Insight: May 14

SBS is teasing Insight‘s forum on arranged marriages this week as “the real Married at First Sight.”

In the 1950s, 60s and 70s thousands of young women from Greece and Italy crossed the world by boat and plane to marry men from their homeland who had already migrated to Australia.

These were promised brides, who had usually only seen a photo of their prospective grooms before making the momentous decision to marry a stranger on the other side of world.

Most of them realised there was no coming back if things didn’t turn out for the best.

This week on Insight, award winning journalist and host Jenny Brockie speaks with five such promised brides and a groom what it was like to travel across the world to marry a stranger.

Proxy marriages were considered a practical solution to the problem of too many lonely and single migrant men living and working in Australia without enough prospective brides available. Some women from war-torn areas of Europe, on the other hand, saw the chance to marry someone in Australia as their ticket to a better future.

But did it turn out that way for the thousands of women who came this way?

Jenny speaks with 88-year-old Tina who was feeling ‘on the shelf’ in Athens at the age of 25 and joked at a party, ‘who can find a man for me?’ That night she was shown a photo of a woman’s nephew and her heart just clicked and she said yes to marry him.

We also hear from 69-year-old Rosa, who was an only child and couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her village and family, but because everyone else seemed to be leaving, said yes to marry a man she had never met.

This week on Insight, we pay tribute to these women, many of whom are in their eighties, with stories of marriage and migration. Plus – we hear from a groom what it was like to have a bride sent out from home.

8:30pm Tuesday on SBS.