problem simply is, which
+is better: to act wisely and terminate an unwise mating, which
+would result in unhappiness, at the cost of some slight temporary
+unhappiness; or to enter upon a life-time of unhappiness, or at best
+a long stretch of it, breakable only by the costly and elaborate
+method of separation or divorce, which may require the assumption by
+one party or the other of a guilt not actually earned. Where the case
+is so clear, there should be no hesitation: the engagement should be
+terminated, the man accepting the blame out of a chivalrous insincerity
+socially understood, and the parties parting, if possible, as friends.
+If the matter is still uncertain, better a postponement than a
+marriage, which may be repented soon enough. Only a mating which will
+bring increasing happiness is wise, for that is the object of life, and
+of its playtime, courtship.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+FAMOUS COURTSHIPS
+
+
+_Courting by Poetry._--One of the invariable effects of the love
+emotion is to inspire, in the amorous breast, the delusion that the man
+or woman who is in love can write poetry. Most people can feel poetry,
+but writing it is another story. Yet, whenever any celebrated case of
+breach of promise comes up, we have the poetic effusions of him and her
+published in the papers, for the delectation of the multitude. There
+is good propaganda in courting the lady of your heart, or in replying
+to the man of your heart, in the words of Shelley or some other great
+lover--but your own words may not be as efficacious. Countless poetic
+first volumes (and later ones, too), however, are filled up with the
+overflow at wooing time, and occasionally such books are books which
+the world would not willingly spare.
+
+A favorite record of courtship by rhyme is _Lilies of the Valley_, by
+Percival W. Wells, of Wantagh, New York. Could any woman resist strains
+like this:
+
+      Life’s just begun! the flowing tide
+        Of love has stirred it into motion.
+      Farewell to bachelorhood’s calm pride,
+        And welcome, love’s intense emotion!
+
+Faulty as the rhyme may be, the sentiment is flawless. Again,
+
+      Put thy hand in mine, and kiss me tenderly,
+        Beautiful Lilian, fashioned so slenderly;
+      Place a kiss upon my lips with thy dear lips so soft,
+        And do not stop with one, but kiss me oft.
+
+How magically the “soft” evokes its rhyming mate, “oft.” “Soft,” which
+at times is applied to brains, here refers to the lips. But for the
+magic of rhyme, could we have had the picture of “Lilian” in the last
+two words of this masterly confession?
+
+      I love thee, O I love thee, Lily; stay
+      Beside thy Percival and with sweet kisses say
+      That thou wilt always love him. Dearer than day
+      Art thou to me, O Lily--wanton fay!
+
+Yet a poet out of the Village Milton class, say Shakespeare, might
+be a safer guide in your own Muse flights. Shakespeare’s plays are
+saturated with gorgeous examples of courtship. Othello’s magical wooing
+of Desdemona is one type. Here the simple warrior and conqueror used
+no method but the plain unadorned story of his deeds of daring. The
+maiden’s heart capitulated to his indirect siege at the first attack. A
+different love is Romeo’s, saturated with poetry:
+
+      Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
+      Than twenty of their swords; look thou but sweet,
+      And I am proof against their enmity....
+      Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!
+      Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!
+
+Then there is the caveman-wooing of Catherine the shrew by Petruchio
+the roistering gallant--the most amusing courtship in Shakespeare, with
+the possible exception of his bluff English king, who knows no French,
+and his wooing of the spirited French princess, who knows no English.
+But love speaks a language of its own and even this bar did not keep
+the royal lovers from understanding each other. There is the simple,
+childlike wooing of Ferdinand and Miranda in _The Tempest_, and there
+is the passionate wooing--by the woman this time--of Adonis by Venus:
+
+      “Vouchsafe, thou, wonder, to alight thy steed,
+        And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;
+      If thou wilt deign this favor, for thy meed
+        A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:
+      Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,
+      And being set, I’ll smother thee with kisses.
+
+      “Art thou ashamed to kiss! Then wink again,
+        And I will wink; so shall the day seem night;
+      Love keeps his revels where there are but twain;
+        Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight:
+      These blue-vein’d violets whereon we lean
+      Never can blab, nor know not what we mean....”
+
+      And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,
+        With blindfold fury she begins to forage;
+      Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,
+        And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage;
+      Planting oblivion, beating reason back,
+      Forgetting shame’s pure blush and honor’s wrack.
+
+Timid maids and men may well be reassured by this tempest of passion
+on the part of love’s queen, and by the whole gallery of Shakespeare’s
+great lovers.
+
+
+_Great Lovers._--The world has its long roll of great lovers, whose
+names are sweet on the tongues of the generations that come after them.
+The Bible, in the _Song of Solomon_, has one of the greatest series of
+love lyrics in all literature. David loved his Bath-Sheba as a king
+loves; and Solomon was at least efficient, with his seven hundred
+wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines. Helen of Sparta
+eloped with Paris of Troy, and lighted the conflagration that burned
+the topless towers of Troy to the ground, and embroiled the world in
+the Trojan War and inspired the first two Greek epics. Dante saw the
+girl Beatrice passing him on the street and as a result, he worshipped
+her thereafter from a distance, and lifted her in imagination, in
+his _Divine Comedy_, to the high throne of heaven. Don Juan was the
+great predatory lover, putting on a new love as easily as he slipped
+on a new garment. Bluebeard (or Gilles de Rais) was the bloodthirsty
+lover; Cleopatra was the world’s queen, with Pompey, Caesar, and
+Antony successively at her feet. In more modern times, Casanova was
+the gentlest great lover of all time, with a roll of loves as long as
+Solomon’s, and far more varied. Great secular popes, like Alexander VI,
+the Borgia, were great in love; many of the Roman emperors were chiefly
+distinguished in the lists of Cupid. Caesar himself was nicknamed “the
+husband of all women.” Such men and women have made the history of
+love. Read their love stories, as aids in your own suits.
+
+Among the poets, we have had many great lovers. Shelley spent his
+life in a high idealistic pursuit of the ideal woman, pouring out his
+deathless lyrics to some Harriet or Mary or Jane or Emilia who captured
+his fancy for the moment. Byron loved all over Europe, Keats burned out
+his young life in a wild adoration of Fanny Brawne, as in this sonnet:
+
+      I cry you mercy--pity--love!--ay, love!
+        Merciful love that tantalizes not,
+      One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,
+        Unmask’d, and being seen--without a blot!
+      O! let me have thee whole,--all--all--be mine!
+      That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
+        Of love, your kiss,--those hands, those eyes divine,
+      That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast--
+        Yourself--your soul--in pity give me all,
+      Withhold no atom’s atom or I die,
+        Or living on, perhaps, your wretched thrall,
+      Forget, in the midst of idle misery,
+        Life’s purposes,--the palate of my mind
+        Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!
+
+Burns was a magnificent voice of love, who enriched man with many of
+his choicest love-songs. Poe not only was a great lover, but used
+the same poems successively with a number of desired women. Edna St.
+Vincent Millay, among modern poets, has a charming cleverness in her
+love-songs; and, indeed, modern poetry is full of excellent love
+material. One of the most effective modern love sonnets is the dramatic
+_Pirate Song_, from “Leaf Buds Turning Rose,” by the author of _The
+Eagle Sonnets_:
+
+      Ahoy, there, you slim craft with the virgin ensign!
+        Heave to--we are boarding! You’re a fancy prey
+      To tread the slippery plank, or do your dancing
+        On air, over the wind-bedevilled spray.
+      Low in the water--you’ll be rotten with treasure!
+        Ay, there’ll be hot blood foulin’ your clean decks
+      When we shall tread you in our lordly pleasure
+        Then scuttle you with all the plundered wrecks.
+      Yet you’re a rakish craft.... How would you like it
+        To make one more of the buccaneering tell,
+      To raise the Jolly Roger, and not strike it
+      In the face of all the punishing fleets of hell?
+        By God, we’ll take you, then! Fair or foul weather,
+        Two of the black gentry, off together!
+
+An amusing love story in rhyme is _The Lang Coortin’_, by Lewis
+Carroll, best known for _Alice in Wonderland_. The lover for years
+wooed the lady, saying no word of his love. She used his gold rings
+as a chain for her doggie; stuffed the dog’s pillow with his repeated
+locks of hair; and when he sent love letters from a far country, with
+the postage still due on them, she had the postman take them all away.
+For thirty years he had kept up this courtship: and now at last he
+has come to propose. But the lady tells him, that, since he has lived
+so satisfactorily for thirty years, he can wait a bit longer yet. He
+repents, as he leaves her:
+
+      “O, if I find another lady,”
+        He said with sighs and tears,
+      “I am sure my courtin’ shall not be
+        Another thirty years;
+
+      “For if I find a lady gay
+        Exactly to my taste,
+      I’ll pop the question, aye or nay,
+        In twenty years, at most!”
+
+There is a real lesson for lovers here. Do not postpone your proposal
+until your grandchildren are old enough to laugh at your tardiness.
+
+The first lovers were Adam and Eve, according to the Genesis story;
+and Milton, in his largely unread _Paradise Lost_, has told their love
+in resounding lines. The most recent lovers assumably include you who
+are reading this book. Love is an art, as courtship and wooing is an
+art: and your task is to perfect yourself in the art. You should make
+your wooing serve the double function of winning the mate you desire
+at the moment, and at the same time serve as an education to you in
+the loved one, and the opposite sex in general. Both the educational
+function, and the task of winning the desired one, call for your
+highest abilities: and these abilities will be sharpened and increased
+by a knowledge of man’s lore upon love, and the ups and downs of the
+great lovers of the past. So saturate yourself, during the loving
+period, with the literature of love: read carefully the love stories
+of the world’s great lovers, and constantly increase your technique as
+wooer, in the beginning of the courtship, in the actual engagement, and
+in the most perilous of all periods--that period after the marriage has
+commenced.
+
+There is a third purpose, which hardly needs mention, and that is, the
+pleasure that you yourself have in wooing. Pleasure consists in the
+satisfying of an appetite--not in the satisfaction of it; when the
+appetite is satisfied, your feeling becomes negative. The chase is
+the fun; the gaining of the goal is a mere sense of accomplishment,
+far below the joy of the running. Man has not only the appetite to
+enjoy love, but the added appetite for the chase: and woman, daughter
+of man, has this delight too, and an implanted pleasure in her part
+of the wooing. Her part is, in general, more passive than man’s: she
+gets her thrill from seeing the male or males cavorting before her,
+in the endeavor to gain her approval. Yet, at times, when the worthy
+male is backward or bashful, or young and inexperienced, she will
+assume the aggressive, and be a very Venus in action. As a matter of
+fact, no matter who does the actual wooing and proposing, it is today,
+largely, woman who rules the field. How else explain her elaborate and
+seductive dressing, to win man’s approval? Her concealment of this, and
+display of that charm, her alluring perfume, her flattering pretense
+that the man is the wisest being in the universe, her continuing
+attentions to him in a thousand subtle little ways? These collectively
+weave a net which even the wariest male fish may not often escape. Go
+to your wooing, men, with all the courage you can: it is hardly the
+time to reflect that you are being summoned to the slaughter, as the
+spider nets her prey, as the spider nets her mate. It is pleasant to be
+a victim of love: and some men found it a pleasure to be such a victim
+constantly.
+
+And when you have made yourself an artist in wooing, both in theory and
+practice, do not be stingy with your lore, but pass it on to other men
+and women, who lack it. For only the great in love are great in life,
+and great in joy.
+
+
+
+
+  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
+
+  Page 6: “and the male surivives” changed to “and the male survives”.
+  Page 20: “when the left the office,” changed to
+           “when he left the office,”
+  Page 26: “how other people regared” changed to “how other people regard”
+  Page 26: “have always hear dmade” changed to “have always heard made”
+  Page 30: “in mens’ eyes:” changed to “in men’s eyes:”
+  Page 31: “box of chewy chololates” changed to “box of chewy chocolates”
+  Page 32: “or a permanent one:” changed to “or a permanent one--”
+  Page 33: “wholly unattractive:” changed to “wholly unattractive,”
+  Page 35: “ask time to consider” changed to “ask for time to consider”
+  Page 37: “Fancy Flitations.” changed to “Fancy Flirtations.”
+  Page 37: “space alloted to” changed to
+           “space allotted to”
+  Page 48: “out what her fiancée’s” changed to “out what her fiancé’s”
+  Page 49: “can elect pie” changed to “can select pie”
+  Page 52: “The concensus of intelligent” changed to
+           “The consensus of intelligent”
+  Page 53: “of to his beloved” changed to “of to his beloved.”
