Phyllis Barry — Is There a “New Deal” in Love? (1934) 🇺🇸
Ever since Adam looked down and discovered he’d misplaced a rib the question has come up time and again — “to marry or not to marry!” It’s been a question of are you for marriage — or agin it?
by Phyllis Barry
Monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, right down the line to the “good old halter at the altar” have been discussed back and forth, and now with modern Russia doing a right-about-face at the sign of a minister, a bible and a sprig of orange blossoms, it comes up again — and again.
When I was engaged to play the role of Dotty Tait in the Monarch production “Marriage on Approval,” and studied the script of the story which deals with this modern question in a new wav, I wondered seriously, for the first time perhaps, whether marriage, as we have come to know it, will survive the changes in this rapidly altering world.
With more leisure growing out of our present economic set up, women and men are going to have more time — and more time means more mischief, if I know my sexology lesIt isn’t logic to suppose, with our whole set-up changed beyond recognition, that marriage, orthodox marriage, will remain inviolate. Things move forward in this world — and I’m wondering if the “new deal” in love will lead a procession of youngsters past the registrar’s office into strange and divergent paths?
It probably is the old adage worked with new elements. “You can’t have your cake and eat it too” becomes “You can’t have this new freedom and the old state of marriage.” It’s one or the other — never both. You may delude yourself that it will work in your case, even though it doesn’t with John and Harriet or Phil and Jeanette, but don’t kid yourself little sister, you are just one of the pack and the big, bad wolf will git you ef you don’t watch out!
Freedom means freedom. It never means marriage — For each are extreme opposites.
Freedom as I’ve seen it in my own life in England, where I was born, in Australia, where I played the leading role in musical comedy for several years, and in Hollywood where I came to first play the role of Doris in “Cynara,” means never taking another person into consideration when there’s something you want to do. It means that your time, your heart and your fancies are free as the air — and twice as light — it means that there are explanations to no one and fun for all!
Marriage, on the other hand means tee for been duly sanctified, is unsuccessful, the two persons involved will be able to go to the family court, or whatever place is designated for the purpose, and file an intention to dissolve partnership.
If, on the other hand, the couple still love each other, if the marriage has “taken,” and no formal notification of cancellation is made, say ninety days before its expiration, then the option will automatically be taken up and Sadie Kluntz will remain Sadie Kluntz for another three years, at least.
Of course where there are children the issue becomes more and more involved, but a government that can plan for twelve million unemployed can certainly reach a solution for the orphans of divorce. Of course there will probably be no such thing as divorce as we know it, no need for collusion and conniving and false statements, the dissolution will be done with all sweetness and light — even if the fall in round trips to Reno hits the railroads right between their RFC loans!
Personally I think it will mean that people will take each other more seriously. Many a married man who plays around just for the fun of it with a bevy of girls who don’t mean any more to him than a thrill-a-minute, will be more careful because Minnie can walk out the door while he isn’t keeping the home fires burning. And though he plays around like a fox terrier he’s just a St. Bernard at heart — and loves his hearth, his slippers and the apple strudel that Minnie makes with her fine Italian hand…
Marriages that have lost love are lost to those who share them. That’s why I have faith in the “new deal.” It won’t demand a man or a woman pretending at love. It won’t ask anything more than honesty — and love can’t go very wrong on that. If a couple part because one or both of them can’t see the other quite in the same light as he or she did three or five or ten years ago — who shall be blamed? It’s too bad but you can’t make a feeling live that has died any more than you can wish yourself to be three and a half years with the cutest dimple!
Let’s go on from here — go places — see people and do things!
I think the new deal in love is something to make our new blue eagle warble like a nightingale. Or a love bird, if love birds warble. It’s so spontaneous and joyous and real— it certainly does relieve that tired feeling!
It is true that I am not married, but I think that the present shining examples of love under the cuckoo has sounded more like “Listen to the Mocking Bird” than “Kiss Me Again.” Maybe I’m wrong.
At least I’d like to give it a chance much as we’ve tried the gold standard and the single standard and standard time.
Time! That’s the big thing! “Time changeth all things” and with it the love, ofttimes, of man and maid. Then let’s make a new try— it just may work out.
In Marriage on Approval, there is a very delightful twist to the story which was written by Priscilla Wayne, who, conducting a “lovelorn” column on a large Western newspaper, has learned many things — and has written this story of modern youth with rare insight and a delightful novelty. Barbara Kent is the girl and Donald Dillaway the boy and I, well, I may as well break down and confess, I’m the menace!
But please don’t believe, as so many people do, who see motion picture people nearly ruin loves and shipwreck marriages on the screen, that I am that away really! In Love Past Thirty, also by Miss Wayne, you’ll see still another angle to the romance and affection question; and I’m not that way in real life either. I’m not! I’m for marriage, the I good, old-fashioned kind, if you’re a good, old-fashioned person; but if you happen to have gone modern, if you feel that there should be syncopation to Mendelssohn and that “until honesty do us part” should be substituted for the deathbed confession, I say, and I say it with a prayer and a blessing “Is there a New Deal for love?”
—
Phyllis Barry, Monarch Star.
—
Collection: Broadway and Hollywood “Movies” Magazine, May 1934