WOMEN'S LACK OF IDENTITY AND THE
MYTH OF THEIR SECURITY UNDER ALBANIAN
PATRIARCHY IN ALBANIA1
Antonia Young
Bradford, U.K. / Hamilton, New York
published in: KASER, Karl; KRESSING, Frank (eds.), Albania – A country in Transition. Aspects
of Changing Identities in a South-East European Country. Baden-Baden: Nomos-Verlag 2002,
pp. 91 ff.
Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Introduction
Women as Possessions
Betrothal: Arranged Marriage
Marriage and Children
Division of Labour
Marriage under Communism: The Marital Myth Continues
The Present Situation
The Women's Movement
Conclusions
References
Keywords
Status of women in Albania, patriarchy, kanun, women’s movement.
Abstract
This chapter presents an investigation into patriarchal claims that nowhere are women so well
cared for, especially in terms of lifelong security, as in the traditional society of northern Albania,
under the protection of the kanun, at the same time addressing the effects of the rapidly changing
societies of the closely surrounding areas on the status of women in northern Albania.
1. Introduction
1
This paper is an adapted version of the chapter ’Tree of Blood, Tree of Milk: Patriarchy and Partricentricity in Rural
Albania’ in Women who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins (pp. 13-53) by the same author (YOUNG 2 000), and was
delivered at the conference The Role of Myth in Albania in History and Development, School of Slavonic and East
European Studies (SSEES), University of London, 12-13 June, 1999.
92
Few dispute that both in the Balkans generally, and particularly in the Albanian-inhabited lands, the
patriarchal tradition lives on. The women's movement, where it exists at all, struggles with entirely
different problems than those in Western countries. The Croatian journalist, Slavenka DRAKULIĆ
has written about the varieties of women's movements in Eastern Europe; in recent discussion with
Delina FICO she outlined her work in Albania, as will be discussed at the end of this chapter.
The mystique surrounding the heroic impact of two male figures of fifteenth century Albania has
grown through the following centuries to the point where their words and actions are claimed to
shape all aspects of life. These figures are Gjergj Kastrioti (Skanderbeg) and Lekë Dukagjini; this
latter‘s code of laws (kanun) regulates all aspects of life in northern Albania.2 I should clarify that
Albanian society is changing rapidly, and much of the content of this paper refers only to rural areas, and specifically to northern Albania. PICHLER3, for example, has given strong evidence of
working democracy in Albanian villages, though he does not mention the place of women.
2. Women as Possessions
A woman is said to belong first to her father's household, and on marriage, to her husband's, in
whose family she remains the most inferior person until she bears a son.4 Within the kanun acts of
domestic violence, where deemed ’appropriate’ are seen as a form of social justice maintaining the
order which in turn is seen as a protection of property of which women are a part. Despite the very
low status accorded to women in rural Albania, the men who live by the kanun laws will tell you
that women are well cared for and highly respected. Ihsan TOPTANI upholds this view, explaining
that the kanun's phrase ’woman is a sack’5 is not a declaration of women's inferiority, but merely
defines her important procreative functions; furthermore, her immunity from bloodfeud attack
proves her worth in society.6 It is pointed out that should anyone outside the family dishonour a
woman, such offence is considered a shameful attack, and appropriate action taken. It is, however,
the family's honour rather than that of the woman herself which is at stake: a matter which can result in blood vengeance.
3. Betrothal: Arranged Marriage
Courtship or dating are still barely known concepts in rural Albania amongst young people who
have always been kept segregated from an early age, and often do not meet their partners before
their marriage. In these remote areas there is little opportunity for socializing in mixed groups,
much less to form relationships of a sexual nature. The Norwegian anthropologist, Berit BACKER,
commented that girls are usually curious to know what their future husband looks like, but it is
shameful to show an interest. She claimed that if a man possesses a photograph of his fiancé it can
2
For a dual language version of the kanun as first written down see GJEÇOV (1989).
PICHLER, Robert (1999), History and tradition: producing myths of the ’pure’ national character. Paper delivered at the
SSEES Conference, London, 11-13 June.
4
Margaret HASLUCK (1954:43) points out that a woman ’though never paid any money, was assured for life whatever
board, lodging and clothes these could provide.’
