The Irresistible Allure of the French “Madame”

by Allison Lightwine

The invitations were sent, the band and caterer booked, the perfect wedding dress waiting for its debut. The beautiful house set like a jewel in the rolling farmland welcomed guests from all over the States and Europe. As the big day itself began, my new husband and I sipped champagne and smiled shell-shocked smiles as the camera’s flash enveloped us.

Afterwards, on the way back to our apartment in Paris, I was admiring how my wedding band accentuated the diamonds on my engagement ring. My husband took one look at my outstretched hand and said, “French guys are going to looooove that.”

When one is single in one’s twenties in France, the inevitable question on everyone’s lips is “When are you getting married?” Single females over twenty-five in Paris seem to be automatically qualified as card-carrying spinsters. Entering the state of matrimony at the ripe old age of twenty-eight, I made the transition from “mademoiselle” to “madame”, crossing the threshold into the acceptable world of permanent coupledom. The envy of my single girlfriends, my husband and I were having fun feathering our nest with our new crystal and fine china. As far as I was concerned, I had closed a chapter of my life. The free-wheeling single days were over, replaced by a mellow and more satisfying lifestyle.

In America, the wedding band serves as a sort of automatic stop sign. In France, however, an attractive woman addressed as “madame” holds an allure that can rival the charms of any younger single girl.

I experienced this phenomenon first-hand in the months after my wedding. After a couple of years spent in Paris wondering why my Palm Pilot wasn’t overflowing with dates and cursing myself for not having moved to New York, suddenly I was hotter than freshly-baked croissants. Heads turned, men winked, colleagues who had established purely professional contact before my wedding day turned into the French men I had always heard about; that is, seductive, flattering, and above all, persistent.

For example, one of my counterparts had always been coolly professional towards me until I announced my new civil status. Far from the profile of a playboy, Stéphane is a serious, self-conscious guy in his early thirties. Hardly your typical Don Juan, I figured Stéphane was relatively harmless. Suddenly I was privy to a string of e-mails, each one more forward than the last. After declining an offer to be my personal guide for an after-hours tour of Paris, I remarked that he must not mind “holding the candle”, a French expression for being the third wheel. “On the contrary,” he purred, “I find candlelight so romantic.”

Stunned by my newfound popularity, I decided to investigate its cause. An American friend who has spent all of her adult life in France remarked, “The French tend to think that something is wrong with you if you’re not in a couple. The big question is WHY is that girl not in a relationship? What’s wrong with her? The natural solution to avoiding the bad apples is to pick one that already has appeal for someone else.”

Speaking of apples, there’s nothing that revs up a Frenchman’s engines more than forbidden fruit. According to a Lyonnais friend, it partly has to do with the contrary nature of the French. “We enjoy a challenge, “he explained. Apparently it’s much more interesting to conquer occupied territory than to strike out for virgin shores.

There’s also the matter of roughly two thousand years of Latin culture. Europeans in general (and the French in particular) call us, their Puritan cousins, a bunch of prudes, afraid to partake of the simple pleasures life has to offer. The French don’t consider themselves connoisseurs for nothing. Much as fine wine of different years and vintages is to be sought after and savored, one cannot appreciate the full range of sexual experiences until one has a comprehensive portfolio of partners, married women included.

Given France’s history and culture, it is not astonishing that extramarital affairs are an accepted part of French culture. But why married women instead of someone more available? My officemate, a dashing bachelor of twenty-seven, say he adores dating married women. “It’s the best of all possible worlds, “he claims. “She has her life and you have yours. She’s not likely to leave her husband for you, so the pressure is off. You can have a good time knowing that she can always go home to her man for emotional support. I’m not ready to settle down, so a married woman provides all of the pleasure, none of the guilt, no strings attached.”

Having established why French men like married women, what do the women themselves get out of it? Let’s face it, flattery will get you everywhere. After gaining a dress size during the wine-and-dine courtship with my husband, I must admit that an admiring eye can do wonders for the ego. French women tend to see things in even more practical terms.

Flirting is an essential part of daily life in France, greasing the wheels of social interaction. You catch more bees with honey, as the old adage goes, and this is especially true in the corporate world. A great figure alone won’t pull this off. Plain Janes are often in line for promotion simply because the French place a lot of value on charm. You’ll hear a man remarking “Elle a quelque chose”, meaning she ain’t a looker, but she knows how to stroke a man the right way, if you’ll pardon the pun. A married woman with the right skills knows how to lead a man to believe she’ll drop everything to be with him, even if she hasn’t so much as kissed him on the cheek. The results could be the best table at a restaurant, an increased salary, extravagant gifts, or, last but not least, a new sexual adventure.

As for this madame, I try to take it all in stride. The colleague who asks me to a dinner “téte-à-téte” is politely rebuffed, while an invitation for a drink may be accepted as a welcome way to liven up a dull work week or heck, make me forget I’m having a bad hair day. With French men, I feel dazzling, witty, and a bit of a mystery. However, when it comes down to it, I prefer curling up with my husband on our couch with a good bottle of Bordeaux than all the other temptations combined. Go ahead, you can call me a prude, I don’t mind