In Part 1, which appeared in the February 2000 issue, Carla Capobianco, a quiet woman who no one would ever suspect of daring acts, defied her family and proposed to a man her parents disapproved. In Part 2 her situation becomes even more unbearable when her new husband suddenly leaves for America and she is left behind. Few western women born after the second world war can imagine a childhood where, from the age of nine onward, they would be confined to the house and never allowed to venture out unless accompanied by an adult, where by the age of sixteen they would never have set foot outside the borders of their small village. Young women today travel thousands of miles alone, they climb mountains, fly airplanes, some have even begun to pursue ambitious careers; they can barely relate to the terror experienced by a girl whose every move was watched and analyzed and who could be punished with death if some small innocent act or word brought even the hint of dishonor or shame to the adults in her family. Carla Capobianco's courage and determined spirit found a way out; but she seriously considered suicide to escape an oppressive existence that was not at all unusual for women born in her generation. She knew nothing of the movement that won the vote for women, she never marched in a protest or signed a petition for women's rights - but her behavior reveals how deep and pervasive is the yearning among ordinary women for greater control over their destiny.

CARLA CAPOBIANCO
Carnival—Part 2

Really and truly, I eloped with a man I never had a conversation with. Believe it or not, I did that. When I was young, girls weren't allow out alone. You couldn't talk alone with a man. For three years I saw Marco almost every day in the street from the window, we exchanged a few letters, we danced a few times, but we had never really talked. I didn't know what I was marrying. I was young. Marco liked to sing and dance. That was enough for me. That's why I married him, because I wanted to get away from my family and from Italy. I didn't want to be afraid all the time, and I wanted to sing and dance..
     This is how I escaped from my family. There were three big rooms on the first floor of our house. Two rooms were for the hotel, and the other was a storeroom where my father dried and stored the wheat, the grain, chickpeas, hams, and all the food we raised on the land, the grapes, the pears. There were two entrances. I went into the storeroom and I left the door open in the back, then I went upstairs, and then I went back downstairs again and out from that door..
     My older sister, Giuseppina, stayed in the house that day just to watch me. When somebody noticed I was gone, Giuseppina said, "She's upstairs." After a while they went upstairs to see where I was and they found out I wasn't there, and they discovered that the storeroom door was unlocked. My brother went searching for me in the town. My mother and my sister kept asking everyone, "Where is Carla? Where is Carla?" In the night, only my brother could search because the women weren't allowed to go out..
     Marco and I had left the town. We went through the country, and we walked and walked in places where I had never been before, where there were no streets, just paths, and across fields..
     I left on Wednesday of Holy Week. The next day Piera came home and she was searching for me too..
     When I eloped, I took only a few things with me; a few pieces of underwear, and a fork and a spoon because I was afraid I couldn't eat..
     In Italy the tradition was that people who eloped had to stay hidden for three days. The first night we stayed at the house of a friend of Marco's. His two sisters didn't know we were coming and they were terrified when they saw me. They didn't like it but they couldn't do anything because their brother had promised help to Marco, and so they kept us until Friday night. Then we went to Marco's house, and we stayed with his family a couple days. After that we went to another small town where his family had two rooms that they used once a week to make bread. Marco and I lived in those rooms.
     When I eloped I knew nothing about sex. Nothing, nothing. My mother never told me anything. I was almost thirteen when I had my first period, and my mother didn't explain anything. I had been warned by a friend, and then one morning I woke up and found myself all bloody. I didn't tell my mother. I went to my brother's wife, and she taught me how to use a diaper and a piece of elastic and two pins. We didn't have belts or pads or tampons. I don't think girls would have been allowed to use tampons then. Menstruation was something secret, hidden, so nothing was manufactured to make it easier for women..
     After Marco and I eloped, the poor women in his family couldn't tell me anything. Marco's sister, after we went to her house, said, "You did this. Anything he does to you, don't cry, don't scream." So I thought that if I did, Marco would kill me! Now it's better for girls because they know what to expect. But years ago, girls didn't know anything, we were kept ignorant, and that's one reason why a lot of girls were afraid of their husbands or didn't like their husbands. You didn't know what to expect, and you were terrified..
     I used to get so scared when Marco came home from work. The minute I saw him, I turned so red. I was so afraid. Marco was very gentle with me, but I didn't know anything. I thought sex was just to get pregnant. I never imagined it was something that people did for pleasure, that men wanted it all their lives.

