"The Marriage Contract" by Honoré de Balzac is a novel published in 1835. When wealthy Parisian bachelor Paul de Manerville falls for beautiful Spanish heiress Natalie Evangelista, he ignores his worldly friend's warnings and plunges into marriage. Blinded by romantic illusions, Paul fails to see the scheming ambitions of Natalie's calculating mother or recognize where his bride's true loyalties lie. This tale explores the dangerous gap between marital dreams and harsh reality, following not just the courtship but the cold negotiations that follow. (This is an automatically generated summary.)