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family, many women had become physically and emotionally exhausted and suffered Ul-
health. They had, however, assumed their roles whh courage and determination and,
performing them well, won the respect and admiration of their families. In coming to
Australia, where they relinquished these roles and resubmitted to the authority of their
husbands, many suffered stress and resentment. Added to this, they had lost the
support of their extended families. Some women never overcame this grief for an
unattainable past and suffered; others resolved to make the best of the path they had
chosen, or which had been chosen for them,
A number of Italian-speaking women arrived on the shores of Australia as
partners in what appear to have been pre-arranged marriages. To the peasants of
northem Italy and Ticino, it had always been important to marry from within their own
villages; the practice of endogamy, they believed, ensured the continuity of family ties
and viUage customs and prevented the decUne of the village population. Trying to
preserve this tradition in Australia, many male immigrants were assisted by their
families, both in Europe and the Colony, in finding a wife. Marriages, such as that
between Andrea Lafranchi from Coglio and Margherita Filippini from (nearby) Cevio
(cf above p, 158), may have been thus arranged. Selection of a partner was not a
means of individual social mobility but a form of social cementing. There were also
occasions when immigrants married the daughters of first generation settlers, as
happened between Pietro Gaggioni and Loretta Maddalena, both from Gordevio (cf
above p, 351); in this, and similar endogamous marriages, the bride might be as young
as thirteen ur fourteen years old - again translating village tradition into a new
context.
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