With the play on the “point of honour” we return to more familiar regions. There are hundreds of modern comedies in which the leading personages are the lover, the wife, and the husband. But the Spaniards were limited in their treatment of the theme. Neither the Church nor their own more than half-oriental sentiment permitted of the presentation of adultery as sympathetic, or even pardonable. When they took this subject it was only for the purpose of showing by a lively action how the husband vindicated his “honour.” This honour, as has been already said, lay in the opinion the world had of him. Don Gutierre Alfonso, in the _Médico de su Honra_, kills his wife, not because he believes her guilty, but because she has been pursued by a lover and he will not have it said that this has been, and that he has not avenged himself. To do this effectually he must kill both--the innocent woman and the lover who sought to seduce her. If you ask Why? he answers “Mi opinion”--which means not what I believe, but what the world may believe of me--leaves me no choice. If I do not, it will say, There is a man whose wife was courted, and she lives. Where one failed another may succeed. There must be no doubt of my “honour.” And so after a little complaint over the tyranny of the world he kills her with no more scruple than he would show in despatching a worthless horse or hound. The father, or brother, who is head of a house, is under the same obligation as the husband. His honour is concerned in seeing that his daughter or sister gives no occasion to the evil tongues of the world. In Calderon’s very typical _comedia de capa y espada_, the _Dama Duende_--the ‘Fairy Lady’--the heroine is a young and beautiful widow living with a brother, who keeps her in a separate set of rooms in his house, and will not let her be seen. She accepts this tyranny as a matter of course, and has no more doubt of her brother’s right to control, and if she is found disobeying his orders, to punish her, than she would have had of a husband’s. How far all this gives a true picture of the society of the time has been a debated question. It certainly was the picture which that society liked to see drawn of itself. We may accept it as giving no more than an exaggerated theatrical representation of truth. Spain is a country of the Roman law, which allows a husband to kill an unfaithful wife and her lover. It had also been affected by the long Moorish dominion, and the women of all ranks were certainly less independent than in England. In the higher classes they were, and in provincial towns where ancient customs linger, still are, much secluded. [SN: A Secreto Agravio Secreta Venganza.]