5
Article no. Xxxix; cf. GJEÇOV (1989:38).
3
93
be taken as proof that he is having an illicit relationship with her, for which she, and in turn her
family, would receive extreme and lifelong condemnation (BACKER 1979:306).
Girls are kept in the home, constantly employed with household chores and fetching firewood and
water. They have little interaction outside, often being prevented from attending secondary school.
This tight control of women is said to be in their best interests.
BACKER also commented on the fact that love is seen as a weakness of women and from which they
need protection. Although it is assumed that men naturally have sexual desires, they are not considered real men if they demonstrate interest in women:
‘A man who either was very attractive to women and a flirt, or who fell in love, was more or
less considered a weak man. He was not really reliable, often called a ’fool‘ and considered a
vain person not being able to control himself properly for 'love was the unfortunate inclination of the young and inexperienced and was definitely not expected to decide the future of a
household love and marriage existed apart from each other‘.‘ (BACKER 1979:303).
Susan Pritchett POST provides ethnographical material from earlier decades, by interviewing older
women. Through these interviews it is possible to observe the continued influence of the kanun's
principles even when the laws were supposedly banned under Communism. To quote one of her
interviewees:
‘When I joined the family (married) there were twenty people in the house ... I gave birth to a
total of eleven children... the first eight were born one and a half years apart ... When I was
pregnant I had to keep my pregnancy secret from the people in the house and from my husband... It was considered shameful to be pregnant. I ... returned to work just three days after
the birth of each child ... When our daughters grew up and the time to marry them came, only
my husband had the right to decide on such a problem. I was not asked at all to give my opinion about my daughters‘ marriages.‘ (POST 1988:62, 63)
All the above holds true to this day in many rural areas in northern Albania.
The tradition of patrilocality ensures that a young bride marries outside her own village and moves
into the home of her husband‘s family. This acknowledged order strengthens the patriarchal system
by ensuring the continued control of women by removing them from a familiar environment into
one where their every action is supervised (TIRTA)7. Marriages may be arranged by parents as early
as the time of birth or even before. It is an old practice that men may exchange children or sisters as
a token of their friendship (BACKER 1979:153). Traditionally a ‘bride price‘8 is negotiated by the
6
personal interview, 19th of June, 1999, in London.
TIRTA, Mark (1999), ‘The Cult of Several Ancient Customs in the Albanian Ethnic Survival.’ Paper delivered at the
SSEES conference, London, 11-13 June.
8
For discussion on this see HASLUCK and MYRES (1933:191-196). See also M. Edith DURHAM’s investigations into
bride-price and her findings that it varied considerably by area. In many places there was a general agreement that it
would not exceed a certain sum. In Pulati and Dukagjin the bride-price was lower than elsewhere, and an elderly widow
might change hands for a rifle (DURHAM 1928:192). An extension of the commitment of a woman for her ’price’ is the
practice of levirate whereby a widow is automatically expected to marry her dead husband’s brother or even cousin or
7
94
families involved and paid by the groom‘s family (the origin of the myth that Albanians ‘sell‘ their
women; BACKER 1979:153).
The continued observance of bride price maintains an interest in both the bride‘s good upbringing
and the constant preservation of her purity, ensuring that there is no possible slur on her character.
In cases where marriage partners have not been selected in early childhood, parents have very different criteria depending on whether they are choosing a son-in-law or a daughter-in-law. BACKER's
queries on this elicited the following response:
‘When we are evaluating a prospective son-in-law, first we look at his personality, then his
family. But when a daughter-in law, is selected, the whole family on both sides is examined
first, then the girl's. There is a stress on the family of the wife, compared to that of an outmarried sister.‘ (BACKER 1979:141)
Even today in Albania, girls‘ schooling and activities may be severely curtailed in order to ensure
her good reputation. Although POST found that some teenagers were breaking from the old norms of
arranged marriages by marrying for love, still many families keep their teenage girls away from
secondary school believing it ‘is a place for love stories‘. She interviewed Ina, a teenage girl who
told her:
‘I have led a quiet life ... when I was young, I competed for ballet. I didn't win and that was a
shock, but what came after was the real shock. I wanted to go on dancing, but couldn't. Why?
