Many men hold that woman’s love is not essential to a happy marriage, so long as they are in love with the woman they make their wife they think that her love is not necessary. This arises purely from want of imagination. They themselves, marrying a woman they passionately admire, start with all the glamour and glory which suffices to veil the difficult beginnings of a _menage à deux_; but the woman, who enters without this help, has to expend an immense amount of patience and self-control over wearisome domestic details, which would be transformed into pure joy if she also saw through a glorified atmosphere. A match where the woman does not love is very hard on her. It is, of course, perfectly true that the ardent love of a man has often won a woman’s love in return; many a happy marriage has sprung from this beginning; but any man who is not more selfish than the rest of his sex, should try to assure himself that the love is there before marriage. Of course to a man it is incredible that girls will consent to marry when they do not love; why should they? One knows it is not always the prospect of a home and maintenance, one would scorn to assess woman’s nature at so low a rate. There is no real explanation, though possibly dense ignorance and girlish impulse toward the excitement, and the trivial accessories of a bride’s position, may be the most usual contributory causes. If this is so, as woman increases in intelligence and reasonable knowledge, that is to say, as she becomes more fit to be a real mate to man, so will man find it increasingly difficult to persuade her into a one-sided-love marriage, oftentimes so disastrous to both, and at the best such a makeshift for what might be. CHAPTER VIII VISITS AND TRAVELLING Jane Austen’s life was very largely passed among her own relations, her visits away from home were nearly always to the houses of her brothers.