Promised brides

In the devastating aftermath of World War II, Greek girls exchanged family and village life for a matchmaker’s promise and a one-way ticket to Australia. Their stories didn’t always end happily but Erin O’Dwyer meets three women who risked it all and found love.

Maroulio Sotiriou still remembers the black-and-white photograph she sent from her village in Greece to her husband-to-be, Dionysis, in Tasmania. “I was wearing a short-sleeved top,” says 84-year-old Maroulio. “I went to Neapoli, near Kalamata, to have it taken. I wanted him to think I was cosmopolitan. He didn’t like it and asked me to send another one. He said to my family: ‘Where is the good girl you are sending me?’”

It was September 1961 and arranged marriage had long been an accepted part of Greek village life, but World War II and the Greek Civil War had left the country in ruins. One in 10 people had died, unemployment was high and money was scarce. Nearly half a million Greeks – close to one in five – had fled overseas to find work. Young Greek women, many of whom had not finished primary school, were left to run family farms or find factory work. Only those whose families could afford dowries were able to make suitable marriages.

In response, village matchmakers turned to arranging marriages overseas. Australia was the most popular destination for Greek immigrants, with almost 175,000 Greeks, mostly men, arriving between 1946 and ’74. Eager to marry women from their own country, young Greek men wrote home to family and friends, requesting an introduction. As the Greek saying went: “Better a shoe from your own parts, even if it has been cobbled …” Photos and letters were exchanged and couples were betrothed without dowries, and without having laid eyes on each other.