The three roses

"He loves the red-hot iron/ of the blacksmith's furnace where the beat of hammer strokes/ marks time as metal is forged;/ the white handkerchief with blood roses;/ the wavering notes of song,/ plaintive in the night."/

Vida y Gloria del Gitano / Life and Contentment of a Gypsy
(lyrics: Rafael Fernández "Nene")


I - The campaign to legalise Gypsy marriage

The rite of Gypsy marriage has existed for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years, but it has yet to win legal recognition anywhere in the world. Now, however, it is on the agenda in Spain.

In 1994 the Gypsy community of Zaragoza, in Aragon region, led by Pilar Clavería, first proposed that casarse por lo caló - literally, marrying the Gypsy way - should be legalized.

Working hand in hand with Aragon's Defensor del Pueblo - a legal ombudsman who has defended individual rights since medieval times - FAGA, or the Federation of Associations of Gypsies in Aragon, managed to take the proposal to the regional parliament in 1990.

The proposal was accepted by a large majority, with the support of all parties except for the conservative PP (Partido Popular), but it was taken no further since the PP held the majority in the national parliament.

Since the country's change of government in 2004, the proposal has been gathering momentum.

In 2005 lawyer Juan de Dios Ramirez Heredia, Spain's first Gypsy member of parliament, published a book on the subject. In 2005 the Gypsy rite came under fire from some of the press after flamenco dancer Farruquito's wedding was watched by thousands on television. In May 2007 a Gypsy widow took a test case to the European Tribunal of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The creation of the Institute of Gypsy Culture six months later has also marked a new era of debate about the identifying signs of the community's ancestral culture.

© Vicky Hayward - March 2008

© Marcos Fernández Pardo