My mother's family had ten children. Of those ten, eight were female. The first baby born was male and died
at one month of age. Then, six unwanted females arrived: Aunt Natta #1, who died at four years of age, Aunt
Natta #2, Rosina, Mica, who died at age eleven, Peppina and Maria, my mother. Finally after all those girls,
Uncle Joe, the only male to survive, was born. Then two more undesired girls, Aunt Toma and Aunt Mimi,
followed.

Within my long journey of self-discovery, I have taken it upon myself to write my aunts' voices in a story of
imprisonment by a culture that is steeped in male patriarchy. I have come to realize that speaking on their
behalf is cathartic for me and helps me to challenge the negative messages in my family.

As far back as I can remember, I have always observed that girls in my family were treated differently from
boys, and that I could find no logical explanation for this. My very first memory of my maternal grandfather
was of him offering a candy to my younger brother and not to me. I was about three years old at the time and
my brother was two. I remember how painful that experience was for me. It made me feel that I was less
loved and less valued. It also planted a big question mark within my psyche. Why was I treated this way?
This question has been the driving force in my life. I could find no one in my family who would support my
perceptions or even listen to me, so I had to hold this knowledge as best I could until I could find fertile
ground in which to plant it. I had to be steadfast in this endeavour, as I had to be careful not to topple into
madness through my isolation.

Throughout my childhood, I was fed on stories of what can happen to females who dare to oppose the
patriarchal structure. An often-told story was how Aunt Rosina died. As the story goes, her father had chosen
someone for her to marry but she refused because someone else had caught her eye. I say, "caught her eye"
because social contact was forbidden between young men and women; the only contact with the opposite sex
was visual. My grandfather refused to budge and so did Aunt Rosina. Within a couple of years, she passed
away due to a weak heart. When my mother or Aunt Mimi told this story, they always said that she died of a
broken heart. I think that in defining her cause of death as a broken heart, they were giving me the message
that fathers held the power of life and death over their daughters. I interpreted it to mean that a father's power is awesome and that I'd better be careful if I wanted to survive. The multiple complexities of meanings in
their broken heart message are still a source of exploration for me.

Aunt Mimi did what she had to do to survive. She is my mother's youngest sister and was considered a great
beauty. Ordinarily, this would have been an asset, but because there was an older unmarried sister and the
daughters were obligated to marry in chronological order, being the youngest and most attractive now
became a liability. My grandfather finally decided to bypass older sister Aunt Toma, who was cute, petite and
funny, and to marry off Aunt Mimi first. This decision was made because the family's other obligation was to
ensure that the bride would remain a virgin until her wedding day; since Aunt Mimi had so many suitors, the
family decided to speed the selection process along.

A husband was found for her in the most peculiar way. Aunt Mimi, who was sixteen at the time, had a suitor
named Valentino whom she actually liked, but my grandfather wouldn't accept him because he was only
eighteen years old. Valentino had an older brother, Rocky, who was 26 and living in Canada. His family told
my grandfather about Rocky, and thinking him to be a better possibility, my grandfather agreed to the match.
When Aunt Mimi met Rocky, she took an instant dislike to him. She didn't have the courage to say anything
to her father, but on the eve of her wedding, painfully aware of what was to happen to her, she finally talked
to her mother. My grandmother, knowing that speaking up was futile, told her that she would grow to like
Rocky, and in any case there was nothing to be done. So, Aunt Mimi accepted her fate and found herself married to a stranger ten years older than herself, on board a ship that was taking her to a country where she knew no one, and where she couldn't even speak the language.

I now introduce you to Aunt Toma's unique marriage story. Her fate was even more bizarre. My father had
immigrated to Canada at this point, and my mother, brother and I arrived a year later. After we had been here
for three years, Aunt Toma arrived. She was still unmarried, as the family hadn't succeeded in finding a
suitable husband for her in Italy. Now that she was in Canada, however, they found a solution to their
problem. Since Aunt Mimi was already married, and therefore off the market, the family simply declared
Aunt Toma to be the youngest daughter. As a child, I believed that she was my youngest aunt and didn't find
out the truth for several years. When I did learn the truth, I was greatly bothered by the discrepancy. I hated
the fact that a lie was told and in addition, it made me feel that a woman's age was somehow shameful; this
didn't sit well with me. However, "making my aunt younger" seemed to work, as a husband was found for her
in Italy. She was married by proxy, with someone standing in for her in Italy; this is how my Aunt Toma
came to be a married woman without even having been to her own wedding.

Aunt Mimi, Aunt Toma and Aunt Rosina suffered the greatest consequences of being born female in a
culture that did not see them as persons. Both Aunt Mimi and Aunt Toma had to live their lives with partners
they did not choose or want. They had to follow their father's dictates and live with the men he arbitrarily
chose for them. Both aunts had partners who were temperamentally unsuited to them, and had no way out of
their predicaments, as divorce was out of the question. In my opinion, having to live with so much emotional
stress and unhappiness led to a development of physical conditions in their bodies. Both women developed
asthma and sinus problems, as well as arthritis, back pain and general poor health.

My aunts' stories have always haunted me and have been a deep mystery for me. As part of the next
generation of my family, my struggle has been to grow up in Canada and find a way to live in this new
culture with parents who couldn't adjust to the ways of a new country. As I became an adult, the question of
arranged marriage was still very prominent in my family. My parents had no social network here and were
incapable of finding me a husband in the usual family way; at the same time, they were unwilling to give me
the freedom to explore relationships by dating. I eventually concluded that I had to move out of my parents'
home, which I did when I was 23 and had a job that would support me. It was a very courageous act, since
Italian girls just didn't leave home. My aunts' stories were constant reminders to me of the dangers that
arranged marriages imposed, and their lives inspired me to be brave and to try to find my own way.