ENDURING LEGACY

American-Born First Lady of Greece Dies at 102

Margaret Papandreou saw through major feminist reforms.

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Margaret Papandreou, the American-born former first lady of Greece who led the charge for lasting feminist reforms in the Mediterranean country, died on Sept. 18 in the Athens suburb of Palaio Paliro, her family announced. She was 102. Beginning largely with her founding of the Women’s Union of Greece in 1975, Papandreou was an architect of several women’s rights efforts. “We’ve had enough of being second-class citizens, always pushed to the margin,” she said in 1981. Two years later, while her husband Andreas Papandreou was serving as prime minister, she successfully pushed lawmakers to pass legislation modernizing women’s roles on several fronts: creating divorce by mutual consent, allowing women to keep their last names after marriage, abolishing dowries, making single mothers their children’s legal guardians, and allowing women to start businesses and travel abroad with their children without their husband’s permission. In 1986, Greece also legalized abortion. Greek President Constantine Tassoulas, in a statement following Papandreou’s death, said her legacy was “the reform of family law, the breakthrough in social and political rights, and the modernization of women’s status in Greek society.” Papandreou, who was born Margaret Chant in Oak Park, Illinois, married Andreas Papandreou in 1951. They divorced in 1989. One of their four children, George Papandreou, was prime minister from 2009 to 2011.