WHY MARRY?

From a photograph by White Studio.

Helen: You're about the most conceited man I ever knew.
Ernest: How can I help it, when you admire me so?

[Page 94.

WHY MARRY?

(Originally published under the title
"And So They Were Married")

BY

JESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS

ILLUSTRATED

PUBLISHED BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Copyright, 1914, 1918, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published October, 1914
New and revised edition published April, 1918
Reprinted September, 1918; February, 1919
[All rights strictly reserved—including
amateur acting rights.]

TO
HARRIET AND JAMES LEES LAIDLAW

WHY MARRY?

A Comedy in Three Acts

New York: Astor Theatre: Produced by Selwyn & Company,
Dec. 25, 1917, under the direction of Roi Cooper Megrue.
The scene is a week-end at a country house not far away; the time,
Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning, and Sunday evening.
THE PEOPLE AT THE HOUSE
(As You Meet Them)

ADVANCE NOTICE
BY THE AUTHOR

One afternoon shortly before the New York "opening" of this comedy a most estimable lady sat down to make me a cup of tea.

"Now, do tell me, what is your play about?" she inquired with commendable enthusiasm. For, being a true woman, she had early achieved the becoming habit of letting members of the superior sex talk about themselves.

"'Why Marry?'" said I, "tells the truth about marriage."

"Oh, why," she expostulated, "why write unpleasant plays?"

"But it is not 'unpleasant.'"

"Then it isn't true!" she exclaimed. "That is, I mean—I mean—did you say cream or lemon?"

And in the pause which accompanied the pouring of the cream I detected the look of one realizing too late that it is always better to think before speaking.

This little incident, it seemed to me, epitomizes charmingly the attitude of "our nicest people" toward our fundamental institution. The truth about marriage must be unpleasant. Therefore, tell us something we know isn't true. It will be so much nicer for our young people.

It is to be feared, however, that young people who go to see "Why Marry?" in the hope of being shocked do not get their money's worth. I have heard of but two persons who have been scandalized by this play, and they were both old people. One was a woman in the country who had not seen it, but had read the title, and so wrote several indignant letters about it. The other was an elderly bachelor of the type which finds useful occupation in decorating club windows like geraniums. He took his niece to see it, and, deciding at the end of Act II that the play was going to be unpleasant in Act III, took her home at once. The next afternoon she appeared at the matinée with a whole bevy of her own generation and saw the rest of the play. I asked her later if it had shocked any of them.

"Oh, no," she replied, "we are too young to be shocked."

That little incident also struck me as socially significant. There never were two generations inhabiting the same globe simultaneously with such widely separated points of view.

For several years after this play was first published no theatrical manager on Broadway would produce it. I don't blame them, I want to thank them for it. I doubt if this sort of thing could have appealed to many theatre-goers then, especially as my young lovers are trying to be good, not bad. "Self-expression" and "the right to happiness" do not enter into their plans. The causes of their courageous and, of course, mistaken decision are unselfish and social motives, however futile and antisocial the results would have been had not their desperate determination been thwarted.... When this play was first published most people were not thinking along these lines. Such ideas were considered radical then. They will soon be old-fashioned—even on the stage.

Kind and discriminating as the critics have been in regard to this comedy (a discriminating critic being, of course, one who praises your play), few of them have seen the point which I thought I was making emphatically clear, namely, that we can't cure social defects by individual treatment. Not only the lovers, but all the characters in this play are trying to do right according to their lights. There is no villain in this piece. At least the villain remains "off stage." Perhaps that is why so few see him. You are the villain, you and I and the rest of society. We are responsible for the rules and regulations of the marriage game. Instead of having fun with human nature, I tried to go higher up and have fun with human institutions.

I say "tried," because apparently I did not succeed. The joke is on me. Still, I can get some amusement out of it: for a great many people seem to like this play who would be indignant if they knew what they were really applauding. They think they are merely enjoying "satire on human nature." Now, it is a curious fact that you can always curse human nature with impunity; can malign it, revile it, boot it up and down the decalogue, and you will be warmly praised. "How true to life!" you are told. "I know some one just like that." (It is always some one else, of course.) But dare lay hands on the Existing Order—and you'll find you've laid your hands on a hornet's nest.

