---

This book provides an overview of women´s opportunities for schooling, their social activities, and the social biases they faced in rural communities in Greece, Italy and parts of the Balkans during the 19th and early 20th century. It examines such topics as female illiteracy, the efforts of women-protestant missionaries to expand knowledge through Protestantism, the prejudice against education for women, the socio-economic context, the roles women fulfilled, and the structure of the patriarchal family. The book approaches these issues from the perspective of pedagogy and social history. The fundamental questions discussed by the book are: How was female education viewed by the country folk? What was the role of women in the private and the public sphere? How did peasant women respond to the challenges of the ´modern´ world? Were they free to express their feelings and ambitions? In what way? Were they happy?

---

Chapter 1. The Curse of Athena- Female Illiteracy in the Greek Countryside.- Chapter 2. ´Caught in the spider´s web´. Women´s schooling in the rural communities in Italy and in parts of the Balkans.- Chapter 3. Hera, the Greek Goddess of Marriage: A Comparison Between Greek and Italian Peasant Women.- Chapter 4. Spreading the ´Word of God´. Women- missionaries and Protestant Education in the Balkans, Greece and Italy.- Chapter 5. Demeter , the goddess of the harvest: Women´s social life in the villages.- Chapter 6. Euterpe, the Muse of Music: Women´s Position as Seen Through Folklore Songs and Dances (19th to Early 20th Centuries).- Conclusions.

---

Polly Thanailaki holds a Ph.D. in Modern History from Democritus University of Thrace, Greece and is a visiting scholar at Harvard University, USA. She currently collaborates with the University of Piraeus.

---