PICTURE IT. SICILY. 1865.

Actually the Italian side of my family is not from Sicily, but I couldn't resist "The Golden Girls" reference as a way to introduce this family history post.  My whole life my father has been researching, writing and polishing a massive Italian family history.  I suppose it is not surprising that there was no feminist consciousness among my Italian forbears of the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  The tale of my grandfather's grandparents' "courtship" in southern Italy in 1865 is a bit rough:

The family story is that my tall and handsome Great-great-grandfather ("Luigi") was 28 years old when he fell in love with a tiny 14 year old girl who was to become my Great-great-grandmother ("Marianna").  (My elderly relatives all attribute my small bones and freakishly small hands to Marianna's genetic legacy.)  When Marianna's parents died, her older sisters had already been married off, but she was too young so she was placed in a convent orphanage.  (She was Catholic unlike my paternal line.)  The nuns taught her needlework and she became immensely proficient at embroidery, silk spinning, and crocheting. 

Marianna often sat in the convent garden and Luigi happened to see her on a number of occasions when he would walk by.  He fell in love with her on sight.  Since Marianna was 14, and too young to be married, Luigi rode a horse into the building where she was sewing one day and abducted her.  He took her off to another town and married her that night.  Even though she was so young, he knew that once they were married, the priests and nuns would not annul the marriage. 

Marianna and Luigi were my grandfather's grandparents.  I heard this story from my grandfather when I was growing up.  He heard it from his parents and from Marianna and Luigi themselves (they died in 1936 and 1915 respectively).  Family tradition is unclear as to whether Marianna and Luigi had ever talked before he abducted her.  It is also unclear as to whether Marianna consented to the abduction. I guess no one thought that those were important questions to ask! I like to think that it was assumed that she consented to the abduction. 

Comments

[TangoMan]

My whole life my father has been researching, writing and polishing a massive Italian family history.

Interesting isn't it, that your father has this project and he's also the one who is pestering you about grandchildren, while your mother is happy that you're doing your own thing. It's likely that your father has actually developed quite a strong fixation on the connectedness of generations and he sees that the river of generations is coming to an end, and he's writing the final chapter of his family history. Is your mother just as invested in family history?

I also found the reference to bride kidnapping to be very interesting. It is still practiced in Kyrgyzstan, but instead of using horses as the get-away vehicle, the modern bride kidnapper uses a taxi :)

[TangoMan]

Here's a good link.

[The Happy Feminist]

I think you're on to something TangoMan in that my father's pretty obsessed with family history. My mother's interested in hers as well, but not obsessed.

Generally, though, I think my father's always been more of a nag about everything and my mother's always been more laid back. My father's the one who always said things like, "Oh no, don't go swimming when you've just hand lunch," or "Oh no, you're getting too skinny, boys won't like you." My theory is that he has an anima, or "feminine" persona, a sort of embodiment of his fussy mother and fussy grandmother.

[Sydney]

Actually, the practice that you refer to above -- of kidnapping young women for the purposes of "marrying" them is so common in southern italy that there is a word for it. It is "fuitina" meaning "little escape" in some southern italian dialects. Typically the kidnapping would occur, sex would happen, and then the marriage would be arranged as reparation for the kidnapping and sex.

[bariatric surgery]

Wow, that looks good... I would want to try to experiment to get rid of that aluminum foil stuff... not authentic...