Jimmy the Greek

Jason We were treated today by Jimmy the Greek, our exuberant and friendly tour guide, to the town of Lindos. While the day trip to Lindos and the acropolis was fun, this post is really focused on some of the stories Jimmy told us on the bus ride to and from Lindos. He explained several marriage traditions to us, including the giving of dowries and the process of naming children. Dowries are given by a father to his daughter, and it is traditionally a house he begins building after she is born. He spends 21 years building the house in the tourist off-season, giving it to her when she is 21 (regardless of whether she is married or not.) The house is for her and her husband to live in and start a family, but many young Greek couples do not actually use their dowry home. Another impact of the dowry home is to, in a way, tether the children to the parents and obligate them to take care of their parents. Jimmy made several jokes about how Greek men first choose their mother-in-law, then their wife, because their families become one integrated unit.

He also explained how children are named after their grandparents. He told us that grandparents will often not speak to their children again if their children do not name their children after the grandparents. He also explained to us how island weddings are huge affairs, with the entire village, and sometimes island, participating to some extent in the three-day festival.

It was a lot of information to bring in, but it was really cool to see how different it was from American traditions. Our weddings are usually very formal and traditional, with everyone participating along very strict guidelines. Greek weddings maintain even more tradition than ours, but they seem much more family and community oriented where ours might be seen as more bride/groom-centric. It was a very good day to learn a lot about Greek culture.