+  Page 57: “VI. FAMOUS COURTSHIPS” changed to “VI FAMOUS COURTSHIPS”
+  Page 58: “peril in this eye” changed to “peril in thine eye”
+  Page 58: “against their enmity. .” changed to “against their enmity....”
+  Page 59: “Forgetting shames’ pure” changed to “Forgetting shame’s pure”
+  Page 61: “cleverness in her love songs” changed to
+           “cleverness in her love-songs”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76976 ***
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76976 ***</div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<p><strong>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</strong></p>
+
+<p>Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.</p>
+
+<p class="customcover">Note that there is a discrepancy between what the book is named on the cover and the title page.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="fs80 tdzeropad">LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO.</td>
+    <td class="fs200 tdzeropad" rowspan="2">988</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+   <td class="fs80 tdzeropad">Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="center fs250">The Art of Courtship</p>
+
+<p class="center fs120">Clement Wood</p>
+
+<p class="center fs80 p12">HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY<br>
+GIRARD, KANSAS
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<p class="center p12">Copyright, 1926,<br>
+Haldeman-Julius Company.</p>
+
+<p class="center p12">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class="autotable wd60">
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Page</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#WHY_ONE_MUST_WOO">1. Why One Must Woo</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">5</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#THE_ORIGIN_OF_WOOING">The Origin of Wooing</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">5</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#REASONS_AGAINST_WOOING">Reasons Against Wooing</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">8</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#WOOING_BY_WOMEN">Wooing by Women</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">12</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#WHAT_WOOING_CONSISTS_OF">What Wooing Consists of</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">13</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#II">2. Whom to Woo</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">15</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#PHYSICAL_MATES">Physical Mates</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">15</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#MENTAL_MATES">Mental Mates</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">19</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#SOCIAL_MATES">Social Mates</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">20</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#SPECIAL_PROBLEMS">Special Problems</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">22</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#III">3. How a Man Woos</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">25</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#WHOM_TO_WOO">Whom to Woo</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">25</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#OBJECT_AND_METHODS_OF_WOOING">Object and Method of Wooing</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">27</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#PROBLEMS_OF_WOOING">Problems of Wooing</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">32</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#THE_PROPOSAL_AND_AFTER">The Proposal, and After</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">33</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#COURTSHIP_AFTER_MARRIAGE">Courtship After Marriage</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">35</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#IV">4. How a Woman Woos</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">37</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#FANCY_FLIRTATIONS">Fancy Flirtations</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">37</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#JUDGING_MEN">Judging Men</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">39</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#NICE_GIRL_OR_HUMAN_BEING">“Nice” Girl or Human Being</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">43</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#V">5. Conduct During the Engagement</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">47</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#CONDUCT_IN_PUBLIC">Conduct in Public</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">47</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#IN_PRIVATE">In Private</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">50</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#TERMINATION_OF_ENGAGEMENTS">Termination of Engagements</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">53</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#VI">6. Famous Courtships</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">57</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#COURTING_BY_POETRY">Courting by Poetry</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">57</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+  <td class="tdl pad2"><a href="#GREAT_LOVERS">Great Lovers</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">59</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1 class="nobreak" id="THE_ART_OF_COURTSHIP">THE ART OF COURTSHIP</h1>
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="WHY_ONE_MUST_WOO">WHY ONE MUST WOO</h2>
+
+
+<p><span id="THE_ORIGIN_OF_WOOING"><i>The Origin of Wooing.</i></span>—The normal man
+must woo the woman who attracts him, because
+of an instinct planted deep in his nature,
+which had its origin far down in the scale of
+life. The modern civilized woman must woo,
+because this obligation has been laid upon her
+by man’s rearrangement of society, dating
+from the savage hour when he ended the era
+of woman-rule, the matriarchate, and took the
+leadership himself.</p>
+
+<p>The first separate male appears at about the
+stage of the barnacle in the scale of animal
+life. The female barnacle, a shellfish attached
+permanently to a rock, pier, or the hull of a
+ship, gives birth to from two to seven little
+male consorts, or husbands, whom she keeps in
+little openings in her shell, like pockets. From
+among these pocket-husbands she picks out the
+one she pleases to mate with her; usually
+selecting the largest (for all are much smaller
+than herself), and, where sizes are equal, the
+one that she feels drawn to emotionally. From
+this emotion gradually emerges the esthetic
+sense, or sense of the beautiful. Thus the first
+male did not have to do any wooing: he was
+picked, like the apple that one day made Eden
+vanish away.</p>
+
+<p>As we rise higher in the scale of animal life,
+say among the spiders and insects like the
+grotesquely horrible praying mantis, the male<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>
+has to woo: and a bloody and savage mate he
+must go after! The female, still larger than
+her male, sits back and waits for the audacious
+mate to approach. He feels one impelling
+biological purpose: to mate with her, and make
+sure that offspring will come. Nature has
+implanted this overpowering instinct in him.
+In the female, are two appetites; a fainter desire
+to mate, and ordinary hunger. Her male
+must satisfy both, in his wooing. As he approaches
+her, the Theda Bara among insects
+grasps the male and eats, first his head, then
+a leg or two, and a part of his body. When
+the edge has been taken off her appetite, she
+rests. At this time what is left of the male
+completes the mating. When her hunger returns
+again, the female finishes her devouring
+of the male.</p>
+
+<p>The male bee, who outflies the other males
+in the lofty nuptial flight of the queen bee,
+mates with her in thin high air far above the
+earth; and dies at the moment of mating, his
+husk of a body falling, like Lucifer out of
+heaven, to the earth far below. There are
+other cases where mating spells death for the
+male: but Nature is kinder in most matings,
+and the male <ins class="corr" id="tn-6" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: surivives">survives</ins>. When we reach the
+birds and the mammals, the wooing is a gorgeous
+thing. For the male bird or beast, as a
+slow result of female selection based upon her
+esthetic or beauty-loving sense, has developed
+into a far more gorgeous creature than his
+mate. The bright glitter of the peacock, the
+gorgeous flame of the male tanager and
+cardinal bird, the glow of gay tropical bird<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>
+males, the lion’s mane, the rooster’s comb and
+feather display, the stag’s branching antlers,
+the humble billygoat’s beard, the man’s beard,
+all have developed to stimulate the jaded eye
+of the female. The mating songs, from the
+bird carols to the whooping crane’s strange
+howls, with bill opened to the sky, neck stiff
+as a ramrod, and wings pumping out the
+weird noises, and from the tomcat’s caterwauling
+to the corner quartette’s strange
+agonies over “Sweet Adeline”—all have developed
+to stimulate the bored ear of the female.
+At mating time, the male is often a
+ridiculous sight, with his stiff formal dances
+and prancings before the female, even among
+the animals. He must woo: that is what he
+was made for. The female was not made
+primarily to woo: her task is to live, and to
+transmit life to the generations after her. The
+male, originally, was merely an incident in
+her life.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the normal boy and young man came
+to the wooing period with a tremendous inward
+urge, that gives them no release until
+they have wooed and won. The female matures
+earlier in the human race; and girls pass
+through a year or two of excessive curiosity
+and interest in the male sex, when their boy
+friends of the same age are ordinarily entirely
+cold to all female charms. The hidden hour
+comes when boy alters to man. His voice
+changes and lowers, in that ridiculous kaleidoscope
+of sound that is humorously called “the
+goslings.” A tiny fuzz appears on male lips,
+cheeks, and chin: the young man is as proud<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>
+of the first hair of his incipient mustache
+as if he were entitled to credit for it. His body
+alters, and the mating impulse sweeps over
+him. No matter how much he has scoffed at
+mere girls before, they suddenly fill the whole
+horizon. Just as the animals strut to attract
+attention, so boys and young men during this
+transition and shortly afterwards will do anything
+to gain the gaze of even a passing girl.
+They talk in loud tones on the street, they
+jostle a passing girl, they cut up absurd
+capers—all to gain the first look from a
+woman’s eyes. Then this bubbling simmers
+down, and they set out on the long chase of
+the female, which may occupy much of their
+lives thereafter.</p>
+
+<p>If the boy or young man continues uninterested
+in girls, this is a bad sign. It may be
+bashfulness: we will take up that symptom and
+its cure later. It may indicate some inner
+twist, which makes him prefer his own company,
+or that of members of his own sex, to
+female company. This is, spiritually at least,
+a sort of perversion; it is a sterile attitude,
+contrary to the wide purposes of nature. In
+normal cases, he can no more avoid wooing
+than he can avoid feeling hungry and going
+after food. For that is what he is on earth for,
+from a physical point of view.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="REASONS_AGAINST_WOOING"><i>Reasons Against Wooing.</i></span>—Lord Bacon, that
+prosy old cynic whom misguided persons have
+sought to identify as the author of the plays attributed
+to Shakespeare, says in his Essays:
+“A wife and children are impediments to great
+enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>
+There is the smoke of truth here, but it points
+to a fire very different from the one the sardonic
+old politician intended. Great enterprises
+gain much of their impetus, from the male’s
+desire to stand well in the female’s eyes.
+Another angle on the matter might be worded,
+that the energy which is implanted in man for
+wooing purposes may be deflected into enterprises,
+such as piratical and military careers,
+adventure trips and explorations. But more
+often than not, the spur that sends the man
+into building a house, or tilling a field, into
+slicing mountains apart to wed great oceans,
+discovering a pole or a hidden hinterland
+civilization, into achievement of any distinguished
+kind, is the desire to gain merit in
+the eyes of some specific woman, or of women
+in general. A great thinker has said that
+civilization is a sublimation, or expression in
+another form, of the primitive love desire. A
+man, because of his short height, or some
+physical diseases or disability, is rebuffed in
+youth by a woman: to provide against a
+repetition of the rebuff, he becomes a financial
+figure in Wall Street, or a conqueror of the
+world; or, at least, he tries to achieve this.
+Thus the spur of feminine approval is what
+goads the horse, man, to enterprises of virtue
+and mischief.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, wooing does not necessarily involve
+marriage, or the man’s assumption of
+responsibility for the children. Many men remain
+closer to the primitive, and are satisfied
+to enjoy the woman, often at great cost to
+her, and thereafter to abandon her with what<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>
+children she may have as a result of the union.
+Such men lose the finer fruits of mating, the
+long comradeship of a compatible woman that
+makes life a complete enjoyment, rather than
+a fragmentary one. The fact that a man has
+accepted a wife and children may tone down
+his spirit of adventure: from absurd masculine
+displays, “playing to the galleries” of mankind,
+his energy is altered to proper continuing
+courtship of his wife, and the making of a home
+for her and the children. To that extent
+Bacon is right: “great,” in the sense of flashy
+and foolhardy, enterprises “of virtue or mischief”
+are replaced by ordinary sensible human
+living. But there is no loss to the man, rather
+a gain.</p>
+
+<p>Again, the fact of acquiring a wife and children,
+if the man is well mated, acts as his chief
+spur to steady achievement in whatever is his
+role in human life. The unmated man is a
+wild, reckless creature, taking any kind of
+absurd risk, sinking a year’s earnings in one
+night’s play at the gambling table, going on
+roaring drinking parties, regarding women as
+his prey rather than as possible companions. The
+well-mated man is a social unit, or a part of
+one, at least. The wanderlust is drained away
+in the humbler yet loftier task of building his
+own world toward his dreams, rather than
+skylarking over the world in the vain hope
+that somewhere he will find the world of his
+dreams already built for him.</p>
+
+<p>There are dangers in mating, grave dangers:
+the divorce records of the country indicate
+many of them. The chief one is where<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>
+the man, at an early age, contracts a marriage
+with a woman who is a fit mate for him then,
+but lacks the capacity for growth along with
+him. This applies in many cases where the
+man makes a success thereafter in any line.
