The dear divorced

CLARE BOOTHE BROKAW

Being a little handbook full of vitriol and balm for the use of those who have agreed to disagree

In the past when divorce was considered ignominious, marriage was regarded as the most sacred and formidable of the institutions. Today this austerity has been somewhat shattered and it would seem that marriage, or what is left of it, has come out second best. Just now divorce is having its day. With the ample opportunities provided for relieving one's self painlessly, even pleasantly, of one's mate, the good old fashioned virtues of bearing and forebearing which used to be the backbone of marriage have fallen into desuetude. The moralists regard this decline as a product of our fast decaying civilization. They have failed to observe that divorce has risen phoenix-like from the crumbling bricks of the family hearthsides, a full fledged institution in its own right, and one, which in its social character and code of etiquette, is quite as enduring and quite as exacting as marriage ever was.

To realize the truth of this assertion one need only consider that a married couple may begin a quarrel which finishes in the divorce courts, thus terminating for all time the matrimonial state in so far as the contracting parties are concerned; but the same couple once separated immediately enter into another relationship—divorce—a state as unchanging and permanent as their marriage was precarious and provisional. Marriage may end in divorce—and usually does among the socially privileged classes—but divorce is an end in itself.

Just as there have always been two kinds of marriages, happy and unhappy, so today there are two types of divorces: the Divorce Disagreeable and the Divorce Agreeable. The former numbers among its adherents the midVictorians, the bigots and the more pompous members of the community. The Divorce Disagreeable comes about through a misapprehension, or a real or fancied dereliction. In their post-marital dealings with each other, both parties waste precious time and money indulging in bitter correspondence conducted by their respective lawyers, who remain their only means of communication. Such people cut one another in the street, do not accept invitations to the same houses, and strike from their visiting lists those indelicate hosts who ask them out together. Their respective and usually highly respectable families wage internecine warfare. The "victims" of divorce, old style, suffer privately, publicly, volubly.

Their friends become bored by the spectacle, eventually, and the social lives of the divorced suffer in consequence. From every point of view, it is a dreadful business.

But the Divorce Agreeable—the 1980 model —that is something else again. This, indeed, is the delicate flower of Perfect Understanding, the slowly ripened fruit of Familiarity and Boredom. When a man and his wife come to know each other too well, they often discover that they can only find pleasure in each other's company it divorced. Having been good lovers, and lacking the energy to become good haters, they part in the nick of time, hopeful of becoming good friends.

Their divorce comes about for the very reason which caused their marriage. Percival and Lorinda marry because she talks baby-talk and he tells "such amusing stories". These same factors are later enumerated among the complaints in their divorce action. (Proving that love is often weaned by the very thing which gave it birth.)

When it is all over, these two do accept the same invitations, go to the same places, see the same people, move in the same circles and usually marry each other's best friends. Paradoxically enough, it is this essentially civilized behavior which causes so much acute distress among the moralists, who, by some mysterious reckoning, consider it reprehensible to marry with a motive, or to divorce without one.

But it is for the benefit of those who find it less boring to be divorced from people they like than to be married to them, that this little handbook of etiquette for the Legally Parted has been compiled.

In order really to enjoy the attractive features of an amicable divorce, you must first master the technique of post-marital communication, to which the telephone is particularly well adapted. But you must remember that it is considered bad form to telephone your Ex without a plausible excuse. No matter how delicately sarcastic the ensuing conversation becomes, the one who calls first is always at a disadvantage. Without a very good reason, you may cause your Ex to believe that you telephoned just to hear his once so charming voice. Moreover, such a suspicion once aroused, will react against you in society, because he will be able to mention casually to his friends "My Ex called me up this morning ... oh, nothing in particular." To which they will reply "Misses her master's voice, eh, what?" And there you find yourself creating the impression of seeming to be interested— which is plainly not the purpose of any divorce.

It is best to start off by saying: "Do you mind sending back that cocktail shaker the Durants gave me for a wedding present? You don't need to tell me how much you use it . . . but you've got enough money to buy yourself another, haven't you?"

A man might say: "Listen, Lorinda, tell that sister of yours to keep her mouth closed, will you? She's going all over Town saying that I gave you a black eye last New Year's . . . the night you fell out of the taxi!" But the main point is to seem to have a good reason for calling up.

The Divorce Agreeable also develops the altruistic side of one's nature. The up-to-date divorcee will endeavor, from time to time, to advise her late spouse on his choice of companions, the truth about himself as confided to her by mutual acquaintances, his imminent danger of being roped in by an adventuress, how to manage his wifeless home. He, on the other hand, will warn her against gigolos, and too great a faith in his bachelor friends. He may also generously instruct her in the principles of contract bridge or backgammon, how to invest her alimony, when to lose weight, and how to avoid displeasing his possible successor, for whom he must always evince a polite, but not too heartfelt sympathy, faintly tinged with contempt.

