The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-02-20
BALTIMORE.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1860

The translator of MICHELET's Z Amour has just
introduced to the American public another and
later work of the same author. 1t is called La
Femme, and may, in some sort, be considered a
continuation or sequel of the other marriage is
or is supposed TO be- the sequel of love. LAmor
ended with marrage--just as the three-volume
tales, in which our ancestors delighted, conclude
with a description of the wedding-breakfast in the
last chapter, or the fairy tales in which beautiful
young princesses are rescued from all sorts Of
perils by handsome young princes close with the
gratifying assurance-"and so they were married
''and lived happily all their days" But unfortu-
nately this earth of ours is not fairy-land and it
happens in France, and, we believe, also in Amer
lea, that people do not always marry, and when
they do that happiness does not always follow
This is great misfortune, and how to remedy it
is the question which NJ. MICHELET discusses in the
present work. In L'Amour he has shown us the
rndimentary woman, so TO speak-unformed, de-
pendent helpless-needng to be soothed, sustain
ed, guided, strengthened and he says-love herr In
La Femme he introduces to US the cultivated woman,
fitted by her education for all the duties of a wife
and mother; and lie says-marry her. La Femme
begins, therefore, where L-Amour left off. It
aims TO show how love ought to end in marriage
not with ito confute that hard saying of one of
the authors own countrymen-Le marriage fat
adieas pam0ur-and that other-'People love be-
'cause they do not know each other; as soon as
'hey do They'll love no longer" The decrease in the
number of marriages in France-the want of one
ness and sympathy in married life-the consequent
effect upon morals and characteristic causes that
have led to this state of things, and the remedy for
it constitute the subject Of NJ. MICHELET's book.
1t is the capital fact of our time, he says, that
people are unwilling to marry, and if they do
practically separate; that man lives apart from
woman that they have no longer ideas in COM
mon, a language in common, and even as TO what
might interest both they do not know how to
speak to each other. To reform all this-to prove
that marriage is honorable in ALL and to save his
country women from the consequences of a life of
enforced celibacy-from being the victims, accom-
plces or instigators of sin and crime, is the work
NJ. MIcHELET is laboring to accomplish, and de-
spite of much nonsense that he has written, and
muci more that to our American understanding,
seems to be nonsense, we know no man who is
better fitted for the task.
Like its predecessor, La Femme has already attain
ed an immense circulation in France where it NAV
do much good. Whether such work is equally
needed on this side-whether it was necessary,
in other words that it should be translated
is a point about which different opinions
may be entertained. Certainly we do not
advise everybody to read it. French ideas
and customs differ from our own in nothing
so much as in the freedom with which they permit
the discussion of subjects which with us are equally
tabooed in conversation and in printed books Call
itprudery- it decency, or what you will-there
is a certain reserve in English and American
manners which forbids the introduction in mixed
society of topics such as NJ M1cHELEr handles. 1t
is needless to observe therefore, that Ia Femme is
not book for the tea-table, nor for those who
measure books by the tea-table standard We
should rather class it with those medical treatses
which children and young people forbidden TO
read-which are placed upon the highest shelf in
the bookcase. 1t is in fact from pathological
point of view that NJ. MICHELET treats his subject
He is a physician investigating the nature and
causes of disease, with view to discovering n
remedy He himself tells us, that he prepared
himself for his task by a course of anatomical
study at Clamart-and the odor of the dissecting-
room-the medical as well as the moral-hangs
about his books One portion of his subject
he has very wisely touched but lightly
the social consequences of the prevailing contempt
for marriage and the diminished respect for wo-
man, which he declares to be characteristic of his
age and country We say lie has done wisely in
not going over ground that is old and has been
trodden before him We know it well-for it is
revealed to lis in the pages of GEORGE SAND, Of
BALzAC, Of the younger DUMAS, and of the host Of
minor French novelists. What we are most con-
cerned to know are the causes and the cure of the
evil. The causes, us they are explained by NJ.
MICHELET shall be briefly stated. They are diverse
according to the diversity of rank and condition
in society. There is one which applies specially
to the poor. The subdivision of land in France
has created It class of small proprietors who live
by uIlage, and who marry to have q laborer
In the Antijlcs-says NJ. MIcHELET-they buy a
negro-n France we marry wife She is pre-
ferred-he adds-who has small appetite, a 1.-THE
and slender fgure-She will eat less Then she
is made to work. out of doors, in every weather
and every season; and if we may believe NJ
MIcHELET, the man generally takes the lightest part
Of the work for himself while the wife is kept
digging, hoeing and picking. Then, the mans
health and spirits, he tells US, require constant re-
treshnent at neghboring pot-house. In the
budget of his expenses are two things which he
cannot do without--tobacco and beer Economy
requires that the wife should be kept constantly at
and II :, A.
burden Of such a life that women flee from what
is literally to them the yoke of marriage. They
rush into the large towns and swell the number
of those who lead town life In the towns,
other causes operate to their disadvantage. In
the first place, the poor must all work. No work
man can afford to support wife in idleness,
and buy beer and tobacco BESIDES and there is
difficulty in finding occupation for a woman in
France. The range of empoyments open to her
is small. For many her physical constitution I'M
fits her. Others have lately been closed against
her. In all ages Of the world, woman has had
two great UNDERSTANDING and sewing. The
loom has suppressed the spinner-the sewing
machine the seamstress. Ten sous dav are the
wages of needle-woman in France, and they
cannot be more, for, says NJ. MICHELET, the ma
chine does the work for ten, and if the woman
asked eleven, the machine would be preferred
Even in the shops men are taken in preference to
women; ladies prefer to buy gloves and laces from
whiskered clerks who fatter-who are more
womanly than women, and who consume the
wages that would support five women. Hence it
is that, according to NJ. MCHELET's account, which
processes to be based upon official statistics as well
as personal observation, in the humber classes of
France, marriages are becoming fewer; man no
longer wishes TO marry; he lives selishly alone:
and woman-ah that is something to think
about. In the higher classes, among people in
independent circumstances, or who make by their
business or engagements a comfortable living
other causes deter from marriage. They NAV be
briefly summed up as two-Crnone and Religion
wife is become an expensive luxury nowadays;
many men cannot afford a doll so expensive to
dreSs-and those who can, according to NJ.
MICHELET curiOusly enough, object to the religion
of their wives The women are educated, not in
the ideas of modern France, but in the spirit and
dogmas Of the old society The wife and the
husband do not think alike-they have not the
same teelngs-there is no community of thought
or sympathy between them. The consequence is
that men herd with men-women with women;
and every day makes the separation wider, until