The Physiology of Marriage, Part 1
Balzac, Honoré de 1799-1850
English
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Below is a summary of The Physiology of Marriage, Part 1
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF MARRIAGE
FIRST PART
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC
DEDICATION
Notice the words: _The man of distinction to whom this book is
dedicated_. Need I say: "You are that man."--THE AUTHOR.
The woman who may be induced by the title of this book to open it,
can save herself the trouble; she has already read the work
without knowing it. A man, however malicious he may possibly be,
can never say about a woman as much good or as much evil as they
themselves think. If, in spite of this notice, a woman will
persist in reading the volume, she ought to be prevented by
delicacy from despising the author, from the very moment that he,
forfeiting the praise which most artists welcome, has in a certain
way engraved on the title page of his book the prudent inscription
written on the portal of certain establishments: _Ladies must not
enter_.
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF MARRIAGE;
OR,
THE MUSINGS OF AN ECLECTIC PHILOSOPHER ON THE HAPPINESS AND
UNHAPPINESS OF MARRIED LIFE
INTRODUCTION
"Marriage is not an institution of nature. The family in the east is
entirely different from the family in the west. Man is the servant of
nature, and the institutions of society are grafts, not spontaneous
growths of nature. Laws are made to suit manners, and manners vary.
"Marriage must therefore undergo the gradual development towards
perfection to which all human affairs submit."
These words, pronounced in the presence of the Conseil d'Etat by
Napoleon during the discussion of the civil code, produced a profound
impression upon the author of this book; and perhaps unconsciously he
received the suggestion of this work, which he now presents to the
public. And indeed at the period during which, while still in his
youth, he studied French law, the word ADULTERY made a singular
impression upon him. Taking, as it did, a prominent place in the code,
this word never occurred to his mind without conjuring up its mournful
train of consequences. Tears, shame, hatred, terror, secret crime,
bloody wars, families without a head, and social misery rose like a
sudden line of phantoms before him when he read the solemn word
ADULTERY! Later on, when he became acquainted with the most cultivated
circles of society, the author perceived that the rigor of marriage
laws was very generally modified by adultery. He found that the number
of unhappy homes was larger than that of happy marriages. In fact, he
was the first to notice that of all human sciences that which relates
to marriage was the least progressive. But this was the observation of
a young man; and with him, as with so many others, this thought, like
a pebble flung into the bosom of a lake, was lost in the abyss of his
tumultuous thoughts. Nevertheless, in spite of himself the author was
compelled to investigate, and eventually there was gathered within his
mind, little by little, a swarm of conclusions, more or less just, on
the subject of married life. Works like the present one are formed in
the mind of the author with as much mystery as that with which
truffles grow on the scented plains of Perigord. Out of the primitive
and holy horror which adultery caused him and the investigation which
he had thoughtlessly made, there was born one morning a trifling
thought in which his ideas were formulated. This thought was really a
satire upon marriage. It was as follows: A husband and wife found
themselves in love with each other for the first time after
twenty-seven years of marriage.
He amused himself with this little axiom and passed a whole week in
delight, grouping around this harmless epigram the crowd of ideas
which came to him unconsciously and which he was astonished to find
that he possessed. His humorous mood yielded at last to the claims of
serious investigation. Willing as he was to take a hint, the author
returned to his habitual idleness. Nevertheless, this slight germ of
science and of joke grew to perfection, unfostered, in the fields of
thought. Each phase of the work which had been condemned by others
took root and gathered strength, surviving like the slight branch of a
tree which, flung upon the sand by a winter's storm, finds itself
covered at morning with white and fantastic icicles, produced by the
caprices of nightly frosts. So the sketch lived on and became the
starting point of myriad branching moralizations. It was like a
polypus which multiplies itself by generation. The feelings of youth,
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