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.”