MARRIAGES IN GERMANY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2368, 20 July 1899, Page 60

MARRIAGES IN GERMANY.

A BUSINESS SYSTEM THAT WORKS

WELL IN PRACTICE.

There are in every German city, but notably in Dresden and Munich, a great many unmarried English and American young women. When they first come they are enchanted with German manhood as exemplified by the officers. It is worth remarking that although the young women are mostly entirely eligible from the German point of view, and tne officers even more so from the Anglo-Saxon, it is a very rare thing indeed when an international marriage occurs.

There are reasons for this. The marital relationship in the various countries is an interesting subject for study. In no two is it exactly the same ; in some the wife is on the pedestal, in others the husband is on the pedestal, and this might be called the Teutonic attitude. In Germany there is a remarkable difference in this matter in the different States ; that is, a difference of degree. Most American women would probably prefer a Hanoverian for a husband to a Bavarian, and they might not like a Prussian at all — even German women, not Prussian, have views as to the last. But there is one thing that no one seems ever to have denied ; the German, no matter from what parfc.bf the Empire he comes, is not the ideal husband according to the English -standard.

When a woman marries in Germany she ceases to be an entity. Her money, estates, clothes, whatever worldly goods' she may possess, become absolutely the property of her husband, who does what he pleases with them. She has no standing in the eye of the law apart from her husband. He may beat he/, starve her, live apart from her, and she has no redress — the laws are made for him, not for her — unless she happens to break one of them. And that is not difficult, because THEY MAKE LAWS IN GERMANY AS

THEY MAKE SAUSAGES.

The dowiy is one requisite to marriage in Germany. There may be no love, but there must be a dowry. In times pas>t Germany has been regarded as the country of romance ; to-day there is none more practical. The dowry business has been reduced to an exact science. What is called a dowry varies from £10 to as many thousands ; after that it is called a fortune. The lower sum is respectable for a serving maid, the higher for almost anybody. In the army the sum is regulated by law. The officers are usually poor ; many are said to adopt tlie career with the sole idea of contracting a wealthy alliance. Thensalaries, with allowances, range from £2 10s a. week for a lieutenant to £10 a week for a major-general. Imperial law does not permit an officer under the rank of major to marry at all, unless he has a private income, or unless the dowry his wife brings him reaches , a designated figure. This figure is £4000 for a lieutenant and gradesdown to £1000 for a major. ' The dowry is paid over, not to the husband, but to the Government, which doles out to the happy couple after marriage 3 per cent, on the amount received. This money is retained by the Government until the husband reaches the grade of lieutenant-colonel, or until he resigns from the services, being refunded in full in either case. The object is to prevent officers from marrying women who cannot support them with dignity becoming the Imperial army. Out of the army the system is not so good : the dowry is not handed over to a watchful trustee, but is placed in the hands of the husband himself, irrevocably, just as if it were his purchase price. It becomes his absolutely. Mostly he puts it in his business, if he has one ; if he has not. he buys bonds. In either case he rarely loses it ; but the matter goes deeper than that. The unjust part of it is that the wife is not likely to receive any benefit from it, or at least little. Most people who have had (he opportunity cannot have failed to remark that the German, in any position of life except the lowest, is not prone to do the square thing by his family ; he wears the best clothes, all the family jewellery, and is Avilling to pay only for his individual pleasures. Hurried travellers desdant upon the German husband's virtues, because his family is always with him when he takes his outings. If these same people would only observe more closely, they would remark that, while they are alwaj's with him he spends very little on them. One of the commonest sights in brewery or beer garden is to see a German >rder his dinner, eat it, and hand over the remains — often' only empty plates — to Ms spouse.

Although the context would seem to point to the contrary, oheie is comparatively little real fortune-hunting in Germany. It is confined almost entirely to broken-down nobles who, having exhausted all possible resources, and deep in debt, propose to sell themselves as dearly as possible. Caste being the ruling factor in the national life, titles have a marketable value which is never overlooked. Aside from the nobles

FEW MEN MARRY FOR MONEY ALONE.

'lhey will not marry a girl who has no money, but the required amount is usually contingent upon the man's position and hi.s earning capacity. Thus, for instance, if a man has a salary or income of, saj', £500 a year, he will expect to marry a girl who has an equal income, or something a hltle less. That is not fortune-hunting, but prudence ; custom not only approves of it, but requires it, and custom also makes provision for it. Property is divided among male and female children alike, so that every girl has a dowry of some size. If a man dies penniless, then the daughters have to work and save a dowry.

