other restrictions, and by abusing this sacrament for political purposes.[1] The law naturally met with great opposition from the clergy and their adherents,[2] but has been sustained, to the increase of legal unions, if also of divorce.[3] The extravagant habits and inefficient education of the higher classes will ever prove an obstacle to marriage, and the unceremonious intrusion and meddling of a wife's mother and sisters is a custom which foreigners, at least, seek to guard against by seemingly harsh restrictions. Yet mothers are not given to match-making schemes.[4] Lovers must sigh at a distance, and even after betrothal their intercourse is exceedingly formal.[5] Children are bright and well-behaved in a remarkable degree, although left too much to the servants, and treated in an over-indulgent manner.[6]
The influx of French fashions has almost wholly transformed the dress of city folk, even to some extent among humbler classes;[7] and although certain Spanish features, like the mantilla and capa, remain, we must go to the country for the old national costumes, which remain comparatively unchanged. Men affect dress relatively more than the other sex, with a closer adherence to Parisian models. They are also less slovenly than women. Their position in this respect seems the reverse of English. Indian women are
- ↑ Refusing to grant it to those who favored the anti-clerical constitution of 1857.
- ↑ Bishops issued circulars against it, and so forth. See Espinosa, Pastorales, pts iv.-v.
- ↑ To That is, with power to marry again.
- ↑ According to Calderon de la Barca, whose Life in Mexico contains so many excellent pictures of Anáhuac society.
- ↑ In Furber's Volunteer, 436, is a detailed account of betrothal and marriage ceremonies; in Mühlenp., i. 336, is given a baptismal feast.
- ↑ Hence also the striking familiarity between them and their masters. Children do not leave the maternal breast sometimes till the age of six, before which time they often begin the use of the cigarette. For additional points on social subjects, I refer to volume iii., Hist. Mex.
- ↑ Fossey thinks that there is not a sufficient distinction between the attire of maidens and mature women. He admires their coquettish use of the fan. Mex., 245-7. Calderon alludes to their dignified position when seated, although the attitude is rather uniform, Life in Mex., i. 127; and Mayer, Mex. Aztec, ii. 230, dwells on their queenly walk, which, with pinched toes and tottering, high-heeled shoes, I should call anything but queenly.
