What’s It Like To Live In Country Where Girls Are Unwanted
Montenegro's sworn virgins
Montenegro can be a hard place to live — for women. Montenegro is known for its highly patriarchal society.
In 1880, a correspondent of The New York Times wrote: “The Montenegrin woman takes an equal share of labour with the man at field-work, and she does all the carrying. ”
While a Dutch travel writer Henri van der Mandere described the lives of women in Montenegro in the following way: “A woman in Montenegro is nothing, she has no rights, she is only suitable to work and carry heavy loads for the man. As a girl, she has to obey her father. As a woman, she has to obey her husband. She is a slave and packs animal at the same time.”
Unfortunately, these observations were accurate. Back then, a woman’s happiness in Montenegro was mostly determined by repeated throws of the genetic dice. If a woman was blessed with many sons, her husband’s family and clan widely respected and appreciated her.
If she had only daughters, her value was much lowered and her life seen as little more fulfilled than that of the pitiful woman with no children at all. Women in Montenegro were expected to give birth to a son to secure the continuation of the husband’s family lineage.
