Note 52 — Chapter III

In the first place take marriage in the bourgeois class. The conditions of life for the two sexes are different before marriage. Leaving out of account the fact that the number of women who provide for their own needs is increasing (they are still in the minority), it is incontestable that the aspirations of the women of the bourgeoisie tend toward marriage, the earliest and best marriage possible, in order that their future may be assured. And since the possibility of making a good marriage is becoming less, husband-hunting with all its unfortunate consequences becomes more and more eager. While the whole education of women looks only to marriage, that of the great majority of young men has as its object the attainment of wealth or an important position as soon as possible. Even when the marriage is contracted in consequence of a reciprocal inclination, the differing conceptions of life held by the two parties contain the germs that may render it unhappy. In speaking of these very frequent cases Mme. Dr. Adams-Lehmann very justly says: “Neither understands the other. Sundered in everything that belongs to life, from childhood up, nature succeeds in uniting them at one point for a short time only. From this point on their paths diverge. The husband complains often and bitterly that his wife does not understand him. What would he have, when she belongs to an entirely different civilization? She has her own virtues, her own failings and vices, but they are not those of her husband, and serve principally to set her at variance with him. And the same is true of the man, over whose lack of understanding his wife just as often and bitterly laments. Different systems of culture, different aims, different ideals,—in such an atmosphere how should harmony thrive?”52