GETTING MARRIED
A monologue from the
play by George
Bernard Shaw
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from The Doctor's Dilemma, Getting Married, and The Shewing-Up
of Blanco Posnet. Bernard Shaw. New York: Brentano's, 1909. |
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COLLINS: No, maam; marriage didn't come natural. My
wife had to break me into it. It came natural to her: she's what
you might call a regular old hen. Always wants to have her family
within sight of her. Wouldn't go to bed unless she knew they
was all safe at home and the door locked, and the lights out.
Always wants her luggage in the carriage with her. Always goes
and makes the engine driver promise her to be careful. She's
a born wife and mother, maam. That's why my children all ran
away from home. I very often felt inclined to run away myself,
but when it came to the point I couldn't bear to hurt her feelings.
She's a sensitive, affectionate, anxious soul; and she was never
brought up to know what freedom is to some people. You see, family
life is all the life she knows: she's like a bird born in a cage,
that would die if you let it loose in the woods. When I thought
how little it was to a man of my easy temper to put up with her,
and how deep it would hurt her to think it was because I didn't
care for her, I always put off running away till next time; and
so in the end I never ran away at all. I daresay it was good
for me to be took such care of; but it cut me off from all my
old friends something dreadful, maam: especially the women, maam.
She never gave them a chance; she didn't indeed. She never understood
that married people should take holidays from one another if
they are to keep at all fresh. Not that I ever got tired of her,
maam; but my! how I used to get tired of home life sometimes.
I used to catch myself envying my brother George: I positively
did, maam. He married a very fine figure of a woman; but she
was that changeable and what you might call susceptible, you
would not believe. She didn't seem to have any control over herself
when she fell in love. She would mope for a couple of days, crying
about nothing; and then she would up and say--no matter who was
there to hear her--"I must go to him, George!"; and
away she would go from her home and her husband without with-your-leave
or by-your-leave. She done it five times to my own knowledge;
and then George gave up telling us about it, he got so used to
it. Well, what could he do, maam? Three times out of four the
men would bring her back the same evening and no harm done. Other
times they'd run away from her. What could any man with a heart
do but comfort her when she came back crying at the way they
dodged her when she threw herself at their heads, pretending
they was too noble to accept the sacrifice she was making. George
told her again and again that if she'd only stay at home and
hold off a bit they'd be at her feet all day long. She got sensible
at last and took his advice. George always liked change of company.
You may think her odious--many ladies with a domestic turn thought
so and said so, maam. But I will say for Mrs. George that the
variety of experience made her wonderful interesting. That's
where the flighty ones score off the steady ones, maam. Look
at my old woman! She's never known any man but me; and she can't
properly know me, because she don't know other men to compare
me with. Of course she knows her parents in--well, in the way
one does know one's parents: not knowing half their lives as
you might say, or ever thinking that they was ever young; and
she knew her children as children, and never thought of them
as independent human beings till they ran away and nigh broke
her heart for a week or two. But Mrs. George, she came to know
a lot about men of all sorts and ages; for the older she got
the younger she liked em; and it certainly made her interesting,
and gave her a lot of sense. I have often taken her advice on
things when my own poor old woman wouldn't have been a bit of
use to me. All you have to do is mesmerize her a bit; and off
she goes into a trance, and says the most wonderful things! not
things about herself, but as if it was the whole human race giving
you a bit of its mind. Oh, wonderful, maam, I assure you. You
couldn't think of a game that Mrs. George isn't up to!
MORE MONOLOGUES BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW |
