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Did you ever hear such a thing, Caroline? I am quite surprised.

LADY CAROLINE. Oh, women have become so highly educated, Jane,
that nothing should surprise us nowadays, except happy marriages.
They apparently are getting remarkably rare.

MRS. ALLONBY. Oh, they're quite out of date.

LADY STUTFIELD. Except amongst the middle classes, I have been
told.

MRS. ALLONBY. How like the middle classes!

LADY STUTFIELD. Yes - is it not? - very, very like them.

LADY CAROLINE. If what you tell us about the middle classes is
true, Lady Stutfield, it redounds greatly to their credit. It is
much to be regretted that in our rank of life the wife should be so
persistently frivolous, under the impression apparently that it is
the proper thing to be. It is to that I attribute the unhappiness
of so many marriages we all know of in society.

MRS. ALLONBY. Do you know, Lady Caroline, I don't think the
frivolity of the wife has ever anything to do with it. More
marriages are ruined nowadays by the common sense of the husband
than by anything else. How can a woman be expected to be happy
with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly
rational being?

LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear!

MRS. ALLONBY. Man, poor, awkward, reliable, necessary man belongs
to a sex that has been rational for millions and millions of years.
He can't help himself. It is in his race. The History of Woman is
very different. We have always been picturesque protests against
the mere existence of common sense. We saw its dangers from the
first.

LADY STUTFIELD. Yes, the common sense of husbands is certainly
most, most trying. Do tell me your conception of the Ideal
Husband. I think it would be so very, very helpful.

MRS. ALLONBY. The Ideal Husband? There couldn't be such a thing.
The institution is wrong.

LADY STUTFIELD. The Ideal Man, then, in his relations to US.

LADY CAROLINE. He would probably be extremely realistic.

MRS. CAROLINE. The Ideal Man! Oh, the Ideal Man should talk to us
as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He
should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of
our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us
to have missions. He should always say much more than he means,
and always mean much more than he says.

LADY HUNSTANTON. But how could he do both, dear?

MRS. ALLONBY. He should never run down other pretty women. That
would show he had no taste, or make one suspect that he had too
much. No; he should be nice about them all, but say that somehow
they don't attract him.

LADY STUTFIELD. Yes, that is always very, very pleasant to hear
about other women.

MRS. ALLONBY. If we ask him a question about anything, he should
give us an answer all about ourselves. He should invariably praise
us for whatever qualities he knows we haven't got.

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