Chapter 47: Loyalty
LOYALTY
A THIRD thing that makes a marriage work, in addition to the acceptance of hierarchical order and the proper use of sex, is loyalty. Loyalty is based on pride, the right sort of pride that recognizes intrinsic worth in the country or institution or place or person which is the object of loyalty.
We have seen women who are manifestly not loyal to their husbands. I do not mean that they are unfaithful, but that they are not proud to be their wives. Sometimes this is because they despise them. Sometimes it is old-fashioned jealousy. A friend complained to me that she was tired of being a nobody. She was only “Mick’s wife.” Mick was prominent in certain circles, a highly attractive man, very successful. Plenty of women would have considered it quite enough to go through life as Mick’s wife, but Liza wanted to be Liza. She was pretty, she was likable, she was thought of as a good match for Mick but it wasn’t enough to suit her. It seems to me that a woman ought to be willing to take this risk. When she takes her husband’s name she consents to be known as his wife. Nothing thrilled me more than to be identified with a particular man. I didn’t mind if people thought of me as his wife. I loved it. I never felt that my own personality was “submerged.” I was proud of his, and knew that a new personality, the personality of the marriage itself, is created when two people wed.
Pride involves identity. You must identify yourself with someone in order to be proud of him. We are proud of American achievements only because we are Americans. We are proud of the local football team and say “we” won.
In the doodles I’ve found on your desk and on the telephone pad I see your new name, written many times and with many flourishes. You can hardly wait to acquire this new identity. You have already begun to think of yourself as his and you want the world to know it.
This loyalty will bring you suffering. You have asked for specifics when I have talked to you about the suffering that love may entail. Here’s one of them. If you are proud of your man and loyal to him you will suffer when he is criticized. No man in a public position escapes criticism, and you must stand by him when it comes. You will know sometimes that the criticism is a just one and because you are loyal you will suffer the more. You will be, by your identification with this man, included in the criticism.
When he fails you cannot be proud of his failure, but you can be loyal. You can maintain that faith in the idea that God had when He made him, and you can comfort and support him, giving him the strength of your love and the incentive which your pride in him will always instill.
“For when all things were made, none was made better than this: to be a lone man’s companion, a sad man’s cordial, a chilly man’s fire. . . . There is no herb like it under the canopy of heaven.”[21]