     From the day I eloped, I didn't see my family for two months, not until the morning I got married. After I left home, my father took to his bed, crying for me. During this time, Marco and I didn't talk with my relatives but he used to go over to our street on his bicycle and he would ride around my father's house and in the street ringing the bell, just to spite them..
     My family didn't even come to the wedding. They knew about it because I was under age and they had to sign papers before I could get married. They signed the papers, but they refused to come to the church. Another thing they did, they demanded we get married at six o'clock in the morning, as if my wedding was something to be ashamed of. They didn't want people in the village to come. They forgot that the day was St. Joseph's holiday and instead of empty, the church was full of people..
     I was married at the altar with a borrowed ring because Marco couldn't afford to buy one. He bought me a wedding ring after we came to America. When we finished at the church, Marco and I went to see my family. My father, as soon as he saw me, he ran to me, he hugged me, he kissed me, he started to cry. And I was crying..
     But my mother, she was so mad and she wanted to hit me. The people had to hold her back. Maybe, I think now, because she was afraid; when something like this happens, people almost always say it's the mother's fault. And she was afraid for me, afraid of what my life would be like, that I would be miserable..
     And my sister Piera! My sister! She was home and she screamed, "If you allow her in the house, I'll leave!" People said to her, "Now it's done, let her come in." But she didn't want my parents to let me come into the house.
     Only my oldest sister was on my side. Giuseppina had been married at least ten years. She had a good husband, but my parents never even asked her if she liked or wanted that man. She was glad that I had picked who I liked. Even if you marry somebody you love, you might not be happy. But everybody wants to chose for themselves, and I promised myself that I would let my children choose for themselves.

