THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



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Photograph by H. C. Ellis 



a woman's work at the central market IN PARIS 



Like London's Covent Garden flower market and the fish market of Venice, the Central 

 Market of Paris is one of the sights of the city. Much of the heavy labor in this market 

 fell to the lot of women even before the war so sorely depleted the man-power of France. 



beautiful home life one would think that 

 there should first be a most romantic 

 love affair, with moonlight walks and 

 whispered words of adoration and all the 

 other pretty things found in the senti- 

 mental novel. 



Unfortunately or fortunately — as you 

 may view it — these accompaniments of 

 American match-making are frequently 

 totally absent from French courtship. 

 Indeed, in the middle and higher classes 

 of French society there is often very little 

 possibility of love-making before mar- 

 riage. 



Owing to the family regulations and 

 the fact that there are few coeducational 

 schools in the country, the French girl 

 seldom makes with boys those confi- 

 dent, personal friendships so common in 

 America. 



In the main the French mother prefers 

 not to trust her daughter alone with a 



man ; if they are to do any loving, it is 

 better that they do it where she can keep 

 an observant eye on them. In spite of 

 such manifest difficulties in the prelimi- 

 naries, the French girl probably desires 

 marriage more ardently than the Ameri- 

 can girl confessedly desires it. There is 

 so much supervision of the French lass 

 in her home that her only release seems 

 to lie in marriage. 



Hence a remarkable docility in the 

 matter of the choice of a husband. Some 

 one has said that the French woman 

 marries, not because of love, but with the 

 hope of love afterwards. 



With the letters of her sweetheart too 

 often the property of the entire house- 

 hold, with too little opportunity really to 

 "size up" the future husband, and with 

 the necessity oftentimes of obtaining the 

 consent of practically the entire family 

 group, she cannot rely altogether on the 



