Engagement and marriage

Once upon a time, engagement was not an easy thing: two young people who wanted to "date" had to obtain the approval of the families and were never left alone at the meetings, since there was always some relative to supervise them. In some cases, but they were certainly not the majority, the meetings between the couples were arranged by a matchmaker, called lu Zaraffə.
A luxury that peasant women allowed themselves was coral, a precious material used to make earrings, bracelets and, above all, necklaces. On the occasion of the engagement, to solemnize the promise made, the future mother-in-law gave her son's bride a red coral necklace. The older ones remember that coral was not just a habit, but it was believed to have particular "protective" powers over the young bride. In case it was not possible to buy coral, the necklace could also be gold.
Until the middle of the last century, the terracotta effigy of the Virgin and Child, kept in the sanctuary of the Madonna delle Grazie in Controguerra, had several necklaces, donated by the faithful as votive offerings. Today the ancient necklaces no longer exist, because they were sold to make a crown in honor of the Madonna.
The engagements were not "indissoluble", as one might think, and it sometimes happened that the engaged couple decided to interrupt them. The time of the engagement, in fact, served precisely to get to know each other and was called "making love". I think the term "fare" should be interpreted as building, another meaning of the Latin term "facere": two young people, in the engagement, "built" the foundations of the relationship and, if things went well, they decided to get married.
Sometimes, if there wasn't the approval of the families, two young lovers who wanted to get married could only choose the way of the fujtina, or love elopement. It was not frequent, but occasionally it happened that, in order to overcome the resistance of the families, an engaged couple decided to "run away" to the house of a friend or relative, or to leave for a short trip to some nearby town. Then, a friend or relative of the two would go to parley with the disagreeing families, explaining what had happened and the will of the two lovers. At that point, the families usually gave their assent to the marriage.
The Marriage celebrated in church, starting from the Concordat of 1929, as well as being a sacrament can also have legal effects for the Italian legal system. Before the Concordat, when relations between the Italian state and the Papacy were tense, marriages were celebrated twice: in the church and in the town hall, because the first was a sacrament, but only the second had legal value.
After the celebration followed the wedding dinner. Only between the 1960s and 1970s did wedding dinners move from private homes to restaurants. Before, it was customary to celebrate weddings at home or in the countryside: the peasants set up large tables in the farmyard and they ate "under the awning", a large canvas that sheltered the diners from the sun. All the women of the family collaborated in the preparation of the wedding dinners, but usually some particularly competent ladies were called, who supervised all the cooks. In Controguerra, around the middle of the twentieth century, the ladies Gelsa, Cleria də Bəlà, Nənetta and Mərinda were specialized in great culinary enterprises.
The honeymoon before the mid-twentieth century did not exist for the common people: it was a custom to which only the rich of the country were accustomed. Only since the 1960s did the custom of taking a trip together after the wedding celebration begin to take hold in all social classes.