     When I eloped, I didn't know Marco had it in his mind to emigrate to America. Only fifteen days after we were married, his birth certificate came in the mail and he told me he was leaving. This came as a surprise to me.
     Marco had been born in America, and he still had relations living there, and he had written to them and asked them to get him a copy of his birth certificate. He never told me about this until the birth certificate came and then, just like that, he was going. He was just married, but he couldn't wait to go. He wouldn't even wait to get an American passport. He left with an Italian passport.
     I was young, I had fought with my family and eloped just to marry him, and his family wanted me to stay in a different small town where I would be all alone in two rooms. I was afraid for so many reasons. I said to Marco, "I'm going to kill myself."
     After that some people went to my father, to my mother, and they said, "He's going away. You should make peace." Just a week before Marco left, we went inside my family's house. First my husband said to my father that he wanted to take me with him. My father held up his hand and said, "If you go alone, you can sleep in the street. But if you go with your wife, you can't sleep in the street. It's better if you go alone first and prepare a place for her."
     Marco said to my father, "I'm afraid to leave her here alone." He was worried because I kept saying that I was going to kill myself. Marco said to my father, "At least I want you to keep her with you until I can send for her."
     So Marco left for America, and I was back in my father's house. I'd been married two months, I was sixteen, and it was just like I was a widow almost. In Italy at that time, if a widow raised her eyes or just spoke to a man, people called her a whore.
     The fascists were just starting. Where I lived there weren't too many Fascisti, because it was such a little town. But there were some and they made the children aged ten to sixteen practice marching. They asked me to join, but I said, "I can't join anything. I'm going to America."
     I let strangers call me signorina, I didn't tell them I was married. Once a man hollered from a window, "Good day, signorina." I was afraid to correct him because he might have asked who my husband was and he might have asked questions in the town about me and found out that my husband had gone away to America. I thought it was better not to put ideas in his mind. At the same time, I was afraid that somebody who knew me might overhear and say, "Oh, she calls herself signorina." In a small town people know everything, and you never know what they might say about you. They might have said that I was pretending not to be married, that I was looking for a fellow, and then I would have been called a whore.
     It's hard to explain how afraid you learned to be, how dangerous these small things could be to a woman. In Italy in those days, people killed to protect the honor of the family. Sometimes they killed their own relations if they thought you dishonored the family.
     At home I couldn't move. My mother still hadn't forgiven me, she was always mad at me, always picking at me, and now my father became more strict than my mother ever was. He didn't want me to dance or have a good time. Once, the day after All Saints, the family across the street invited me to come visit with them. They were Marco's relatives, and they were very good friends of my family. That night Marco's sister called on me, and she said to my father, "Let Carla come to visit with us across the street." He said, "Yes, all right." So I went. My father worked hard and he went to bed early, usually by eight o'clock he was asleep. But that night he got up at ten o'clock, dressed himself again, and came across the street and made me go home with him. I got so scared. I thought they were going to kill me for having a little bit of a good time. Imagine! He couldn't sleep just because I was away from his house, even though I was only across the street with my husband's relatives. The next day I went to Marco's relatives and I said, "I don't want to live with my family anymore. I want to come over here." I was all ready married, and my father couldn't sleep because I was out of his house.
     Marco's family was watching me all the time too. One time there was a misunderstanding. A man from the state came to collect taxes and he stayed at our hotel for a month. He said to Marco's brother, "The Capobianco girl, she's so nice." He was talking about me. So my brother-in-law came to me and said, "What did you do with him that he says you're so nice?" I said, "Nothing. I talked with him, that's all." But he thought just because that man said I was so nice that I must have done something bad with him. That same man, he went to the municipal building and he was talking to the people there about my family. He praised us, he said how nice I was, how good my mother was, how good my father was, and my brother-in-law heard about it, and he came to me again and he said, "He even went to City Hall and told people how nice you are." I felt that I had to be afraid of my husband's relatives too, but this turned out good for me because I think they encouraged Marco to send me the money so I could go to America. They thought, "Maybe she did something bad. Better she should go over there with Marco before we have trouble over her and have to fight somebody."
     For seven months I waited for Marco, and I kept writing to him and saying that I wanted to come to him. He wrote back that he had no money to come and get me. Again I wrote to him and I said, "Borrow the money and send it to me, and I'll come over and I'll work to pay back the money for my ticket." Still he made me wait until he had saved enough money so I could travel second class because he didn't want me to travel steerage, the way he did.

     Just before I left for America, there was an argument. The tradition in Italy was for the girl's family to give her some sheets, some pillowcases, towels, things like that, when she got married. When they gave her these things, the tradition was for the two families to draw up a paper. In the paper, the girl's family said, "To my daughter I give ten spools of cotton, one needle, a dozen sheets, a dozen pillowcases, a dozen towels, a dozen pair of underwear" and so on. Usually they gave a little property too, a little land to farm, so you could help yourself in life. My family didn't give me anything when I got married, but they were ready to give it to me before I left. My mother had everything ready, and my father wanted to draw up the paper, but my brother-in-law wouldn't agree. He said, "You can give her what you want, but we won't sign the paper." The reason they did this was because they wanted to be able to sue my family later on. In Italy, if a girl didn't get anything when she married, the man's family was entitled to sue her family. So if my father didn't leave me any property when he died, Marco's family wanted to be able to sue. My father said, "If you won't sign the paper, then we won't give her anything."
     So I left Italy with nothing but my clothes.

