Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/640

620 other restrictions, and by abusing this sacrament for political purposes. The law naturally met with great opposition from the clergy and their adherents, but has been sustained, to the increase of legal unions, if also of divorce. The extravagant habits and inefficient education of the higher classes will ever prove an obstacle to marriage, and the unceremonious intrusion and meddling of a wife's mother and sisters is a custom which foreigners, at least, seek to guard against by seemingly harsh restrictions. Yet mothers are not given to match-making schemes. Lovers must sigh at a distance, and even after betrothal their intercourse is exceedingly formal. Children are bright and well-behaved in a remarkable degree, although left too much to the servants, and treated in an over-indulgent manner.

The influx of French fashions has almost wholly transformed the dress of city folk, even to some extent among humbler classes; and although certain Spanish features, like the mantilla and capa, remain, we must go to the country for the old national costumes, which remain comparatively unchanged. Men affect dress relatively more than the other sex, with a closer adherence to Parisian models. They are also less slovenly than women. Their position in this respect seems the reverse of English. Indian women are