Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Professor Violetta HionidouORCiD
Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.
Anthropological studies of Greece repeatedly disparage female employment, especially of single females outside the parental household. That was not the case on the Cycladic islands of Mykonos and Syros and the Aegean island of Hios. Interviews with elderly islanders elucidate the pre-World War II situation. Nineteenth-century manuscript census returns for the two Cycladic islands indicate earlier patterns and possible continuities. Yet oral interviews are much more revealing than printed sources. Of the many women - single or married - engaged in cash-earning employment within the household a significant percentage were employed in domestic service. Domestic service usually involved single females who either moved within the island, to Hermoupolis, or to Athens or Istanbul. Before the girl departed from her household of origin, her parents (most likely her mother) had made the arrangements. Apart from alleviating household poverty, the most common purpose for sending single girls into domestic service was to enable them to amass enough cash to purchase houses, which would constitute the major part of their dowries. Thus, employment in general and domestic service specifically delayed their marriages while enhancing their dowries. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Author(s): Hionidou V
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: History of the Family
Year: 2005
Volume: 10
Issue: 4
Pages: 473-489
ISSN (print): 1081-602X
ISSN (electronic): 1873-5398
Publisher: Pergamon
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.hisfam.2005.09.008
DOI: 10.1016/j.hisfam.2005.09.008
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric