From Blackwood's Magazine.
FRENCH MARRIAGE.

J'erations of a varied nature, which justify and sometimes even require the intervenONE of the effects of the individual tion of parents and families. But the self-confidence which is so general an French carry this intervention to a length attribute of us Anglo-Saxons, is to in- which we could not support: they leave cline us to face marriage without calcu- no liberty and no action to the coming lating its cost. We do it because it couple: the whole thing is taken out of tempts and interests us at the moment, their hands: they are treated as if they trusting to luck and to our strong arms were incompetent in the question: their for the means of keeping our wife and parents undertake the negotiation for children. There is something manly and them, and handle it as governments deal vigorous in this way of acting: of course with international treaties. Glaringly eviit is rash and dangerous, of course it dent as are the emotionality and the mooften leads to all kinds of worry, and it bility of the French in other phases of sometimes ends in downright misery; their conduct, they have no application but there is a pluckiness about it which here. They find their use abundantly in commends itself to our natures. Political superficial sentiments, in the forms and economists and philosophers go on at- thoughts and words of outside existence, tacking it with unavailing arguments and in the manifestation of already existing unconvincing proofs. Right as they may affections; but, with rare exceptions, be in theory, they do not influence our they have nothing to do with the preparapractice; "improvident marriages are tion of a marriage. Their place is taken, as numerous as ever. We are not a pru-on that one occasion, by a dry, arithmetident people in this respect, and neither cal computation of practical results, with earnest books nor eloquent discourses no excitement and with no distractions. are likely to change our tendencies. Most of us believe, in varying degrees, in our own innate power of overcoming obstacles as they arise. We do not shrink from matrimony because it may involve us in risks and difficulties; we rush at it because it attracts us at the moment, and because we are surrounded by crowds of people who have done the same before us, and have struggled somehow through the consequences of their hurry or their

error.

Where we so ordinarily listen to what we understand by love, to the temptations of the young heart in all their forms (however transitory), to our individual impressions and to our own opinions, the French consult fitnesses of relative situa[tion, reciprocities of fortune and position, and harmonies of family intercourse. They seek to insure the future, in some degree, in its social as well as its pecuniary forms. They lay it down that passion is no guide to permanent satisfaction, and that other people than the two directly interested have, both in law and reason, a right of judgment in so grave a

The process of the French, on this point as on so many others, is in absolute contradiction with our own. Where we decide and act, they weigh, and calculate, | case. This does not absolutely mean and hesitate, and consider. They reach that pre-existing sympathies are considno resolve until they fancy they have ex- ered to be unnecessary for marriage in hausted the measurement of advantages France; but it does mean, in the disand disadvantages, until they have pon- tinctest language, that such sympathies dered over probabilities and possibilities, alone are not admitted there as a suffiuntil they imagine they have united as cient motive for an association which is many elements of success as human fore- to last till death. Sympathies wear out sight can collect. It can scarcely be said sometimes; new ones grow up from that even in England marriage is re- other contacts; eternal attachments are garded as a purely personal arrange- very rare between people who have not ment, concerning only the two immediate managed to get married, and have not parties to it. We admit, in our upper the aid of the wedded tie to hold them classes at least, that it involves consid- steadily together: but the necessities of

ence, and French parents pay more attention to them than to what may be only a passing inclination in their sons and daughters.

as the happiness of

life never fade away; they never weaken; point of home-lifethey remain in force with pitiless persist- husbands, wives, and children depends, in a great degree, on the condition under which it is realized and worked out — it is fair, and even necessary, to judge it not only in its beginnings and its organization, but in its results as well. Indeed it would be rather difficult in such a case to consider causes without effects. We look, instinctively from one to the other,

