Montesquieu once wrote in Persian Letters: In the past, the people of France, especially the nobility, followed almost no rules except where honor was concerned. Honor governed their lives and conduct. Matters of honor were so grave that, when honor was at stake, people could not evade even the slightest regulation. But I would not say that one could not violate honor, though no punishment was more cruel than death.
The phrase "Honor is my life" came from the creed of the knights in Dragonlance. In reality, few noble families truly lived by those words, especially businessmen. For a business, it was better to submit than to perish.
But when the descendants of distinguished families chose to marry women from wealthy families they called "moneybags" or said they had "found a gold ingot," the nobles gained money while the merchant's daughter gained noble status. This counted as a "contract," irrevocable like an English trust.
Josephine had many friends among the nobility. Napoleon abandoning her to marry Marie Louise was a breach of contract. Together with all the tricks he had always played when signing peace treaties with other nations, the damage this caused was difficult for Napoleon I, who came from common stock, to see through. His descendants understood once they had entered the noble class.
If this generation could not understand, the next could keep thinking about it. So long as the baton was passed on, one generation would eventually understand.
Ancient China also had the rule of the three grounds on which a wife could not be cast aside: if her family had scattered and perished, leaving her nowhere to go if divorced; if she had observed three years of mourning in her husband's place; and if the couple had been poor at first and later become wealthy.