The laws of society in regard to marriageable girls in Germany are not &o -trict as they are in France, yel they are much more strict than in Britain, and would be exceedingly irksome to any girl with a mind of her own. In France it is considered eminently proper that a girl .should never set eyes upon her future husband until after she has become engaged to him ; in Germany it is only required that &he shall never be alone with him for an instant until after marriage. A German girl of £ood

family would be irremediably compromised if she were seen in public with her young man alone, even after she' had become'betrothed to him. She has the advantage of her French sister, however, in that she may meet him at ' parties, at her own home and in the houses of her friends. That at least gives her chance to determine his complexion. As many people have remarked, there is a greater difference — aside from language — between the Bavarians and the North Germans than there is between the Bavarians and the French. A Bavarian never grows tired of dilating upon the fact that the Prussian-is not a German, but*a Slav, and that the true Germans inhabit Bavaria and Austria proper and are next door to being Latin. It is for this reason, probably, that in all matters save those of a political nature the South German is influenced by Paris and Vienna and not by Berlin. Among what are called the higher classes in Bavaria, then, the French way of looking at marriage is much in vogue, and the line is being drawn closer and closer. ' The eminently proper procedure in matrimonial affairs makes it an exceedingly vexatious thing for a man of the exclusive ring to get married at all in his own station.

Say that he has reached an age when he begins to take an interest in a quiet family life and hair restorers. He inquires among his friends as to the marriageable girls they know. The two requisites in the matter are- money and family. Provided these are satisfactory he wants to see the girl. - That is precisely what is impossible, "even if he is a friend of the family. His only hope is to find out what church she goes to ; then he gets somebody who knows her to point her out to him. If she is pretty he immediately goes to her family and proposes for her. If he is accepted there is a formal betrothal, and thereafter he may have the pleasure of seeing and speaking with her — in the presence of her family. Until after the marriage they are never permitted to have a word together alone.

That is the fashionable procedure, and it is, oi course, entirely French, not German. Ifc is even considered better form for the man to propose for the girl without having seen her beforehand — because the seeing implies a vulgar curiosity. With Bavarians in general, however, there are no such formalities, although the opportunities for young people to meet are still very scant and rarely, if ever, does a respectable young man propose marriage to : •a girl ; he proposes to the family. All this ! is merely custom, naturally, but any other form of conducting affairs would be looked upon very much askance. When Germans hear of the usual businesslike yet sentimental method prevailing in Britain, they do not usually believe it, because they cannot realise that any civilised and cultivated people could be guilty of conduct which they regard simply as scandalous. - -And that is the hardest thing English young wpmen have to contend with on the Continent — -the prejudice in regard to conduct. Things that seem to them - and which, oL course, are entirely harmless, strike foreigners as emphatically reprehensible ; they are nob often catholic enough to picture a' different training and consequently they condemn. Most of the insults received by English girls in French and German citie"s come from men who would be circumspect with their own womenkind.

It is curious to note how newspapers in Germany are brought into play by people matrimonially inclined Germans, it may be explained, give more publicity to their private lives than the people of any other land. Their death notices, for instance, are real tombstones in type and are full of detail. If a man is going on a journey he puts an advertisement in the paper bidding good-bye, to all the friends he has not had time to call upon. If he has been ill he rushes into print again to thank all the people who inquired after him when he was in bed. Upon every conceivable pretext, in short, helays open his heart to the world in cold type. It is perhaps only natural, 'therefore, that he should let everybody know when he wants a wife.

Most German journals, including those of Austria, contain daily from a column to two columns of appeals for " life partners " or " nest mates " or whatever the poetic fancy of the advertiser may choose to call them. Many times the advertisement is in rhyme. The advertiser, man or woman, spares no praise in personal description ; the man is usually " finely educated, of unquestionable sociai standing, prepossessing in appearance, sympathetic and a good business man " ; the woman " beautiful, accomplished, domestic, and an irreproachable cook and housekeeper" — the last attribute being particularly in demand by German husbands. Always, too, is the dowry given or required dwelt upon with rather significant emphasis. Sometimes a man wishes to marry "in to a business," or the womau, usually a widow, has a business to offer in exchange for a husband. For the rest of it, nothing is lacking ; the advertiser gives his height, weight, state of his constitution, colour of hair, and a great many other details. He always tells what sort of hirsute trimmings he has on his face, because no German girl, unless desperate, will marry a man without a moustache.

When an advertisement does not have the desired effect the advertiser usually goes to a Schatchen, who polishes off the business very quickly for a commission. But the striking part of the whole matter is the fact that so many people should be forced to advertise in order to get a suitable or a satisfactory mate. And the explanation proUbly is to be found in harking back to the subject of the dowry — the ground work of the German marriage. A 'man may know any number of charming girls, but they may not be eligible from the financial point of view ; a woman may have her list full of the names of men with beautiful moustaches— but she may be ambitious, by advertising the amount of cash .she is possessed of she may catch a very big fish indeed. The system makes marriage more of a lottery than ever, but the Bavarians are partial to lotteries. Taken all in all, one might think that in a country where the jy»lixmnary_ con-

ditions are so artificial marriage ■wtitilj be the most lamentable of institutions ;', that there would be as -a -result- of it nothing but heart burnings, quarrels, and separations. As a matter of fact there is probably no country in which married life — at least outwardly — is so blissful. German men are far from being perfect husbands ; that is, if perfection consists of kindness and consideration, love and respect. Whatever they do at home, in public they treat their wives as they might treat their cast-off boots. The secret of it is that the wives seem to expect to be so treated and like it. They are usually as patient as cows. Therefore marriage ill Germany is blissful. — " Munich Letter."