Ordinary French Dowries.
Small Dowries.
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.
Moderate Prudence rare in England.
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.
Imprudence in the English Lower Classes.
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.
Marrying for Marriage only.
A Decision to Marry.
Clerical Influence.