Through a Cypriot doorway

This oil painting depicts a village woman wearing a white apron and appearing reluctantly behind a half opened door. The artist’s apparent intention is to provide a social commentary on the inferior position of women in rural Cyprus. The apron signals her involvement in household chores while her placement inside the doorstep alludes to her restriction to the domestic sphere. From a social anthropological perspective, however, this image reveals the opposite of what the artist is trying to convey. Women’s freedom to appear at the doorstep in order to receive visitors is symbolic of their ability to represent the family to the outside world. This feature manifests itself in those traditional social contexts in which women enjoyed a relative position of power vis-à-vis their husbands. In more patriarchal settings, appearing at the doorstep was the prerogative of men while women stayed in the background with their children. In a rather unintended way, the picture reveals the rather superior social standing of Cypriot women compared to those of other eastern Mediterranean regions. Among other things, the post-marital residence pattern of rural Cyprus empowered local women. In a more personalised fashion, the elderly figure appears to be bidding farewell to the departing artist.