Dusk are dropping once the Tsirigoti and her spouse Nikos – and a beneficial physics professor – visited my personal resorts, and then we chat on garden courtyard, below a bougainvillea that’s simply a shade better than Tsirigoti’s magenta-colored locks. Regarding confronts out-of each other Tsirigoti and you will Koulianos I will detect contours of your own strong top features of their maternal grandma, as caught within the an image removed of the Australian singer Cedric Flower, whom inserted Clift and you can Johnston to your Kalymnos for most months in summer away from 1955.

How genuine would be the fact?

Georgia Tsirigoti, a good physics teacher towards Kalymnos, says you to definitely today with the isle, like with the lady granny Sevasti Taktikou’s go out, “the ladies may be the employer of the property”. Credit: Nadia Wheatley

“I’ve way too many images of her – wry, sardonic, romantic, soft, raffish, sad,” Clift penned out-of Taktikou. “But real time, every one of them, enjoying and you will breathing and you can live.”

Appropriately, into the Cedric Flower’s photo, Taktikou try ready so you can Clift a plate of fresh fruit, since if she was the fresh new archetypical Earth Mom; it’s clear one to toward Australian girl, recently arrived in a confusing, alien people, the newest older Greek lady is actually new surrogate mommy which instructed the girl to look and you will create and sustain home on local trend.

Georgia Tsirigoti invested just per year from the lady teens towards Kalymnos; the woman father’s career because the a police officer triggered your to maneuver their relatives regarding the, between the island off Rhodes, the fresh new Peloponnese, therefore the town of Thessaloniki. Offered Tsirigoti’s comprehension of other parts regarding Greece, I am especially curious locate her undertake the brand new island’s social organization. We initiate: “From the book, Charmian claims you to, under the strength you to definitely Kalymnian boys appear to have . ”

“Sure! Since the majority of boys was in fact take a trip, of https://kissbrides.com/hot-singapore-women/ the sponges. Even today, lots of men are working due to the fact sailors – captains otherwise aspects. They travelling a lot. ”

I recount my personal previous day’s dialogue with Hatzismalis with his partner, and i also quote Hatzismalis’ assertion you to definitely “We Kalymnian men are happy.”

Again, Tsirigoti spontaneously agrees. “Sure. While they have nothing to worry about. The difficult decisions are removed because of the ladies – the fresh new wives – maybe not because of the guys. The newest men are liberated to disappear to work, and also to return to Kalymnos and live a bit that have people they know, and then leave again. And this is how it are, even now.” We select Tsirigoti’s spouse, who is Athenian, silently agreeing.

“Every difficult behavior are taken of the ladies – this new spouses – maybe not by the boys … This is how it is, right now.”

That it offer between individuals is conveyed not inside the an effective authored pre-nup but in something that often is literally real: a house. Immediately following discussing this new ongoing stamina of your Multiple Deity, Clift produces from inside the Mermaid Vocal: “The newest apparent facts from men supremacy have to be place from the elderly and much more significant fact that possessions right here descends from the ladies range, away from mommy to earliest child.”

“Sure.” After some dialogue in the Greek that have Nikos, she explains: “Right now – not very strictly now, but even today – it’s community giving all of the girl a home.”

And so the women can be the new workplace of the property

Which residence is the fresh new bride’s prika, the lady dowry. Pursuing the wedding, the new bridegroom movements inside the. Just in case the marriage doesn’t work, Clift explained, “this is simply not the woman who is turned-out of the house”.

Little ponder, I think, one on Kalymnos, anyone speak endlessly from houses, not even as we create in australia, as the an issue of monetary value. Right here our house ‘s the supply of an excellent female’s power, into the real terms.