You see, most people do not want anything changed—except possibly the Law of Change. They do not object to finding fault with mankind because "you can't change human nature," as they are fond of telling you with an interesting air of originality. But laws, customs, and ideals can be changed, can be improved. Therefore they cry: "Hands off! How dare you!" Man made human institutions, therefore we reverence them. Whereas human nature was merely made by God. So we don't think so much of it. We are prejudiced, like all creators, in favor of our own creations. After all, there is excellent precedent for such complacency. Even God, we are informed, pronounced his work "all very good" and rested on the seventh day.

Pretty nearly everything in the play as acted is in the book as published; but by no means all that is in the book could possibly be enacted on the stage in two hours and a half. One scene, a breakfast scene between John and his wife, has been amplified for acting, but all the other scenes as printed here have been shortened for stage purposes and one or two cut out entirely.

The "set" was changed to represent the loggia, instead of the terrace, of John's "little farm." Outdoor scenes are not supposed to be good for comedy. Walls, or a suggestion of them, produce a better psychological effect for the purpose, besides making it possible to speak in quieter, more intimate tones than when the voice spills out into the wings and up into the paint loft.

Near the end of the play a number of relatives, rich and poor, are supposed to arrive for dinner and for influencing by their presence the recalcitrant couple. That is the way it is printed and that is how it was acted during the first few weeks of the Chicago run. But though the family may have its place in the book, it proved to be an awful nuisance on the stage. No matter how well these minor parts might be acted (or dressed), their sudden irruption during the last and most important moments of the performance distracted the audience's attention from the principal characters and the main issue. It was not clear who was who. Programmes fluttered; perplexity was observed.... So we decided that the family must be destroyed. It is always a perplexing problem to devise a substitute for the family.

Jesse Lynch Williams.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Act I

"And So They Were Married"

Act I

Up from the fragrant garden comes a girl, running. She takes the broad terrace steps two at a stride, laughing, breathless, fleet as a fawn, sweet as a rose. She is hotly pursued by a boy, handsome, ardent, attractively selfish, and just now blindly determined to catch the pretty creature before she gains the protecting shelter of home. She is determined to let him but not to let him know it.... There, she might have darted in through the open door, but it is such a cold, formal entrance; she pretends to be exhausted, dodges behind a stone tea-table, and, turning, faces him, each panting and laughing excitedly; she alluring and defiant, he merry and dominant.

She is twenty-five and he is a year or two older, but they are both children; in other words, unmarried.

Rex

Think I'll let you say that to me?

Jean

[making a face at him]

Think I'm afraid of you!

Rex

Take it back, I tell you.

Jean

I won't.

Rex

I'll make you.

Jean

[with a dance step]

Think so, do you?

Rex

I warn you.

Jean

Booh-woo!

[He makes a feint to the right, then dashes to the left and catches her.

Rex

[triumphantly]

Now!... You would, would you?

Jean

[struggling]

Let me go.

Rex

I couldn't think of it.

Jean

[seizes his hands to free herself—can't]

You're so strong—it isn't fair.

Rex

You're so sweet—it isn't fair.

[Smiling down at her struggles, rejoicing in his strength, her weakness, he gently draws her near.

Jean

[knows what is coming]

No, Rex.

Rex

Yes.

Jean

You mustn't.

Rex

But I will.

[He laughs and kisses her lightly on the cheek. Therefore she struggles furiously. Therefore he does it again. And again. Suddenly he enfolds her completely and kisses her passionately—cheeks, mouth, eyes—until she gasps in alarm. Laughter has gone from them now.

Jean

Oh, please!... some one will come.

Rex

[with the intoxication of such moments]

I don't care who comes—I love you.

Jean

No ... let me go.

