Three Things

Truth, common sense and happiness provide the organising ideas for Elinor Glyn's collection of articles on personal conduct and family life. Her introduction, dated Paris, 1914, links clear thinking with the welfare of households and communities. The chapters consider changing social habits, marriage, divorce and the responsibilities of motherhood. Glyn explains that her discussion of divorce begins from an English perspective, while offering arguments she hopes readers elsewhere can consider.

The opening essay connects social unrest with education, invention and changing attitudes towards religious authority. Later, Glyn examines fidelity and the different standards of honour applied to husbands and wives, using a business agreement as a comparison. These are strongly stated personal arguments about how people behave and how they ought to live. Readers interested in early twentieth-century discussions of family duties will find a mixture of optimism about progress and firm assumptions about the differences between men and women.