Because all the village gossiped about me. They called me a „bad“ girl. Even the children in
school brought this opinion of me from home. When I was only twelve I received a letter accusing me of being a prostitute. I wanted to make up for this opinion so for three years I
stayed closed up and away from others.‘ (POST 1998:236)
Similarly other teenagers whom POST interviewed, were prevented by their parents from attending
secondary school or university for fear that they might be injured, raped or simply fall in love and
marry someone without regard to traditional arrangements.
4. Marriage and Children
It is taken for granted that women marry and have children. Robert CARVER, author of The Accursed Mountains: Journeys in Albania, met a middle-aged woman who was in the unusual position
of not having married; he describes her attempts to present her domestic situation to fit the mythical
norm:
‘Angeliki has had the misfortune never to be married ... Not to be married, not to have children in Albania was regarded as a catastrophe. Angeliki's brother and his family were away
... Angeliki was alone in the family house. The arrangement was that I would pay $ l0 a day,
without food; but Angeliki was an old-fashioned Albanian lady, and having a man in the
uncle. In Canada this has been labelled ’forced marriage’; the author’s expertise was sought to support a claim for
95
house was an excuse for her to cook, and cook and cook ... Angeliki had no pretensions at all
to being either modern or Western. I was a man, the man of the house, in the absence of any
other. Everything thus centred around my comfort and gastronomic demands. She managed to
round up three of her young nieces and a nephew, who were brought in to complete the ersatz
family circle. Thus I would be seated at the head of the table, while the oldest niece, perhaps
five years old, solemnly served me raki ... The nieces and nephew chattered on to Angeliki in
Albanian, while I smiled on, a vicarious, mute patriarch. This was as close as Angeliki would
ever get to being married.‘ (CARVER 1998:90-92)
Marriage, as other social structures, is ordered by kanun law for the ‘common good‘. The wedding
celebrates the links between two families and their respect for one another. The bride becomes the
energetic young addition to the work-force, potential bearer of future inheritors to the home and
land. She is the only person who does not share in the celebrations following the wedding ceremony. She stands, eyes downcast while all the guests partake of lavish quantities of food and drink.
From the day of her marriage the bride is given the name nuse (new bride) until the term is transferred to the next married son‘s wife. Patriarchal control is maintained and ‘adultery ... punished
most severely with the right of the offended male be it father, brother or husband to kill both woman
and lover‘ (BACKER 1979:171). During the first month of marriage a new bride is expected to be
dressed in her best clothing and be ready at any time for visitors coming to meet and approve her as
a worthy new addition to the household. Their beautiful acquisition must quickly make the transformation for show, yet be ready to continue all the household tasks whenever the viewers leave.
Janet REINECK (1991:9) vividly describes her place in the new home:
‘In a high mountain village it is the morning after a wedding. A rooster crows. It must be day,
but still dark. And cold. December. Her eyes sting, her head aches from too little sleep, from
the cold. She isn’t groggy. She wakes into a chilling awareness of her new life, and her new
name, ’Bride‘. The awareness stings her, rushes her pulse. The awareness, the sting, will hit
her, wrench her from sleep, day after day, for months, for years, gradually diminishing, becoming ritual, habit, as she molds herself to fit her new persona.‘
Through the practice of exogamy, daughters born into the family cannot expect to spend their adulthood with those with whom they are familiar. The wives brought into the home are likely to be
stran-gers to one another, though they must learn their hierarchical place and work together under
the direction of the wife of the head of the household. BACKER (1979:307) explains that:
‘... To be a woman is basically an occupational status, if seen socially ... to keep the household in a way that the male world runs smoothly without problems.‘
asylum in order to avoid this fate.
96
The preference for boy babies is a worldwide phenomenon. This preference in Albania did not
change in the new society of the 1990s: mothers still need consolation at the birth of a daughter.9 By
producing a son a nuse gains status: though even then her son is considered to belong to the family
while she remains an outsider. Sterility, or the inability of a couple to produce sons is believed to be
due to the woman's deficiency. If she does not bear a son she may be sent back to her family and a
second wife or even a third one can be taken to replace her (DURHAM 1928:73; STAHL 1986:108;
TIRTA 1999; VINCE-PALLUA 1996:37).