Rex

Not till you kiss me, Jean. [Jean hesitates, brushes his cheek lightly with her lips, and in pretty confusion tries to escape.] Not till you say you love me, Jean. [Eyes hidden in his coat, she bobs her head. He laughs and loves it.] Say it!

Jean

I—er—do.

Rex

Do what?... Say it!...

[She cannot. He swings her about, bringing her face close to his.

Jean

I love you, Rex. Are you sure you love me?

Rex

Am I sure! You irresistible little—

[Begins to kiss her. Masculine triumph.

Jean

And want to marry me, Rex?

Rex

[stops—startled—had not thought of that]

Why—er—of course. What did you suppose!

[Drops his eyes, sobered.

Jean

[feminine triumph]

And me "a penniless orphing"?

Rex

[fascinated by the way she says it, he laughs. Then, his honor touched]

Why, what kind of a man do you take me for!

[And wants her lips again.

Jean

[giving herself to him, head sinks upon his shoulder]

Then, oh, Rex, love me and be nice to me and—and take me away from all this!

[She covers her face with her hands and sobs. He pats her tenderly, with a manly look on his face.

Lucy comes up from the garden. She is dressed in white with a garden hat, a garden basket filled with flowers in one hand, long scissors in the other. She is John's wife, the mistress of the house, sister-in-law to Jean; conspicuously a "sweet" woman, affectedly so, a contrast with Jean's more modern, less delicate charm. Jean is frank and brave, Lucy indirect and timid, pretty but fading, forty but fighting it.

Jean

[laughing]

It's all right, Lucy—we're engaged!

Lucy

Well, I should hope so!

[Shoots a look at Jean, "So?"

Rex

[recovering himself]

I have often tried to thank you and good old John for letting me come over here so much, but now! How can I ever thank you? See-what-I-mean?

Lucy

I'll tell you how. Behave yourself after you are married to John's little sister.

Jean

Rex, have you had a fearful past? How fascinating!

Rex

I'm going to have a glorious future, all right.

Jean

Not unless you do as I tell you. Going to obey me, Rex?

Rex

You bet I am.

Jean

Then begin now. Go!... Get out! [She pushes Rex, laughing and protesting, toward the garden.] I want to tell Lucy how nice you are. Run along over to the golf club, and by and by—if you are a good boy—you can take me out in your new car. [Rex kisses the hand on his arm and leaves, laughing.] My dear, he has five cars! Thank you so much.

[Alone, they throw off the mask worn before men.

Lucy

Now, deary, tell me all about it. How did it happen?

Jean

Oh, I simply followed your advice.

Lucy

Picked a quarrel with him?

Jean

[laughing]

Yes. I pretended to believe in woman suffrage!

Lucy

Good! They hate that.

Jean

I told him all men were bullying brutes!

Lucy

They are! And then you ran away?

Jean

Of course.

Lucy

And he after you?

Jean

Of course.

Lucy

And you let him catch you?

Jean

Of cour—well ... he caught me.

[They both laugh.

Lucy

I can guess the rest.

Jean

Why, it didn't take five minutes.

Lucy

And now it's to last through all eternity.... Isn't love wonderful?

Jean

Um-hum. Wonderful.

[They begin to cull out the flowers.

Lucy

But you do love him, dear, don't you?

Jean

[arranging flowers]

I did then. I don't now. Why is that, Lucy?

Lucy

Oh, but you will learn to love him. [Jean shrugs, drops flowers, and turns away.] Now, now! no worrying—it brings wrinkles! [Patting Jean's shoulder.] Rex is just the sort to give the woman he adores everything in the world.

Jean

[wriggling out of Lucy's embrace]

I am not the woman he adores.

Lucy

Why, Jean! He's engaged to you.

Jean

But he's in love with my sister. You know that as well as I do.

Lucy

[uncomfortably]

Oh, well, he was once, but not now. Men admire these independent women, but they don't marry them. Nobody wants to marry a sexless freak with a scientific degree.

