Dusk is dropping since Tsirigoti and her husband Nikos – in addition to a physics professor – come to my resorts, and we talk throughout the garden courtyard, under an excellent bougainvillea which is merely a shade lighter than simply Tsirigoti’s magenta-coloured hair. Regarding faces off one another Tsirigoti and you can Koulianos I could detect contours of your own good top features of their maternal grandma, because grabbed for the a photo pulled by the Australian artist Cedric Flower, just who joined Clift and you may Johnston towards Kalymnos for many months during the summer regarding 1955.
How real would be the fact?
Georgia Tsirigoti, a beneficial physics professor on Kalymnos, says that now for the isle, as with the lady grandma Sevasti Taktikou’s date, “the ladies will be the employer of the property”. Credit: Nadia Wheatley
“I’ve unnecessary pictures off the girl – wry, sardonic, enchanting, comfortable, raffish, sad,” Clift blogged out-of Taktikou. “But real time, everyone, loving and you can respiration and you can live.”
Appropriately, into the Cedric Flower’s pic, Taktikou is actually ready so you can Clift a full bowl of fruits, as if she were the newest archetypical Earth Mommy; it is clear one to your Australian girl, freshly found its way to a bewildering, alien society, this new earlier Greek woman was the new surrogate mom just who trained the lady to search and create and keep family from the regional manner.
Georgia Tsirigoti spent simply per year of the woman young people with the Kalymnos; the lady dad’s industry while the a police caused your to go their family unit members in the, within area regarding Rhodes, the new Peloponnese, therefore the city of Thessaloniki. Given Tsirigoti’s understanding of other areas away from Greece, I’m specifically curious discover her accept the latest island’s social organization. We initiate: “On the guide, Charmian claims one, within the power one Kalymnian guys appear to have . ”
“Sure! Since the majority of your own men have been traveling, from the sponges. Even today, a lot of men will work because sailors – captains kissbrides.com official website or mechanics. They traveling a great deal. ”
We recount my personal early in the day day of conversation that have Hatzismalis and his partner, and i also quotation Hatzismalis’ assertion you to definitely “I Kalymnian men are very happy.”
Once more, Tsirigoti in an instant believes. “Yes. Because they have absolutely nothing to consider. Every hard choices is taken by the female – new spouses – not from the people. The fresh men are absolve to disappear completely to be effective, and come back to Kalymnos and you can real time a while having people they know, and then leave again. And this is how it try, even now.” I look for Tsirigoti’s husband, that is Athenian, gently agreeing.
“Most of the hard decisions are removed because of the women – this new wives – maybe not because of the people … This is how it’s, even today.”
So it price ranging from someone is shown not during the a great written pre-nup but in something which is frequently literally concrete: a property. Once outlining the fresh constant electricity of your Triple Deity, Clift produces in Mermaid Vocal: “The fresh apparent reality off men supremacy need to be put resistant to the elderly and more tall simple fact that assets here descends through the female range, regarding mommy so you’re able to earliest girl.”
“Yes.” Shortly after particular talk within the Greek with Nikos, she clarifies: “Right now – not very purely today, however, right now – it is customs to offer all the daughter property.”
So the women can be the latest employer of the property
It house is the bride’s prika, their dowry. Following relationships, new bridegroom actions when you look at the. Whenever the marriage does not work, Clift told me, “this is not the woman who’s proved of your house”.
Little wonder, I do believe, one to to the Kalymnos, somebody chat constantly regarding domiciles, yet not even as we would around australia, due to the fact a question of value. Right here our house ‘s the way to obtain a good female’s strength, when you look at the genuine terminology.