Childrearing is a communal responsibility. Girls are trained from early childhood as home cleaners
and caterers, while boys are allo-wed the freedom to play outside the home. These traditions survived through the Communist changes more firmly in the north than elsewhere. CARVER (1998:210211) describes his observation of sex role differentiation amongst some children:
’I was able to watch the Frashëris’ grandchildren at play in the garden as I sat and ate cherries with their grandfather. They had no toys at all, and their game always revolved around
the older boys chasing, catching and beating the younger boys, while the girls watched; then
the younger boys escaping and in turn chasing the girls, catching them and then beating them
and making them squeal ... None of the adults interfered or mediated in these exchanges ...
This catch-and-beat play was confined to the garden. Girls never chased or beat, but were
purely passive. Once in the house this play ceased, and the girls had to wait upon the adult
males as they were bidden, while the boys were cossetted and fondled by their female adult
relatives. Girls were never cossetted or fondled by either adult males or females; their role
was to wait upon the men inside the house, and to be chased and beaten in the garden. Beyond the garden the girls were not allowed to go, though the boys could play in the lane outside.’
5. Division of Labour
The kanun outlines a rigidly gendered division of labour. Traditional men‘s work includes all heavy
manual work: ploughing, hoeing, harrowing, manure spreading, chopping wood, scything, mowing,
harvesting, watering and maintaining irrigation systems, protecting animals and property; it also
includes talking to visitors, drinking and smoking with them, and avenging family honour (this last
task is of extreme importance, taking precedence over all others). Household heads, as the family
decision-makers, have other more specific tasks. All men are included in negotiations upon which
the family head will make the final decision. Women on the other hand are privy to none of them,
and will only know of changed plans, even ones which affect their whole lives, once the decision
has been made (BACKER 1979: 199).
Women's tasks include conceiving, bearing and rearing children, baking bread, cooking and house
cleaning, tending the outside earth-closets, serving the men and guests (including washing their
9
POST (1988:113) explains the Albanian proverb ’when a girl was born the very beams of the house began crying’: the
parents would be sad because a daugh-ter’s dowry would be expensive, an unproductive use of money, and the mother
would frequently grieve for the difficult life that lay ahead for her daughter.
97
feet), carrying water and firewood, tending fires and poultry, attending to dairy production and taking it to market, storing and processing food, processing and weaving wool, washing and mending
clothes, manufacturing garments for the family, for trousseaux and for sale, embroidering garments
and linen. All these tasks are performed without running water. Additionally they must assist men at
times of particular harvesting, collecting and transporting the produce, and at times the older
women may be expected to help milk the sheep in their summer pastures. Women may also be seen
spinning or knitting at the same time as performing several of the above tasks.
BACKER (1979:199) calculates that women provide as much as sixty percent of the agricultural work
in primary production, besides performing all the domestic and childcare work within the house.
Even though, ‘the household chores of women are not really considered as work‘.10 Furthermore,
women may be called upon to take over completely the men's outdoor tasks in times of feud when it
is unsafe for the men to venture out of the house. No wonder some have chosen a different option:
to actually become men (‘sworn virgins‘).11
6. Marriage under Communism: The Marital Myth Continues
Many women became partisans helping to bring Hoxha and the Communists into power at the end
of the Second World War. This was a time of need when all women were expected to perform the
tasks of men. It could be imagined that when the War ended women might have gained more freedom. However, being able to work full-time outside the home, first as fighters, later in the cooperatives, supposedly on an equal footing with men, effectively doubled women's workload since they
were still expected to complete all the household chores as well. The extra money that they earned
was so minimal that it did not provide sufficient extra income to give any additional independence
(wages were extremely low since most essentials were theoretically provided by the state).
In the period 1960-90, the Union of Albanian Women had representatives in every community. Delina FICO, a leader in the women's movement of the 1990's, has labled this ‘an explicit example of
the governmentally organised non-governmental organisations / GON-GO‘ (FICO 1999).
The Communist regime did not succeed in stamping out the myths and traditional rituals surrounding the choice of a suitable marriage partner; rather it actually increased the number of factors
deemed necessary to be considered. In addition to the usual demands of parents concerning the
qualities and attributes of potential partners, there was added the need to consider that person's biographi12 An example of the difficulty of combining the old and the new attributes expected of a
potential bride is recounted via POST by Irena. Irena was born and brought up in Shkodra. She attended university and on graduation was sent to teach in the small town of Puka as a form of exile
as a punishment for the official perception of her father as ’bourgeois’. After four years she was
10
See Post’s (1998:152) summary on this and other women’s lives in this period.
