“After all,” Claire said, “they have a right to be happy.” We talked about what happened recently in the neighborhood. Mr M left his wife and child to marry Mrs N, who also divorced to marry him. No one doubted that Mr. M. and Mrs. N. were very much in love with each other. If this does not go away and if they do not get sick, it is reasonable to assume that they will be happy.
We had no doubt that both of them had been unhappy in their previous marriage. Mrs. N. loved her husband very much, but he was wounded in the war, lost his job, and, judging by the gossip, his manhood. Mrs. N. suffered with him for a long time. Mrs. M. was also tormented: she had become terribly ugly — perhaps because she was exhausted with her children and her husband, who was always ill. Everyone knew that M. was not one of those who would thoughtlessly leave his wife like the skin from a sucked plum. He suffered terribly. “But judge for yourself,” he said, “what could I do? I have, after all, the right to happiness. I couldn’t waste my only chance.»
And I went home thinking about the right to happiness. At first I thought it was as strange as the right to luck. After all, our happiness, like unhappiness, depends to a large extent on circumstances beyond our control, and the “right to it” sounds no more meaningful to me than the right to high growth or good weather.
I understand when law is a kind of freedom secured by the laws of society. For example, I have the right to drive on a highway if it is not privately owned. I also understand the right as a certain demand of mine, supported by the law and correlated with someone else’s obligation. Let’s say I’m entitled to £100 from you if you owe me. Since the law allows M. to leave his wife and seduce his neighbor’s wife, then M. has the right to do so, and happiness has nothing to do with it.
But Claire, of course, wasn’t talking about that. She wanted to say that M. has not only a legal, but also a moral right. In other words, Claire is a classical moralist in the spirit of St. Thomas Aquinas, Grotius, Hooker and Locke.
She believes that the law of the state is based on natural law.
I agree with her. In my opinion, without this prerequisite there is no civilization. Laws will become absolute without it. They cannot be discussed if there is no measure, standard, reference point. Claire’s words are of noble origin. They are dear to all civilized people, especially to Americans, who formulated that one of the human rights is “the right to seek happiness.” And here we come to the essence.
What did the authors of these beautiful lines mean? It is clear, at any rate, what they did not mean. They did not believe that happiness should be sought by any means, including murder, theft, betrayal and slander. No society can be built on this foundation.
By this they meant to say that happiness can be achieved by any legal means, that is, by those that agree with natural law and with the laws of the nation. It would seem that this is a tautology. But in the historical context, tautologies often turn out to be paradoxes. The «Declaration of Rights» first of all rejected the political principle that had long ruled Europe, challenged Russia and Austria, then England, Bourbon France. She declared that the means acceptable for achieving happiness can be used by anyone, without distinction of caste, class, faith and property status. In our age, when nation after nation is abandoning this principle, I would not call it an empty tautology. The question of the legality of the means remains where it was. And here I disagree with Claire. I do not believe that people have an unrestricted right to happiness.
Of course, when talking about happiness, Claire means happiness in love — both because she is a woman, and for another reason. I never heard her apply this principle to anything else in her life. Her views are rather leftist, and she would be horrified if she were told that, after all, a ruthless capitalist has a right to happiness, which for him is in money. In addition, she does not tolerate drunkards and never once thought that for them happiness lies in drinking. Finally, many of her friends would be very happy (I heard it myself) if they told her a few bitter truths to her face. But it is unlikely that she will condescend to their desire.
In fact, she simply repeats what the Western world has been repeating for forty years. When I was very young, all progressive people said as one: “What is this bigotry for? We must look at the sexual need, like all our other needs. In my simplicity, I believed them, but later I realized that they had something completely different in mind. They mean that the aforementioned need should be treated as we do not treat any other need. Civilized man has always believed that his instincts and desires must be restrained. If you never restrain the instinct of self-preservation, you will be considered a coward. If you do not restrain your desire for gain, you will be considered greedy. Even sleep cannot be obeyed if you are sentry. But any cruelty and any betrayal are justified when it comes to love and passion. All this is similar to the system of morality, according to which you cannot steal, but you can steal apricots. If you begin to object, they will answer you with arguments or exclamations about the truth, beauty and even holiness of passion and will accuse you of puritanical abhorrence of love joys. I will not accept this reproach. If I think that boys shouldn’t steal apricots, does that mean I’m against apricots at all, or against boys? Maybe I’m against theft?
The true state of affairs is obscured by the fact that the question of Mr. M. is judged from the standpoint of some kind of «morality of love.» Robbing the garden, we do not sin against the laws of «fruit morality.» We sin against honesty. Mr. M. has sinned against trust, against gratitude, and against ordinary humanity.
So, our love impulses are in a special position. They justify everything that under other circumstances would be called ruthless, dishonest and unjust. I do not believe that this is true, but there is a reason for this, and here is what.
In its very essence, strong love promises us incomparably more than any kind of passion. All desires and passions promise something, but there can be no comparison. Having fallen in love, we are convinced that we will never stop loving, and staying with “her” will provide not some new joys, but lasting and eternal happiness. Thus, everything is at stake. If we miss this chance, our life is wasted. At this very thought, we feel sorry for ourselves to death.
Unfortunately, these promises are often not kept. Every adult knows that all loves pass (except the one he is experiencing now). We see perfectly well what the assurances of our friends are worth that this time it is real. We know that «it» sometimes went on, sometimes it didn’t. It continues not because it seemed so at first. When two people find lasting happiness, they owe them not to wild love, but to the fact that they are — to put it simply — good people, patient, faithful, merciful, able to curb themselves and reckon with each other.
Recognizing the “right to happiness” (in this area), before which all ordinary norms of behavior are nothing, we think not about what actually happens, but about what we imagine when we are in love. Troubles are quite real, and the happiness for which they endure and create, again and again turns out to be illusory. Everyone, except Mr. M. and Mrs. N., sees that in a year or two Mr. M. will have the same reasons to leave his new wife. He will realize again that everything is at stake. He will fall in love again, and self-pity will replace pity for the woman.
Let me tell you two more things. First, a society that does not consider infidelity to be evil ends up hurting women. Whatever the songs and jokes invented by men may say, a woman is much more monogamous than us. Where shed sin reigns, it is much worse for her than for us. In addition, she needs home happiness more than we do. What she usually holds a man with — her beauty — decreases year by year, but with us everything is different, because women, frankly, are indifferent to our appearance. In a word, in a merciless war for love, a woman is twice worse: both her stake is higher and her loss is more likely. I do not agree with those who are outraged by the current female assertiveness. I just feel even more sorry for women, which means that it is very difficult for them to fight.
Second, I don’t think we’ll stop there. If at least somewhere we elevate the “right to happiness” to an absolute, sooner or later this principle will overwhelm everything. We are moving towards a society in which every human desire is recognized as legitimate. And then, even if technology helps us to hold out for a while longer, our civilization can be considered dead and (I don’t even have the right to say “unfortunately”) it will disappear from the face of the earth.