WHERE ROMANCE LINGERS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 307, 29 October 1910, Page 2

WHERE ROMANCE LINGERS.

The halo of romance still encircles everything connected with courtship in Spain, writes Miss Mitford in the "Queen." The enamoured swain still plays his guitar outside the window of his lady-love's bower, while she lets down notes with a piece of silken thread, and it is considered a point of honour with the occupants of the windows below hers not to interfere. Parents sanction the custom, for a father is generally glad to get his daughters off his hands, and the girls are kept so secluded that if these practices were not tacitly allowed engagements would take place more rarely. When several women are shut up in one house with no interests and few amusements harmony is imperilled, and many a domestic quarrel results. That this is recognised in Spain is proved by a proverb which says that "Three daughters and a mother are .four devils for a father" ; therefore, paterfamilias hastens to find husbands for his girls, whose lives are not much improved thereby, for they merely exchange paternal for marital control.

Among the upper classes marriages are now conducted on French lines, but the country districts and small towns still preserve the picturesque custom of olden times. On the day before the wedding the presents are taken in procession to the bridegroom's house, and they always include four large loaves, the bride's gift (symbolical of abundance) to her future home, and her furniture in a cart, for even the poorest will always endeavour to furnish her bedroom. On the following day the nuptial Mass is celebrated, and the bridegroom must take care to kneel on a

piece of the bride's dress if he wishes to lie master in his own house. The ceremonies conclude the following morning with a pilgrimage to a neighbouring shrine.