Tête à Tête, â la Femme

Introduction

In a periodical filled with radical ideas and an uncompromising desire to make it new, the story “Tète à Tète, à la Femme” would be easy to overlook. It is relatively short piece found near the back of the magazine. The story itself is simple--just two friends talking about marriage, but within the context of Beatrice Hastings’ life and the era it was written, it begins to develop intricate layers of meaning.

The literary critic Stephen Gray points out that Beatrice Hastings had the unique opportunity to experience both the late Victorian and early Modern era. She had been raised in a very traditional environment, but throws herself into an affair with both The New Age, where she published, and its Editor and Chief, Alfred Orage. The results, argues Gray, were unique tensions that were created between the new and old way that are apparent in her various publications.

“Tète à Tète, à la Femme” is not an exception; it perfectly embodies the clashing of the two worlds. Beatrice shares a name with her main character, who uses words such as “drooping,” “withered,” and “monotonous” to describe the setting. The stagnation that she experiences at the beginning of the story translates into the conversation surrounding the merits of free over legal marriage. Beatrice, an “advanced” woman, agrees with free marriage--“not [marrying] at all"--in theory, but argues that her friend Marjorie take the more traditional route. She is a character trapped between a desire to see an improvement in society, but unwilling to make “martyrs” of others. It is important to note that the author herself had no problem in entering free marriages and never entered into a legal marriage. Consequently, this character should not necessarily be seen as a biographical version of herself. Rather, it is probably more suitable that Beatrice the character reflects the conflict that many women may have found themselves facing as they have admired the radical ideas finding their way into the mainstream, yet were unafraid to leave the security of tradition.

The result is a sense of stagnation. The final realization that marriage would be legalized, regardless of how it began, is a source of frustration. This is a story of a woman with a choice, and to conclude that there was not much of a choice to begin with is heartbreaking. This sensation is not uncommon for the time. Writers such as James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, and other famous writers used a compelling feeling of paralysis. While perhaps not as strong an example as in their writings, for an audience of radical readers, Marjorie’s laughter at the conclusion of the conversation is haunting.

In the end, the episode explores the uncomfortable realm of indecision between principle and reality. It is a conflict of values that Beatrice Hastings and her contemporaries were familiar with and explored, knowing that it would never fully go away.

 

***Beatrice Hastings published this story under the pen name "Beatrice Tina."

 

Transcription

I felt a disinclination to gossip with Marjorie; but she persisted.

The field we sat in was baldly a slope; the grass was cow-trodden and brown; the clover was hanging its married petals all drooping and withered. Only a pert bird clung on to the fence, and sang as though summer were not nearly gone. I looked over the monotonous meadows, so lately spread with daisies and buttercups, and I would have run to the sea, ever alive and plashing now at the cliffs a mile away; but Marjorie persisted.

"You really are unsympathetic, Beatrice. I've been trying to tell you something for ever so long” Marjorie burst into tears.

"There, don’t cry," I pleaded, "Is it something awful?"

Marjorie sopped up.

"Well, it's this. George wants me to marry him freely—not marry at all, you know."

"Free marriage? Eh! you mustn't—I beg your pardon-of course you may if you can. But don't ask me to advise you any such thing."

"Well!  you, of all people, to tell me not to. I thought you were advanced."

"That's not the same as being foolish. I’ll tell you why I believe you personally should not contract free marriage . . . In the first place, you want children, don't you "

"Well-George-you know."

"I know the Superman I George is cracked on eugenics. That idea is all very well for George to play with; but it mightn't be play for the superman((A philosophy started by Friedrich Nietzsche. A “Superman” is a man so wholly in control of himself that he successfully separates himself from the herd and creating his own morality. Also described as “Caesar with Christ’s soul.” (Encyclopedia Brittanica) )) when he grew up and wanted to hold his own with the rest of the world."

"But the Superman is above the world. George says Nietzsche says—"

"Pooh! Marjorie; if you've only come out here to repeat scraps from George, I must tell you I'm impatient, and not inclined to waste my time. If you choose to act woman to woman, I'll talk."

"You are disagreeable, Beatrice; but I’m really a bit thoughtful just now—and I've got to do it to­ morrow."

I plunged my impatience into a mood of ice. I thought things about George; but I said to Marjorie:

"Very well, then, let's consider the whole idea. Let me tell you now that my view of the immediate advantages of free marriage is not the clay-moulding notion of eugenists((The practice or belief in the selective breeding of humans to create a superior race, largely attributed to Francis Galton.)) like George and Forel((Auguste-Henri Forel was a famous neuro-scientist and eugenicist of the time. Much of his research was later used as the basis for Nazi propaganda and he actively advocated for the sterilization of Capitalists, Militarists, and Alcoholics. ((Encyclopedia Brittanica))). Their idea of building up future persons by depriving them of a status which is still valuable because it is still legal-I mean legitimacy-is not sense to me. I know I should not care to be illegitimate. What I might choose to do in the way of defying convention myself would be one thing, but I can't imagine thanking anyone for forcing me to defy it. An illegitimate person must act Ishmael, and it's the ' must' which resolves bastards usually into the most conventional of all people. You know what I mean-the modern Ishmael tries everything not to be discovered…

"The only reason I can allow at present for embracing free marriage is that one need not live in the same house with one's lover all the time, and that one gets rid of all the horrible publicity."

