Sworn Virgins

By: Stella Morgana
Translated by: Arkid Abdullaj

In order to gain the same rights as men, Albanian women pledge eternal virginity, a tribal practice that still exists in certain mountainous regions. "Abandoning" their gender gives women the right to inherit property, smoke in public and travel. In a family where men are absent, a woman may be able to stand in charge and enjoy the same authority as a man.

They vow to preserve their virginity in exchange for the right to live as a man and survive in a male-dominated world. They live in the rural areas of northern Albania and a little while ago they also lived in Bosnia and southern Serbia. They are called virgins or virgins sworn to always remain so.

Females by birth and males by choice, they choose, as a result of social conditions, to wear pants in the family. They deny their gender and enjoy the same rights and duties as men, protecting or providing for their families.

Nowadays there is only a small number of women who are the daughters of a tradition based on the Canon of Lekë Dukagjin, an ancient "legislation" dating back about 500 years, accepted and respected by the Muslim and Christian religions, and passed orally until it saw the light of publication around the XNUMXth century.

Abandoning gender, motherhood and the right to have children, these women acquire the status of men in all aspects: they can avenge injustices, they can bear arms and they also have the right to buy property.

One of them is Pashe Keqi, now 80 years old, with a rough and wrinkled face. She was a girl before she changed. She sold her dress to have a pair of pants like her father's, leaving behind the pleasant teenager she had been the day she shouldered a hunting rifle, to shoot, to see its value: to be revenge!

"In those days, it was better to be a man because a woman was treated like an animal. If a woman was worth half as much as a man, a girl pledged to become a wife was worth 12 of them. This happened because a virgin was valued in the old Balkan tradition as well as in the eyes of society. The change of identity had to happen immediately after passing the childhood stage, so I put on men's clothes, placed myself at the head of the family and took a vow of eternal virginity in front of 12 villagers/old tribal elders”.

From that moment on, her gender is a thing of the past. She forgets that she is a woman in exchange for a higher status. She can buy and sell property, smoke and drink, manage family affairs, defend honor and take revenge. The new identity allows everything.

The tradition of burrnesha begins a long time ago in the tribes of the rural areas of northern Albania where men died from blood feuds or various diseases, leaving many tribes without leaders. A house without a man at the head was considered a disaster, "in a society where almost everything revolved around the man, where inheritance follows the male line and where the woman was treated as the property of the man", writes British anthropologist Antonia Young.

In this context, the decision to become a man had a great significance.

It should be emphasized that female homosexuality was not considered the main motive behind the choice to become a virgin, it was not the hidden attraction to the same sex (considered taboo according to the canon) that could lead young women to become virgins, in order to fulfill their secret desires, Young asserts.

Once a woman decided to live as a man, she no longer had to hide anything from the deeply chauvinistic society she already belonged to.

Sometimes, they were pushed towards this decision by economic or social reasons. According to sociologist Zydi Dervishi, girls who refused a marriage in order not to embarrass their parents, fatherless girls or those who had no brothers to inherit the property became burrnesha.

This was the case of Qamile Stema. When she lost her father, she had to go back to her husband's house in order not to close the door of the house because there were no more men there. Her life changed. She put on a blouse and a man's hat, cut her curly hair, thus removing all traces of femininity from herself, thus rewarding her family and gaining the respect of her mother and sisters. She began working with the men in the village and praying with them in the mosque. Then she reopened the family door, leaving no room for doubt about her identity: her voice and her hands, even today, deny her manly attire.

Like Qamile Stema, 20 other women with over 80 years on their shoulders are ready and do not regret the choice they have made.

In the mid-2000s, the Albanian writer Elvira Dones met these silent virgins that the Albanians had left in the shadows, presenting to the world particles from their childhood and their world, presented through the story of Hana in the novel of the same title (ital. "Vergine giurata").

For example, Dones explains that in an all-daughter family, the father chooses who will replace him after his death. One of the sisters would become the man of the house and inherit the property. If women were not forced to return to their wives, the writer explains, tradition suggests leaving as the only form of freedom for those who have no other alternative.

In almost all interviews in the media or by researchers, women repeat that they chose to be men so that no one would own them.

For many of them, this experience has not been successful as they have not been assigned real responsibility regarding the economic situation or the social conditions of the family. Instead, Dervishi and other researchers explain, the change of identity was simply punishment given by parents for opposing a marriage bond.

On the other hand, tradition holds that the improper rejection of a request is sufficient motive to seek revenge. The only way to avoid this situation and stop the bloodshed, was for the girl to swear eternal virginity, to dress as a man, thus taking on the duties and enjoying the privileges of men.

If 10 years ago there were about 100 women according to Young, in 2007 there were only 40. Nowadays there are even fewer (about 20) that if they decide to break the oath and become women again, they are no longer killed as was the case in the past, but still their lives are at risk.

This tradition that unites the fates of thousands of women who have obeyed the tradition for centuries is dying out in the highlands between Albania and Kosovo.

Photographer Jill Peters, who shot a series of portraits and portraits of these women, says: "They possess an indescribable strength and pride and value family honor above all else. Their transformation is fully accepted by the people they live with. What makes it more surprising is the fact that they have very few hostages." /Source: East European Crossroads/In Albanian by: BookLoversAlbania/

Read too "Sworn virgins" or Albanian virgins (Photo/Video)