THEODORE DALRYMPLE

Marriage, like slavery, is a peculiar institution, and these days more and more people are avoiding it. It is hard enough for two human beings to associate closely, let alone to promise to do so for the rest of their lives. The glory and misery of human association were illustrated recently in a small newspaper item that I noticed. A woman begged a judge not to send her consort to prison after he had broken her ribs and punched her 20 times in the head.

'He's a good man,' she said. 'Living with him has many good points.'

Not long before, I had read of a woman who was imprisoned for having refused to testify against her assailant-boyfriend. Suddenly, the one remaining advantage of marriage as an institution became clear to me, in a Eureka moment: under English law, a woman cannot be forced to testify against her husband, even if he has broken her ribs and punched her 20 times in the head. Marriage is thus mutually advantageous to the happy couple.

There is no doubt that, technical progress notwithstanding, human relations, at least in Britain, are becoming daily more complex and difficult. Last week, for example, I was speaking to a man who had tried, unsuccessfully, to hang himself in the lavatories of the Red Eagle. He had been cut down by his fellow drinkers and brought to hospital. I asked him why he did it.

'They're gonna send me back to prison,' he said. 'Prison's no good to me. Prison's not what I need.'

'What do you need?'

'Help.'

'What kind of help?'

'Medication. I don't like what they're giving me..

'What are they giving you?'

`Nothing.'

I asked him why they were thinking of sending him back to prison.

'Breach of the bloody whatever they call it,' he said.

'What do they call it?' I asked.

'How the f— should I know?'

'Any clue?'

'Well, when I got there I thought who's she got in my effing bed.'

'And then what happened?'

'They say I caused a young copper to fear for his own personality.'

'Anything else?'

'They say I threatened to kill.'

'And did you?' 'Well, I said you're dead meat, you won't see the weekend.'

`That sounds a little like a threat.' 'Yeah, but she's a pisshead.'

I asked him whether he had any other problems. He thought for a moment. 'Apparently I'm constipated.' 'Apparently?'

'That's what they say.'

'Who?'

'My doctor.'

'Is there anything else on your mind?' 'I've got no self-worth.'

'Why is that?'

'No one believes me. Even the courts don't believe me. I mean, if I was guilty, I'd put my hands up to it.'

My next patient was a drunk. His feet smelt terrible. I wouldn't let him in my room because I didn't want the smell to linger and the cleaner to come in with her lavender aerosol. There are few combinations of odours more repellent than dirty feet and industrial lavender.

The drunk had drunk about nine litres of 8.4 per cent cider and was feeling the worse for it.

'The funny thing is, doctor,' he said, 'I've just had a week on the wagon.'

'What happened?'

'The beer took over.'