     The boat left from Palermo. I'd never been there before. Really, I'd hardly been outside my village and never alone. Marco's brother and his sister came with me to Palermo. We traveled in a mail cart. The mail cart was like a little school bus with space for eight or ten people inside. You could buy a seat on it.
     We slept in a hotel. A real hotel, not a family place like my parents had. We had one room with two beds. One bed was for Marco's brother, and one bed for me and his sister. For three days we had a good time. We spent 500 lire. We went to the theater and I saw an opera. First time I saw in my life. After the theater, my sister-in-law and I bought hats. I bought a little one, and my sister-in-law bought a hat big like an umbrella. The day I left for America, she switched the hats. Can you believe she did that? Without asking me, she took my hat and left me hers. Over here, I put on her hat twice.
     I passed out of Italy alone. Most of my clothes I had sent ahead, and I carried only two small valises and a pocketbook. My clothes for the trip were in one valise, and in the other was a big sausage and favre beans packed in ashes. The ashes were to absorb humidity on the boat and preserve the sausage and the beans. They were a present for Marco from his family.
     Really, that trip was terrible. The boat left Palermo on February 28 or 27, 1924, and I reached America March 13, 1924. There was a terrible storm. The ship was rolling back and forth. The boat rose high, then it fell low. I'll never forget those mountains of water. I was seventeen. I didn't know anybody on the boat. There wasn't one person from my town. But really, I met such nice people. One lady who was around fifty realized that I was alone, and she took care of me, because I was very sick when the weather was bad.
     Because of the storm, the boat landed at Rhode Island instead of New York. We docked in the morning. The station in Rhode Island was very crowded, and I kept saying, "How am I going to find Marco in all those people."
     Marco wasn't there. He was still in New York. I cried all day. People kept leaving the ship as their relatives came for them. I kept asking, "Why do all those people come but Marco doesn't come?" The people said, "New York is far from here. Before your husband can get here, you'll be in New York." The officials told me that I would be sent to New York by train and that the steamship company would pay for the trip. I was worried and I was scared, I was crying. I kept saying, "How am I going to find him?" Some people -- I don't remember their names -- said, "You'll come with us and we'll find a hotel."
     When I found out I would be going by train to New York, I said to somebody from the steamship company, "Can I call up my husband?" They said, "Do you have the number?" I said, "No, I only have the address." He told me I could send a telegram, and that's what I did.
     When I came off the boat in Rhode Island, I had to talk to the immigration people, and a funny thing happened. They questioned me, and they wanted to know where my baggage was because all I had was the two valises. Then one man shook the suitcase with the sausage and it opened and all the ashes fell out. The man was covered with ashes. That was so funny. They let me keep the sausage, but they threw away the beans.
     The officials asked me, "Where's your husband? Why isn't he here?" I said, "I was supposed to land in New York but instead you brought me here." Then the man said, "When did you get married?" And I forgot. I could remember the date we ran away, but I forgot the date of the wedding was the nineteenth of April. I had a bad time that day. They asked the same questions again and again, and after awhile I didn't know how to answer. People who had already passed through called to me and said, "Go ahead. Go ahead. Don't be discouraged. Go ahead. Answer them." Eventually the officials found out that my husband had been born in New York and was a citizen and then they let me pass.
     The train left Rhode Island at ten o'clock in the night. I was so worried. We got to Pennsylvania Station at two o'clock in the morning. I was expecting a big crowd and I kept saying, "How am I going to find him in all those people?" But I saw Marco right away. He had on the same coat he wore in Italy. I got off the train and I ran to him. Later, the people who I sat with on the train saw me sitting in a car with Marco and they laughed. They said, "Before she was crying, and now she sits like a queen in a car."
     My daughter once said to me, "How can you tell my children not to do this and not to do that when you eloped and came alone to this country from Italy alone when you were only seventeen?" I tried to explain that back then it was a thing I had to do. I had to do it. I was forced to. I could not live with my family any more. If I had stayed in Italy, I would have gone crazy. How many choices did I have? In my mind there was nothing else I could do.
     I wanted to come here and be with Marco. I didn't want to stay with my family any more. I didn't want to be in my village any more. Really, for me life in Italy was like a prison. I was so desperate to get away that I couldn't even wait for somebody else from my town to come with me. I didn't know when somebody else who I knew might make the trip. So to me, it was the only thing I could do. That's all. Nothing else.
     When Marco left for America, I had to depend on my mother and my father to feed me. I didn't want to be dependent on them. My parents wanted me to stay in Italy and wait for Marco. Other women did that. My sister stayed and waited. She waited nine years for her husband to come back. If I had waited for Marco, who knows how long he might have stayed over here before he came back for me? Maybe he wouldn't have come back ever.
     I didn't know what I was going to find in America. I didn't come thinking I would get rich, I just wanted to be with Marco. That's funny, because I really didn't know what kind of man he was.

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