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CORDOBA 59
“How old are you, Caballero?” I ask one of the
pair, intending to flatter him. I am quite ssure he is an
earth-digger.
“Compadre, amigo! I am seven species and five
marks (eighty-nine years old), and my son here is ex-
actly six species (seventy-two years old).” He points
smilingly at the other old man who nods with child-
like respectfulness.
“You must have become a father when very young,”
I exclaim, after having calculated with great difficulty
the age equivalent of the moneys he had mentioned.
“There are people who go about it even much
earlier. Up in our village a couple have just been
married; he is sixteen and she thirteen. They were
lovers for several years and their parents were anxious
to have them married before anything should go
wrong; but it was impossible to do so, because the law
did not permit it. She was over twelve all right, but
of course he had to be sixteen. There was nothing else
to do but proceed at once from the marriage ceremony
to the baptism, which shows clearly enough what the
whole law is worth.”
“Aren’t such early marriages quite exceptional?” I
say.
“Not when I was young; but now they are not
favored. People say the children are not worth much.
This fellow turned out very well, though; I vouch for
him in every respect.” He took his son gayly by the
shoulders and shook him. “But true, there is not
much juice or energy in young people nowadays.”
“T don’t suppose a sixteen-year-old husband can sup-
port a wife and child very well?”
“Neither can a forty-year-old in Spain—at least not
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