When you meet in public, at a dinner or a dance, your attitude must be at once elaborately polite and delicately indifferent. You must, in order not to cause your hosts any embarrassment, immediately turn away and flirt earnestly with your neighbor, or better still, try to convey the impression that your neighbor is flirting with you. You must give vent to a great deal of rippling laughter, listen to your vis-a-vis with rapt attention, and halfclosed eyes, and make a point of waving across the room at all of your Ex's best friends.

Above all, you must always leave the party before your recent mate (with the most attractive and "dangerous" person you can find) as this will show that you are not trying to out-stay him or emphasize your own popularity at the expense of his. You must be sure to find a reason for speaking to him on the telephone the next day so that you may tell him you "went somewheres afterwards" and had "the most divine time". In many ways, the tactics of the newly divorced resemble those of a Courtship.

When you relate your Ex's failings to his friends, you must be careful never to say anything you do not wish repeated to him. But when you discuss him with your own friends you must be even more careful.

That your Ex came of a large and burgeoning family you always knew, but the numbers and ubiquity of that family is a thing you never fully realize until you have been divorced. From then on you will find them everywhere. It is your social obligation to greet them one and all with perfunctory cordiality, and, later, to discuss them thoroughly with your friends. Once the perfidious and hypocritical loyalties imposed by marriage have been removed, you may frankly and amusingly disclose the more interesting aspects of ex-cousin-in-law Polly's romance with the tennis professional in Palm Beach, or the bucket shop activities of exbrother-in-law Wilfred. The great social charm of the divorced often lies in the fact that they know so much—and Now It Can Be Told.

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It is absurd to say, as many do, that a divorce is a social liability. The modern scene needs just that touch of colour and character this very type of individual provides, and his duty to society is great.

The well bred divorced man can be depended on to be wittily disillusioned, to give parties, and to be available for others. He differs radically from the bona fide bachelor in that, having once married, it is assumed by the ladies to whom this fact might be of importance that he has no congenital objections to marrying again.

A peculiar and very engaging phenomenon of the divorced is the postmarital metamorphosis. This is the means divorced people employ to demonstrate to the world at large that they have emerged from the cocoon of marriage and are at last free to express their real personalities: If Percival drank in the Old Days, he now refuses obstinately to touch a drop; if he and his wife were inveterate bridge players he will not play a single hand; if he was a gay Lothario he becomes serious minded and stays at home to "read a book"; and if he was a faithful husband he now begins to hit all the higher and brighter spots.

In the same way, Lorinda does her little volte face. She no longer suffers from those awful headaches, she gains or loses pounds according to her requirements, recovers her girlish enthusiasm, and takes up or gives up golf. She swears that she will never marry, "that it is too much fun being free," and she assumes an attitude of gentle cynicism, of wistful indifference that is most becoming and which incidentally does not frighten away any of her more eligible suitors.

And both Percival and Lorinda economize. Percival resigns from two of his twenty clubs; Lorinda plays one instead of five cent bridge, and buys her gowns on Madison instead of Fifth Avenue. For she does not wish it thought that she took any more alimony than the bare necessities of living required, nor does Percival want people to think he did not do "all he could for Lorinda."

When, contrary to their repeated avowals never to remarry, the divorced do so, the death-blow is usually dealt to the Divorce Agreeable. Under the jealous influence of their successors—

Lorinda and Percival's hitherto charming relationship is all too likely to be transformed* into a Divorce Disagreeable.

This is where the children step in and save the situation. No handbook on divorce would be complete without a word about these "innocent victims" upon whom, the psychologists claim, the disrupted home has such disastrous effects.

But these eminent scholars, like the decriers of divorce, have not observed that the Divorce Agreeable, from the child's point of view, contains benefits far in excess of those he enjoyed in the once united home. In six months spent with father, alternated by six months spent with mother, he generally sees more of his separated parents than he ever saw of them in all the days when they were together. For the parents outdo themselves, w-hile the child is with them, to secure a majority hold on his affections.

Sooner or later the child is bound to enter into the spirit of this wholesome rivalry. He proceeds to play his father and mother against each other. This means that he never allows either parent to suspect which one he really prefers. When he is with mother (or father) he speaks of his father (or mother) as the paragon of all virtues who commands obedience by a prodigious generosity in the matter of toys and trips to the movies. This puts it up to mother (or father) to do still better.

When either parent remarries, the child's position which he himself regards as something of a sinecure, becomes impregnable. With no chance of a reconciliation possible he may safely try to effect one. He asks his step-mother whom he calls "Auntie" why his mother and father can't both come to his birthday party (if successful this plan avoids a duplication of gifts). He tells his mother, when he is with her again, that "Auntie" is so sweet, and to his new "Uncle", he explains what a good sport father is. So the child plays this mixed foursome, and when possible all eight grandparents and the servants in both houses against each other—to his own material advantage, of course. He reaps the privilege of a child of the divorced: He always gets his own way. He learns, moreover, certain secrets which, later in life, will bring him success and a brilliant social career— compromise, diplomacy, self preservation, egotism and good manners.

And all the while he is adding to the permanency and the glory of the institution of Divorce, breathing new life into its etiquette and its subtle code of ethics, for he is the emotional link which binds the divorced to each other until death do them part.