It is he who has made marriage bristle with difficulties and precautions that did not exist to the same degree in the time of the old French "Customs" anterior to him. Marriage was then entirely in the hands of the church which had control over the civil acts. It called for much less formality than nowadays although the authority of relatives regulated it in a still more absolute way. This preponderating intervention of the family is the result of our Latin traditions and of our Catholic education. And upon these influences the formation of national character,-which has as its consequence such or such social conditions,-greatly depends. Formerly the union of two children who had hardly reached the age of marriage was decided by their respective families. It was a question of an alliance advantageous from the point of view of rank, of fortune, and of convenience, "les convenances," a great French word. By these latter we mean agreement of age, situation, temperament, moral principles, intellect, health, education, and habits,-a young man received from his father counsels that were quite similar to commands; a young girl came out of the convent which had sheltered her childhood, leaving her in almost complete ignorance of life, and the marriage state as it was understood in the eighteenth century.

At the same period in the New World, the Pilgrim wives were participating by their constancy and their energy in the foundation of a new republic. A number of them had sacrificed social advantages of which people were elsewhere so jealous to considerations in which liberty of conscience played as large a part as conjugal devotion; they had won from the very start their place as citizens, and indisputable claims to those rights of woman kind which they later were to be the first to demand, without opposition on the part of the other sex. This especially is to be noted. However vigorous the old French "Customs" may have been, and, moreover, they varied as the American laws do today, that is, according to the several provinces which formed an almost inextricable confusion,-and they were, as a result of this very absence of cohesion, much less implacable than the laws that took their place. France, at the moment when, by the Revolution, she broke with her past, wanted a uniform code. This code was elaborated under the eyes of Napoleon and by his direction. It has since been imposed upon all the countries that his conquests united to France, that is, in a great part of Europe, and it still constitutes there, in a form modified according to the needs and ideas of each nation, the bases of legislation,—a fact which does honor to the powerful genius that conceived it, deriving his inspiration from the Roman Law. But, taking into account the guiding will responsible for this code, one cannot expect to find in it

sentimental considerations with respect to the lot of woman kind. The wife is given over, bound hand and foot, to the authority of the husband, although, on the other hand, energetic precautions are taken to sacrifice the liberty of the latter to the safety of the family, that is to say, of the children, even though these are as yet unborn. The reproach which many foreign moralists have directed against our civil code is that it deprives the citizen of the management of himself, that it does not sufficiently respect the rights of the individual.

Let us see what are the conditions which it establishes with regard to marriage.

A Frenchman, of whatever age, cannot marry without the formal consent of his parents, or, if they be lacking, of his grandparents, in case these latter are still alive. We see what the result of such a requirement is, "It expropriates liberty of conscience for public purposes." The saying is that of a commentator of Ruskin and a friend of Browning, J. Milsand, who, although a Frenchman, had with regard to many of the institutions of his country the opinions of an Englishman, which is explained by the fact that he was a Protestant. A French Protestant is never more than half a Frenchman, just as an English Catholic is always imperfectly British. No one has shown more eloquence and indignation, both in speech and with the pen in his hands, than did J. Milsand when dealing with a requirement which, perfectly natural when it is a question of a minor, becomes dangerous at the age when a man should be the master of his heart as he is of his property. For, after all, however sacred filial duty may be, a man may still have other duties. The law leaves him free to bind himself by promises, to ruin, perhaps, the life of a young girl; why does it not allow him to make amends, independent of another's will in an affair concerning which he is not really obliged to consult any one? Doubtless, French legislators

have judged that chief regard should be had for the solidarity existing between those who bear the same name, and that, as the marriage of one of the members of a family concerns the interests of the family as a whole, the law should make it its purpose to safeguard them; inferiority of rank and of fortune, mediocrity of reputation are in part just so many defects that redound to the detriment of all connections. But it is none the less true that the precautions taken to prevent this evil constitute a flagrant sacrifice of the individual to society, of which the family is only an epitome. The very real danger that the French maiden would run, if left too free and without any defence against what is called elsewhere "breach of promise," is the most serious reason that one can give for the surveillance exercised over her and for the excessive reserve

which long regulated her relations with young people of the other sex. The resistance of the relatives may, nevertheless, be overcome by the formality of respectful summons ("sommations réspectueuses"). In this case, the young man or woman resolved to take extreme measures calls with much formal deference for the advice of his or her parents, at the same time making known to them his or her intention to contract marriage. But for this purpose the young person must have attained the legal age, which is twenty-one years for her and twenty-five years for him. The papers in this case, which are alleged to be of a respectful nature and are really quite the contrary, since a breach is made in the authority of the parents, must be presented by a notary and two witnesses. If the notary can register only a refusal, the same steps must be taken twice again, unless the son has reached the age of thirty years or the daughter the age of twenty-five, in which case the serving of a single set of papers suffices. A month later the marriage may be celebrated without the consent of the parents, but in a country where people esteem more the wisdom of the elders than the imprudence of youth, a certain amount of disfavor attaches itself, as one may well conceive, to such a procedure and it is resorted to but seldom.

