French & English

The notion of marriage as an alliance is more generally prevalent in France than in England, where it belongs only to the upper, or at least the wealthier classes. The ideal of a French marriage is the practice of princes in the middle ages and at the Renaissance, when they were affianced to ladies whom they had never seen, merely on the ground that their social position was suitable. The ideal of an English marriage is that the social position of both parties must be suitable, but that they ought previously to have some acquaintance with each other and some appearance of affection. There are, however, many exceptions in the practice of both countries. In both, there is a strong disapproval of the mésalliance, which goes so far that even in England it is said that society will condone a seduction more willingly.

The dictionaries say that mésalliance signifies marriage with an inferior, but they fail to explain the kind of inferiority indicated. Would moral or intellectual inferiority in one of the parties constitute a mésalliance for the other? It would most assuredly in reality, and bring its own daily and hourly punishment; but opinion overlooks these trifles, which only concern the parties directly interested. Does a mésalliance result from a difference of rank? English opinion is very elastic about rank; we see marriages between titled and untitled people every day. Does it result from inequality of wealth? That inequality is far more frequent between married people in England, an aristocratic country, than under the French Republic. The rule against mésalliances in England amounts to no more than this, that the parties to the marriage ought to belong to the same monde, that is, they ought to have been seen in the same houses. In France it is a mésalliance for a noble to marry a commoner, and this certainly marks a more trenchant line than any that exists in England, where a commoner may belong to the aristocracy, which he cannot do in France, unless he succeeds in making himself a false noble. Marriages with rich commoners are not infrequent in France, but they are always confessedly mésalliances. On the whole, I should say that so far as marriage is concerned, ideas of class are decidedly more rigorous in France than in England. The woman’s name and condition survive more after the marriage in France. Great numbers of French people put their wife’s surname after their own, and even if this is not done formally, the linen and silver may be marked with the two initials. A Frenchman will sometimes use his mother’s surname instead of his father’s, if it seems to him more euphonious. In formal announcements of deaths and marriages the wife’s surname is frequently preserved. The habit of saying Madame de B. née de C. is a French habit, and she may be called in legal documents Jeanne de C., wife of Gaston de B., as if her name survived after marriage, which it really does in the French conception of marriage.

After careful observation I have arrived at the conclusion that the French de before a name, whether rightly or fraudulently borne (for that makes little perceptible difference), is equivalent to about ten thousand pounds in the marriage market and will often count for more. It is wonderful that it should be so, considering that all French people know how frequently the de is assumed; but it seems to be valued as a mark that the bearer belongs to the gentry, which, in fact, he generally does. The genuine nobility who have become too poor to keep a place in genteel society, and have to work for their living, seldom retain the particule, or retain it only for a short time. If they did not drop it themselves the world would drop it for them. I have met with several instances of this. To be able to retain the particule is therefore a sort of practical evidence that one belongs to the upper classes. It is also a kind of guarantee that he will not profess liberal opinions. As a rule the new and false noble is more royalist than the Pretender himself, and certainly more clerical than the clergy.

The rule that marriages are made from inclination in England and from interest in France requires to be understood with very great reserves. When English writers have France in their minds they assert the rule very positively, but when the repellent French influence does not deflect their judgment they become exceedingly frank about the hunting after rank and fortune in the great London marriage market. It would be easy to quote novels and essays and social sketches of all kinds which paint London society as a vast field of rivalry, where matrimonial ambition lays itself out continually for high prizes, and either triumphs in the winning of them or has to taste the bitterness of defeat. Even the novelists who describe country life appear to believe that worldly motives operate frequently in the provinces.

This is one of the many instances in which the same thing is called by different names. There is no exact translation of “mariage de convenance” in English. “Convenance” would be most nearly translated by “suitableness,” but the word “convenance” has a certain connection with what is right and proper; “c’est inconvenant” means “it is improper.” The “mariage de convenance” is a marriage that appears to be suitable, I mean that other people consider to be so. Of course they are often egregiously mistaken; they think it perfectly “suitable” to fasten two people together for life who are quite unfitted for anything like companionship. Byron’s marriage was a very perfect “mariage de convenance,” and we know what came of it.

In England these are called “prudent marriages,” but when they occur in France the English speak of them with strong disapprobation as “business transactions.” This is an example of the great art of “putting things.”

A prudent marriage is not necessarily a business transaction either in France or England. Let us consider a real case. A young gentleman (French or English) dislikes the idea of permanent celibacy, yet his income, though rather more than sufficient for a bachelor, is inadequate for the expenses of marriage. He marries a woman with some fortune. This cannot be described as “a business transaction” unless he gains by it, and in most cases he gains nothing, he only protects himself against social déchéance or financial ruin. He acts without a view to profit, purely in self-defence. He wishes to marry without injuring himself; he does not wish to turn marriage into a profitable transaction. Nine-tenths of French marriages are made exactly in this way.

