Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 81, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1899 — PUERTO RICANS [ARTICLE]

PUERTO RICANS

Have Str a nee Marriage Customs, and the Poor Do Not Marry. Marriage is almost unknown among the very poor classes, and the distinction of having the written word and the blessing of the priest carries with it no special badge of honor; it is suggestive only of another poor man gone wrong and a grasping padre a few pesos richer. It is a much easier matte? for a man to select his companionable partner and set up housekeeping in a new wickiup under the banana trees without more ado. A. legal marriage by license has less in it which meets approval in the native mind than that performed by a church functionary, for the padre might always save them from hell, while the nation’s sanction is absolutely a barefaced robbery. Gen. Grant one day gave hearing to a much-agi-tated man who stated that the priest would not marry him to the woman he loved without excessive fee, and he prayed that his Excellency would order the erring father to marry him at a rate commensurate with the size of his pocketbook. The General sorrowfully told him that he could not pretend to InterfenFwith the church rulings, even though his sympathies were aroused, and suggested he be content with the legal form which met all the lawful needs of our own country, and pay the small fee to the civil authorities. The man glared at him and disappeared; the manifest cupidity .of American officials was beyond his power to express in words.—Harper’s Weekly.