The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1868-06-26

real comeliness A female who can move
with the aid of two men is but moderate
beauty, while the lady who cannot stir, and
is only to be moved on camel, is esteemed
a perfect paragon.
Nor is this queer fancy for obesity in
women confined to the savages of the tor
rid zone, since we read in Wraxall's travels
in Russia, that Gin order to possess any
preeminent degree of loveliness, woman
must weigh at least two hundred weight"
The Expresses Elizabeth, and Catharine H.,
both accounted very fine women, were of
this massive kind.
In Italy matches are made with proven
bal leyity, and marriage vows, if report
speaks truly, are easily broken. Young
virgins are systematically bartered and sold
by their parents, and young people are
another before. Concubinage is a constant
remedy for these ill-advised and deceitful
marriages, and the peculiar term cicSs6eo
indicates the idemnity which custom pre-
scribes for the fair sex fettered to husbands
unloved.
In France, as has often been remarked
women mohopolize all the society and
large share of the business of life. The
coffee houses, the theatres, the shops, caba-
rets, or drinking shops, are filled with wo-
men. Women lord it at all assemblies, and
are better informed and more capable man
ayers than men. Marriage is looked upon
not so much as matter of affection as of in
tererest, and the sacredness of the tie is
proportionately slender.
Marriage in Sweden is commonly gov
erned wholly by the will of the parents, and
is founded upon interest A stolen match
is almost unheard of, and persons of either
sex seldom marry before the age of twenty
five or thirty. Divorces are very rare.
Russia appears to be the most preposter-
GUS country in Europe in treatment of wo-
men. The nuptial ceremonies, all and sin
gular, are based upon the idea of the deg
radiation of the female. When the parents
have agreed upon the match, the bride is
examined by II number of women to see if
she has any bodily defect. On her we'd
ding day she is crowned with garland of
wormwood, to denote the bitterness of the
marriage state She is exhorted to be ODE.
dent to her husband, and it is custom in
some districts for the newly married wife
to present the bridegroom with whip, in
token of submission, and with this he sell
cold and cruel country husbands arc known
to torture their wives to death without any
punishment for the murder. If a woman
proves barren, the husband generally pre-
walls on her to retire into q convent and
leave him at liberty. If he fails in persua-
sion, he is permitted to whip her. into con-
dcscension.
Such is the slavery in which the musco-
vites are kept by their parents and guar
dians, that they are not allowed to dispute
any union agreed upon by their elders,
however odious or incompatible it may be.
This extends so far, that officers in the ar
my are not permitted to marry without the
consent of the sovereign, and wives whom
they do not want are even sometimes forced
upon them.
Whether it be the result of this system of
oppression, or of their savage climate, or of
the unnatural hot air of the stove heated
apartments, it is certain that more I'M
lovely race of women than the Russians
would be difficult to find. "They want"
says an English traveller, "the genuine fla
vor which only nature can give. That
charming iirmness and elasticity of flesh, so
indispensably requisite to constitute beau
ty, and so delicious to the touch, exists not
among the Russian females, or in very few
of them"
We are told of the Aleutian Islanders,
who form part of our new Russian Amer
lean acquisition, that they marry one, two,
or three wives, as they have the means of
supporting them. The bridegroom takes
the bride upon trial, and may return her to
her parents should he not be satisfied, but
cannot demand his presents back again.
No man is allowed to sell his wife without
her consent but he may (and often does)
assign borrower to another. This custom, it
is said, is availed of by the Russian hunt
ers, whotake Aleutian women or girls to
wife for time for n trifiino compnnsation