Page:Mexico of the Mexicans.djvu/45

Rh existence is usually placid and home-keeping. Should she have children, she is a mother to them in the real sense of the word. Divorce is most unpopular in Mexico and, besides being discouraged by the Roman Church, is looked upon with disfavour by the people at large.

The Mexican lady is, as a rule, a hard-and-fast devotee of etiquette, and Europeans visiting Mexico should bear in mind that they and not their neighbours are supposed to make the first advances in the establishment of acquaintanceship. The general custom is to announce one's arrival in the local Press, and to send a copy of such announcement to everyone of importance in the neighbourhood. It is also absolutely essential that the stranger should be well and suitably recommended by letters of introduction to someone in the vicinity where he is to take up his abode, as the Mexican, like the Spaniard, attaches the greatest importance to such introductions, and will assuredly give no countenance to anyone who is without them. It is quite a mistake to regard the Mexicans or other Latin-American peoples as resembling our colonists in frankness and indiscriminate hospitality. The Mexican is not at all casual. His code of etiquette dates from Spanish colonial days, and is thus even more rigorous than that of modern Spain itself. But once his confidence is gained, there are few more hospitable than he or more ready to extend full domestic intimacy to the properly accredited stranger within his gates.

Mexican ladies of the past generation were not far removed in their customs from their great grandmothers of the colonial period. But their emancipation has proceeded apace within recent years. No longer do they set out upon a shopping expedition accompanied by a duenna and veiled, and closely concealed within the depths of a carriage. Their amusements, too, have greatly changed, and to-day include lawn-tennis and even golf. They, in common with their men-folk, do not share the Anglo-Saxon relish for afternoon tea—a meal