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When the customary consent has been granted there must follow certain other formalities of which the purpose is to give to the projected marriage all necessary publicity, so that everybody may be informed that a new family is about to be constituted in the state, and that interested outsiders may thereby be challenged to oppose the marriage in case there any valid objection to it. In this way there can hardly be an error with regard to the identity of the persons to be married, and the terrible mistake of which the celebrated painter, Angelica Kauffmann, was a victim in England, when, thinking that she was marrying a great lord, the Comte de Hora, she became the wife of a valet, would be more impossible in France than anywhere else. The bans or publications

must be posted at the town hall ("mairie ") of the place in which each of the future sponsers has been living for more than six months previously at least. These notices remain posted at the door from one Sunday to the next. They contain the names, surnames, professions, and domiciles of the persons to be married. In the church, the priest also announces the bans from the pulpit. The officer of the civil state cannot proceed to the celebration of the marriage until after the second publication, and he must have in his hands, first, the certificates of birth of the contracting parties, so as to be sure that they have reached the age of puberty, that is, eighteen years for a man, and fifteen years for a woman; second, documents signifying the consent of the persons under whose power each of them is placed,

or certificates of the death of these persons. One may imagine that these formalities so difficult to be fulfilled often discourage the poor. The result among the people is naturally enough the multiplication of illegitimate births, in spite of the zeal that benevolent societies employ in rendering aid in such matters.

II.

But we have not yet taken up an important point, which is the marriage contract. The contract regulates the conjugal partnership and fixes the rights of the husband and wife as to their property. Its terms are left to the free will of the contracting parties on the condition that they make no agreement infringing the rights of the marital power conferred upon the husband. It is he who administers the dowry of his wife, the dowry being the property which the wife brings to the husband to defray the expenses of the marriage. This custom of a dowry has been more or less introduced into countries along with wealth and luxury and especially into monarchies where it is a matter of importance that one should be able to maintain his rank.

Among the various arrangements that present themselves to the choice of the parties, joint ownership of property ("communauté de biens"), which is the most frequent and the only arrangement really national, individual ownership of property ("séparation de biens"), and the dotal system ("régime dotal"), one would expect to find at least two that would leave the wife free to dispose of her personal property, but such is not the case. Individual ownership of property does not permit the wife to alienate her real estate without the authorization of her husband, and the constituting of a marriage dowry leaves to the husband the administration of the dowry, which, moreover, cannot be alienated. Masculine supremacy is imposed everywhere and always; the married woman is a minor in a situation much inferior in this respect to that of the spinster, who keeps the power of disposing freely of what she possesses. There is no more redoutable document than the marriage contract, for the code, in order to make sure of the immutability of matrimonial agreements, requires them to be determined irrevocably before the celebration of the ceremony by the exchange of this document in the presence of a notary. Afterwards there can be no appeal from it.

When no contract exists, as happens in the case of people having no property, the married couple are subjected to a legal form of commonalty of possession which puts the wife, whatever work she may herself do, absolutely at the mercy of her husband. All the property, both real and personal, acquired after the marriage, is in the hands of the lord and master.

He alone has the administration of their common property, he has the power to sell it, to alienate it, and to mortgage it, without the consent of his wife. Only quite recently have efforts been made to secure legislation enabling the married woman who works to dispose of her wages.

The conjugal commonalty of possession can be broken, it is true, by the establishment of a condition of individual ownership ("séparation de biens "). When a husband administers unwisely the patrimony of the family, he may be deprived of a right which he abuses, and be reduced to dissipating only his own fortune.

But whatever system has been stipulated in the marriage contract, the law forbids the husband, even though he should desire to do so, to abrogate the property rights belonging to him as head of the pecuniary partnership established between the couple. Any clause obliging the husband to ask of his wife permission to administer the property would be null, being regarded as an impediment of the marital dignity. The wife under the power of her husband is in every respect in a state of subjection which allows her no initiative except in the matter of making her will, because this act is without effect until after the marriage has been dissolved by death.

When the contract is signed, the officer of the civil state proceeds, on the day chosen by the parties, to their marriage, the "mairie," in the presence of four witnesses, that is to say, the mayor, the magistrate of the district, reads to the couple the title of the law concerning the respective rights and duties of husband and wife and receives from each of them the declaration that they wish to take each other for husband and wife. Then he pronounces the words, "In the name of the law I unite you in marriage." A certificate of this act is given at once. The marriage certificate is the legal title of the husband and wife and is in itself complete proof of the marriage. Even at the period when the civil marriage and the religious marriage were performed at the same time by the ministry of the priest, the civil contract was already entirely distinct from the sacrament. The consent of the father and mother is implied in the very act of the celebration of the marriage, if they are present. Otherwise, it must be certified in an authentic official document. If there be any dissent between the father and the mother, the consent of the father suffices. All the slightest formalities relative to the civil act are of so great importance that failure to observe them would make the marriage null and void. But, nevertheless, in the eyes of the great majority of persons, women at least, the ceremony at the "mairie," the only one of which the law takes account, is hardly more than a formality regulating the civil status of the couple, just as the contract