the

And it must be borne in mind that this view of marriage is not solely a development of the national disposition towards prudence; it is also, to some extent at all events, a consequence of the legal and, half-unconsciously, estimate enactments contained in the Code Napo- value of the commencement by the value léon. The law forbids all marriages with- of the end. But how are the results of out either the consent of the father and marriage to be correctly measured? We mother, or proof that they are both dead. all know how difficult it is to make a It is very troublesome to get married in definite opinion for ourselves on the France; the operation is surrounded by point even in the case of the friends with difficulties and formalities which would whom we live in constant intimacy, make an Englishman stamp with rage. whose interiors we know in detail, whose It is true that if parents refuse to allow quarrels, whose special sympathies, whose their children to follow their own wishes, qualities and defects, we have had some the latter are permitted, provided they means of testing. How then, if it be so have attained their majority, to go through hard a task to reach a conviction in the a process called "a respectful summons few cases round us, can we hope to form a to consent," after which, if the parents judgment fairly applicable to an entire persist in their rejection of the appeal, nation? Vague ideas are of no use here; marriage may be at last attained. No prejudices mislead; facts are impossible matter of what age a man or woman mar- to collect on so large a scale. And yet ry, even if they are sixty, they must eith- there is a guide, an incomplete and iner produce the written consent of their sufficient one, but still a safe one so father and mother, or show that they far as it can lead us; that guide is the have applied for it in due legal form and impression which a nation entertains that it has been denied them without sufficient cause, or prove that they are orphans. The object of this legislation is not only to prevent bigamy (which, under such conditions, is naturally rare in France), but, even more, to maintain parental authority, and to insure a due sub-room talks, and half-confidences, and viljection of children. So far there is something to be said in its favour, especially as, in many cases, it really does protect young people against their own folly. But as, after all, marriage is a complex ably approximate picture of what all state, requiring something more than a father's approbation to conduct it to success, it is natural that we, who regard the entire subject from a very different point of view, should have a good many objections to urge.

The question, however, is not merely one of legal forms and parental privileges; it contains a vast deal more besides. As marriage is the real starting

about itself. If we consult it carefully we get the accumulated experience of the mass in the only form in which it manifests itself on such a subject as this. There are no returns, no reports, no statistics to refer to; but there are drawing

lage rumours, and the gossip of the market-place, and the wise head-shakings of the old people; and with their aid, if we listen closely, we can compose a toler

these indications describe. But we can only do it fairly on condition of being scrupulously exact, of effacing from our memory all predisposition towards special shades and special forms, of marking down absolutely nothing of what our own imagination so easily suggests, and of strictly limiting our colouring to what we are quite certain that we distinctly see. And even then, we have to reconcile bit

ter contradictions, to group together the most opposite results, to institute a comparison of causes.

about ten per cent above its present rate. But the diminution which has since occurred has been universal; it is not But before we consider the evidence special to France or to any other land. thus obtainable as to the moral results The French continue to take wives in of marriage in France, it may be useful the same proportion as they have always to cast a glance at the material compari- practised towards their neighbours; son which it is possible to make between they have diminished matrimony only as the quantity of marrying which takes it has been diminished all around them. place amongst the French, and the cor- If, however, they have held their own responding figures on the same subject in the rate of marrying, they have diwhich other nations offer. In his "Elé-minished largely, since the Revolution, ments de Statistique," M. Moreau de in the fecundity of marriage. In 1770 Jonnès gives a table of the number of the children born in France were in promarriages which are effected annually in portion to the whole population, I in 25; the principal countries of Europe. Ire- now they have come down to 1 in 35; land comes first with one marriage for the falling off has consequently reached each ninety inhapitants; France is six- the enormous figure of forty per cent. teenth with I for 122; England twenty- Here lies the real explanation of the seventh with I in 137; Tuscany twenty- strange, fact which has so astonished eighth and last, with 1 in 143. Now if Europe after each census recently taken this be true and the well-known name in France; the fact that the French have of M. Moreau de Jonnès may be accept- almost ceased to increase in numbers. ed as a guarantee for the exactness of It is not, however, as a statistical curiosthe numbers-it seems to follow that, ity that the subject is referred to here, notwithstanding our headstrong impru- but because it is most intimately condence, we English actually marry less, nected with the entire question of French proportionately, than the prudent, calcu- marriages, because it bears closely on lating French, who look before they leap. their moral organization, because it opens This is an unexpected fact to start with, the door to considerations which would but, if it be a fact, it indicates, with tol- be almost incomprehensible if it were erable distinctness, that the hesitations omitted. We will presently come back which precede all marriages in France do not really stop marriage, for the French stand in the middle of the table which has just been quoted, below the Northern races, which (excepting Eng- The French are certainly convinced land) head the list, but above all the that they are a happy people. And so Southern States, which close it. The they are, if gaiety and cheeriness and position thus indicated for France is the mutual good-will can be taken as satisvery one which would appear to be the factory and sufficient evidence on the most desirable to occupy; it is a fair point. No nation has more laughter; average, showing neither too little nor neither Irishmen nor Negroes surpass too much. And France retains the same them there; and it is generally good, approximate position if we look back- honest laughter, resulting from a motive, wards and carry the comparison into the not mere senseless giggling. But hapeighteenth century. A hundred years piness and laughter are not synonyago, marriages were everywhere more mous; the latter is not necessarily a frequent than they are now: subsistence symptom of the existence of the former; was more easy to obtain, it was not so the saddest of us may laugh sometimes, difficult to provide for children, and we while the most thoroughly contented may consequently find that the number of be constitutionally inclined to gravity. annual marriages, relatively to the then It is not, then, on this one outward sign population, was, throughout Europe, that either practically or logically the

