Voltaire starts his story with a comment on the ridiculousness of the rules about aristocratic marriage. When Voltaire starts the story Candide is the illegitimate nephew of a Baron, who wants to marry his cou

“Alas…the wise Pangloss often proved to me that the goods of the earth are common to all men, that everyone has an equal right to them. By this logic, the Franciscan should have left us enough to finish our journey.” (59)

But the Franciscan has left them none (which, by the way, is another comment on the common practice in Catholic churches of the time to hoard money and riches). The only place that Candide visits that meets Voltaire’s ideas about philosophy is Eldorado. Eldorado is his Utopia, where people have no organized religion, and yet live a perfectly balanced life. They treat all strangers with respect, regardless of their religious preference. But of course, all of this is but a fantasy. Voltaire knows that the paradise that he dreams of will never be when he writes how, once again, over-confident colonizers destroy a civilization.

sin, Cunégonde, who is the Baron’s daughter. Candide is illegitimate because his father’s nobility could only be traced back to seventy-one generations, and apparently that is not enough to prove Candide worthy for marriage. This makes Candide unworthy to marry his cousin, a common practice among the aristocracy to ensure the continued noble lineage. When the Baron discovers Cunégonde and Candide kissing behind a screen, Candide is banished, as he is not noble enough to marry her. The practices behind aristocratic marriage is introduced very early on in the book, but it is repeated when Cunégonde’s brother, a colonel in South America, refuses to let Candide marry her. He does this despite all of the things Candide does for Cunégonde later in the story to save her life so they can live happily ever after. In this partic

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