The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-12-19
FRENCH HUSBANDS.


toned at Nice, France, makes the fol-
lowing grave report on an evil that
should be corrected:
81 desire to call the attention of the
department to this subject in the hope
that some mode may be found to pre-
vent citizens of the United States marry
ing French citizens from being unwit-
tingly entrapped, that is the right
word, into making marriage which is
good enough in we United States, or
where made, but is a mock marriage in
France.
"It seems to me this matter calls for
the intervention of the Government,
for a Government can have no higher
duty to its citizens than to throw such
protection around them as chat they
may not be thus entrapped, or, if they
will marry, that it will not be done in
the belief that the marriage, because
valid according to the laws of his or
her own country, the United States,
where it is performed, is therefore valid
in France, the country Of which the
other party is a citizen. That these
things occur and are productive of
great misery to American citizens who
are in a condition least able to bear it,
is, alas, too manifest in the number of
American (and English) women who
are in France, the cast-off and 4lis--.
charged wives of Frenchmen. | do but.
state a fact well known to everybody,
except, apparently, to those girls (and
their parents or guardians) who are
about to marry Frenchmen, and the
minister of the Gospel authorized to
marry them.
u regard it as useless to attempt to
make any treaty or other arrangement
with the French Government by which
all marriages made in the United
States, even though in strict accord
auce with its laws, shall here be recog-
uized as legal.
The customs and law of France and
is conservatism concerning the etat
civil of its citizens, the necessity for
publicity of the marriage, and the op-
portunity required to prevent it if ille-
gal, together with the recognized au-
thority of the parent over the family,
are too strong to be oyerbOrne and set
aside in order to do justice to those for
cgners who may have put their foot in
it by marrying citizens in another
country
another reason exists why no az
rangement can ever be made with
France Frenchmen, as well as some
others, are shocked at the rapidity and
hippancy, not to mention the clandes-
Unity, with which marriages are not
infrequently contracted in the United
States. They do not believe they are
or ought to be valid.
"a clandestine acquaintance or
courtship, ending in a runaway match,
inaugurated with ladder and Ian
tern, midnight fight, hurried mar
riage en- deshabille, and q furious
father arriving few minutes too late
to call this valid marriage may do
in the United States, but to ask the
law of France to do so would be to ask
impossibilities. 1t would be regarded
rs but youthful escapade, not a seri-
Gus matter, one to be overlooked and
excused, and his family would justify
and protect him when, after having
sown his wild oats, got tired of eating
husks in a foreign land. he returns to
his home to take his proper place
among them.
The objects of the institution of
marriage are so different in the two
countries that their different customs
can not be reconciled.
''In France the patriarchial theory
prevails to Il great extent, and the FAM
lily more than the individual is the unit.
Family councils are recognized by law,
which have and exercise as complete
jurisdiction over the movements and
fate of individuals as ever did Court
of Chancery. Accordingly the prime
object of marriage, after French ideas
and customs, is the foundation of a
family. The happiness of the contract
ing parties, or their love for each other,
is a secondary consideration. The ar
rangements of a marriage are made and
its suitability decreed by the heads of
the two respective families.
| II am aware that this is a matter
within the jurisdiction of each State,
but it also is within the jurisdiction of
the United States in its government of
the District of Columbia. If | suggest
q remedy it will be because of the gray
ity of the case and the evils flowing
from the mixed marriages, and above
all because of the apparent uncon-
seriousness of the parties contracting as
well as celebrating the marriage.
1.-The remedy: Congress should pave
the way for State legislation by inform
ing them of the condition of the French
law. This might be done by an enact
ment, reciting in a preamble the evils
to be corrected, and, as the task of
educating every minister of the Gospel
and other person authorized to solemn
ize marriages among the migratory
population of the District of Columbia
would probably be hopeless, it would
seem best to make it the duty of the
Clerk of the District Supreme Court,
now charged with the issuance of the
necessary license, to examine every APP
plicant, requiring both parties to an
swer under oath if need be the required
questions, which might be printed on
the back of the license, giving full par
ticulars concerning birth, former mar
riage, and, if deemed necessary, nation
atty, etc. Then, if either party is
shown to be French citizen, provide
that the license shall not issue until it
has been satisfactorily asccrtained that
! all the fOrmDliticS required bV the