World Weddings: Gypsy Child Brides (BBC2): ROMANIAN gypsy brides have a reputation for looking unhappy. This is hardly surprising. They face a lifetime of subservience or, as one observer put it, "a woman's role is that of a slave".

They are expected to cook, clean and bear children. One wife told how her husband doesn't even put on his own socks. She does it for him, after she's got up early, cut wood and made a fire so he can get up to a nice warm room.

At least the matter of the nightdress ended happily. The blood staining the white fabric proved the bride was a virgin on her wedding night. She remained in that state for several nights until bridegroom Christopher deflowered Regina.

She was 14 and a gypsy in Romania, where brides are bought like cars (new, not second-hand ones). The happy couple met just once before the ceremony. Christopher's father saw Regina in the street and asked: "Do you want to be my daughter-in-law?" before buying her for $3,000.

She said "Yes", he related, although how much choice she had must be open to debate.

One wife who dared to run away was pursued by her husband and pulled back by her hair. She related the story without anger or animosity as though she fully deserved to be treated like that.

All this was shocking news, if not exactly new. The world was outraged the other year when the story of the princess bride emerged. Critics condemned the wedding of the daughter of the king of the gypsies to a man of 17 as nothing less than child abuse.

Nothing much has changed. We saw Albert, a 14-year-old who looked barely old enough to be out of short trousers, getting engaged to Julianna, also 14. The cameras watched as their fathers bartered over the price for the bride. She went for $5,000.

No amount of money could make up for the life she and others like her face. Regina's new home has no running water and no toilet. She faces a lifetime of racial harassment. Two weeks before the wedding, a mob attacked her new home and beat up her husband-to-be's mother.

Ten years ago, in a village a few miles away, the homes of 27 gypsy families were burnt to the ground while the mayor and police looked on. The same mayor threatened the camera crew when they visited the village.

Meanwhile, Regina and Christopher were happy and relieved that she'd been proved a virgin. She'd have been returned like faulty goods if she wasn't. Now, six weeks after getting married, they declared they loved each other and couldn't bear to be apart. A happy ending of sorts.

Published: 03/06/2004