"INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGES."

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 53, 26 November 1907, Page 3

"INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGES."

.An interesting article on tho subject of "International Marriages" is contributed by Mary -K. Waddington to the September nunioer of "Scribner's." Of. the number of English and American girls marrying foreigners, w'o are told, Americans are by far the more numerous, arid the American girl. "adapts herself far better than the English girl to the absoluto change of life and surroundings." As fo'r'the Englishwoman, after reading the following paragraph, one wonders that she Bver condescends to marry a man outside that very superior country of her birth: "I think Englishwomen are far less adapt-, able than-Americans. Every day it strikes' me more forcibly. I know, so .many married abroad who have remained.just as<British as if they had never been off thoir island. The Englishwoman begins by believing firmly (and asserting, it rather aggressively) that everything in England is bettor than anything on the Continent. The mori are bigger and stronger, tho women'more virtuous, all English, boys, speak the truth (tho inference is obvious for the rest of tho world), the tradespeople are riioio honest, the statesmen, ministers ,otc., more patriotic, the literature moro elevated in tone." • Meanwhile, any number of Englishwomen, married and singlo, who profcr life abroad, may' he found 011 the Continont, and especially in Franco;and Italy, the two countries specially considered in the article from'which we have quoted the above. In summing up the advantages conferred on and derived from a marriage with a foreigner, the writer points out that "the An-glo-Saxon. married abroad brings a strong individuality, almost always a strong'physique, groat independence of judgment, a great wish to adapt herself-to her now life, and to be popular with her husband's family and friends. She finds in. her foreign home a strong family feeling that will nevor fail her (once a girl is'married in Franco or Italy she is adopted by all tho members of the family) a great pride of race, a' high sense of honour, and in people of rank and fortune a very strong feeling of tho obligations and responsibilities of their position, which is well expressed by the old Froneh diction, Noblesse oblige, in its best sonse." .This boing the case, the advantages on both sides seem sufficiently great to make international marriages anything but unpopular or unsuccessful.