Marriage-by-proxy has been a widespread practice among many Italians who emigrated to Australia up until the 1970s. It is the celebration of the union of two people in which one of the two spouses is absent at the time of the ceremony and is symbolically replaced - by 'proxy.'
Many Italian men who were living in Australia and who were looking for a wife, used to turn to their family in Italy to seek help in finding a partner for life.
"There was a motto: in Australia it is okay, eat pasta and meat every day!"
It was 1957 when Carmela was asked for the first time by her neighbours if she was interested in marrying their son. At that time she was 16-years-old and studying in a Dominican school in Italy, and the neigbours' son, Vincenzo, was 22 and had already emigrated to Australia - where she would soon migrate to as well.
Carmela's first response was: "I will never go to Australia." But then later on, when she saw the man's photograph for the first time, she fell in love and said yes."At that time it was a common thing to hear in the Italian villages that this or that girl was leaving for America, for Canada, for Australia," Carmela tells SBS Italian.
Below: SBS Italian's interview (in English) with Susi Bella Wardrop - author of the book By Proxy, a study of Proxy brides in Australia.
The cultural and linguistic distance between the first Italian immigrants down under and the local Australian women was almost unbearable. There were several attempts made at that time, especially from the local priests, to facilitate the encounter. However, because of the language barrier many people found that they could not get beyond just a few lines with the opposite sex.
Writer Susi Bella tells SBS Italian: "The Italian Scalabrinian priests tried to organize dances and sociale events and Australian women went but they weren't success." This made an intercultural relationship, not only a marriage but also a friendship, almost impossible.
This is also one of the reasons behind the proxy marriages, as Carmela explains: "There were not so many Italian women in Australia and at that time men did not want to marry Australians" says Carmela.
"They did not accept Australian culture, that is why they were trying to bring women from their homeland - and that's why we had proxy brides."
There were thousands of Italian men, young and older, who emigrated down under between 1920 and 1960, especially after the second world war, seeking for work and opportunities.
It was predominantly a male migration because Australia was seeking to grow its labour-based workforce to be used in fields.
The Australian government's post-immigration scheme, that was established under Ben Chifley government, continued with Sir Robert Menzies and it was indeed expanded. That is how Italian migrants arrived and established in Australia.
"They lacked the all female companionship, not just wives. They didn't have mothers, they didn't have aunts, they didn't have sisters so, it was very lonely for them."
Men used to emigrate down under alone, and after a few years away from home, they often felt very homesick.
Nostalgia for their homeland was strong - and felt most acutely for female company, as the migrants used to spend their most of their free time with other men.
"They lacked the all female companionship, not just wives. They didn't have mothers, they didn't have aunts, they didn't have sisters so, it was very lonely for them," Susi Bella tells.
If they were still at home, they would have been spending their time with young women from the same village as them who, one day, could potentially become their wives.
Marriage-by-proxy was authorised by the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century, after the Council of Trento. Today, as it is written in the Italian Civil Code, it is permitted to Italian soldiers in times of war.
Throughout the post-war period of both World War I and II, it was a widespread practice in Italy.
As Associate professor Susanna Scarparo explains in her , it is estimated that there are approximately 12,000 Italian proxy brides who emigrated to Australia between 1945 and 1976 to meet, in many cases for the first time, their husbands in Australia.
As Susi Bella explains in her book the process was pretty much standardised: the man used to send a letter to Italy, most of the time addressed to his mother, or friends or other family members, asking for assistance in the search and choice of a wife.
Sometimes the future groom and bride were acquainted, at least in sight, as they often came from the same village, as it happened to Carmela. On other occasions, they knew each other well and were in love before the man left for Australia, but there were also several cases where the two had never seen each other before and were from different villages or regions of the Italian peninsula.
In these cases they 'met' for the first time via images: they exchange a photograph and if the two liked each other a paper correspondence started to get familiar. It could last for months, even years, until they decided to marry.
"You don't see a person, you dream" says Carmela "You dream what you do not see. You fall in love of that letter that you receive, and you anxiously wait for the next because there is nothing else."
Rather than spend what little money they had on the return trip to to Italy to celebrate the marriage there, in most cases men preferred stay in Australia and buy a house that they could then welcome their bride into.
Following tradition, the ceremony, strictly religious, had to take place in the church of the bride village.
On the day of marriage the woman was accompanied to the altar by her father where she was awaited by a stand-in for her true husband-to-be: often the brother, the brother-in-law or a friend.
Following the wedding celebrations, the long bureaucratic procedures that were required to allow the new wife to emigrate to Australia to be with her husband began. As Susi Bella explains it was a process that sometimes took up to a year to be concluded: "The number of documents these Italian men needed to marry by proxy were quite intimidating."
Once everything was ready, the proxy bride would travel to Australia, in most of the cases by ship, a journey that lasted about a month.
In some cases instead, proxy brides were lucky enough to get a plane ticket paid by the husband in Australia, as it was for Carmela who traveled for four days to reach Australia.
Research conducted by Susi Bella Wardrop, author of the book By Proxy, a Study of Italian Proxy Brides in Australia, revealed that for most of the brides she met, the marriages proved successful. But is worth noting that there are also several unlucky stories, as Carmela mentions in her interview:
As Carmela recounts to SBS Italian, some proxy brides met their true loves on the ship, during their travel to Australia. Or in one famous case, shortly after her arrival in Australia and first meeting with her husband, one woman found out that the letters she had received in Italy were in fact only transcribed by the groom.
Instead the letters were actually thought-up and composed by a young university student.
"It happened that a man sent to Italy an old picture, when he was younger and then when the bride arrived in Port Melbourne find out he was actually an old man" says Carmela. "In fact, I know that many have returned to Italy."
The peak period for proxy marriages was between 1955 and 1961, but the practice lasted until the end of the 1970s among the Italians living in Australia. Susi Bella states in her book that the last proxy marriage was celebrated in Italy in November 1976 and subsequently registered in the Hawthorn Church, Melbourne, Victoria.
Since the 60s, the Catholic church, which initially strongly supported the practice of proxy marriages, began to discourage the practice because of the growth of negative experiences.
"During the 1970s and 80s the Almanacco Cappuccino, which is the annual publication of the Capuchin friars, stressed the fact that marriage by proxy was not advisable," tells Susi Bella to SBS Italian.
This is confirmed in the 1976 edition of Almanacco Cappuccino, a religious guide that was widely distributed and read within Italian families in Australia, in which it was written: "Marriage by proxy is by no means advisable."
