Then she is told for the first time that she must take care of herself.

Well, you will see that the conditions which inspire the novels, in treating of the subjects of love and marriage, are very different in Northern and in Southern Europe.

For this reason alone the character of the novel produced in England could not be the same.
You must remember, however, that there are many other reasons for this difference--reasons of literary sentiment.

The Southern or Latin races have been civilized for a much longer time than the Northern races; they have inherited the feelings of the ancient world, the old Greek and Roman world, and they think still about the relation of the sexes in very much the same way that the ancient poets and romance writers used to think.

And they can do things which English writers can not do, because their language has power of more delicate expression.
We may say that the Latin writers still speak of love in very much the same way that it was considered before Christianity.