+When he was a ten-dollar-a-week man, he married
+a ten-dollar-a-week woman; when he became
+a ten thousand dollar a year man, the
+woman remained a ten-dollar-a-week woman,
+and became a distinct and draining load upon
+his back, and a deterrent to his continued success
+and happiness. Boswell, Johnson’s biographer,
+may have had this type in mind when
+he wrote:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Whilst courting, and in honeymoon,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">With Kate’s allurements smitten,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">I loved her late, I loved her soon,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And called her dearest kitten.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">But now my kitten’s grown a cat,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And cross, like other wives.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Alas! alas! my honest Matt,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">I fear she has nine lives.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In “How to Love” (Little Blue Book No. 98),
+problems of this nature were taken up and
+discussed: the only remedy being, where a
+marriage becomes loveless, to terminate the
+marriage, for the benefit of the man, the
+woman, and the children concerned. From the
+woman’s standpoint, the chief danger in mating
+is that she will get a man lacking her sensitiveness,
+and unable to grow into an appreciation
+of it. She finds herself mated for life
+to a cruder, coarser, and incompatible male;
+and, when love dies, and cruelty and infidelity
+take its place, only the remedy indicated above<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>
+will serve. There are all these dangers: but
+they call rather for a wiser courtship, than
+for an abolition of wooing and mating.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, a man or woman is incomplete without
+courtship and mating. Those who say that
+a man or woman can become a perfected,
+rounded human being without human love, are
+deceivers, spreading a mental poison. The
+man or woman who goes too long without the
+practice of love contracts a case of ingrowing
+love, as painful and morbid as an ingrowing
+toenail. All the immense love energy stagnates
+and fouls into a diseased nature, hateful, spiteful,
+gossipy, perverted and warped from real
+humanness. There can be no ultimate reason
+against mating. The task is to woo well and
+mate wisely.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="WOOING_BY_WOMEN"><i>Wooing by Women.</i></span>—Today, contrary to the
+custom in the sub-human world and among the
+earliest savage men, woman must woo as well
+as man. The reason lies in man’s alteration of
+the standards of society. The female animal is
+not as competent as her mate in the hunt and
+the kill, and in coping with life. Men have
+rendered women incompetent by thousands of
+years of hothouse sheltering and by servile
+toil for many more. The woman today realizes,—we
+speak of the less intelligent woman now—that
+her task in life is to obtain a husband, as
+a permanent meal ticket, and as provider of
+home, clothing, and all the rest of the tremendous
+trifles of civilization. Such a mistaught
+girl goes after a man as a fisherman
+goes after a brook trout, and more frequently
+than is good for the man lands the poor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>
+fish, and has him hooked thoroughly thereafter.
+Such a woman has been taught that
+marriage should be based, not upon love, but
+upon a man’s ability to care financially for
+the woman. Life’s highest crown is a satisfying
+human love. This she has not aimed for,
+and this she does not get. When she aims low,
+she scores low: and, if the man is wise, he will
+dump her and leave her high and dry, when it
+is too late for her to go after the finer goal.</p>
+
+<p>But even the wise woman today realizes that
+the whole social arrangement of mating between
+the sexes is overcast with absurd taboos
+and restrictions; and that, if she is to mate
+happily, she must regain part of woman’s lost
+privilege of choice. There is nothing “unladylike”
+in her doing the choosing, in her unostentatious
+wooing, and, if necessary, in her
+proposing marriage herself. We will take up
+woman as a wooer later.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="WHAT_WOOING_CONSISTS_OF"><i>What Wooing Consists Of.</i></span>—From the standpoint
+of either sex, wooing superficially consists
+of only one thing: conquest of the woman
+or man pursued, the gaining of the ultimate
+favor, if the woman be pursued, with or without
+marriage, and the gaining of marriage, if
+the man is the pursued. If wooing is regarded
+in this light, it is possible that the pursuit is
+always limited, if not erroneous. For the matter
+of conquest is not the ultimate one in wooing
+and mating. The proper purpose of wooing
+is to choose and win the right mate.</p>
+
+<p>The matter of choosing brings up the second
+and far more important element of wooing,
+which might be described as education in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>
+opposite sex. Society today makes no adequate
+provision for practical laboratory education in
+the characteristics of the opposite sex: a wiser
+civilization will supply ample facilities for this
+indispensable part of human education. The
+man comes to adolescence without any knowledge
+of woman, beyond his slight information
+concerning his mother and his sisters, if he
+has any, and casual contacts with other girls
+and women. The girl comes to adolescence as
+ill-informed. Yet soon thereafter man and girl
+are called upon to enter, without preliminary
+training, the game or gamble of securing a life
+mate, who will lift them up or drag them down
+thereafter, in all of their efforts. Socially this
+is a crime. The only thing that can partially
+supply the lack of information, today, is the
+wooing period. For, after marriage, it is difficult
+to end the relationship; and, before marriage,
+if the parties learn they are ill-suited, intelligent
+men and women still have a dignified
+chance to break off the unwise mating before it
+solidifies into the chains of marriage. Keep in
+mind, then, that the wooing period is primarily
+a time for learning about the other sex, and its
+traits and eccentricities. The young man or
+woman in love should study the subject, from
+books and from living teachers, as amply as
+possible: and should observe other men and
+women, unmarried and married, with eyes as
+clear as he or she can make them. If the wooing
+is regarded as an education in love, and
+especially in the person wooed, its value will
+be doubled.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="II">II<br>
+<br>
+WHOM TO WOO</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p><span id="PHYSICAL_MATES"><i>Physical Mates.</i></span>—The lowest form of mating
+is that on the exclusively physical plane. Yet
+this is perhaps the most important aspect of
+all. If lovers are not physically pleasing and
+satisfactory to each other, all the financial
+and other inducements are worthless.</p>
+
+<p>The first problem concerns the respective
+ages of the parties. Should they be of the
+same ages? If not, which should be older?
+On this point, Shakespeare says:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">Let still the woman take</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">An elder than herself; so wears she to him,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">So sways she level in her husband’s heart.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Our fancies are more giddy and inform,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Than woman’s are.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The woman matures earlier; so the younger
+woman is the normal equivalent, especially
+physically, of the man a few years older. This
+is all right for the time of the mating: but
+thereafter the man overcomes the woman’s
+lead, and soon surpasses her; and when, at
+her change of life, she has largely finished
+her physical function of love-making, the man
+is still equipped as a wooer and lover. On the
+other side of the same question, the same poet
+wrote:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Crabbed Age and Youth</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Cannot live together:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Youth is full or pleasance,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Age is full of care;</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Youth like summer morn,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Age like winter weather,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Youth like summer brave,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Age like winter bare:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Youth is full of sport,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Age’s breath is short,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Youth is nimble, Age is lame;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Youth is hot and bold,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Age is weak and cold,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Youth is wild, and Age is tame:—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Age, I do abhor thee,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Youth, I do adore thee;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">O! my Love, my Love is young!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Age, I do defy thee—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">O sweet shepherd, hie thee,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For methinks thou stay’st too long.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">This is worth quoting in full to drive home,
+in the concentrated phrasing of a master, the
+extreme differences between youth and age.
+When an elderly well-to-do man marries a
+young and lovely girl, as often happens, this
+may apply; and when a young man marries a
+woman old enough to be his mother, this may
+also apply.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, each one’s problems of the choice
+of a mate is an individual problem: no general
+rules may be laid down. The man’s first
+vague ideal of the woman he wishes to love
+is made to imitate largely, in normal cases,
+his mother; the girl’s, her father. If this first
+ideal impression persists with great strength
+thereafter, youth will be happy only with age.
+If, in the more normal case, youth desires
+youth finally, then the invaluable courtship
+period should have taught this lesson: the
+young man or woman turns from the intended
+older mate, and the evil is corrected before it
+is too late. The person fully experienced in
+love will have experimented in courtship with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>
+people of various ages, to find where the ideal
+lies. Too much experimentation, of course,
+rubs off something of the bloom, but if enlightenment
+follows this rubbing off of the
+bloom, the thing is worthwhile.</p>
+
+<p>As to dispositions, again no general rule
+can be laid down. Biological science says
+those are most happily mated whose dispositions
+are opposite. Similarly, biological science
+says that blonde should mate with brunette,
+and tall with short: it making no difference
+to science whether the man is the tall or short
+one, or the woman the short or tall one. Biological
+science is true in generalities, and does
+not pretend to solve individual cases and preferences.
+The only recommendation is, try the
+one you are first attracted to; and, if the
+period of courtship indicates a mistake has
+been made, and that incompatibility comes
+from opposite temperaments, or from the same
+temperaments, try elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>When should one woo and marry? Are early
+or late marriages advisable? Here society’s
+present financial arrangement comes in. Unless
+the man or woman is wealthy already—and
+few are—the man cannot afford to support
+a wife, in professional or white-collared business
+life, until he is from 25 to 30. Marriage
+on a very small income may work out successfully;
+in the majority of cases, it does not.
+The girl who marries at eighteen has hardly
+had time to know her own mind yet: there
+are arguments for waiting until she is 22 to
+25, or even older. If the man or woman matures
+slowly, this is reason for later mating.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>
+The danger in late matings is that the man
+and woman have grown more fixed and rigid
+in minor matters: more crotchety, more old-maidish
+or old-mannish. The young are more
+adaptable. All of these things must be weighed.
+In general, courtship should begin soon after
+adolescence, and the mating should be entered
+upon as soon as the young man and young
+woman feel that they are completely unhappy
+unless living together.</p>
+
+<p>Health is an important matter. Some states
+require a health certificate from both man and
+woman; and this is a wise precaution. The
+man or woman venereally infected should not
+be permitted to marry, until medical science
+gives a clean bill of health. If a man marries
+a sickly and ailing woman, who will become
+an invalid, he is bound down to an excessive
+and unpleasing load for life. On the other
+hand, marriage may end the woman’s invalidism,
+which may have been assumed subconsciously
+as a protection against being overworked
+at home, or which may be a case of
+physical warping caused by non-expression of
+the love energy. If the woman marries an
+invalid man, unless she wishes to support him
+for life, more unhappiness will follow. Samuel
+Butler, in <cite>Erewhon</cite>, calls disease a crime; and
+crime, a mere disease, to be cured by doctors.
+For ill health, punishment should follow. This
+attitude, revolutionary in a high degree, is in
+the main sound. Except in rare cases, only
+the physically sound should mate. During the
+courtship, this should be gone into carefully.</p>
+
+<p>From the physical standpoint, a man should<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>
+woo that woman or those women who attract
+him physically. The wooing period will indicate
+whether any one woman is congenial and
+increasingly desirable. No one but a congenial
+woman who is increasingly desirable should be
+permanently mated with. The girl should be
+guided by the same principle of choice.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="MENTAL_MATES"><i>Mental Mates.</i></span>—The former conception was
+that the man was supposed to be the intellectual
+one, by training, and by contact with the
+broadening influences of his work, and of the
+world of men; and that the woman should be
+an intellectual weakling, tending toward imbecility.
+In the Oriental world, with its harems
+and harem favorites, this is at times the situation
+achieved. Such a method deprives love
+and mating of its chief glory: the intellectual
+companionship of congenial spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Woman is no longer forbidden an education.
+Elementary education is generally hers, required
+by law; she may have a college training,
+or its equivalent; and, in general, in life
+thereafter, if left with time on her hands at
+home, she is more literate, in the world of
+books and ideas, than the man; although she
+may have had less personal contact with large
+groups of minds, such as a man encounters in
+his business and social connections. The balance,
+for the ideal mating, should swing closer.
+A woman is the gainer by practical experience
+at working, so that she may realize from the
+standpoint of the earner the value of a dollar,
+and not measure it merely from the standpoint
+of the spender.</p>
+
+<p>A man once locked his business cares up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>
+when <ins class="corr" id="tn-20" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: the">he</ins> left the office, and never brought
+them home; or, if he brought them home,
+brought them merely as complaints, unintelligible
+to his wife. The ideal mating is where
+the man and woman are equally interested and
+intelligent in the business welfare, and are, in
+effect, partners, as they must be in results.
+This state can rarely be entirely reached. But
+if, during the courtship, the girl turns out to
+be a chatter-tongued and scatter-brained little
+fool, this is a danger signal to the man, to get
+out while the getting is good. The girl who
+raves over the movies, dances like a feather,
+and thinks like one, is not likely to be a fit
+mate or mother to the man’s children. The
+man who turns out to be merely a would-be
+sheik, with no ideas above professional baseball
+or spending all he has made in a week in
+one night, is hardly to be chosen as a permanent
+mate. Unless such a pair woo and win
+each other: which makes two other people
+happy, who might have won these lemons and
+been unhappy thereafter. Courtship is the
+great testing time, to see whether the two concerned
+are congenial mentally, and whether
+they apparently have similar capacities of
+mental growth.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="SOCIAL_MATES"><i>Social Mates.</i></span>—Should a girl marry only a
+man well able to support her? Should a man
+marry only a girl who is well off financially?