My book Women Who Became Men (YOUNG 2000) analyses the lives of more than a dozen whom I have personally
met.
12
The government’s political record on individual citizens which was affected not only by their own actions, but by
those of members of their close family, and even by members of the extended and further removed.
11
98
permitted to return to Shkodra. However, her marriageable value had been further severely tainted:
‘Three men had already declined to marry me because I had been in Pukë so long and away
from my family. They were worried that anything might have happened since I had been out of
the control of my family for so long and I might not be an honest girl. Afterward, two men were
being considered to be my husband. One was forty-four when I was twenty-seven at the time, and
I started to cry: 'How terrible is my situation to be offered such an old man!'. The other man who
was offered was a young man whom I liked, but who had such a bad biography ... At the beginning of our married life for a year and a half, we lived in a house that was like a cell. A total of
fourteen people lived in two rooms ... Although they were a patriotic and cultured family, my
husband's family was suffering the consequences of having one uncle who was a Balli Kombëtar
supporter and another uncle who had fled to America.‘ (POST 1988:138, 139)
Large families continued to be the norm during the Communist era, encouraged by Hoxha who
wanted to increase Albania‘s workforce. Thus contraceptive devices and abortion were illegal.
Conversely, bonuses were given to families for each newborn (IBID.:133).
Although propaganda concerning the situation for women under Communism did not give a true
picture of their life at the time, there were certain improvements for women during the Hoxha era.
Elementary education was provided for all children, there was improved healthcare and the introduction of training for midwives. These factors also contributed to the rapid increase in Albania's
population (three-fold in the 50 years to 1991). Women were well represented in government and
other sectors of the economy, although not at the highest levels (EMADI 1992:79-96). Peter PRIFTI
(1975:122) quotes Hoxha as saying in 1967 that ‘... women are the most downtrodden, exploited
and spurned human beings in all respects.‘ In the same article PRIFTI draws attention to the fact that
in 1970 only two out of 119 government prizes for artists and writers went to women. Nor was there
extra freedom amongst the youth. Although adolescent girls had the opportunity to work alongside
boys, as POST clarifies, this did not actually allow them greater freedom to become acquainted.
They were:
‘... carefully monitored by their families and the community at large to ensure that they were
honest and good - that is, they did not talk to boys or show interest in any one boy. Any evidence
of their sexuality was discouraged to the point that they were forbidden, both by their families
and the government, to wear slacks or makeup.‘ (POST 1988:132)
Diana ÇULI, a well known writer and human rights activist, commented:
‘The time that I was in middle school ... My parents expected me to be an 'honest' girl and not be
involved with boys, not even to look at them... As young people, we were severely limited by the
traditional family structure and social opinion on the one hand and political control on the
other.’ (POST 1988:181, 182)
7. The Present Situation
99
As a panellist at a conference in Shkodra in 1996, ÇULI fiercely challenged the patriarchal oppression of northern Albania. This elicited so heated a response that she felt compelled to leave the
session.13
Albanian women are facing a wide range of problems exacerbated by the lack of long-term strategy
and decision-making bodies for political, economic and social improvements. Laws passed entitling
women to inherit land, are unknown to most women outside Tirana. Of those who are aware of this
right, very few would dare to pursue it.
While laws are in the making, law-enforcement remains minimal and unemployment high, prostitution and traffiking of women are on the increase. There is very little provision for government support in cases of domestic violence, few women dare to report it, and on the rare occasions that cases
are taken to court, they find negative responses - it is still men who are the judges. With no government statistics on domestic abuse, it is hard to mobilise any public campaign to raise public consciousness concerning the problem.14 Until very recently there were no battered women's shelters
nor even any facility for women to receive counselling.15
In an attempt to reach women in remoter areas, the Association of Intellectual Women of Pukë conducted a survey to find out what the women themselves felt concerning the return of the kanun
laws. Djana DJALOSHI (1998:4) reported that some responded negatively, but many supported the
kanun, especially, they said, if it were properly implemented. This, as George SCHÖPFLIN (1997:22)
puts it, ‘... is an instrument of self-definition, in that those who accept the beliefs encoded in myth
also accept membership and the rules that go with membership’ - even when the boundaries of
these beliefs change.
