TYRANNICAL ETIQUETTE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 400, 7 July 1928, Page 24

TYRANNICAL ETIQUETTE

Dragon-Duennas of Spain Watch And Listen To

Lovers’ Greetings O-DAY, over 400 years after tlie expulsion of tlie Moors, Spain is still an Oriental country. The East lives in tlie blood and traditions of the people. Whoever hears mass chanted in the Cathedral of Toledo readily fancies himself in the mosques of Cairo; for the choristers sing with the high-pitched nasal tones of the Arabs. The gipsy dancers who dance in the caves of the Albaicin, the ancient Moorish quarter of Granada, move with the same sinuous hip movements as the dancers of the Ouled Nail upon the outskirts of the Sahara. Music, architecture, and place-names tell the same story.

Bat in no phase of life does the Oriental tradition persist more strongly than in the treatment of women. The Spanish woman is not, as popularly imagined, a beautiful Carmen, serenaded continually by the most dashing “toreros” of Andalusia. She lives the restricted life of the woman of the East. Of course, this statement is not so widely true of the cosmopolitan women of Madrid. The life of the great European capitals is everywhere much the same. But of the rest of Spain, and especially of the south, it is essentially true. A young girl may not leave the house unaccompanied by a duenna.

She must not speak to, or look at any man. When her family see a young man whom they consider suitable he is allowed to go and call on the girl. Her parents or the duenna always sit in the same room as the couple. Even when the girl is engaged she is never allowed to be one moment alone with her fiance unless carefully guarded. If you walk at night through the streets of a city of Southern Spain, such as Granada, Cordova, or Seville, you will see young men whispering through the heavy iron grilles of darkened windows to girls on the farther side. Even then, a duenna is probably watching and listening. (Continued on Page 25).