"But that's not George's idea at all. He wants to advertise it in the papers."

"Oh! like Forel's German couple. Well, all your friends-and, mind, you've known them all your life and you like them very much-would cut you. I don't care whether they are Socialists and vegetarians or Tory carnalists. They've got to live; and although one may do anything so long as one is merely vicious and says so-if one does a thing for the principle of it one'll lose one's job. Some people may be ready to risk this but, Marjorie, you must forgive me when I say I believe that if your friends cut you and if you and George gradually lose your work-that the two of you may end up by being jolly sorry for it, and you’d probably come to hate each other like poison."

"Oh, no, I don't think so at all.  We're awfully in love with each other."

I iced again my over-zeal.

"Well, I was going to tell you what I believe to be the principle in this idea of free marriage."

"Yes."

"You know every workable idea has two ends. At one end is the fire, the burning principle by which the artist who creates the idea is inspired; at the other end is the cold advantage for the average person. Between the artist and the average person is a living permeation-tube((A cylinder of a concentrated and stabilized substance used in lab experiments.)) held by the people who discuss every new idea as it springs forth. If this tube leaks and lets the flame splutter out, the crowd runs away and gets a hose, and the idea is quenched perhaps forever and a day. No use to tell the crowd that the persons burning like their martyrdom. The crowd does not like martyrdom; and it quite properly and instinctively abandons any idea which gorges on martyrs. That is what has happened to Christianity: after seeing all the burnings, the crowd doesn't think it worth while... Now, our crowd is only just beginning to understand what is destroying it-that is, the over-pressure of its numbers.

"Hodge in his village, and Billy 'Awkins in Canning Town, are noticing that their neighbour, who has only one son to their two, has the best and brightest boy. Hodge and Billy ask why; and they are told the boy sleeps in an airy room all by himself; also, that he has all the food and the boots and the amusements which their two boys have to divide. Then Hodge and Billy ask more questions and are given information. I hope you see how, underneath all these advantages for the boy, lies the rock foundation of the necessity for room. No amount of food or boots or anything else can benefit the boy if he's shut up in the black hole. Now, I'm going to declare that the decent neighbours thought no more of the boy at first than his friends. He himself was inspired with a desire for room and privacy; that it contained a cold advantage for the future generation only proved the workableness of his inspiration. Suppose, now, someone went to this man and put this argument: 'If you don’t marry, legally, your children will benefit,' I submit the man would laugh. He knows his children are not too many for the space he rents. The benefit to his children is a problem he has solved already by limiting their number. He knows that illegitimacy is no benefit. He wants some better reason for free marriage than this one of influencing future generations. What good it will be to him, in fact, is the question. He is happy, although legally married; he does not happen to hate his wife. Hodge hates his own wife, and would like to get away; but that’s Hodge's concern! Now, to convince this man that free marriage, by benefiting Hodge, would benefit the whole neighbourhood and rid it of the Hodges’ everlasting rows, it is no use to urge Hodge to live next door with some woman he could get on with, because the first thing would be a police summons against Hodge. Hodge's wife could claim to be supported, although her drag upon him might be actually depriving him of his energy to work.

"This question of maintenance hasn't come in sight of a settlement, yet: and it's the first to be surveyed! Before free marriage can be even dreamed of as a general thing, the woman and children will have to be independent. Then it may come home to our happy man that the neighbourhood would be more desirable if the quarrelsome Hodges were permitted to part at choice. But all that is in the blue air yet...

"People must surely marry in the ordinary way and talk a lot and do nothing for ages until everybody gets used to the idea of free marriage. It's coming; and remember it is a brave thing of you, Marjorie, even to talk about reforms which horrify all your friends... "

"But what about the Superman? Beatrice, you can’t get the Superman if you just marry in the ordinary, dull way and live in the suburbs."

"Where would you live? Free marriage doesn't mean a free mansion in Grosvenor Square. About the suburbs, let me tell you that the Superman is hailed there regularly every twelvemonth after the May weddings-as super to every other little man as ever was."

"But I really think George and I would have an exceptional child."

"I believe you would. But   why   handicap   him with illegitimacy? My dear, free marry as much as you like, but remember the rights of your children are not a toy for you to play with. If you choose to risk everything else for the principle-being cut or cold­ shouldered-so long as only you and George are the martyrs, it's more or less your own business. Even so, with the best intention in the world, George will not be able to make people bar him as they will you. How­ ever, of course, you've thought of all that."

"Well, would you free marry? "

"Oh! It's impossible that you should settle your case by anyone else's, let me tell you. Suppose I say that, if you were quite sure that you didn't care a rap for anyone who wouldn't ' forgive you; if you had decided about George with your mind as well as your heart; - and if you were engaged in some sort of work which wasn't dependent upon a bourgeois employer­ which you are not, Marjorie! -then I might advise you to please yourself.  Only, if there were any question of a child, in common fairness, the two free lovers should marry instantly."

"Suppose the man wouldn't--on principle? "

"That is what a woman risks.   She   chances   an illegitimate child. Do you think she has any right to? Mind you, I believe George would marry. I believe all his eugenics would be flung to the winds, and the two of you would be seen trotting off sharp' to the registrar."

"So, do I!" Marjorie burst out laughing. "I don’t think it's worth setting dad's hair on end."