Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-03-29

and probably at this very hour there are
scores, perhaps hundreds, Of American
girls abroad who are thinking of the mat
ter for themselves with an eye to direct
applicant for their hand. We know
very well that good matches are some
| times male there, and that Germans, and
even Frenchmen and Italians, have made
good husbands to our daughters. But the
chances are quite the other way, and the
difference of birth and manners is apt to
be root of diseord. There is differ
ence in the very starting idea of the mar
rage relation between the two worlds,
and an American woman can not expect
to find in foreign husband the same
thorough recognition of her asserted
equality to him that prevails In our own
American men. In one respect there is
generally no mincing the matter On the
part of the European lover. He goes at
once to business, and before he makes
open love to the daughter he puts the
matter.of money to the father, and finds
out precisely what he may expect. This
is not charming of the love relation
to our American vision; for we take
it for granted that a man ought to
marry mainly for love, while we do not
object to having a little money thrown
into the bargain, if it happens to be con-
venient We have what we call the
American system on this subject, and it
Is the best system with all due wisdom in
carrying it out. Il seems to keep its place
with our best American families, in Eu-
rope, and was greatly pleased, in Paris,
to hear fine girl who had been asked in
marriage by an Italian prince, on certain
financial conditions within her ability, say
that she was wholly American on that
point-American l think she said, oto
the backbone, very memberabie com
parison in case of one whose vertebr@
were so pfettily strung together and grace
fully poised as hers. She meant to say
that she should marry the man who
loved her and whom she loved, and she
was not in the market for bid, and that
the prince might go to his own sulphur
estates, or down lower, before he could
have her or her money.
THE EUROPEAN MATCH MAKERS.
There is something, indeed, to be said
in behalf of this open bargaining for a
wife, for man adds to his expenses by
marriage, and it is a comfort to have a
little help in meeting the extra outlay. Yet
the foreign custom rObs marriage of its
sanctity by making money the first thing,
and tempting men to bestow their affec-
ton upon mistresses and reserve their cold
thrift and prudence for the wife. Too
often reprobate, who has squandered
his patrimony in gambling and hcentious-
ness, looks to wife to save him from
utter ruin, and perhaps pay what are
called the debts of honor. We have had
full enough of this thing, and it is time
that our American parents understood
what they are doing with their daughters
1t seemed to me that Americans had let
themselves down very much by falling in
to foreign ways, and even going TO their
extremes. A lady in a high official posi-
ton told me, in Paris, that she had re-
ceived formal proposition from leading
marriage broker to furnish him with list
of American girls who wished to unite
their wealth with the titles. of young
Frenchmen of rank, and that the
fellow did not appear to think that he
was Overstepping the limits of propriety
in making the suggestion. 1t was to be
an honorable piece of business on his
paIt-the men offered were to be bona
fide of gentle or noble blood, and no COM
pensatiOn was expected until the nego-
tiatiOn had been completed. The plan
was TO cover-the Italian as well as the
French market, and the broker had on his
lists the merchantable officers of the
Pope's Zouaves, as well as a large assert
ment of the poor gentry of France. Very
likely we laugh too remorselessly at such
doings, and forget that there is something
to be said on that side in behalf of match
ing that old European blood and culture
with our new beauty and money. But
the idea becomes utterly monstrous when
affinity and congeniality are lost sight of,
and it is proposed to make lovely girl
over TO needy nobleman by so covering
her with gold as to make her passable,
and perhaps with the added condition
that she shall give up her religion, and
accept the monstrous superstition of the
Latin hierarchy.