The inhabitants of each Roumanian village are divided into three classes:
First, the distinguished villagers—front-men—called fruntasi, or oameni de frunta.
Second, the middle-men—mylocasi, or oameni de mana adona—men of second-hand.
Third, the hind-men, or codas (tail-men).
Each man, according to his family, personal gifts, reputation, and fortune, is ranged into one or other of these three classes, which have each their separate customs, rights, and privileges, which no member of another class durst infringe upon.
Thus the codas may do much which would not be suitable for the other two classes. The mylocasi have, on the whole, the most difficult position of the three, and are most severely judged, being alternately accused of presumption in imitating the behavior of the fruntas, and blamed for demeaning themselves by copying the irregular habits of the codas. In short, it would seem to be all but impossible for an unfortunate middle-man to hit off the juste milieu, and succeed in combining in his person the precise proportions of dignity and deference required of his state.
Nor is the position of the front-men entirely an easy one. Each one of these has a separate party of hangers-on, friends and admirers, who profess a blind faith and admiration for him—endorsing his opinion on all occasions, and recognizing his authority in matters of dispute. His dress, his words, his actions are all strictly regulated on the axiom noblesse oblige; but woe to him if he be caught erring himself—for only in the case of the popa is it allowable for the practice to differ from the preaching. A fruntas may sit down to table with the codas of his own village, whenever they are in his service helping him to bring in the harvest or to build a house; but he durst not, under pain of losing caste, be equally familiar with any strange codas.
There are, moreover, whole districts which are reckoned as distinguished, and whose codas take rank along with the mylocasi, or even the front-men, of less aristocratic villages. A single woman, coming from one of these distinguished neighborhoods, may in a short time transform the whole village into which she marries, the inhabitants eagerly studying and imitating her dress, manners, and gestures, down to the most insignificant details.
A distinctive quality of the Roumanian race is the touching affection which mostly unites all members of one family. Unlike the Saxon, who seeks to limit the number of his offspring, the poor Roumanian, even when plunged into the direst poverty, yet regards each addition to his family as another gift of God; while to be a childless wife is considered as the greatest of misfortunes.
Numerous instances are recorded of children of other nationalities, who, deserted by their unnatural parents, have been taken in by poor Roumanians, themselves already burdened with a numerous family.