+These questions would be absurd, if current
+standards of society did not let them largely
+dictate many of the most unhappy marriages
+among us. One should marry for love, primarily
+and almost entirely. The purpose of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>
+mating is to increase one’s happiness: love
+cannot be bought, and the thing called bought
+love cannot increase happiness. Love in poverty
+has a harder row to hoe than love in comparative
+opulence: but love in poverty is immeasurably
+better than sham love in opulence,
+which grows soon enough to hatred in opulence.
+Let physical attractiveness, plus mental
+congeniality, be the touchstones during the
+wooing period. The money will somehow come
+to those who are not utterly spiritual weaklings,
+and who present a loving and united
+front to the world. They may never be well
+off: but they will win more of the goal of
+mating and life, which is happiness, than well-to-do
+haters of their mates.</p>
+
+<p>The matter of social position is similar. The
+chance of happiness in marriage today is not
+great when all advantages are in favor of the
+mating parties. When to this is added a distinct
+difference in social standing, this makes
+the problem harder of solution. Let this fact,
+when ascertained, put you on your guard. But,
+at the same time, it is only one fact among
+many to be weighed; and, if the physical and
+mental attractions are strong enough, they
+should overweigh any inequality in rearing
+and background.</p>
+
+<p>Of all errors achieved in mating, perhaps
+marrying to reform a man is the worst. If a
+man cannot overcome his pet vices during the
+courting period, when he is free to fight the
+battle out within himself, it is almost a sure
+bet he will not alter after marriage. Even if
+he temporarily ends the faults or vices during<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>
+the courting, he may slump later. Reforming
+a man (or a girl either) is a tremendous gamble.
+If you choose to gamble with your life,
+and enjoy the risk, that is an excellent reason
+for going ahead with it. But the more normal
+human beings will leave reformation to the
+person concerned, and marry for other and
+sounder reasons.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="SPECIAL_PROBLEMS"><i>Special Problems.</i></span>—Should a man be married
+who has sowed his wild oats? Or should
+a girl insist upon the man’s coming to the
+mating pure? Should a girl be married who
+has sowed her wild oats? Or should a man
+insist upon her coming to the mating pure?</p>
+
+<p>The average answer is that the man is the
+gainer by the sowing of wild oats; and that
+the girl is ruined by the practice. Needless to
+say, this angle of judgment is all wrong. If the
+sowing of wild oats consists in mere amorous
+experience with other women, or in this coupled
+with drinking, even to the point of moderate
+drunkenness, and gambling on a scale
+not too large, the man is not injured for marriage
+by these. Nor is the girl injured in the
+slightest. The object of life is to achieve happiness.
+The chief method of gaining this is
+by experiencing the world. Love experience is
+no more harmful (unless pregnancy results)
+than experience in sampling different food
+menus. If disease has come, that is a matter
+for the doctors to pass upon, and the discussion
+of health above covers it. If the girl has
+had an illegitimate child, society’s ban is so
+strong that the case is altered somewhat. This
+is a factor to be weighed by both parties: it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>
+does not of necessity make the girl any the
+less fit as a mate, than the man would be if
+he had had an illegitimate child by another
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>In general, the man is better off for having
+sowed some wild oats before marriage: he is
+less liable to plow a field of post-marital wild
+oats. The same is true, although in a slightly
+less degree, of the girl. The only difference is
+caused by the weight of social standards upon
+the two sexes today.</p>
+
+<p>Should a bashful man or woman woo or be
+wooed? Bashfulness is in no wise discreditable;
+it is in general a nervous trait which
+may be remedied. It comes in general from
+a want of self-confidence. In general, the bashful
+continue plugging away in humble self-effacement;
+and, at times, suddenly burst
+forth with an achievement far ahead of that
+of the brassiest individual, self-confident from
+birth. The cure for bashfulness is contact with
+crowds, which brings sooner or later the realization
+that you are not inferior in the slightest
+to the run of humanity, and are superior
+to many of your associates. Something of the
+Coué method—repeating to yourself, without
+intentional compulsion, “I am important, I believe
+in myself,” might help. Luckily for the
+bashful, they ordinarily attract the opposite
+temperament. If the husband of the bashful
+woman does not make fun of her peculiarity,
+but sympathetically brings her out, and if the
+wife of the bashful man does the same, the
+effort becomes more than twice as successful.
+In general, the bashful make mates as satisfactory,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>
+or more satisfactory, than the self-confident.</p>
+
+<p>Is love at first sight a possibility? Of course,
+and a frequent one. The normal man falls
+in love, at first sight, with every attractive
+woman he sees. If this is an error, take it as
+a confession. Many a woman falls in love at
+first sight with a man who satisfies her ideal,
+hitherto unrealized. If both feel the emotion
+simultaneously, we have the perfect case. The
+subsequent wooing will indicate whether this is
+enduring love, or an illusion.</p>
+
+<p>Should a man or woman woo several persons
+at once? In general, especially in the earlier
+stages of the wooing, this is an advantage. If
+you wish to buy a jewel, you are wise if you
+examine several, before making your final
+choice. The same applies to wooing for a
+mate. We say at once, because successive
+wooing permits choice really only of some subsequent
+love object; whereas the first may be,
+after all, the most suited. Wooing should be
+done in honesty; so the element of deception
+of the parties concerned should not ordinarily
+be used. This is not because it is ethically
+wrong, but because, if found out, unpleasant
+consequences may ensue. But, in general, the
+wider the choice, the more satisfactory the
+mating that follows. People who marry the
+first woman or man they are infatuated with
+are seldom well mated. Since trial wooings
+are socially accepted, they should be taken
+advantage of.</p>
+
+<p>We can now proceed to the technique of
+wooing.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="III">III<br>
+<br>
+HOW A MAN WOOS</h2></div>
+
+
+
+<p><span id="WHOM_TO_WOO"><i>Whom to Woo.</i></span>—The first thing to emphasize
+is that you are wooing the girl, and not her
+father, her mother, her aunts, or her family
+in general. Since the objects of the wooing are
+(1) to learn whether the girl is congenial, and
+(2) to persuade her that you are congenial, and
+should be accepted, you will find that the second
+object is achieved best by making yourself
+attractive to her. In cases where she cares for
+the opinion of her mother, or father, or family,
+it is the part of wisdom to court, within reason,
+the family as well. But the main thing is to
+woo the girl.</p>
+
+<p>The girl must be willing to be wooed, sooner
+or later, or you had best cease your efforts. In
+normal cases, she will not object from the start.
+If she objects, because she is interested in someone
+else, or thinks she does not care to be made
+love to or to marry, or because she thinks there
+is some personal reason why you are distasteful,
+your first task is to continue courteously
+in your suit, until you test out whether or not
+you can remove this preliminary bar. If she
+is interested in some one else, this becomes the
+old conflict between males for the female’s favor:
+and you will use the methods indicated
+hereafter. If she professes to be entirely uninterested
+in love and mating, unless she is
+abnormal fundamentally this is easy to overcome.
+Lay aside your obvious wooing, interest
+yourself in whatever she is interested in, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>
+qualify as a friend and companion in her own
+interests. She will soon, if she is normal, recognize
+the great value of your companionship, and
+from this love should speedily grow.</p>
+
+<p>If the objection is that she finds some trait
+in the man that is distasteful to her, this dislike
+must be overcome. Perhaps the objection
+is to some mannerism of the man’s, some error
+of speech, or some habit which may be altered
+by him. In such cases, if he desires to win the
+girl’s favor, he must either change the trait, or
+convince her that she does not really object to
+it. Of course, her very objection may be an
+education to the young man, both as to her nature,
+and as to how others look upon his actions.
+If, for objection, she objects to his
+friendship with a certain man, or to his going
+to baseball games, he may, after studying out
+the matter, decide that the girl is too narrow
+in her ideas to be his desired mate. He should,
+of course, first try to educate her attitude toward
+an acceptance of his trait; but, if he fails,
+the world is full of girls, and he may find much
+more happiness elsewhere. Suppose her objection
+is to some error of speech that the man
+constantly commits. In this case, his task is
+to correct it, not only to please the girl, but
+because her objection has given him an insight
+into how other people <ins class="corr" id="tn-26a" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: regared">regard</ins> the mistake
+which he may have always  <ins class="corr" id="tn-26b" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: hear dmade">heard made</ins> and
+made himself, without exciting comment.</p>
+
+<p>Six months ago, a girl whom I know met a
+young man, of good family, fairly well-to-do,
+fairly educated (a couple of college degrees, I
+think), and a man who had traveled rather extensively<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>
+in Europe and South America. He
+played a good hand of bridge, was interested in
+the same artistic things that the girl was, and
+was smitten with her from the first. After
+playing around with him for a couple of
+months, she refused to see him thereafter, except
+in a large party; and absolutely refused
+to let him court her further. The reason can
+be gathered from this typical specimen of his
+conversation. “I was at the club, see? A lot
+of the fellows were there, see? And we decided
+to shoot a little bridge, see? On the very first
+hand, see? I had four honors in diamonds, and
+I bid two diamonds, see?” Tactfully the girl
+had pointed out that the constantly reiterated
+“see” just was not done by literate people. The
+man could not or would not change it: and yet
+that small irksome trait was what cost him
+the girl he wanted.</p>
+
+<p>In more usual cases, however, the girl is willing
+to be wooed from the start. Then your task
+is easier.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="OBJECT_AND_METHODS_OF_WOOING"><i>Object and Methods of Wooing.</i></span>—The object
+of wooing, in addition to its value as education
+in the opposite sex, is to win the regard of the
+other person, if you continue to desire her, and
+to win her consent to the mating. What is the
+practical method of doing this? The easy and
+only wholly satisfactory way is to make yourself
+attractive to the girl, so that you become
+indispensable to her happiness, her enjoyment
+of any experience, and her contented living.</p>
+
+<p>Let it be repeated, that the man must stand
+high in the girl’s eyes, to give the mating a
+chance for success. If the girl takes a man as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>
+a last chance, because she fears she can get
+no other suitor, the chance for happiness is lessened:
+if at any time later she meets a more
+attractive man who persuades her that he would
+have proposed, if she had waited, regret and
+dissatisfaction may set in, and the whole love
+and marriage relationship may be curdled.
+When a man singles out a girl for his attention,
+he cannot avoid transplanting the situation
+back to the old savage days, when the male
+preened and strutted before the female, anxious
+for her approval. What are some of the obvious
+ways to win her approval, which at times are
+neglected so disastrously that the man’s chances
+end at once?</p>
+
+<p>Notice the man’s difficult task: to look at
+himself with the girl’s eyes, and furnish her
+with an increasingly attractive picture of himself.
+Some genius uttered the brilliant half
+truth that love is blind. Luckily for all of us,
+this is largely true. But a girl’s parents and
+relatives, friends, and rival suitors, will obligingly
+lend their eyes as glasses to her: and the
+man may expect to find what faults he has
+magnified almost out of recognition. What,
+then, from the girls’ standpoint, will she look
+for in the man?</p>
+
+<p>First of all, girls are by nature neater than
+men. Girls will allow much latitude to a man
+for carelessness in attire. But the man who
+neglects such simple toilet matters as the care
+of his nails, and presents himself with a black
+rim under them; who lets his shirts and collars
+remain in service till they are sooty; whose
+shoes are unnecessarily unpolished, on occasions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>
+when she may expect to be judged by
+other eyes from the standpoint of her escort,—such
+a neglectful man may as well know that
+any one of these things may damn him more
+in the eyes of the girl than if he had committed
+murder.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, a girl will judge the man by how
+she thinks he will look in the eyes of her
+friends and associates. If the man is slightly
+ungrammatical, and so are she and her
+friends, this makes no difference. But, if she
+has more booklearning than he, and if her
+friends are critical in this regard, and regard
+themselves as at all highbrowish, the man must
+make it his job to grow up to her literate standards.
+“I don’t like that there show,” “them sort
+of pictures,” “moving pitchers,” “I ought to of
+went,” and all the rest of the verbal atrocities
+that the ungrammatical blunder into, must be
+corrected. Winning and keeping a girl’s regard
+must be regarded as seriously as getting ahead
+in business. Wooing thus includes a course in
+self-improvement, along every line. It will do
+no harm to obtain a book of handy helps in
+grammar, in etiquette, and the like. Don’t eat
+peas with your knife, or wear a red tie with a
+dinner jacket: unless the girl prefers it. In
+that case, the advice is the reverse: study the
+proper mistakes to make. Later on, you can
+gradually lead the girl toward improving herself.
