Despite the growing tourism and standardization of lifestyle in Greece, the village of Olympos in the island of Karpathos maintains its matriarchal structure that has been in place since the Byzantine era.
The village of Olympos, located on the island of Karpathos in Greece, preserves its matriarchal structure where women are dominant. The central figures in the village of 300 inhabitants are the women of Olympos.
Despite the centuries-long Ottoman presence and the Italian influence between 1912 and 1944, the patriarchal structure dating back to the Byzantine era remains unchanged.
Because of its remote location, local people there have preserved many traditions including unique customs, their own dialect of the Greek language, and distinctive clothing.
Rigopoula Pavlidis, a 60-year-old resident, sums up the situation in the village with a smile, saying, “Here, women are in charge. My husband can’t do anything without me, not even file a tax return.”
The inheritance system on the island is more progressive compared to many other places, as the mother’s inheritance passes on to the eldest daughter. Yorgos Tsampanakis, a historian from Olympos, points out that even after marriage, it is the men who move into the women’s homes. He further explains that women’s dominance extends to the transmission of surnames in Karpathos.
The role of women in Olympos was further strengthened in the 1950s when the village men began to emigrate for work — mainly to the United States and European countries — leaving their wives and daughters behind to manage families and farms on their own.
‘We had no choice’
“We had no choice but to work in the absence of the men. It was our only way of surviving,” recalled 67-year-old Anna Lentakis as she picked artichokes in the hamlet of Avlona near Olympos.
A few years ago, Lentakis ran the Olympos tavern. This has now passed into the hands of her eldest daughter Marina.
“I don’t know if we were early feminists… but I like to say that the man is the head of the family, and the woman the neck,” said Marina, who is in her 40s.
Marina’s daughter Anna is only 13 years old, but she knows that one day she will take up the torch.
“It’s my grandmother’s legacy and I’ll be proud to take care of it!” she said.
“A kind of social caste system”
The criticized aspect of the matriarchal structure on the island is its recognition of rights only for the eldest daughters.
Alain Chabloz, a member of the Geneva Geographic Society, explains, “The other sisters are required to stay on the island to ‘serve’ their older sisters. It created a sort of social caste system.”
Giorgia Fourtina, the youngest member of her family who is still unmarried, holds the view that the Olympos community is not as “progressive” as it may seem. She says, “This is a small community where a woman sitting alone in a café is not well received.”
Source: Euronews