Such well-fitting arrangements as these are the ideal of the French system; just as the union of two hearts, the one soul finding its companion soul and both living happily ever after, is the ideal of the English system. Against the French lies the charge of the cruel sale, for so much money, of a young creature who has not been allowed a choice, scarcely even the right of rejection; against the English the cruelty of suffering a girl's foolish fancy to destroy her whole life, and the absurdity of treating such a fancy as a fact. For the French there is the plea of the enormous power of instinct and habit, and that really it signifies very little to a girl what man she marries; provided only that he is kind to her and that she has not fallen in love with any one else; seeing that she is sure to love the first presented. For the English there is the counter plea of individual needs and independent choice, and the theory that women do not love by instinct but by sympathy. The French make great account of the absolute virginity in heart of the young girl they marry; and few Frenchmen would think they had got the kind of woman warranted if they married one who had been engaged two or three times already--to whose affianced lovers had been accorded the familiarities which we in England hold innocent and as matters of course. The English, in return, demand a more absolute fidelity after marriage, and are generous enough to a few false starts before. To them the contract is more a matter of free choice than it is in France; consequently failure in carrying out the stipulations carries with it more dishonour. The French, taking into consideration that the wife had nothing to say to the bargain which gave her away, are inclined to be more lenient when the theory of instinctive love fails to work, and the individuality of the woman expresses itself in an after-preference; always provided, of course, that the _bienséances_ are respected, and that no scandal is created.