+Make yourself attractive in every way in
+the eyes of the girl, and of the relatives or
+friends on whose judgment she relies.</p>
+
+<p>The moral qualities go along with this. The
+normal girl will prefer a man who stands well<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>
+in <ins class="corr" id="tn-30" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: mens’">men’s</ins> eyes: that is, who has the reputation
+of a he-man, equipped with at least an
+average amount of human courage. As a matter
+of fact, if the last sentence were truer, it
+would be better for girls. A large number of
+them, unfortunately, prefer instead the man
+whom women like, and men dislike: the parlor
+lizard type, the afternoon tea snake specimen,
+the namby-pamby woman-pleaser who never
+makes a success of anything in life except wooing
+women. There is a thrill, beyond doubt, in
+being wooed and kissed by such a man: there
+is much unhappiness in a continuing relationship
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>Having made yourself attractive, the next
+thing is to make yourself important and indispensable
+in the girl’s eyes. If the girl is sensible,
+a display of sensible ideas on matters of
+life will aid; if she is frivolous minded, a display
+of a frivolous, spendthrift nature is more
+shrewd. Do the things she expects of you:
+date her up as often as she desires—it may take
+all of your shrewdness to ascertain the fact,
+too. Take her, not essentially where you want
+to, but where she wants to go. If you adore
+boxing matches, and she prefers Coney Island
+and art museums, postpone the boxing matches
+and take in the others. If you like good music,
+and she cares only for the movies and baseball,
+first make up your mind whether you want to
+continue to woo her; and, if you do, especially
+at first, take her where she wants to go, and
+only slowly and tactfully sprinkle in with the
+cinema thrills and the paid athletics a small
+dose of Brahms and Beethoven. Do what she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>
+expects of you: and always do a little more.
+That is, do the unexpected thoughtful little
+things. Find out her favorite foods, chewing
+gums, cigarettes, people, amusements; and go
+out of your way to provide her with these. If
+you like chewy chocolates, and she detests
+candy and adores pickles, do not provide her
+with an elegant two pound box of chewy <ins class="corr" id="tn-31" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: chololates">chocolates</ins>.
+Don’t be like the married man who presents
+his timid old-fashioned wife with a box of
+cigars for Christmas, and then smokes them
+himself. Be more courteous and thoughtful to
+her in public that she has a right to expect.
+This advice is sound, unless the girl is of the
+rare clinging vine type who wants a man to
+bang her around in alleged he-man style. If
+that is what she wants, give her all the banging
+she can stand. Make your motto, “We
+Strive to Please”—and do more than strive.</p>
+
+<p>You will want, and she will expect, some
+physical love from the start. Among different
+strata of society, customs as to kissing and
+caressing differ. Never give the girl less than
+she expects. After you have found out that
+she likes to be kissed, you will disappoint her
+permanently if you give her the sort of kiss
+you would give dear old Aunt Tabbie, aged
+ninety-eight in the shade. Yet remember to
+think of her wishes primarily: don’t give her
+the sort of kisses you want first, but the kind
+that she wants. Your artistry will come in
+subtly leading her to want things that you
+want. And, once a woman is generally satisfied
+with a wooer, and wants his approval, she
+moves swiftly to the place where she wants to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>
+please her lover in every way. Then the desires
+coincide: and the man can read his own wishes,
+and know them for the girl’s as well.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="PROBLEMS_OF_WOOING"><i>Problems of Wooing.</i></span>—The man should find
+out what he wants from the girl—whether a
+mere flirtation, a temporary mating, or a permanent
+<ins class="corr" id="tn-32" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: one: and">one—and</ins> adapt his technique to gaining
+his goal. For instance, in the question of
+letters. He should do his best to satisfy a girl’s
+craving for love letters, if separations occur.
+In all probability, he cannot satisfy her desires
+here: what she really wants is his presence,
+and a thousand-page letter does not give the
+thrill of that. Ordinarily it is not the best
+tactics to spill over endlessly in a love letter:
+a chatty, companionable letter, with artistically
+worded love phrases that hint a vast withheld
+reservoir of love, is better as a rule than pages
+of sugary sentimentality. Except at the very
+first, when all rules of sanity are laid aside.
+And yet, recall that, if you desire subsequently
+to retire from the courtship, love letters may
+be very embarrassing. Try to phrase your letters
+so that they mean everything to the girl,
+and nothing to the outside world, which may
+have the pleasure of reading them in newspaper
+columns featuring a breach of promise case.
+It is well to keep this possibility in mind from
+the start. Don’t store up trouble for yourself
+in this fashion. Be cryptic and allusive, leaving
+more than half for the girl to read between
+the lines. It may save you trouble in the long
+run.</p>
+
+<p>As for wooing and proposing by proxy, even
+the most bashful person had just as well learn<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>
+that it is suicidal. The proxy brings a message
+to the girl that should come from the beloved
+man: insensibly her emotion goes out to the
+bearer of the message. Captain Miles Standish
+sent John Alden to woo Priscilla for him, and
+the maiden wisely said, “Why don’t you speak
+for yourself, John?” King Edgar’s trusted
+courier wrote the king that the maiden he desired
+to wed was ugly and wholly <ins class="corr" id="tn-33" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: unattractive:">unattractive,</ins>
+and then proceeded to marry her himself for
+her beauty, for which the king later lopped off
+the man’s head. Wooing by proxy is much
+worse than not wooing at all.</p>
+
+<p>As for quarrels, the more experienced wooer
+will have few or none of them. Beginners in
+love will insensibly drift into them. Now quarrels
+have no place in most real loves: they are
+a sign of some concealed dislike or aversion,
+which may take a more virulent and costly
+form after the wooing has been made irrevocable,
+or comparatively so, by marriage. If
+the quarrel can be easily patched up, well and
+good; but if quarrels constantly come, it is a
+bad omen. The only exception is where both
+man and girl enjoy a quarrel more than peace,
+and mate in order to have a mate to quarrel
+with for life. This is abnormal; and, if you
+are a normal man or girl, understand that quarrels,
+especially if they are usually over trifles,
+are a good warning to break off the courtship
+and look elsewhere.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="THE_PROPOSAL_AND_AFTER"><i>The Proposal, and After.</i></span>—No sensible girl
+today wants the man to propose to her father,
+or her parents, before he proposes to her. After
+all, he is not marrying the father, or the parents;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>
+he is marrying the girl. The father or
+parents are consulted after the plans are made,
+for ratification and aid: the goal is the mutual
+consent of the lovers. Again, customs as to
+the seriousness with which proposals are regarded
+differ strikingly in certain localities and
+at certain seasons. In the South, from which
+I came, a girl is proposed to almost as easily as
+she is asked for a dance; she becomes engaged
+as casually as she accepts a drink of water, and
+breaks it off whenever the mood strikes her.
+During college days and the girl’s early debutante
+days, she may be “engaged” to several
+or half a dozen men at a time. In the North,
+the custom is ordinarily different. Again,
+there are seasonal variations: young couples
+who meet at a summering place may become
+engaged for their mutual pleasure during the
+summer, with no intention of ever seeing each
+other when they return to their regular homes
+in the autumn. All of these things must be
+taken into account.</p>
+
+<p>Don’t study a book of etiquette as to how to
+propose. The more stilted and formal a proposal
+is, the easier it is for the girl to laugh
+at the ridiculousness of the situation. Real
+lovers know, without the words having been
+said, that their equivalent in deeds has been
+achieved. Even a slang proposal, “Well, honey,
+shall we hit it off together?” may be far more
+effective than “May I have the honor of making
+you my wife?” Be natural in this, unless you
+have ascertained that the girl desires the frills.
+In that case, give her what she desires. The
+acceptance may be given with a kiss, or with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>
+mere words. More usually, the girl will <ins class="corr" id="tn-35" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: ask time to consider">ask for
+time to consider</ins> the matter. If she means yes
+by this, proceed to make that clear to her. If
+not, keep after her until you win the acceptance,
+or her friendly refusal.</p>
+
+<p>It is not hard to read from a girl’s refusal
+whether she means a real objection, or merely
+a delay. If you really desire her, she will be
+flattered by your continuing to woo her, and
+to make yourself more and more attractive in
+her eyes. In any case, if she is worthy at all,
+she will word her rejection so as never to
+wound the man unnecessarily. If the parties
+are suitable as mates, a rejection alters soon
+enough to an acceptance.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="COURTSHIP_AFTER_MARRIAGE"><i>Courtship After Marriage.</i></span>—<cite>How to Love</cite>
+(Little Blue Book No. 98) takes up the problem
+of how to act after the mate has been won. It
+may be briefly summarized here thus: the real
+lover, man or woman, continues the courtship
+as long as the mating lasts. All that has been
+said about making oneself attractive in the eyes
+of the other, applies with especial force to this
+wooing after marriage. Do your best to make
+a success of the mating; if your efforts fail, and
+a separation or divorce is necessary, you can
+never reproach yourself afterwards with the
+accusation that you did not try your best.</p>
+
+<p>As for courtship of other women after marriage,
+or a woman’s courtship of other men
+after marriage, both of these are known; and,
+in our present organization of society, are natural.
+The man who is by nature promiscuous,
+or the woman who has the same nature, for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>
+his or her happiness will be as faithful as possible.
+If love comes toward another woman or
+man, the lover will come to it with more
+artistry and more experience than in the earlier
+attempts; and the technique of wooing should
+be correspondingly improved.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV<br>
+<br>
+HOW A WOMAN WOOS</h2></div>
+
+
+
+<p><span id="FANCY_FLIRTATIONS"><i>Fancy <ins class="corr" id="tn-37" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: Flitations">Flirtations</ins>.</i></span>—Most textbooks on wooing
+and courtship devote their space  <ins class="corr" id="tn-37b" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: alloted">allotted</ins> to
+woman’s wooing to such absurd devices as flirtation
+by parasol, fan, glove, handkerchief, dining
+table signals, window flirtation, and flower
+flirtation. The number of people who read
+such silly books is limited; the number among
+these who remember what they have read is far
+smaller; and perhaps no men are included in
+the latter number. Thus no man will understand
+what your signals mean. A few of the
+choice instructions given are as follows:</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>Parasol Flirtations</i></p>
+
+<p class="pad2">Carrying it elevated in left hand—Desiring acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p  class="pad2">Carrying it closed in left hand—Meet on the first
+crossing.</p>
+
+<p class="pad2">Carrying it closed in right hand by the side—Follow me.</p>
+
+<p class="pad2">Closing it up—I want to speak to you, love.</p>
+
+<p class="pad2">Swinging to and fro on the handle, on right side—I
+am married.</p>
+
+<p class="pad2">With handle to lips—Kiss me.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">The trouble is, all women must carry their parasols
+somehow, and in more than nine cases out
+of ten, they have no faintest dream of these so-called
+signals. If you ignore them, and they
+are intended, you insult the lady; if you act on
+them—as, for instance, stepping up and kissing
+a stranger who has nervously brought the handle
+of her parasol to her lips—you are liable to
+be fined $750 in Pennsylvania, $2,500 in New<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>
+York State, and the vast sum of $1.15 in New
+Jersey. This whole procedure is a bit too dumb
+even for Rotary Club members and old maid
+school teachers, the two classes who seem to
+know least about life.</p>
+
+<p>Now for the fan:</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>Fan Flirtations</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot center">
+
+<p>Drawing across the forehead—We are watched.</p>
+
+<p>Fanning fast—I am engaged.</p>
+
+<p>Open and shut—You are cruel.</p>
+
+<p>Dropping—We will be friends.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">It fills space in the books, but don’t try to follow
+it, unless you wish to get the most unpleasant
+surprise of your career.</p>
+
+<p>We learn that a girl who drops both gloves
+means thereby “I love you”; that the right
+hand with the naked thumb exposed means
+“Kiss me,” and so interminably on. So anything
+done with the handkerchief is supposed
+to mean some tender message. There are 21
+tender messages conveyed with napkin, knife,
+fork, spoon, and cup; there are 40 tender signals
+conveyed by finger signals through a window,
+perhaps the dumbest being:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Closing hand to the eye, <i lang="fr">a la</i> telescope—I would
+see you.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Or take the elaborate language of flowers. If
+a man sends a girl white roses, quite a possible
+gift if they are the most attractive things in
+the florist’s shop, his message, also is, “I am
+too young to marry yet”! If he presents her
+with tansy, one of the loveliest of the daisy
+family, his message is “I declare war against<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>
+you.” The books omit a few of the more useful
+flowers and vegetables, so we add them here
+as a supplement, urging that they be tried out
+at least. Send your girl one of the following
+(or send it to your man), with the meaning
+indicated:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Chrysanthemum</i>—I prefer Norma Talmadge to
+kissing at Coney Island.</p>
+
+<p><i>Cauliflower</i>—My sister is married to a retired
+butcher with a cork leg.</p>
+
+<p><i>Onion</i>—You will weep if you don’t marry me.</p>
+
+<p><i>Japanese Persimmon</i>—Kiss me, my lips are ripe.</p>
+
+<p><i>Apple</i>—I’ll be your Eve, if you care, Adam.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wild Leek</i>—Please ’phone the plumber for mother.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Having carefully memorized this list, proceed
+to forget it, and go ahead and woo naturally
+without it.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="JUDGING_MEN"><i>Judging Men.</i></span>—In general, men have a fairly
+easy time in judging the girls they go with.
