Year: 1860

The last London Atheneum, in review
of recent French book, entitled Marriage
in the United States" takes occasion to
make the following remarks


No two nations do the same thing in the
same manner. We do not take coffee alike,
we do not dress alike, the biftek au naturel
of even Gordon 6teu is not the beefsteak of
a London chophouse the Chinaman's cup
of tea is very different thing to that af-
fected by Mrs. Soapsuds, the Turks mar
CHILE has but little resemblance to the Irish
mans cuttypipe, and that which seems the
best way of loving and marrying to one set
of people, horribly ofends the Instincts and
moralities of another. In the civilized
Christian world there cannot be a greater
discrepancy 10 this last particular than be-
tween the French and the Americans. From
the first look of love to the last word of
marriage there is not stage of the affair
that is conducted in the same way, not a
round of the great ladder which is hewn out
of the same block. The French girl never
leaves her mothers side, unless, indeed, she
be brought up in convent. The American
young lady neither claims nor would submit
to the most ordinary protection of friend or
parent. The French girl is married off by
her mother, without even the semblance of
a consultation suitability Of fortune and
condition being much more important
matter than any such mOOnshine as suita-
bilty of temper, or the elective affinities.
An American does her own husband hunt
ing single handed and il she does not take
quite the initiative in the moment OF pro-
posing, does not hesitate to make her pref
erence as undisguised as words would have
made it.


The same national opposition holds good
after marriage. The French wife is free,
emancipated, almost irresponsible-a leader
of society, parsonage, power the Amer
ican loses herself when she gains husband.
She is henceforth scarcely side>Ornament
where she was lately crown and sceptre of
both. Young and handsome, she is no
sooner married than she is drafted off to the
elderly section, with whom there is no long
er a question of Irritation /; and the world
which iOrgave her even grave indiscretions
while she was single; will now severely pun
ish the lightest intraction of appearances
l is curious and instructive inversion
the French granting to the wife the liberty
which the American grants to the maiden ;
and both so terribly shocked if, by chance,
their women change places and cross hands
over the code.


Between these two extremes, we English
hold our usual middle place. Not so strict
with our girls as are the French, nor so lax
as the Americans not so liberal of social
freedom to our wives as the one, nor SO mig
gardly as the other we think, as a patri-
otic matter of course, that we have hit on
the exact golden mean, and shot our arrow
into the very bulrs.eye of the question.
we say, we give our young ladies sufficient
liberty to form their characters, and time
and opportunity to know their own minds.
We do not marry them off to the first eli
gible bidder, like so many tender little doves
sold, hoodwinked, in the temple neither do
we suffer them to roam unguided through
the husbandless desert, like wild creatures
seeking their prey. We make onr bands
and bonds elastic, and fling the shadow of
the broad maternal wing very far so that,
by these wise measures, we secure race of