pgw bach anonymous cover

If you’ve been fortunate enough to have discovered Wodehouse early in your life, this extract from one of his classics, Bachelors Anonymous, might remind you that there’s no such thing as ‘too much’ Wodehouse. If, on the other hand, your education has hitherto been incomplete, I bid you to make haste and get yourself a Wodehouse (you can’t go wrong with any of his books) and discover an idyllic world of pleasure that can never go stale. Mr. Ephraim Trout is one of the founding members of Bachelors Anonymous – a Los Angeles-based circle of luminaries whose charter is to ensure that men remain bachelors and draw their inspiration from Alcoholics Anonymous. In the extract below, Mr. Trout makes the case against marriage to Joe Pickering, the story’s protagonist who’s madly in love with one Sally Fitch, though all is not well between the couple at this stage of the story.

‘Yes, Pickering, you are well out of it,’ said Mr. Trout. ‘You have had a most merciful escape. Have you ever considered what marriage means? I do not refer to the ghastly ordeal of the actual service, with its bishops and assistant clergy, its bridesmaids and the influx of all the relations you have been trying to avoid for years, but to what comes after. And when I say that, I am not thinking of the speech you would be compelled to make at the wedding breakfast. That and the service that preceded it are merely temporary agonies, and a strong man can fortify himself with the thought that they will soon be linked for life, with someone who comes down to breakfast, puts her hands over your eyes and says “Guess Who”? From what you were saying about the dimple on this girl’s left cheek I gather that she is not without physical allure, but can she drive a car? Somebody has got to drive the car and do the shopping while you are playing golf. Somebody has got to be able to fix a flat tyre. Letters, too. What guarantee have you that she will attend to the family correspondence, particularly the Christmas cards? Like so many young men,’ said Mr. Trout, ‘you have allowed yourself to be ensnared by a pretty face, never asking yourself if the person you are hoping to marry is capable of making out your income tax return and can be relied on to shovel snow while you are curled up beside the fire with a novel of suspense. Yes,’ said Mr. Trout, warming to his subject, ‘you are one of the lucky ones. If, as you say, she refuses to see or speak to you, you ought to be dancing sarabands and congratulating yourself on –‘

The conversation (more like a monologue as Trout discovers) is rudely interrupted as Pickering, whose full attention is on the cab in front of them (the cab which is carrying away his beloved Sally Fitch to an indeterminate location) betrays the fact that he’s not been listening to Trout. Undaunted and with more than a touch of the never-say-die spirit which animated all members of Bachelors Anonymous, Trout continues.

‘May I resume my remarks?’ he said. ‘I touched briefly on the more obvious objections to marriage, and later I will go into them again, but at the moment what I would like to stress is what I may call the family peril inseparable from the wedded state. Most girls have families, and why should the object of your devotion be any exception? I very much doubt that you have bestowed your affection on an orphan with no brothers or uncles. You speak enthusiastically of the dimple in her left cheek, but are you aware that statistics show that eighty-seven point six of girls with dimples also have brothers who are always out of a job and have to be supported? And if not brothers, uncles. In practically every home, if you examine closely, you will find an Uncle George or an Uncle Willie, with a taste for whisky and a distaste for work, whose expenses the young husband is compelled to defray. In the vast majority of cases the man who allows himself to be entrapped into matrimony is not so much settling down with the girl he loves as founding a Haven of Rest for the unemployed.’

Next post in this series – In which the very same Ephraim Trout waxes eloquent on marriage.