+For, common opinion to the contrary notwithstanding,
+a man is more secretive and shrewder
+in hiding his faults than a woman. A girl who
+is sparing in her use of paint and cosmetics
+ordinarily is sensible and fit to be a mate. A
+girl who over-rouges and over-paints is one of
+two things: either typically “fast” or an imitator
+of her favorite movie heroine. Either may
+make a good mate. In either case, the progress
+of the wooing will soon teach the man whether
+the girl has any conception of happy mating,
+or is only a parasite who wants to be decked
+in fine feathers and princessed through life,
+with the man paying the bills.</p>
+
+<p>When a girl comes to judge a man, her task
+is harder. The man who is liked by other men
+is, in most cases, to be preferred to the man<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>
+who is despised by men, and adored by vapid
+women. There is a class of women who are
+mere men-hunters, ranging from the out-and-out
+gold-digger, who sells her charms as shrewdly
+as she can for outright gifts amounting to support—and
+who may remain, in the eyes of society,
+a “good girl” in spite of it—to the girl
+who protests vehemently that she despises the
+gold-digger, yet spends all her energies in securing
+men to take her to dinner and the theater,
+and to give her gifts sufficient for her
+support, or at least sufficient to give her the
+luxuries she would not otherwise get. These
+parasitic or sponging women are to be avoided,
+except by the man who wants them frankly, being
+willing to pay the price for the temporary
+stimulus of their company.</p>
+
+<p>There is a far larger class of men who prey
+on women. These men are the vestiges of the
+social system that is already dying—the system
+of the double standard of morals for men and
+women, by which a man was allowed to sow
+as extensive a crop of wild oats as he could,
+with social sanction; and by which the woman
+who strayed a trifle from the narrow path of
+rectitude was thereafter regarded as a “fallen
+woman,” and any man’s legitimate prey. To
+such men, women are the goal of man’s predatory
+instincts. It was a man’s imperative to
+seek out innocent girls, and seduce as many
+of them as possible, taking no thought for their
+welfare, and caring only to shield himself. The
+girl who resisted the seductions (and she was
+equipped for resistance only with an intense
+and abiding ignorance of all things concerning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>
+sex life) was qualified to be a man’s wife; the
+other, the girl who was deceived by glib promises
+and a suave exterior into a surrender of
+her body, and the girl who was willing to experiment
+with love, were henceforth regarded
+as fallen women, and were disqualified as permanent
+mates. Such men exist today: the general
+class of traveling salesman, not quite fairly,
+is taken as an example of such men of prey.
+Needless to say, the girl’s task is to ascertain at
+once if her would-be suitor belongs to this class.
+If he does, she must decide whether or not she
+wishes to play with such unworthy fire. It is
+a safe gamble that, if she gets him to the point
+of marrying, with any intention of reforming
+him, she will fail in the last undertaking by a
+tremendous margin. If she wants the experience
+of being seduced, she may go ahead and
+undergo it, for the man will be found willing.
+And modern standards of judgment hold that
+the girl who has sowed her wild oats is no more
+“fallen” than the man who has sowed his wild
+oats. Society is only slowly accepting this point
+of view; but as more and more women become
+wage-earners, as managers and owners of businesses,
+as office workers and store workers,
+they are reaching the point where they can buy
+their will of the world, and insist that their
+wild oats be judged no more harshly than a
+man’s. The girl supported by others, as the
+girl living at home, cannot afford to run such
+risks. Furthermore, even the working girl has
+to face blackmail from the seducer, the possible
+loss of her job, and the unpleasantnesses and
+expense of bearing an illegitimate child. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>
+if she understands matters of sex, and desires
+to go ahead, that is her business.</p>
+
+<p>The more normal girl will regard such a man
+as the vestigial anachronism that he is, and
+will promptly give him his walking papers. She
+will confine her acceptance of courtship, and
+her wooing itself, to a man with more intelligence
+and a more modern outlook upon life.</p>
+
+<p>Should a girl woo, when she is convinced that
+the man is worthy to be her mate? There is
+no reason in the world why she should not.
+Her object is to make herself attractive to the
+man: and this usually involves preserving a
+certain amount of dignity. Thus her wooing
+should, as a rule, be less obtrusive and more
+subtle than a man’s. But, once having decided
+that she desires a man for a mate, she should
+use every method of proving herself his invaluable
+companion—a campaign that the man
+should use in a similar situation. A little tactful
+questioning on her part will soon discover
+where the man’s ideals lie. If he really wants
+a home-maker, and she is willing to give this
+rather subservient role a trial, she can emphasize
+her domestic capabilities, cook him tasty
+dishes if there is an opportunity, embroider his
+handkerchiefs, and otherwise show that she fits
+into the role of his desired mate. If he wants
+an intellectual companion primarily, she can
+indicate that she qualifies in this respect.</p>
+
+<p>In general, there is a prejudice against a
+woman’s taking the aggressive in the actual
+wooing, and the final proposing. This prejudice
+is dissolving. Wooing and mating should
+be matters of mutual choice: and if, for instance,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>
+the man is the more backward and bashful
+of the two, it is the duty of the girl to aid
+him over the difficult spot, even to the extent
+of doing the proposing. Just so she preserves
+the role of being pleasing and attractive, there
+is no limit to what she may ethically do.</p>
+
+<p>This altering standard carries with it a
+change in the man’s attitude. There was once
+a so-called chivalrous attitude, which would prevent
+a man’s refusing a woman, in such a situation.
+Now such chivalry is based upon a false
+assumption, and tends to produce lifelong unhappiness,
+rather than happiness. After the
+preliminaries have been finished, the course of
+the courtship and the mating should be marked
+by as high a degree of honesty and sincerity
+as is possible. Insincere chivalry is a wrecker
+of happiness. If the man does not want to
+marry the girl, it is his duty to say so, just
+as sincerely as a girl would refuse, if the roles
+were reversed. He will, of course, phrase his
+rejection finally, but at the same time so tactfully
+that the girl will not feel insulted. In
+such cases, a good way is to refuse on the
+ground that the man regards himself as unworthy: a
+courteous insincerity which both will
+understand, if the man makes it clear that his
+decision upon this ground is final.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="NICE_GIRL_OR_HUMAN_BEING"><i>“Nice” Girl or Human Being?</i></span>—The old-fashioned
+training of girls developed them into
+“nice” girls, with Victorian prejudices, ignorant
+of everything essential to life. The pendulum
+has swung to the other extreme: the modern
+generation of petters and neckers, who have
+the forefront of today’s picture, are the very<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>
+reverse of this. There are still enough girls
+today, who have much of the old so-called “niceness,”
+and hardly tend at all to the petting type.
+Many of them retain this finicky and meticulous
+niceness, because they are assured, by
+their dumb elders, that this makes them more
+attractive in the eyes of men.</p>
+
+<p>It does not. Unless you desire your man to
+continue to divide womankind into two classes—“nice”
+women like his wife, to whom he may
+not tell a clever risque story, whom he will love
+physically only in a “nice way”; and the other
+type of women, to whom he probably will turn
+sooner or later, and thereafter increasingly, for
+the solid human comfort of utter physical mating—unless
+you wish your husband to share
+his physical love with less worthy and more
+human women, you had best get over your
+“niceness” as soon as possible, and graduate
+into the class of human beings.</p>
+
+<p>Here is a typical problem. A young friend of
+mine was tremendously intrigued by an attractive
+young girl. He told her censored versions
+of some of his favorite stories, such as
+the story of the negro preacher who announced
+to his congregation: “Breddren an’ sistren, I
+aim to take my text, dis mawnin’, from de text
+‘De widder’s mite.’” As he paused impressively,
+a deacon in the front row rose. “Brudder, dere’s
+only one thing wrong wid dat text: Dey do!”
+This is a delightfully clever story, with a subtle
+and inoffensive double meaning. The girl put
+on her “nicest” expression, and said, with finicky
+distaste in her face, “How revolting!”</p>
+
+<p>When she had made the same response to all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>
+efforts on his part to interest her in matters
+which men regard as almost too mild for a
+laugh, and which other girls of his acquaintance
+were highly amused at, he came to the wise
+conclusion that this was not the girl for him.
+He had no intention of being saddled for life
+with a girl whose attitude was “How revolting!”
+He ceased to pay attentions to her, and
+soon found a much more admirable girl, with
+whom he is at present happily married. The
+“How revolting!” girl still thinks that her conduct
+was right; that the man has lowered himself;
+and will continue to delude herself so until
+she wastes into a vinegary old-maidhood.</p>
+
+<p>If a girl has had a normal rearing, she will
+not make the mistake of thinking that the Puritans
+were right: that bodies end at the neck
+and at the shoe-tops, with nothing between, and
+that ordinary human matters, especially those
+touching the tabooed facts of life, are never to
+be mentioned intimately between men and
+women. No matter what the taboo before mating,
+after mating the happy lovers speak with
+utter frankness to each other. A certain
+amount of coarseness, in its place, is a splendid
+release for energy that would otherwise fester
+and warp, and lead the lovers to seek satisfaction
+outside of the mating relationship. And,
+since this will come after mating in well-mated
+couples, even before the mating an increasing
+frankness will mark the intercourse of an intelligent
+young man and young woman.</p>
+
+<p>There is one other thing to be remembered
+by the girl, both as wooer and as wooed. Courtship<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>
+is an education in the opposite sex, and
+in love: and this education should not be superficial.
+It is a common statement of doctors that
+engaged people as a rule know each other physically
+before the marriage. I will take this up
+in the next chapter.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="V">V<br>
+<br>
+CONDUCT DURING THE ENGAGEMENT</h2></div>
+
+
+
+<p><span id="CONDUCT_IN_PUBLIC"><i>Conduct in Public.</i></span>—An engagement is a
+pledge, mutually given by two people, that
+their courtship is to terminate in mating or
+marriage. This is both a private and a public
+matter. Personal reasons may make it necessary
+to keep this secret, at least for a time.
+It is preferable, from many standpoints, that
+it be announced as soon as possible. Intimate
+friends, at least, should be let in on the secret.
+Whenever possible, it should be made public.
+For it affects other people, and their conduct
+toward the engaged couple, as well as the two
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>An engagement, luckily for men and women,
+is not irrevocable: I will take up the breaking
+of engagements later. But it should not be
+entered upon too casually. This is especially
+true when, for instance, two men woo one girl.
+If one man persuades her to decide in his favor
+and against the other man, he should weigh
+more carefully than usual his proposal. For, if
+he gets her to surrender something tangible—the
+courtship of the other man—for his own
+courtship, it is less fair to her thereafter to
+break the engagement. She has actually surrendered
+something; it may be impossible for
+her subsequently to accept the attentions of
+the other man, who will not renew an offer
+once rejected. A breakage in such cases should
+only be urged by the man, when the happiness
+of both clearly demands it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p>
+
+<p>The matter of an engagement ring comes up,
+as the conventional way of announcing to the
+world that the girl is engaged. There is a decided
+feeling today against wedding rings,
+originating as symbols of servitude; and this
+extends, among some girls, to a dislike of engagement
+rings as well. For all their jeweled
+state, they represent a subjection, a surrender
+of freedom to the other party. The sting of
+the subjection is lessened, if both man and
+woman wear wedding rings, and both wear engagement
+rings. Yet there are men who are
+not willing to wear rings: and, if the girl objects,
+it may be better for neither to wear
+them. As to choice of ring, the girl is wisest
+who makes sure that the young man does not
+exceed his legitimate income for spending,
+in purchasing her a ring. The object should
+not be to secure a ring slightly larger than
+any worn by her girl friends; it should be to
+wear an attractive token of an inner affection.
