Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/219

 An irrevocable edict has gone forth when that prophetic forefinger goes upward and outward before the end of the nose. The laws of the Medes and Persians may be evaded, but "no es costumbre" never.



In no country are family ties stronger. The thought of separation is to them fraught with unspeakable anguish, and even after marriage it is not unusual to see half a dozen families living in the same house, daughters with their husbands and sons with their wives remaining under the paternal roof. The time never comes in the lives of the parents when the children are not more or less amenable to them. Grown sons and daughters do not forget the respect and obedience that were expected of them when children.

The reverence for parents goes with them in their wedded lives, and even increases with the lapse of years. A man never grows too old to kiss the hands of his aged parents or to visit them every day if they reside in the same city, and the daughters do the same.

When the marital knot is tied, the women accommodate themselves to whatever fate may have in store for them with that grace and fortitude which belong to them, rarely equaled and never surpassed. The time never comes in which they feel their burdens too great to be borne with patience.

They go but little into society or mixed assemblages, consequently their earthly happiness is summed up in home, husband, children. Their outward deportment corresponds with the interior calm. Whether riding, driving, or walking, they always retain a decorum and dignity of manner peculiar to themselves. To express emotion or surprise in public is not considered becoming.

In all my intercourse with them, I have seen but two who used the trenchant weapon of sarcasm; in their hands it cut like a two-edged sword, and in each case their own countrymen were the victims.

Among the earliest lessons of Christianity inculcated by the Franciscan missionaries were love, charity, and self-denial, and the outcome