The considerable number of these
unions may be explained by the high cost of the marriage
ceremony,--for while there are some priests ready to waive their fees
for a religious wedding and some alcaldes who are satisfied with what
the law allows for the civil ceremony, others are not so
complaisant--also by the fact that such unions have become so common
that the parties see nothing wrong in them, and further by the
circumstance that the parties often believe it more to their advantage
to remain single rather than to be married. A friend of mine had a
respectable colored man working on his plantation, the head of a large
family, but not married to the woman with whom he had been living for
over a score of years and to whom he was devotedly attached. My friend
endeavored to persuade him to marry the woman, but the answer was a
determined negative. "If I marry her she will know I have to support
her and she may get careless and lazy. Knowing that I can leave her
when I like she will continue to behave herself." Persuasion was then
tried with his wife and her refusal was almost identical: "If I marry
him he will know that I am bound to him and then he may go and fall in
love with some other woman.
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