Balkan sworn virgins () are women who take a vow of chastity and live as men in patriarchal northern Albanian society, Kosovo and Montenegro. To a lesser extent, the practice exists, or has existed, in other parts of the western Balkans, including Bosnia, Dalmatia (Croatia), Serbia and North Macedonia.
In times when women had a prescribed role, burrnesha gave up their sexual, reproductive and social identities to acquire the same freedoms as men. They could dress as men, be head of the household, move freely in social situations, and take work traditionally open only to men. National Geographic's Taboo estimated in 2002 that there were fewer than 102 Albanian sworn virgins left. , while there were no exact figures, twelve burrnesha were estimated to remain in Northern Albania and Kosovo.
Terminology
Other terms for a sworn virgin include, in English, Albanian virgin or avowed virgin; in , vajzë e betuar (most common today, and used in situations in which the parents make the decision when the person is a baby or child), and various words cognate with "virgin" – virgjineshë, virgjereshë, verginesa, , vergjinesha; in Bosnian: tobelija (bound by a vow); in Serbo-Croatian: virdžina; in Serbian: ostajnica (she who stays); in Turkish: sadik, meaning "loyal, devoted".
Origins
The tradition of sworn virgins in Albania developed out of the Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit (, or simply the Kanun), a set of codes and laws developed by Lekë Dukagjini and used mostly in northern Albania and Kosovo from the Ottoman era until the 20th century. The Kanun is not a religious document; many groups follow it, including Albanian Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims.
The Kanun 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. Under the Kanun, women are stripped of many rights. They cannot smoke, wear a watch, or vote in local elections. They cannot buy land, and there are many jobs they are not permitted to hold. There are also establishments that they cannot enter.
The practice of sworn virginhood was first reported by missionaries, travelers, geographers and anthropologists, who visited the mountains of northern Albania in the 19th and early 20th centuries. One of them was Edith Durham, who took the accompanying photograph.
Overview
A person can become a sworn virgin at any age, out of personal desire or to satisfy parents. One becomes a sworn virgin by swearing an irrevocable oath, in front of twelve village or tribal elders, to adopt the role and practice celibacy. After this, sworn virgins live as men and others relate to them as such, usually though not always using masculine pronouns to address them or speak about them to other people. In Slavic languages with three grammatical genders, they are never spoken about in the third gender. Sworn virgins may dress in male clothing, 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, sing, and sit and talk socially with men. Sworn virgins occupy a formal, socially defined masculine role. The New York Times call the practice: "A centuries-old tradition in which women declared themselves men so they could enjoy male privilege".
According to Marina Warner, the sworn virgin's "[biological] sex will never again, on pain of death, be alluded to either in her presence or out of it." Similar practices occurred in some societies of indigenous peoples of the Americas.
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 reasons or motivations or obligations to family which led to taking the vow no longer exist.
Motivations
There are many reasons why someone might take this vow, and observers recorded a variety of motivations. One person spoke of becoming a sworn virgin in order to not be separated from his father, and another in order to live and work with a sister. Some hoped to avoid a specific unwanted marriage, and others hoped to avoid marriage in general; becoming a sworn virgin was also the only way for families who had committed children to an arranged marriage to refuse to fulfil it, without dishonouring the groom's family and risking a blood feud.