Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1899 — FRENCH MA[?]IAGES. [ARTICLE]

FRENCH MA[?]IAGES.

> /; ■ ■ 1 ■ Personal Wish*-* off Girls Are 3*»w Considered. Miss Anna L. Bkknell is an English lady who has had most unusual opportunities for studying French life. For a number of years she was a governess in the household of NapoJeon lIL, and resided in the Tuileries. For the Century Miss Bicknell has written an article on “French Wives and Mothers,” In which she says: The old marriage de convenanee, which caused so much sorrow and consequent evil in former days, when a girl was taken out of a convent to be shown the man to whom she was About to be married, is now a thing of the past. It must be acknowledged, however, that marriages are still made up, often too hastily and superficially, by nicely balanced family arrangements and by the intervention of friends. Nevertheless, attraction and repulsion are now taken Into consideration, and a girl is no longer forced to marry a man whom she positively disliked. I could quote instances in the very highest (historical) aristocracy where, at the last moment, after the trousseau had been sent in (marked, according to custom, with the united initial letters of the two names elaborately embroidered) and all the social preparations made, the marriage was broken off because .the bride had declared that she could not “get accustomed’' to the bridegroom, nor endure the idea of seeing his face in her home during her natural life. In one of these instances the family lamentations over the initials of the trousseau were really amusing. Fortunately, a substitute was soon found, whose name, like that of the rejected suitor, began with an X. and the complications were thus happily settled.

The great object of the French girl's life is marriage. From the time of her birth her parents have prepared for this event, and in many cases they have considerably straitened their income and curtailed their enjoyment to make up her dot. Every girl iu every class Is expected to have something; those who have nothing are exceptions, and constitute n minority of old maids. The girls who from choice do not marry generally become nuns, usually much against the wishes of their parents. The old tales of young women being forced into convents to improve their position of their brothers are forgotten In these days. when, while no child can on any pretense be deprived of a share in the father's inheritance, monastic vows are not recognized by law. Nuns and spinsters are exceptions; marriage is the rule.