In the first place, the great majority are
in the position of the ugly woman described by Ovid, "_Casta quam nemo
rogavit_." As for the pretty ones, they are, like all Spanish women,
very fastidious in choosing their lovers. Their fancy must be taken,
and their favour must be earned. Mr. Borrow quotes, in proof of their
virtue, one trait which does honour to his own, and especially to his
simplicity: he declares that an immoral man of his acquaintance offered
several gold ounces to a pretty gitana, and offered them in vain. An
Andalusian, to whom I retailed this anecdote, asserted that the immoral
man in question would have been far more successful if he had shown the
girl two or three piastres, and that to offer gold ounces to a gipsy was
as poor a method of persuasion as to promise a couple of millions to a
tavern wench. However that may be, it is certain that the gitana shows
the most extraordinary devotion to her husband. There is no danger and
no suffering she will not brave, to help him in his need. One of the
names which the gipsies apply to themselves, _Rome_, or "the married
couple," seems to me a proof of their racial respect for the married
state.
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