The Sworn Virgins I Collage

"The tradition of sworn virgins developed out of The Code of Lekë Dukagjini, a set of codes and laws developed and used mostly in northern Albania & Kosovo from the 15th century until the 20th century. The Code dictates that families must be patrilineal (meaning wealth is inherited through a family's men) and patrilocal (upon marriage, a woman moves into the household of her husband's family). Women are treated like property of the family and are stripped of many rights. They cannot smoke, wear a watch, or vote in their local elections. They cannot buy land, and there are many jobs they are not permitted to hold. However, a woman who becomes a sworn virgin by swearing an irrevocable oath, in front of twelve village or tribal elders, to practice celibacy, is then allowed to live as a man and may dress in male clothes, use a male name, carry a gun, smoke, drink alcohol, take on male work, act as the head of a household (for example, living with a sister or mother), play music and sing, and sit and talk socially with men. The sworn virgin is believed to be the only formal, socially defined trans-masculine, transgender and cross-dressing role in Europe. Breaking the vow was once punishable by death, but it is doubtful that this punishment is still carried out. Many sworn virgins today still refuse to go back on their oath because their community would reject them for breaking the vows. However, it is sometimes possible to take back the vows if the sworn virgin has finished her obligations to the family and the reasons or motivations which lead her to take the vow no longer exist. There are many reasons why a woman would have wanted to take this vow, and observers have recorded a variety of motivations. One woman said she became a sworn virgin in order to not be separated from her father, and another in order to live and work with her sister. Several were recorded as saying they always felt more male than female. Some hoped to avoid a specific unwanted marriage, and others hoped to avoid marriage in general. Becoming a sworn virgin was the only way for women whose families had committed them as children to an arranged marriage to refuse to fulfil it, without dishonouring the groom's family and risking a blood feud. It was the only way a woman could inherit her family's wealth, which was particularly important in a society in which blood feuds resulted in the deaths of many male Albanians, leaving many families without male heirs. It is also likely that many women chose to become sworn virgins simply because it afforded them much more freedom than would otherwise have been available in a patrilineal culture in which women were secluded, sex-segregated, required to be virgins before marriage and faithful afterwards, betrothed as children and married by sale without their consent, continually bearing and raising children, constantly physically labouring, and always required to defer to men, particularly their husbands and fathers, and submit to being beaten. Sworn virgins could also participate in blood feuds. If a sworn virgin was killed in a blood feud her death counted as a full life for the purposes of calculating blood money, rather than the half a life ordinarily accorded for a female death."

Collage:Paint on Wood

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:17.5 W x 15.5 H x 0.5 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.