European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Sharecropping family; Womens conditions

I have always remembered the fact that when the landlord arrived in the courtyard,

my mother told us younger children to go inside.

I was really curious to see the landlord woman, all dressed up and carrying a small sunshade.

She was the countess Carbonieri of Parma.

Later I understood why we had to go inside.

My mother didn’t want the landlord to see us kids who could not work yet.

She didn’t want her to count how many cups of milk she would take out every morning to feed us.

In the sharecropping contract, if four of us kids were not working, we were only more mouths to feed.

My school only went up to the third grade.

In order to do the remaining two years one had to go further away.

This would have meant adding three more kilometres to the three I was already doing.

It wouldn’t have been the biggest problem though.

Most families thought that if they were to make sacrifices it had to be for the boys, not for the girls.

It was customary, so I didn’t even think about it.

After I had finished the third grade I was supposed to stay at home, as there was no money for me to continue.

It was something we were

used to hear and also understand.

Traditionally, as you got married,

you would have to carry what you learned as a woman at home into a new house, in a new family.