Getting Married

do not like fried fish. Don’t be low, Polly. Soames Woman: do not presume to accuse me of unbelief. And do you, Hotchkiss, not despise this woman’s soul because she speaks of fried fish. Some of the victims of the Miraculous Draught of Fishes were fried. And I eat fried fish every Friday and like it. You are as ingrained a snob as ever. Hotchkiss Impatiently. My dear Anthony: I find you merely ridiculous as a preacher, because you keep referring me to places and documents and alleged occurrences in which, as a matter of fact, I don’t believe. I don’t believe in anything but my own will and my own pride and honor. Your fishes and your catechisms and all the rest of it make a charming poem which you call your faith. It fits you to perfection; but it doesn’t fit me. I happen, like Napoleon, to prefer Mohammedanism. Mrs. George, associating Mohammedanism with polygamy, looks at him with quick suspicion. I believe the whole British Empire will adopt a reformed Mohammedanism before the end of the century. The character of Muhammad is congenial to me. I admire him, and share his views of life to a considerable extent. That beats you, you see, Soames. Religion is a great force⁠—the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don’t understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours. Instead of facing that fact, you persist in trying to convert all men to your own little sect, so that you can use it against them afterwards. You are all missionaries and proselytizers trying to uproot the native religion from your neighbor’s flowerbeds and plant your own in its place. You would rather let a child perish in ignorance than have it taught by a rival sectary. You can talk to me of the quintessential equality of coal merchants and British officers; and yet you can’t see the quintessential equality of all the religions. Who are you, anyhow, that you should know better than Muhammad or Confucius or any of the other Johnnies who have been on this job since the world existed? Mrs. George Admiring his eloquence. George will like you, Sonny. You should hear him talking about the Church. Soames Very well, then: go to your doom, both of you. There is only one religion for me: that which my soul knows to be true; but even irreligion has one tenet; and that is the sacredness of marriage. You two are on the verge of deadly sin. Do you deny that? Hotchkiss You forget, Anthony: the marriage itself is the deadly sin according to you. Soames The question is not now what I believe, but what you believe. Take the vows with me; and give up that woman if you have the strength and the light. But if you are still in the grip of this world, at least respect its institutions. Do you believe in marriage or do you not? Hotchkiss My soul is utterly free from any such superstition. I solemnly declare that between this woman, as you impolitely call her, and me, I see no barrier that my conscience bids me respect. I loathe the whole marriage morality of the middle classes with all my instincts. If I were an eighteenth century marquis I could feel no more free with regard to a Parisian citizen’s wife than I do with regard to Polly. I despise all this domestic purity business as the lowest depth of narrow, selfish, sensual, wife-grabbing vulgarity. Mrs. George Rising promptly. Oh, indeed. Then you’re not coming home with me, young man. I’m sorry; for its refreshing to have met once in my life a man who wasn’t frightened by my wedding ring; but I’m looking out for a friend and not for a French marquis; so you’re not coming home with me. Hotchkiss Inexorably. Yes, I am. Mrs. George No. Hotchkiss Yes. Think again. You know your set pretty well, I suppose, your petty tradesmen’s set. You know all its scandals and hypocrisies, its jealousies and squabbles, its hundred of divorce cases that never come into court, as well as its tens that do. Mrs. George We’re not angels. I know a few scandals; but most of us are too dull to be anything but good. Hotchkiss Then you must have noticed that just an all murderers, judging by their edifying remarks on the scaffold, seem to be devout Christians, so all Christians, both male and female, are invariably people overflowing with domestic sentimentality and professions of respect for the conventions they violate in secret. Mrs. George Well, you don’t expect them to give themselves away, do you? Hotchkiss They are people of sentiment, not of honor. Now, I’m not a man of sentiment, but a man of honor. I know well what will happen to me when once I cross the threshold of your husband’s house and break bread with him. This marriage bond which I despise will bind me as it never seems to bind the people who believe in it, and whose chief amusement it is to go to the theatres where it is laughed at. Soames: you’re a Communist, aren’t you? Soames I am a Christian. That obliges me to be a Communist. Hotchkiss And you believe that many of our landed estates were stolen from the Church by Henry the eighth? Soames I do not merely believe that: I know it as a lawyer. Hotchkiss Would you steal a turnip from one of the landlords of those stolen lands? Soames Fencing with the question. They have no right to their lands. Hotchkiss That’s not what I ask you. Would you steal a turnip from one of the fields they have no right to? Soames I do not like turnips. Hotchkiss As you are a lawyer, answer me. Soames I admit that I should probably not do so. I should perhaps be wrong not to steal the turnip: I can’t defend my reluctance to do so; but I think I should not do