Casually surfing the web this past week, I came across a recent New York Times article with the headline “Albanian Custom Fades: Woman as Family Man”. No offense to the Times, but it should have been called “The Impressive Story of the Sworn Virgins of Albania”. Albania is a mountainous agrarian country where blood feuds still wipe out large portions of the male population. In this very traditional society, women aren’t allowed to own guns and consequently have no means of protecting themselves once their husband, brother, or father is killed—nor do they have a way of avenging the death.

So they adapted. It was decided that a woman could become a man with full social privilege and respect—for the small price of lifelong virginity. For villagers such a concept seemed clear enough, after all a man’s life was worth the same as a virgin (12 oxen) while a woman’s life was only worth 6 oxen.

The article interviewed several so-called “sworn virgins”. One chose this path at the age of 20 following the murder of her father and death/imprisonment of her anti-regime brothers. For her it was a move of practicality — she states that if given the option now, she would probably choose to be a woman. That now with the influx of modernity being a woman might actually be “fun”. Read More »