Spanish veins contain more Oriental blood than those of any other
European nation; and to the present day Eastern methods of treating
women cast their shadow on Spanish life. But the shadow is so light, and
so much mitigated by the rosy hue of romance, that the “local colour” of
Love in Spain presents an unusually fascinating spectacle, which
countless literary artists have attempted to depict.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Oriental shadow was
much darker, and kept the women in extreme subjection and ignorance.
“Their life,” says Professor Scherr, speaking even of the queens,
“passed away in a luxurious tedium which dulled the sentiments to the
point of idiocy. They were only crowned slaves. As an instance of their
absolute deprivation of liberty may be cited the case of Elizabeth, wife
of Philip II., who, when in 1565 she went to Bayonne to meet her mother,
had to wait three days before the gates of Burgos before it was possible
to ascertain the king’s decision whether the queen should pass through
the city or around it.”
“Women of rank,” he continues, "lived in a seclusion bordering on that
of a convent, if not surpassing it. For nuns were at least allowed to
speak to male visitors behind bars, whereas married women were strictly
forbidden to receive the visit of a man, except with the special
permission of the husband. And only during the first year of their
wedded life were they allowed to frequent public drives in open
carriages by the side of their husband; subsequently they were only
allowed to go out in closed carriages. Of cosy family life not a
trace.... Even the table did not unite the husband and wife; the master
took his meal alone, while his wife and children sat respectfully on the
floor on carpets, with their legs crossed in Oriental fashion.
“The poor women, excluded from every refined social diversion, were
confined to manual work, gossip with their duennas, mechanical praying,
playing with their rosaries, and—intriguing. For the greater the
subjection of women, the more does their cunning grow, the more
passionate becomes their desire to avenge themselves on their tyrants.
The Spaniards found this out to their cost. The most inexorable spirit
of revenge, all the parade of ‘Spanish honour,’ bordering in its excess
on clownishness, could not prevent the Spanish dames from loving and
being loved.”
In course of time this Oriental despotism, with its fatal consequences
to conjugal fidelity—as in France—has been greatly mitigated in Spain.
In Pepys’s _Diary_, 1667, we read of an informant who told the writer
“of their wooing [in Spain] by serenades at the window, and that their
friends do always make the match; but yet they have opportunities to
meet at masse at church, and there they make love.”
In an interesting book on Spain, written almost two and a quarter
centuries after Pepys’s _Diary_—Mr. Lathrop’s _Spanish Vistas_—we still
read concerning this ecclesiastic Love-making, in the Seville Cathedral:
“Every door was guarded by a squad of the decrepit army, so that
entrance there became a horror. These sanctuary beggars serve a double
purpose, however. The black-garbed Sevillan ladies, who are perpetually
stealing in and out noiselessly under cover of their archly-draped lace
veils—losing themselves in the dark, incense-laden interior, or emerging
from confession into the daylight glare again—are careful to drop some
slight conscience-money into the palms that wait. Occasionally, by
pre-arrangement, one of these beggars will convey into the hand that
passes him a silver piece, a tightly-folded note from some clandestine
lover. It is a convenient underground mail, and I am afraid the
venerable church innocently shelters a good many little transactions of
this kind.”
How greatly the facilities for falling in love and for making love have
been increased in modern Spain is vividly brought out in the following
citation from Schweiger-Lerchenfeld regarding the scenes to be witnessed
every evening on the crowded promenade or Rambla at Barcelona:—
“Are these elegantly-attired ramblers one and all suitors, since they
put no limit nor restraint on their whispered flatteries? No, that is
simply the custom in Barcelona. The women and girls are beautiful, and
though they are well aware of it, they nevertheless allow their charms
to be whispered in their ears hundreds of times every evening—a freedom
of intercourse which is only possible on Spanish soil.... And thus one
of these adored beauties walks up and down in the glare of the lamps,
and sweet music is wafted to her ears: ‘Your beauty dazzles me,’
whispers one voice; and another, ‘Happiness and anguish your eyes are
burning into my soul.’ One compliments the chosen one on her hair,
another on her figure, a third on her graceful gait. Young adorers feel
a thrill running down their whole body if her mantilla only touches
them; while mature lovers are contented with nothing less than a
pressure of the hand. It is a picture that is possible, conceivable only
in Spain.”
The same writer quotes some specimens of Spanish Love-songs, one of
which may be transferred to this page—
“Échame, niña bonita,
Lágrimas en tu pañuelo,
Y los llevaré a Madrid
Que los engarce un platero.”
“Show me, my little charmer, the tear in your handkerchief; to Madrid
will I take it and have it set by a jeweller.”
What a contrast between this modern complimentary and poetic form of
Gallantry and the form prevalent in the good old times when lovers
endeavoured to win a maiden’s favour by flagellating themselves under
her window until the blood ran down their backs; and when, as Scherr
adds, “it was regarded as the surest sign of supreme gallantry if some
of the blood bespattered the clothes of the beauty to whom this crazy
act of devotion was addressed!”
Nevertheless, the Spanish still have much to learn from England and
America regarding the proper methods of Courtship; for, according to a
writer in _Macmillan’s Magazine_ (1874), the unmarried maiden of the
higher classes, “like her humbler sister, can never have the privilege
of seeing her lover in private, and very rarely, indeed, if ever, is he
admitted into the _sala_ where she is sitting. He may contrive to get a
few minutes’ chat with her through the barred windows of her _sala_; but
when a Spaniard leads his wife from the altar, he knows no more of her
character, attainments, and disposition than does the parish priest who
married them, and perhaps not so much.”
In one respect Spanish lovers have a great advantage over their
unfortunate colleagues in France. There marriage is impossible without
parental consent, whereas in Spain a law exists concerning which the
writer just quoted says:—
“Should a Spanish lad and lassie become attached to one another, and the
parents absolutely forbid the match, and refuse their daughter liberty
and permission to marry, the lover has his remedy at law. He has but to
make a statement of the facts on paper, and deposit it, signed and
attested, with the alcalde or mayor of the township in which the lady’s
parents dwell. The alcalde then makes an order, giving the young man the
right of free entry into the house in question, within a certain number
of days, for the purpose of wooing and carrying off his idol. The
parents dare not interfere with the office of the alcalde, and the lady
is taken to her lover’s arms. From that moment he, and he alone, is
bound to provide for her: by his own act and deed she has become his
property.” Should he prove false “the law comes upon him with all its
force, and he is bound to maintain her, in every way, as a wife, under
pain of punishment.”
Thus a Spanish girl is protected against perfidious lovers as well as is
an English and American girl through the possibility of suing for breach
of promise. If the short stories told in _Don Quixote_ may be taken as
examples, faithless lovers were very common in Spain at that time;
which, doubtless, accounts for the origin of this law. The girls on
their part erred by yielding too easily to the promises of the men;
though they are partially excused by the great strength of their
passions.
In his work on Suicide, Professor Morselli has statistics showing that
more women take their life in Spain than in any other country; and he
attributes this to the force of their passions, which is greater than in
Italy, where the number of female suicides is considerably lower.
Thus Love has a more favourable ground in Spain than either in Italy or
in France, notwithstanding certain restrictions. And the result shows
itself in this, that all tourists unite in singing the praises of
Spanish Beauty. Spain, indeed, unites in itself all the conditions
favourable to Beauty: a climate tempting to outdoor life; a considerable
amount of intellectual culture and æsthetic refinement; a mixture of
nationalities, fusing _ethnic_ peculiarities into a harmonious whole;
and Love, which fuses _individual_ complementary qualities into a
harmonious ensemble of beautiful features, graceful figure, amiable
disposition, and refined manners.