+There is no sense in going into love blindly,
+even at this stage: it is the girl’s duty to find
+out what her <ins class="corr" id="tn-48" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: fiancée’s">fiancé’s</ins> financial prospects are,
+and for him to find out hers. Since they propose
+to share financial life together, there is
+no sense in even starting this blindly.</p>
+
+<p>As to the ring, it is true that it symbolizes
+a loss of freedom. But it is also true that this
+loss of freedom is an actual thing. Parties to
+an engagement must of necessity surrender
+much, when they decide to proceed with a
+courtship into a mating or marriage. Before
+the proposal is given and accepted, the man
+and the girl as well have the whole world of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>
+women and men to choose from: the proposal
+and its acceptance definitely mark a surrender
+of all the other possibilities, in favor of this
+one. When you scan a menu of desserts, you
+can <ins class="corr" id="tn-49" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: elect">select</ins> pie, ice cream, pudding, or many
+another choice. The choice of one, as a rule,
+must mean the surrender of the right to choose
+any of the others. This is, as a rule, as true
+of lovers as it is of desserts. Since, then, the
+loss of freedom is actual, there is no great
+extrinsic objection to the custom of the wearing
+of rings by both.</p>
+
+<p>The compensations for the loss of freedom
+should overbalance the surrender. A man
+cannot forever balance in his mind the rival
+possibilities of settling in Florida, California,
+Chicago, New York, or some village: he must
+sooner or later make up his mind, choose one,
+and do his best to make his life a success
+there. It is so with love. The engaged couple
+have given up the rest of the world as potential
+mates: and they step at once, and increasingly,
+into the pleasure-garden of mated human
+love. A mere choice of all the women in the
+world is not to be compared with the actual
+embrace of the one among these that you
+desire. Only the man or woman with an insatiable
+physical wanderlust will prefer the wandering
+to the arrival at the goal of love.</p>
+
+<p>Mating does not mean slavery to the other
+party: it means, as a rule, exclusive physical
+love with one person, but constant human
+intercourse with many more. There is not even
+the slightest ethical offense in a girl’s acceptance
+of attentions from other men, which stop<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>
+short of the erotic. She can go to dances,
+plays, meals, with them; and a man can do
+the same with other girls. Life after mating
+will be monotonous enough, in most cases: if
+the engaged couple dance exclusively with
+each other, the monotony may commence so
+soon that it will frighten the pair off from
+ultimate marriage. As a rule, other people
+incline to leave an engaged couple alone anyhow:
+it will be up to the man and girl to encourage
+reasonable attentions from others.</p>
+
+<p>This is theoretically sound: but the element
+of human jealousy must be taken into account.
+If either of the parties is excessively jealous,
+since the lover’s desire is to remain attractive
+in the eyes of the other lover, there must be
+some compromise. Jealousy partakes of the
+nature of a malignant disease: rooted in a
+normal desire to possess the loved one, it may
+degenerate into an insanity that wrecks all
+happiness. If the jealousy of the other party
+is increasingly extreme, our advice is to end
+the relationship. If the decision is to continue
+it, compromises will have to come in: and the
+girl or man will retain the right to go with
+other people, only to the extent that the jealous
+one can be persuaded to permit. This
+calls for all the tact and sympathy in the
+world.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="IN_PRIVATE"><i>In Private.</i></span>—The conduct of engaged people
+in private must keep in mind the purpose of
+the engagement. This is the great testing
+period of compatibility and mutual adaptability.
+If both parties are not adaptable, a heavier
+burden is laid upon the one who is. If the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>
+burden of adjusting oneself to the whims, caprices,
+and crotchets of the other is too great,
+there is still the chance to terminate the engagement.
+And, if neither party is adaptable,
+there seems no other happy way out of the
+situation.</p>
+
+<p>The chief problem confronting the engaged
+girl is to what extent she will experiment
+physically with love. As stated, many doctors
+say that most engaged couples, before marriage,
+have experienced love fully. This is not
+an indictment, but a statement of a fact. There
+are strong arguments in its favor. If a man
+and woman are not physically pleasing to one
+another, the happiness of the marriage is
+doomed from the start. If, for instance, one
+of the mates is sexually frigid, and one passionate,
+it is almost impossible for them to
+satisfy each other: and the constant temptation
+will be present to try to find satisfaction
+outside of the mating relationship, a temptation
+that is often yielded to, at times to the
+wreckage of the relationship. There is no
+way for people to know the physical nature of
+the other, without physical experimentation.</p>
+
+<p>The danger in the procedure is that the man
+may turn out to be a predatory male, who
+becomes engaged to girl after girl for the mere
+pleasure of temporary enjoyment of her. This
+is a danger that the girl must run; and, if she
+has made it her task to study the man’s nature
+carefully, she should know by now
+whether or not her intended mate is to be
+trusted. There are many women who believe
+that, if a man is once given the ultimate favor,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>
+he at once regards the girl as cheapened in
+his eyes. The <ins class="corr" id="tn-52" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: concensus">consensus</ins> of intelligent opinion
+seems to be to the very other extreme: that
+that many a girl has wrecked her chances for
+happiness, by refusing to grant the ultimate
+favor. Only an abnormal man will habitually
+regard a woman who yields to him as cheapened.
+As the time for the final mating draws
+near, and the mutual desires rise toward their
+crest, he may regard it as utterly unreasonable
+for the girl to withhold longer. The man is
+usually the aggressor in such cases; and, if the
+woman is the aggressor, she will have the same
+opinion of the man.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, since there are risks on both sides of the
+matter, it remains a subject on which the wise
+will give no advice, but will leave it to the
+two concerned to work out their solution as
+wisely as they can, with the facts spread out
+before them.</p>
+
+<p>It is a matter concerning the private relations
+of the engaged couple, when the attentions
+of outsiders pass the stage of the non-erotic,
+and approach the erotic. Whether a man
+should be engaged to two or more girls, and a
+woman to two or more men, at the same time,
+affects the parties concerned too intimately to
+be regarded as a matter of outsiders. Theoretically,
+there is much to be said on both sides.
+A real engagement—a definite pledge to marry—cannot
+coexist with an engagement to an
+outsider. The laws do not permit polygamy in
+this country. Yet what are we to say of a
+provisional engagement, where the parties
+merely assure each other that they think they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>
+will marry each other, yet at the same time offer
+themselves to the world as engaged? If
+such is the agreement, there is less objection
+to concurrent engagements. From the standpoint
+of education in sex, there is something
+to be said for the idea. Common sense would
+favor it, yet human nature runs counter to
+common sense too often to let us stop here. It
+is better, perhaps, to let the concurrent courtships
+take place before the formal engagement;
+and then let the choice, for the time being at
+least, be an exclusive choice. If either party
+is attracted outside, to the extent of believing
+that more happiness lies in the love of another,
+the engagement may be broken, and the other
+relationship commenced and tested.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="TERMINATION_OF_ENGAGEMENTS"><i>Termination of Engagements.</i></span>—Should an engagement
+be short, or long? What is the proper
+length, for the happiness of the parties involved?</p>
+
+<p>We have scriptural authority for the engagement
+lasting fourteen years: the story of
+Jacob can be stretched into this interpretation.
+Jacob, who loved Rachel, agreed with her father
+to serve seven years for her. Frankly, we have
+yet to meet the woman who is worth such a
+sacrifice; and, in this case, at the end of the
+seven years Jacob, tricked by his prospective
+father-in-law, found himself married to the
+elder sister Leah, instead of to his <ins class="corr" id="tn-53" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: beloved">beloved.</ins> Accordingly,
+he put in another seven years serving
+for Rachel, and, fourteen years after his
+engagement started, was wed to her.</p>
+
+<p>Especially in old-fashioned country districts,
+long engagements are often known, and laughed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>
+at. There is the story of the countryman who
+courted a schoolmate for years—until, in fact,
+both had drifted from youth toward the end of
+middle age.</p>
+
+<p>“Why don’t you marry Sarah?” he was asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Marry her!” in surprise and dismay. “Why,
+if I got married, where in tarnation could I
+go to spend my evenings?”</p>
+
+<p>Long engagements are not wise. If the
+two are separated by distance—if, for instance,
+the young man goes to the city to make his
+financial way, so that marriage is possible—there
+is strong chance that either he or she will
+find a more suitable mate. In such cases, if
+the original engagement is carried out, happiness
+is almost inevitable; and the breaking of
+the engagement may bring unhappiness to at
+least one of the parties concerned. If the girl
+and man remain in the same city, they gradually
+grow old, apart from each other. Their
+little tricks and idiosyncrasies, which living together
+could have smoothed out, become permanent—hardened
+into unbendable things.
+They come to regard each other as matters of
+course, without the exquisite physical thrill
+which love should mean. They have, in brief,
+all of the discomfort and monotony of marriage
+without any of its joys.</p>
+
+<p>Too brief engagements are at times more
+dangerous. This is especially true where the
+man and girl have not known each other before.
+If they have been raised side by side,
+there is small danger of being mated to a person
+who will turn out, on closer acquaintance,
+to be everything unworthy. The wisest thing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>
+is to let the engagement last a month or longer,
+and then, if the mating is desired, take the
+plunge even on a moderate income, than risk
+the danger of letting the engagement become
+a tedious habit.</p>
+
+<p>The normal termination of an engagement
+is marriage. Any book of etiquette will tell
+you the formal ways to accept the mad gamble
+of marriage, with all of the frills of such
+service, receptions, honeymoons, and the like.
+The honeymoon, it may be pointed out, or the
+period in which the deluded man and woman
+try to live on love alone, is one of the most
+cruel inventions ever made by man. Its almost
+invariable result (unless it be merely a brief
+trip, or a trip which the parties desired to take
+anyhow) is to send them back to the city
+thoroughly bored and disgusted with each
+other, and avid to interest themselves, perhaps
+unduly, in parties outside the mated relationship.
+For those who do not like the antique
+pomp of the marriage in church, there is always
+the simpler ceremony of being married by a
+justice of the peace, mayor, or alderman.</p>
+
+<p>And there is, luckily for men and women,
+another termination possible, and that is to
+break the engagement. This should not be
+done without grave reason—but far more frequently
+than the actual breakings of engagements,
+such a reason exists. The problem simply
+is, which is better: to act wisely and
+terminate an unwise mating, which would result
+in unhappiness, at the cost of some slight
+temporary unhappiness; or to enter upon a life-time
+of unhappiness, or at best a long stretch<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>
+of it, breakable only by the costly and elaborate
+method of separation or divorce, which may require
+the assumption by one party or the other
+of a guilt not actually earned. Where the case
+is so clear, there should be no hesitation: the
+engagement should be terminated, the man
+accepting the blame out of a chivalrous insincerity
+socially understood, and the parties
+parting, if possible, as friends. If the matter is
+still uncertain, better a postponement than a
+marriage, which may be repented soon enough.
+Only a mating which will bring increasing happiness
+is wise, for that is the object of life,
+and of its playtime, courtship.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI"><ins class="corr" id="tn-57" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: VI.">VI</ins><br>
+<br>
+FAMOUS COURTSHIPS</h2></div>
+
+
+
+<p><span id="COURTING_BY_POETRY"><i>Courting by Poetry.</i></span>—One of the invariable
+effects of the love emotion is to inspire, in the
+amorous breast, the delusion that the man or
+woman who is in love can write poetry. Most
+people can feel poetry, but writing it is another
+story. Yet, whenever any celebrated case
+of breach of promise comes up, we have the
+poetic effusions of him and her published in
+the papers, for the delectation of the multitude.
