Perhaps one of the cruelest social conventions still practiced in Sicily at the turn of the century required women to be confined within the home during periods of bereavement. While tradition dictated that males be in attendance at the consòlo, the three- to eight-day requisite mourning period when visitors offered condolences, all understood that men’s presence in the fields or the town was indispensable to the family’s survival. As a consequence, the enactment of ritual customs associated with death and the task of demonstrating adequate mourning for the loss of a loved one fell to female family members. Failure to conform to the rigorous protocol of strict mourning meant opening oneself and one’s family to reproach and the loss of status.10

Following the consòlo, the house was closed up with windows shuttered for at least nine months. Grieving women were required to stay out of the public eye and many left the house only to attend early mass, generally at five a.m. Peasant and poorer women were allowed some degree of latitude in this regard since leaving the house to procure food, draw water, and launder clothing at the stream or riverbed was viewed as unavoidable. Custom demanded that children dress in gray, brown, or dark blue, while females who had come of age donned black for specified lengths of time, depending on their relation to the deceased. Generally speaking, strict mourning (il lutto stretto) lasted one to two years, though most widows chose to wear black permanently.

Because many middle-class women were uneducated, they spent long months of imposed confinement embroidering and performing menial household chores. Young women, in particular, suffered unduly during extended periods of bereavement, since lack of exposure to sun and fresh air heightened their sense of isolation and ultimately weakened their physical and mental health.

The short stories of Sicilian writer Maria Messina (1887–1944) grew from her observations of life in Mistretta, the provincial Sicilian town where she spent her formative years. Although Messina set a handful of her mature novels in continental Italy, Sicily remained her point of reference and sentimental touchstone through a twenty-year writing career. A proponent of Italian verismo (a form of realism), Messina focused on Sicily’s repressive treatment of women and the human toll—especially on women—wrought by mass emigration to the Americas.10

A Note on the Translation