The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1896-07-09
LA DOT REGEEMENTAIRE.
Why FrenChmen Regard Marriage
as Capital.
From the Boston Eusning Transcript.

| recently been maze tnat ia uoC 10
diving. It is to be feared that all the
bachelors of France who have still
thoughts of marriage exclaimed when
they heard of this, "Viva la dot!'
The custom of setting aside a certain
sum of money as every daughters dot
or marriage portion is so intimately
associated with all that makes up
French life that it may be confidently
affirmed that it will continue to -four
ish a long time yet. That there are
some strong arguments to be urged
against it must be readily admitted.
Not that dot is necessarily a bad
thing. In multitude of instances it
has proved an exceedingly useful and
beneficial thing, but what is bad is the
systematic pricing of women in the
marriage market, for the custom prac-
tically amounts to this.
The dot reglementaire has come to
be common phrase that everybody
accepts in the most natural manner.
1t means that, according to the suitor's
position in life, certain sum OF mon
ey goes with the girl. 1t represents
at once her value and his value. Cen
orally speaking, parents can marry
their daughters as high up in the So
cial scale as their finances will permit.
They are not often afflicted with more
than one or two daughters, if they be-
long to the middle and fourishing
class, for quantity in this sense be-
comes deadly clog to social ambition.
A pigeon pair-that is to say, one
child of each sex-is considered the
ideal number, and whatever the expla-
nation may be, there is no country in
the world where it is so frequently re-
allied as in France. 1t seems that
the most recently ascertained stats
tics concerning population are even
more depressing than those that went
before.
The French race is doomed to be
absorbed by other and more prolific
races, say the philosophers. If this
dark prophecy should be fulfilled, the
mercenary marriage customs of the
country will have been largely the
cause of it; for the man who marries a
woman with dot is considered dis
grace to his species if he does not pro-
vide dot for his daughter. If he
should have several daughters, and
the rearing of them renders it quite
impossible for him to put any money
on one side the poor wretch is pitied
for his misfortune, and his girls will
certainly remain on his hands, unless
by miracle they are caught up by
young men extraordinarily endowed
with generous and romantic notions of
life. Such young men, however, in
France, are supposed to belong to the
fairy race.
1t was thought a little while ago
that M. Felix Faurre was once upon a
time noble youth of this rare and
beautiful sort, and it increased his
popularity; for the French admire
much in the case of others that they
do not think convenient to practise
themselves. Wicked politicians who
we're not in his boat had raked up q
story, we'll nigh forgotten even at Am
boise, where there was some reason for
remembering it. It was that NJ. Eau
re had married daughter of a former
notary of that place, Notwithstanding
that he had taken egregious liberties
with other peoples money and hid
himself in Spain to avoid worse disa-
greeables. Then M. Faure's friends
related how nobly the young trades
man came forward and married por-
tionless girl under dark cloud of
misfortune, and this at time when
money would have been of the great
est service to him. 1t was quite a
touching story, and every person of
right feeling declared that M. Faure
must have been one of the best fellows
to have acted as he did. The Presi-
deut did nothing to destroy this ex-
cellent impression.
The story, however, was not abso-
lutely correct. His wife's cousin-a
Waterman at Tours-has just let the
cat out of the bag. When Mile. Bell
nots mime. Faure's) uncle told M.
Faure that the young lady whom he
sought in marriage was portionless,
the sutton declared that he could not
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