Social Role
The term sworn virgin has come to refer to a traditional social role in the highlands of Albania and Montenegro. Among the highlander groups, a similar, cross-cultural clan-based orientation and highly marked sexual roles have created a situation where there has been a shortage of adult males. One suitable alternative is the sworn virgin (South Slavic tobelija or tybelí, ostajnica "she who stays" or muskobanja "man-like woman"; Albanian virgjineshtë), a female-born person who takes on the social (but not sexual) role of a man. They dress, work and live as men, but remain chaste and unmarried.
The origins of the "sworn virgins" are disparate: some choose this role (as early as childhood and as late as just before their marriage ceremony) while others are raised or forced into it by circumstance. These societies have suffered a severe shortage of men due to interclan violence and Ottoman oppression; a clan without a patriarch might choose a female as an ostajnica, or female replacement, who would subsequently take on a male social role.
Read more about this topic: Sworn Virgin
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or role:
“What people don’t realize is that intimacy has its conventions as well as ordinary social intercourse. There are three cardinal rules—don’t take somebody else’s boyfriend unless you’ve been specifically invited to do so, don’t take a drink without being asked, and keep a scrupulous accounting in financial matters.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer’s role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.”
—J.G. (James Graham)