Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1869-05-28
FRENCH MORALS AND MANNERS

90 The fDneaCrs, or idIers, of Paris, are
all male. French hospitality does not
take the form of heavy feeding, dinner
giving not being a general habit in pri-
Tate circles; and the frugal way most
French families habitaaIiy live does
not admit of that form of entertaining.
The practical economy of French me-
mage is very great, and the quantity
and duality of food which constitutes
the daily dinner would not satisfy the
stomachs of the heavy feeders of Al
bion and America. But, contrary to
popular prejudice, the Frenchman does
dine at home every day, and the pa
irons of the restaurants are not Pari-
SLAMS, but provincials, or strangers.
Butt asks a wondering damsel, if
neither Irritation, nor cOurtship, nor
even the unrestricted intercourse of
Young people, be permitted, how do the
girls cOntrive to get married? Women
must be as regularly sold there as in
the Eastern slaVe-markets.' The ques-
ton is natural one, and the marriage
de cO7gUe5lG7Ice, so customary in France,
is the one part of that social system
against which the writer confesses- his
own prejudice-beIieving some love-
making and intimacy in advance to be
indispensable to correct choice, and
to the chance of happiness afterward.
Yet they certainly dispense with these
in France, and they have the pathway
to their future union carefully smooth
ed and prepared for them by their rela-
tives, often before they have had even
the pleasure of knowing each other.
These relatives make all the arrange
ments as to the brides dot and the
groom's settlements, in the most busi-
ness-like way, and the union of the
two hearts and hands is treated as any
other civil contract would be. That
the result of these marriages, thus con-
tracted, is usually fortunate, do be-
F'That they lead to general matrimo
NAL infidelity, L know to be untrue.
But to urge that it is the surest way to
secure a congenial companion for bet
ter or for worse, would be to admit
that marriage is, at best, a Iottery-a
lowering of our high ideal of what it
ought always to be-a perfect union OF
hearts and hands.
"But the Frenchman and French
woman, it must be admitted, though
/ overflowing with expressions of senti-
ment, have at heart really very little
of it. They are eminently practical,
and hard common-sense is their most
striking characteristic. This matrimo-
nial brokerage, therefore, suits them.
It would not suit some of us, though,
| I fear, it is becoming much more COM
mon in practice than in the earlier days
of our republic, when the golden calf
was not so universally Worsh1ped by
men and women as now, and when
some things in life were regarded as
superior to money. Our young ladies
dispense with the services of the mat
rimOnial broker, but do a thriving busi-
ness of this kind on their own account,
The phrase, What is he worth ? " is not
French one, nor are the two words
Synonymous in any other language
] than our own. Yet that inquiry is often
made by soft lips here, and good
match means a good speculation in oul
vernacular-that is, Zone that pays.
Let US not, then, play the Pharisee with
our French neighbors, thanking God
that matrimony, with us, cannot be de.
! fined as a matter of money, nor Cupid
J give place to his cousin Cupidity in Oul
court of Hymen. ."-APPLetOa' Journal