“Of course, the simple explanation of the fact is that marriage is the most important act of man's life in Europe or America, and that everything depends upon it.”
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French novels generally treat of the relations of women to the world and to lovers, after marriage consequently there is a great deal in French novels about adultery, about improper relations between the sexes, about many things which the English public would not allow.
There is one type of ideal woman very seldom described in poetry - the old maid, the woman whom sorrow or misfortune prevents from fulfilling her natural destiny.
Perhaps there is an idea among Japanese students that one general difference between Japanese and Western poetry is that the former cultivates short forms and the latter longer ones, gut this is only in part true.
It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in the Far East more than in modern Europe but in all European literature short forms of poetry are to be found - indeed quite as short as anything in Japanese.