M. Zola on Marriage.

Evening Star, Issue 7754, 27 October 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

M. Zola on Marriage.

e The Paris correspondent of the 'Daily Telegraph' recently wrote to M. Emile Zola to ask for his views upon points in Mrs Caird's recent article upon marriage, and received the following reply:—" I have no opinion on this question of marriage which you bring before me. Questions relating to humanity in its passions have always interested me more than social ones. To study man is the part of the writer, and I leave to the legislator the duty of looking after the code." Since this letter was written the correspondent called upon M. Zola at his retreat on the banks of the Seine, and had a long conversation with him. " I confess," said the great writer, " that this question of marriage does not interest me keenly. Dumas or Renan, or even Daudet, might find it to their tastes. Dumas particularly has treated the marriage question at length. For my part, if you want my opinion on marriage from the French point of view, it is thi3: I know very little about England, having never been there in my life ; but I can understand the absorbing interest which the subject must have from a glance at the columns of the ' Daily Telegraph.' So far as France is concerned, I think that marriage is like the church—an old and faulty institution. It -will have to go on until something better be found to replace it." " What do you think, M. Zola," I said, " of the free love principle as advocated by Mrs Caird in opposition to the present mode of marrying two people together ' for better or for worse, till death do us part,'and so on?" " Well, I think," replied the novoliat, " that the collage system, as we calL it in France, may be every bit as good as matrimony, provided the parties agree. There aro cases of French couples who have carried on collage for thirty years, and have been as united as if in the bonds of wedlock. It all depends on the people themselves. Who, by the way, is Mrs Caird ? Is she old ? Has she been happy ?" But here I must draw a veil over M. Zola's inquiries and remarks, as in his usual analytically-minute manner he wanted to get at " human documents " with which I regretted I was unable to supply him. The conversation having been resumed after a little mild merriment, M. Zola went on to Bay that the divorce system, which is now in working order in France, was being greatly patronised by those who did not find the yoke of matrimony agreeable. " But in any case, marriage, as at present constituted in France, is a failure and a grievance. So, too, is everything in our modern society. Wo are all going to universal rottenness. I have already touched upon the subject of French marriages in my book ' Pot Bouille ;' but, as I have said in my letter, it is not my province to provide remedies. I and my friends are artists, romanciers, realists, or ' naturalists,' whatever term you like, and we paint things as we Bee them in all their hideous ugliness and filth. We minutely describe the social ulcers, fungi, and ordures, and we leave to the legislator the task of sweeping them away. That is all I have to say on the question !"