+There is good propaganda in courting the lady
+of your heart, or in replying to the man of
+your heart, in the words of Shelley or some
+other great lover—but your own words may
+not be as efficacious. Countless poetic first
+volumes (and later ones, too), however, are
+filled up with the overflow at wooing time, and
+occasionally such books are books which the
+world would not willingly spare.</p>
+
+<p>A favorite record of courtship by rhyme is
+<cite>Lilies of the Valley</cite>, by Percival W. Wells, of
+Wantagh, New York. Could any woman resist
+strains like this:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Life’s just begun! the flowing tide</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Of love has stirred it into motion.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Farewell to bachelorhood’s calm pride,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And welcome, love’s intense emotion!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Faulty as the rhyme may be, the sentiment is
+flawless. Again,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Put thy hand in mine, and kiss me tenderly,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Beautiful Lilian, fashioned so slenderly;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Place a kiss upon my lips with thy dear lips so soft,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And do not stop with one, but kiss me oft.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p>
+<p class="noindent">How magically the “soft” evokes its rhyming
+mate, “oft.” “Soft,” which at times is applied
+to brains, here refers to the lips. But for the
+magic of rhyme, could we have had the picture
+of “Lilian” in the last two words of this
+masterly confession?</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">I love thee, O I love thee, Lily; stay</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Beside thy Percival and with sweet kisses say</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That thou wilt always love him. Dearer than day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Art thou to me, O Lily—wanton fay!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Yet a poet out of the Village Milton class,
+say Shakespeare, might be a safer guide in
+your own Muse flights. Shakespeare’s plays
+are saturated with gorgeous examples of courtship.
+Othello’s magical wooing of Desdemona
+is one type. Here the simple warrior and conqueror
+used no method but the plain unadorned
+story of his deeds of daring. The maiden’s
+heart capitulated to his indirect siege at the
+first attack. A different love is Romeo’s,
+saturated with poetry:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Alack, there lies more peril in <ins class="corr" id="tn-58a" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: this">thine</ins> eye</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Than twenty of their swords; look thou but sweet,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And I am proof against their <ins class="corr" id="tn-58b" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: enmity. .">enmity....</ins></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Then there is the caveman-wooing of Catherine
+the shrew by Petruchio the roistering gallant—the
+most amusing courtship in Shakespeare,
+with the possible exception of his bluff English
+king, who knows no French, and his wooing
+of the spirited French princess, who knows
+no English. But love speaks a language of its
+own and even this bar did not keep the royal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>
+lovers from understanding each other. There
+is the simple, childlike wooing of Ferdinand
+and Miranda in <cite>The Tempest</cite>, and there is the
+passionate wooing—by the woman this time—of
+Adonis by Venus:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Vouchsafe, thou, wonder, to alight thy steed,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">If thou wilt deign this favor, for thy meed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And being set, I’ll smother thee with kisses.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Art thou ashamed to kiss! Then wink again,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And I will wink; so shall the day seem night;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Love keeps his revels where there are but twain;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">These blue-vein’d violets whereon we lean</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Never can blab, nor know not what we mean....”</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">With blindfold fury she begins to forage;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Planting oblivion, beating reason back,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Forgetting <ins class="corr" id="tn-59" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: shames’">shame’s</ins> pure blush and honor’s wrack.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Timid maids and men may well be reassured
+by this tempest of passion on the part of love’s
+queen, and by the whole gallery of Shakespeare’s
+great lovers.</p>
+
+
+<p><span id="GREAT_LOVERS"><i>Great Lovers.</i></span>—The world has its long roll of
+great lovers, whose names are sweet on the
+tongues of the generations that come after
+them. The Bible, in the <cite>Song of Solomon</cite>, has
+one of the greatest series of love lyrics in all
+literature. David loved his Bath-Sheba as a
+king loves; and Solomon was at least efficient,
+with his seven hundred wives, princesses, and
+three hundred concubines. Helen of Sparta
+eloped with Paris of Troy, and lighted the conflagration<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>
+that burned the topless towers of
+Troy to the ground, and embroiled the world
+in the Trojan War and inspired the first two
+Greek epics. Dante saw the girl Beatrice passing
+him on the street and as a result, he worshipped
+her thereafter from a distance, and
+lifted her in imagination, in his <cite>Divine Comedy</cite>,
+to the high throne of heaven. Don Juan
+was the great predatory lover, putting on a new
+love as easily as he slipped on a new garment.
+Bluebeard (or Gilles de Rais) was the bloodthirsty
+lover; Cleopatra was the world’s queen,
+with Pompey, Caesar, and Antony successively
+at her feet. In more modern times, Casanova
+was the gentlest great lover of all time, with
+a roll of loves as long as Solomon’s, and far
+more varied. Great secular popes, like Alexander
+VI, the Borgia, were great in love; many
+of the Roman emperors were chiefly distinguished
+in the lists of Cupid. Caesar himself
+was nicknamed “the husband of all
+women.” Such men and women have made the
+history of love. Read their love stories, as aids
+in your own suits.</p>
+
+<p>Among the poets, we have had many great
+lovers. Shelley spent his life in a high idealistic
+pursuit of the ideal woman, pouring out
+his deathless lyrics to some Harriet or Mary or
+Jane or Emilia who captured his fancy for the
+moment. Byron loved all over Europe, Keats
+burned out his young life in a wild adoration
+of Fanny Brawne, as in this sonnet:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">I cry you mercy—pity—love!—ay, love!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Merciful love that tantalizes not,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Unmask’d, and being seen—without a blot!</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>
+    <div class="verse indent0">O! let me have thee whole,—all—all—be mine!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Of love, your kiss,—those hands, those eyes divine,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Yourself—your soul—in pity give me all,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Withhold no atom’s atom or I die,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Or living on, perhaps, your wretched thrall,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Forget, in the midst of idle misery,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Life’s purposes,—the palate of my mind</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Burns was a magnificent voice of love, who enriched
+man with many of his choicest love-songs.
+Poe not only was a great lover, but
+used the same poems successively with a number
+of desired women. Edna St. Vincent Millay,
+among modern poets, has a charming
+cleverness in her <ins class="corr" id="tn-61" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: love song">love-songs</ins>; and, indeed, modern
+poetry is full of excellent love material.
+One of the most effective modern love sonnets
+is the dramatic <cite>Pirate Song</cite>, from “Leaf Buds
+Turning Rose,” by the author of <cite>The Eagle
+Sonnets</cite>:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ahoy, there, you slim craft with the virgin ensign!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Heave to—we are boarding! You’re a fancy prey</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To tread the slippery plank, or do your dancing</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">On air, over the wind-bedevilled spray.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Low in the water—you’ll be rotten with treasure!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Ay, there’ll be hot blood foulin’ your clean decks</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">When we shall tread you in our lordly pleasure</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Then scuttle you with all the plundered wrecks.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Yet you’re a rakish craft.... How would you like it</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">To make one more of the buccaneering tell,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To raise the Jolly Roger, and not strike it</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In the face of all the punishing fleets of hell?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">By God, we’ll take you, then! Fair or foul weather,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Two of the black gentry, off together!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>An amusing love story in rhyme is <cite>The Lang
+Coortin’</cite>, by Lewis Carroll, best known for <cite>Alice<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>
+in Wonderland</cite>. The lover for years wooed the
+lady, saying no word of his love. She used his
+gold rings as a chain for her doggie; stuffed
+the dog’s pillow with his repeated locks of hair;
+and when he sent love letters from a far country,
+with the postage still due on them, she had
+the postman take them all away. For thirty
+years he had kept up this courtship: and now
+at last he has come to propose. But the lady
+tells him, that, since he has lived so satisfactorily
+for thirty years, he can wait a bit
+longer yet. He repents, as he leaves her:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“O, if I find another lady,”</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">He said with sighs and tears,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">“I am sure my courtin’ shall not be</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Another thirty years;</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“For if I find a lady gay</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Exactly to my taste,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">I’ll pop the question, aye or nay,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">In twenty years, at most!”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">There is a real lesson for lovers here. Do not
+postpone your proposal until your grandchildren
+are old enough to laugh at your tardiness.</p>
+
+<p>The first lovers were Adam and Eve, according
+to the Genesis story; and Milton, in his
+largely unread <cite>Paradise Lost</cite>, has told their
+love in resounding lines. The most recent
+lovers assumably include you who are reading
+this book. Love is an art, as courtship and
+wooing is an art: and your task is to perfect
+yourself in the art. You should make your
+wooing serve the double function of winning
+the mate you desire at the moment, and at the
+same time serve as an education to you in
+the loved one, and the opposite sex in general.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>
+Both the educational function, and the task of
+winning the desired one, call for your highest
+abilities: and these abilities will be sharpened
+and increased by a knowledge of man’s lore
+upon love, and the ups and downs of the great
+lovers of the past. So saturate yourself, during
+the loving period, with the literature of love:
+read carefully the love stories of the world’s
+great lovers, and constantly increase your technique
+as wooer, in the beginning of the courtship,
+in the actual engagement, and in the most
+perilous of all periods—that period after the
+marriage has commenced.</p>
+
+<p>There is a third purpose, which hardly needs
+mention, and that is, the pleasure that you
+yourself have in wooing. Pleasure consists in
+the satisfying of an appetite—not in the satisfaction
+of it; when the appetite is satisfied,
+your feeling becomes negative. The chase is
+the fun; the gaining of the goal is a mere sense
+of accomplishment, far below the joy of the
+running. Man has not only the appetite to enjoy
+love, but the added appetite for the chase:
+and woman, daughter of man, has this delight
+too, and an implanted pleasure in her part of
+the wooing. Her part is, in general, more passive
+than man’s: she gets her thrill from seeing
+the male or males cavorting before her, in the
+endeavor to gain her approval. Yet, at times,
+when the worthy male is backward or bashful,
+or young and inexperienced, she will assume
+the aggressive, and be a very Venus in action.
+As a matter of fact, no matter who does the
+actual wooing and proposing, it is today, largely,
+woman who rules the field. How else explain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>
+her elaborate and seductive dressing, to
+win man’s approval? Her concealment of this,
+and display of that charm, her alluring perfume,
+her flattering pretense that the man is
+the wisest being in the universe, her continuing
+attentions to him in a thousand subtle little
+ways? These collectively weave a net which
+even the wariest male fish may not often
+escape. Go to your wooing, men, with all the
+courage you can: it is hardly the time to reflect
+that you are being summoned to the
+slaughter, as the spider nets her prey, as the
+spider nets her mate. It is pleasant to be a
+victim of love: and some men found it a pleasure
+to be such a victim constantly.</p>
+
+<p>And when you have made yourself an artist
+in wooing, both in theory and practice, do not
+be stingy with your lore, but pass it on to other
+men and women, who lack it. For only the
+great in love are great in life, and great in joy.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<p><strong>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</strong></p>
+<p><a href="#tn-6">Page 6</a>: “and the male surivives” changed to “and the male survives”.</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-20">Page 20</a>: “when the left the office,” changed to “when he left the office,”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-26a">Page 26</a>: “how other people regared” changed to “how other people regard”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-26b">Page 26</a>: “have always hear dmade” changed to “have always heard made”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-30">Page 30</a>: “in mens’ eyes:” changed to “in men’s eyes:”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-31">Page 31</a>: “box of chewy chololates” changed to “box of chewy chocolates”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-32">Page 32</a>: “or a permanent one:” changed to “or a permanent one—”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-33">Page 33</a>: “wholly unattractive:” changed to “wholly unattractive,”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-35">Page 35</a>: “ask time to consider” changed to “ask for time to consider”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-37">Page 37</a>: “Fancy Flitations.” changed to “Fancy Flirtations.”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-37b">Page 37</a>: “space alloted to” changed to “space allotted to”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-48">Page 48</a>: “out what her fiancée’s” changed to “out what her fiancé’s”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-49">Page 49</a>: “can elect pie” changed to “can select pie”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-52">Page 52</a>: “The concensus of intelligent” changed to “The consensus of intelligent”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-53">Page 53</a>: “of to his beloved” changed to “of to his beloved.”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-57">Page 57</a>: “VI. FAMOUS COURTSHIPS” changed to “VI FAMOUS COURTSHIPS”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-58a">Page 58</a>: “peril in this eye” changed to “peril in thine eye”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-58b">Page 58</a>: “against their enmity. .” changed to “against their enmity....”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-59">Page 59</a>: “Forgetting shames’ pure” changed to “Forgetting shame’s pure”</p>
+<p><a href="#tn-61">Page 61</a>: “cleverness in her love songs” changed to “cleverness in her love-songs”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76976 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for book #76976
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76976)