And now, whom did Eliza marry? For if Higgins was a predestinate old
bachelor, she was most certainly not a predestinate old maid. Well,
that can be told very shortly to those who have not guessed it from the
indications she has herself given them.
Almost immediately after Eliza is stung into proclaiming her considered
determination not to marry Higgins, she mentions the fact that young
Mr. Frederick Eynsford Hill is pouring out his love for her daily
through the post. Now Freddy is young, practically twenty years younger
than Higgins: he is a gentleman (or, as Eliza would qualify him, a
toff), and speaks like one; he is nicely dressed, is treated by the
Colonel as an equal, loves her unaffectedly, and is not her master, nor
ever likely to dominate her in spite of his advantage of social
standing. Eliza has no use for the foolish romantic tradition that all
women love to be mastered, if not actually bullied and beaten. "When
you go to women," says Nietzsche, "take your whip with you." Sensible
despots have never confined that precaution to women: they have taken
their whips with them when they have dealt with men, and been slavishly
idealized by the men over whom they have flourished the whip much more
than by women. No doubt there are slavish women as well as slavish men;
and women, like men, admire those that are stronger than themselves.
But to admire a strong person and to live under that strong person's
thumb are two different things. The weak may not be admired and
hero-worshipped; but they are by no means disliked or shunned; and they
never seem to have the least difficulty in marrying people who are too
good for them. They may fail in emergencies; but life is not one long
emergency: it is mostly a string of situations for which no exceptional
strength is needed, and with which even rather weak people can cope if
they have a stronger partner to help them out. Accordingly, it is a
truth everywhere in evidence that strong people, masculine or feminine,
not only do not marry stronger people, but do not show any preference
for them in selecting their friends. When a lion meets another with a
louder roar "the first lion thinks the last a bore." The man or woman
who feels strong enough for two, seeks for every other quality in a
partner than strength.
The converse is also true. Weak people want to marry strong people who
do not frighten them too much; and this often leads them to make the
mistake we describe metaphorically as "biting off more than they can
chew." They want too much for too little; and when the bargain is
unreasonable beyond all bearing, the union becomes impossible: it ends
in the weaker party being either discarded or borne as a cross, which
is worse. People who are not only weak, but silly or obtuse as well,
are often in these difficulties.