French customs in contracting marriage differ from the English customs chiefly in this, that the French know so little of each other before they are betrothed (often nothing whatever), the marriage having been arranged by other people. Here is a real instance. A young gentleman of my acquaintance was engaged to one of two sisters before he had seen either, and when he met them together in a drawing-room he asked his mother which was to be his wife. This is a supremely perfect example of a genteel arrangement in France, where the less people know of each other before marriage the more are they comme il faut. I remember being much amused by the indignation of a very beautiful young French lady about a rumour that she had been wedded for love. She reiterated her assurance that it was a baseless fabrication, that her husband had only seen her once before their betrothal, and then quite formally in the presence of other people, and that their marriage had been entirely one of “convenance.” In short, she repelled the idea of love as if it had been a disgraceful and unmerited imputation.[81] English writers who wish to depreciate French people can scarcely exaggerate the mutual ignorance in which genteel French marriages are usually made. There are, however, occasional exceptions, and I myself have known a few French people who condemned the system strongly. As to the lower classes, especially the peasantry, courtship goes on almost after the English fashion. There are “mariages d’inclination” in all classes, though they become less and less frequent as you ascend the social scale. That such marriages must exist will be evident to any one who reflects that in France there are dowerless girls who get married nevertheless. Neither does a dowerless girl invariably accept the first young gentleman who proposes himself. I myself have known several poor French girls who refused good offers; a very striking instance came within my knowledge during the composition of this volume.[82] A French mother said to me, “I have never regretted not to have been able to give dowries to my daughters. They had several offers which were addressed to themselves and not to their purses, and they married most happily.” The expression “marry for money” would apply, no doubt, to some cases (as in England, for there are fortune-hunters everywhere), but it does not apply to the great majority of French marriages. The accurate way of stating the case is this. A Frenchman generally expects his wife to bear part of the household expenses. As it does not often happen that the wife can follow a profession or a trade, such an expectation amounts to the expectation of a dowry. In most cases the amount of this dowry is so moderate that an Englishman would say the girl had nothing—he would not take such a sum into consideration, one way or the other, when he married. For me (who know a great deal more about the inside of French life than can conveniently be printed), I have come to the conclusion that with the present rate of expenses a dowry must be much larger than French dowries usually are to give the young husband the satisfaction of having made a good financial speculation by his marriage. A few hundreds of pounds or a very few thousands are the ordinary dowries in the middle classes, and neither the hundreds nor the thousands are any compensation for the pitiless pecuniary exigencies of married life. No young gentleman in his senses imagines that he can improve his financial position by marrying a young lady of elegant tastes endowed with two hundred a year. Yet that income, at five per cent, represents a capital of a hundred thousand francs, which is an exceptionally large dowry for a French girl in the middle classes. A girl whose father can give four thousand pounds has probably been brought up in a family living in some style, and she will expect a considerable expenditure.[83] It might be a better speculation to take an industrious housewife of simple tastes, without a penny in the world. The small dowries and the very large ones may be useful to two different classes of men. The small dowries are often valuable to people in the struggling classes because they may enable the husband to advance his trade. A journeyman joiner marries a girl with five hundred pounds and becomes a master, a very small shopkeeper may take a larger shop. But what is the good of, say, a thousand pounds to a poor physician or professor? The money by itself might be acceptable, but a wife with it can only mean an increase of his poverty. Yet this is the kind of “marrying for money” that is constantly practised in France. It is no more than a sort of partial prudence in cases where complete prudence would be not to marry at all.

In England this sort of moderate deference to prudential considerations is comparatively rare. An Englishman marries for affection decidedly, or for money with equal decision. He despises a small dowry. The same man may marry for pure love with absolute disdain of money, or he may sacrifice affection and seek for a wealthy heiress. He would not, like a Frenchman, be turned aside from a love-match by five or six hundred pounds.

Nearly all ranks in France are moderately prudent with regard to marriage, but in England it is only the comfortable classes that are so. The imprudence of the lower middle classes and of the people is almost without limit. They talk about marriage, and they enter upon it, exactly as if pecuniary difficulties had no existence. One of my friends was invited to a wedding where rather genteel appearances were observed, but nobody except himself had any cash. At the end of the ceremony the young bridegroom approached him and borrowed fourteen shillings to pay the fees. The money was never returned.

I think it may fairly be said that there is more marrying simply for marriage in France than in England. What I mean may be made clearer by a particular instance. A French lady once told me and several other people that her son was going to be married. “Who is the young lady?” I inquired. “Oh,” she answered, “I only mean that my son has decided to marry, he has not yet fixed upon any young lady; that is a matter for future consideration.” This, I should say, is very characteristic of French habits of thought about marriage. A young Frenchman will live on for some years without troubling his head about the matter, when suddenly, nobody knows why, he will come to the conclusion that he ought to get married, and then he will very likely ask some old lady to manage the business for him. In the clerical party marriages are often made by priests, who have great influence in finding rich girls for young men likely to be dutiful sons of the Church. Open unbelievers cannot hope to benefit by these influences. In England also a reputation for strict orthodoxy is very valuable to a young gentleman at the time of marriage; it is, in fact, or certainly was some years ago, more valuable than a reputation for morality. I myself have known instances of young Englishmen who married well and were known to be immoral, when they would not have had the most distant chance of “marrying money” if they had not been regular attendants at divine worship.

My own opinions on these matters are of little consequence to any one, but as a writer is constantly exposed to misrepresentation, I will state them very briefly in self-defence. It seems to me that marriage may be undertaken from a variety of motives and be fairly happy, either in France or England, but that the only foundation of the best happiness is companionship. How this ideal is to be realised every one must judge for himself. In my opinion it depends much more upon mental sympathy than on equality of fortune or rank, or even on identity of nationality. Marriage is a life-long conversation, and I have never found that conversation with any lady was more interesting because she had money in her purse.

Again, with regard to the use of the words “prudence” and “prudent” concerning marriage, I should say that these words are employed far too exclusively, both in France and England, with reference to pecuniary considerations, which are not the whole of prudence but only a very limited part of it. To marry a person whom you have never seen, or of whose character, gifts, and tastes you know only what can be learned in one or two short and formal interviews, is an act of the wildest imprudence, however wealthy the person may be, and this kind of utter rashness is exceedingly common amongst French people, who are prudent to excess in all that touches fortune. One consideration, especially, exhibits this rashness in its true character. To marry a woman of whom you know nothing is to entrust your children to a woman of whom you know as little.