Is Marriage a Failure? (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Is Marriage a Failure<br><br>The first point to make clear is that this book is not and does not profess to be an answer to Mrs. Mona Caird's article in the Westminster Review. Is marriage a failure was not in truth asked by that talented lady. Her paper, entitled simply "Marriage," was by no means interrogative; it stated simply that marriage was a failure - "a vexatious failure" - and gave prescription for making it a success. The Daily Telegraph correspondence was an attempt to elicit whether any considerable number of people agreed with the dogma enunciated in the Westminster Review, and for this purpose the interrogative form was adopted, and for purposes of brevity and epigram the question stood as above.<br><br>Now, though for journalistic purposes the chosen title was a perfect one, it was by no means easy to understand its precise meaning, or to limit the reply of those who responded to its query to the discussion of any definite points - which, by the way, was one of the principal reasons why the name was so admirably suited to the requirements of a journal.<br><br>For to many people an abstract question is only conceivable in terms of a concrete and personal idea. The success or non-success of the marriage state was to them simply the question of their own misery or happiness therein; and so Is marriage a failure changed rapidly into Is Tom a satisfactory husband Is Mary a pleasant wife And as there were many Toms not wholly satisfactory, and probably a few Marys who were sometimes unpleasant, answers declaratory of failure poured in in abundance.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.