Jean

Oh, what's the use, Lucy? He's still wild about Helen, and she still laughs at him. So you and John have trotted out the little sister. Why not be honest about it.

Lucy

Well, I may be old-fashioned, but I don't think it's nice to talk this way when you're just engaged.

Jean

Here comes your "sexless freak"—not with a degree, either.

Lucy

[following Jean's gaze]

With a man!

Jean

[smiling]

With my man.

[Helen, with Rex bending toward her eagerly, appears. She is a beautiful woman of twenty-nine, tall, strong, glorious—plenty of old-fashioned charm, despite her new-fashioned ideas. She is dressed in a tennis costume and is swinging a racquet.

Rex

But they told me you were going to stay abroad all winter.

Helen

My work, Rex—I had to get back to work.

Rex

Work!... You are too good to work.

Jean

[amused, not jealous]

Is this your high-powered car, Rex? Have you learned to run it yet?

Rex

[startled]

But ... well ... you see, I met Helen on the way. See-what-I-mean?

Jean

[laughing]

Oh, we see.

Rex

But I hadn't seen her for so long. I thought— [Looks from Helen to Jean] ... wait, I'll get the car.

[He hurries off.

Lucy

[to Jean]

Why couldn't she have stayed abroad!

Jean

Helen, don't talk about your work before Lucy—it shocks her.

Helen

Oh, very well; make it my 'career'!

Jean

[arm around Helen]

Sssh!—that's worse.

Lucy

Helen, dear, I deem it my duty to tell you that you are being talked about.

Helen

Lucy, dear, do you always find your true happiness in duty?

Lucy

Well, if you think you are going back to that horrid place again ... after what happened that night? John won't hear of it.

Helen

If the Baker Institute of Medical Experiment is not a respectable place you should make John resign as trustee.

[She laughs it off.

Lucy

John is trustee of—oh, nearly everything. That makes it all the worse. It isn't as if you had to work.

Helen

Oh, but John is so rich now, his credit can stand it. And you oughtn't to mind! Why, some of our most fashionable families now contain freaks like me. It's becoming quite smart, just as in former days one of the sons would go into the Church or the navy.

Lucy

Well, of course, I am old-fashioned, but going down-town every day with the men,—it seems so unwomanly.

Helen

But wasn't I womanly for years? Instead of going down-town and working with highbrows, I stayed up-town and played with lowbrows—until I was bored to death.

Lucy

[sighs]

Yes, that's what comes of going to college, leaving the home, getting these new ideas. All the same, Helen, the men, really nice men, don't like it.

Helen

Well, you see, I don't like really nice men, so that makes it agreeable all around.

Lucy

If it were only art or music or something feminine, but that awful laboratory! How can a lady poison poor, innocent little monkeys?

Helen

If I were a lady I'd dine with monkeys.... Do you know what the word means, Lucy? In Anglo-Saxon times "lady" meant "one who gives loaves"; now, one who takes a loaf.

Lucy

Very clever, my dear, but some day you'll be sorry. No man, Helen, likes a woman to have independent views.

Jean

Helen can afford to have independent views; she has an independent income—she earns it.

Lucy

Independent income! Her salary wouldn't pay for your hats.

Jean

All the same, I wish I had gone to college; I wish I had learned a profession.

Lucy

What have these New Women accomplished? Just one thing: they are destroying chivalry!

Helen

Not entirely, Lucy, not entirely. For instance, I am the best assistant Ernest Hamilton has, but the worst paid; the others are all men. Hurray for chivalry!

Lucy

Well, I'm just an old-fashioned wife. Woman's sphere is the home. My husband says so.

Helen

But suppose you haven't any husband! What can a spinster do in the home?

Lucy

Stay in it—till she gets one! That's what the old-fashioned spinster used to do.

Helen

The old-fashioned spinster used to spin.

Lucy

At any rate, the old-fashioned spinster did not stay out of her home all night and get herself compromised, talked about, sent abroad! Or, if she did, she knew enough to remain abroad until the gossip blew over.

[Lucy turns to leave.