MARRIED LIFE IN FRANCE.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume IX, Issue 26, 26 November 1903, Page 2

MARRIED LIFE IN FRANCE.

What a curious being a Frenchman is ! He meets a woman for one hour in a crush, knows no more of her, well, than she does of him, and yet he is prepared without a qualm to bind himself by the iron chains of matrimony to pass the rest of his natural life with her. He is not overwhelmed with a love which robs him of prudence and reason ; the vainest woman could not explain the phenomenon that way. lie is epris, if you like, but that is the strongest term permissible : he faces the situation calmly and deliberately, when in the approved manner he makes his proposal through a third person. As to the courage of the woman on these occasions, well, it surpasses coherent thought ; imagination totters before the surprises, the eye-openers that must be in store for her.

But women have an extraordinary amount of courage stowed away beneath an often misleading surface.

Lombroso, T believe, says it is a lack of imagination, combined with a very unsensitive nervous system, but whatever may be the cause, it is certainly there, as dentists and doctors will certify. There is a strong element of the gambler, too, in the majority of women, and marriage ofTers the chance of a big haul of happiness not attainable any other way—at present. Marriage in France has this advantage over the same institution in England—it leaves the woman generally much more her own mistress. She is absolutely head and ruler of her own house, her furniture linen, china, etc. are as a rule her property, and there is no doubt übout it, the clot gives her a status denied the penniless bride, and inspires a good deal of most desirable respect in the male breast. It appears to me also, the husband and wife do not jostle each other so closely as in England ; each allows the other plenty of elbow-room. From ” An English Girl in Paris,”