OCR Text |
Show "DOTLESS" I5KIDES. i Kvidetife is acuntulating that tiie ! American 1'orc-s in France not only won j the war, but also that they have over- j turned many of the traditions of the! f-rnrh. The latent timcdiotiored cus- torn to rei't-i'.'e a knockout blow, or, at : least, a staggering one, is the institu- j tion of tin; dowry. i From time immemorial no French girl of. any except the lowest clas could hope to contract a suitable marriage unless un-less rdie were aide to present to the happy bridegroom a "dot" sufficient to insure a well-stocked larder for several sev-eral yearn. Parents scraped and scrimped and sacrificed from the day of tlifir daughter's birth to make certain cer-tain that in early womanhood she should be properly launched upon tho matrimonial sea. Kronen suit ors even demanded t he "dot" when seeking brides in other lands, and many millions of American dollars have gone with American, girls who thought Frenchmen would make them better husbands than their own countrymen. One of the famous "dots" in history was won by King Charles VII I, when, through his marriage mar-riage with Anne of Iirittany, he won that country as a dowry. In tho last few years some 25,000 American soldiers have married French girU, and every last one of them being be-ing American scorned the "dot." It; was tho girl he wantedlie was perfectly per-fectly able to support her after he got 1 , her. lie married for love, and had an unbounded faith in his ability to take care of the future. The French girl who has seen these marriages in numbers is asking herself, 1 if so many of her sisters can become happy brides without the payment of a cent, why should she bo required to give a fortune for a husband? The parents also are asking, if other fathers and mothers gain worthy sons-in-law without having to toil for years, why should they sacrifice the best part of their lives to build up a daughter 's marriage portion? As a consequence of the terrible devastation wrought by the Germans in France, many a prospective dowry disappeared. dis-appeared. Thousands of families, prosperous pros-perous five years ago, are in want today. to-day. Hundreds of girls who, but for the invaders, would have had attractive attrac-tive '"dots" are no longer in the eligible elig-ible class so far as the young men of their own country are concerned. Happily, the Americans have lighted tho way out of the difficulty for these unhappy damsels. The Yank wants only tho time and the place and the girl forget the "dot." And thousands of them are finding all three in sunny France. |