to it. Meanwhile we can leave dry figures and return to the more interesting study of opinions, impressions, and personal experiences.

French can base their claim to be re- precept, that as our longings, our necesgarded as a really happy nation. If the sities, and our fancies, change with time claim be founded, the grounds on which and age, and with position too, the atit rests must be looked for elsewhere-tempts we make to satisfy those longings in deeper, less superficial, and less ap- and those fancies should vary their nature parent proofs. It is especially in their and their character in sympathy with the use of married life that the evidence, if modifications which occur in the object really it exists, should be looked for and to be attained. What pleases us at twenbe found. And here it is that we must ty, begins to lose its charm at thirty, and take up the testimonies alluded to just wearies us at forty. And if this be true now and try to measure what they reveal of men, it is truer still of women, who, as to us. If marriage, as a rule, is found to a natural result of the home-life they lead, produce success if the men and wo- are fatally condemned to aspire after men that it brings together generally as- variety of indoor emotions, because they sert that they are satisfied with what can find none outside. The husband who they have extracted from it if lookers- has studied the philosophy of home hapon, all round them, confirm their declar- piness, who has entered marriage with a ations, and tell us that their married true sense of its dangers and its powers, friends so far as they can judge them will not wait for his wife to manifest - have no home difficulties and no home fatigue; from the first hour of their comregrets, then we may, without impru- mon existence he will begin to teach her dence, recognize that the French are that the tie between man and woman canreally a happy people, and that the mar- not preserve its vigour and its first eager riage system on which their home life is truth unless the elements which compose based, is proved to be well adapted to it are skilfully replaced and thoughtfully their character and their needs, for the renewed as they successively wear out simple reason that it leads them on to and gradually cease to produce their old joy. effect: he will try to show to her, while she is still in the enthusiasm of early wedded joy, that happiness, like all other states - and perhaps even more than all the restis, by its very nature, but a passing, transitory condition; that what gave it to us yesterday may fail to create it for us to-day; that the sympathies which seem to us so ardent and so durable in the inexperience of our beginnings, will be but fading brightnesses if we do not watch over each fluctuation of their aspects, each faint symptom of their change. Young wives may hesitate when first such theories as these are laid before their astonished eyes: it causes pain to their earnest fondness of the moment to be assured that, according to the laws of probability, that fondness will not last unless new nourishment, new starting points, new stimulants be provided for it as years pass on. But when once they have grown accustomed to the argument

It may be said at once, subject to exceptions, explanations, and reservations, that this result is generally attained by the French, that they really are, in-doors, a happy nation, and their marriages, as a whole, present enviable results.

It may be as well, however, before going further, to attempt to give a definition of married happiness as it is sometimes comprehended and pursued in its highest form across the Channel. It is not always quite the same condition. It not unfrequently implies, amongst the educated classes, a ceaseless employment of intelligence and skill, such as we rarely know of here. The mass in France, of course, acts like the mass elsewhere; it takes life as it finds it; it "lets it rip," as the Americans say. It seeks no improvement; it crawls on with what it has. But there is a theory of marriage which some French men and women understand and realize -a theory which not only leads them to distinguish the highest uses to which the married state may tend, but which enables them to detect the means by which those uses can be reached. In cases such as these, the life which two lead together becomes a constant, ever-growing pursuit of forms and shades of happiness which are beyond the thought, and even beyond the faculty of comprehension, of the crowd. The basis of their practice rests on the wise

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- when once they have been led to an ap preciation of its unvarying and universal application then, if they do love their husband truly, they become his active aid, his convinced co-operator in the delicate but inestimable labour of maintaining, in all its strength of origin, of developing to its fullest growth of perfectness, the first object of their united life — joint happiness.

And yet examples seem to indicate that frequently women do not possess the