We know that this view of marriage has still considerable force among the more conservative classes of European society, and that royalty or nobility, on the one hand, and the peasantry, on the other, adhere to the idea that it is a family rather than a personal function, which should be arranged on grounds of rank and wealth. In France it is hardly respectable to make a romantic marriage, and Mr. Hamerton tells of a young woman who was indignant at a rumor that she had been wedded for love, insisting that it had been strictly a matter of _convenance_. He also mentions a young man who was compelled to ask his mother which of two sisters he had just met was to be his wife.[157] Along with this subordination of choice in contracting marriage generally went an autocratic family discipline. Legally the wife and children had no separate rights, their personality being merged in that of the husband and father, while socially the latter was rather their master than their companion. His rule, however—though it was no doubt harsh and often brutal, judged by our notions—was possibly not so arbitrary and whimsical as would be the exercise of similar authority in our day; since he was himself subordinate not only to social superiors, but still more to traditional ideas, defining his own duties and those of his household, which he felt bound to carry out. The whole system was authoritative, admitting little play of personal choice. Evidently the drift of modern life is away from this state of things. The decay of settled traditions, embracing not only those relating directly to the family but also the religious and economic ideas by which these were supported, has thrown us back upon the unschooled impulses of human nature. In entering upon marriage the personal tastes of the couple demand gratification, and, right or wrong, there is no authority strong enough to hold them in check. Nor, if upon experience it turns out that personal tastes are not gratified, is there commonly any insuperable obstacle to a dissolution of the tie. Being married, they have children so long as they find it, on the whole, agreeable to their inclinations to do so, but when this point is reached they proceed to exercise choice by refusing to bear and rear any more. And as the spirit of choice is in the air, the children are not slow to inhale it and to exercise their own wills in accordance with the same law of impulse their elders seem to follow. “Do as you please so long as you do not evidently harm others” is the only rule of ethics that has much life; there is little regard for any higher discipline, for the slowly built traditions of a deeper right and wrong which cannot be justified to the feelings of the moment.