Women play a complex role in Robert Orsi's Madonna on 115th Street, at some points exercising power and at other points exercising less power than men. In Italian Harlem when a "domus" is described, the woman in the center is the one actually described. A domus, according to Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie, “constitutes a formidable reservoir of power and counter-power that could resist with a certain degree of success the external powers that surround it.” Italian women in Harlem had no direct power in the outside world, but they were able to use their sphere of influence to make their mark. The power that the women of Italian Harlem have is given to them by the matriarchal society modeled by the church. “Italian Harlem was a private matriarchy. Married women with children were a source of power and authority in the domus and in the intimate and private matters of people's lives; they were the hidden center of the domus-centered society, the source of the blood that united the members of the domus and connected it to the rest of the community. “Mothers are the guardians of an Italian home. They are responsible for the well-being of everyone and of the domus. Only in rare circumstances do Italian mothers have little power over family life. To exercise this power over the family, mothers had to rely on the male family to follow orders. Additionally, women controlled their families' public image by dictating what their children wore and who they spent time with. Of course, problems will arise when one person asserts control over everyone's family life. During the “temporary collapse of family life in times of illness and unemployment,” women were expected to assume a higher role as protector. The......middle of paper......archaic society. Without influence over her family, a culturally trapped woman has no power in the outside world. “His power has faded as his community has disappeared; When the Italians left Harlem and subsequent generations believed they were entering the mainstream of American economic and social life, the intimate bond between the Madonna and the place, a place made sacred by her presence, was broken.” With the disappearance of his power, the domus disappears. Works Cited Ladurie, Emmanuel LeRoy. Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), pp. 352-53Orsi, Robert A. The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2010. Print. pp. 131Orsi, Robert A. pp. 206Orsi, Robert A. pp. 209Orsi, Robert A. pp. 215Orsi, Robert A. pp. 132Orsi, Robert A. pp.. 72