It remains true that considerable sexual repression exists especially in traditional rural society. Recent attempts to set up health clinics and education sessions on family planning in 1999 were met
with antagonism in rural areas of northern Albania.16 Sex for women is still seen to serve purely a
procreative function.
8. The Women's Movement
Slavenka DRAKULIĆ has written extensively on the subject of the women's movement as a force of
change in former Communist bloc countries.17 She blames television advertising for the destructive
nature of Albania's revolution, observing that the people ’... are living in an illusion of a capitalist
13
Conference organised by the foundation Center for Reconciliation of Disputes at the University of Shkodra, 28-29
June, 1996.
14
Fred ABRAHAMS (1996:131) of Human Rights Watch interviewed Delina Fico in Tirana of the women’s group Klub
Reflexione on this matter.
15
This lack has now been parially addresses and there have been some initiatives to help women in urban areas; see
FICO (1999).
16
Interview (August 1999) with Kate Clayton health manager for Oxfam project in northern Albania.
17
See particulary her very amusing, but insightful collection of vignettes of real life situations in her (1991) Balkan
Express.
100
society, as they are living in an illusion of freedom or democracy.’ (DRAKULIĆ 1994).
Many Albanians were reluctant to be identified with any group, so long had they been conditioned
to view this as an illegal activity which could earn severe punishment, this fear of identification
with a group is doubled for women whose allegiance is expected to be devoted entirely to the family.
Furthermore, for some, when Communism fell, it was a relief to have homemaking their only occupation.
One of the first organised groups was the League of Ex-Politically Persecuted Women, an important
support group for women, some of whom had spent their whole lives in exile (in villages far removed from their own families) or in prison. Another matter of great concern is property rights.
Diana ÇULI has had a major role in several organisations: she is head of the Independent Forum for
Albanian Women, founded in l99l. That year abortion was legalised. Amongst other groups formed
in the early l990s were the Interbalkanic Women's Association, the Albanian Non-governmental
Forum and the Albanian Helsinki Citizens' Assembly. The Democratic League of Albanian Women
developed with the democratic movement, founded in 199l, estimated that it had 40,000 members
all over the country, and branches in 36 towns. Its prime concern, stated in 1994 when it claimed to
represent the centre right political principles, was with decision-making in democratic reform in
Albania in all aspects of political, economic and social life. This League, as the Forum of Republican Women and other party-affiliated women's groups are concerned primarily with mobilising
women to vote for their party.
Other groups serve as channels to distribute humanitarian aid. Since assisting non-governmental
organisations is perceived by foreign donors as a way to promote democratisation of the country,
this is likely to continue to benefit the women's movement. In 1995, the Women's Legal Group analysed the draft labour law under review in parliament; many of their recommendations were
adopted, thus providing the first legal women's rights. FICO considers that the World Conference on
Women held in Bejing in 1995, attended by twelve Albanian women, was a turning point for their
women's groups. By 1996, as many as fifty-five women's organisations were in existence.
More recent issues of concern are the harassment of women journalists, counselling on drugs and
alcohol and provision of legal aid. There is still a very great need for social and health services, especially for women. Young women now returning after spending years in Tirana as students are
bringing new attitudes into the countryside and have developed curiosity about the Western introduction to sexual freedom and the practice of contraception.
9. Conclusions
The problems of women living under the patriarchal laws are somewhat offset by the respect that
Albanian women have for one another. POST postulates that it is the extraordinary strength of Alba101
nian women, even in the face of the combined oppression of poverty, patriarchy and political persecution, which gives them the courage to accept a life which we might view as unbearable. Most of
the women she interviewed claimed to have found this strength through their love for their mothers
and for their children (POST 1998:273 ff.). Only a few were fortunate enough to be able to speak of
the support of their husbands: most were the purveyors and promoters of the myth of patriarchy as
the accepted social order.
Although in Kosova/o large families dominated by male patriarchs adhered to the same kanun laws
as those in northern Albania, the enforced separation of Kosova/o after 1912 has served to bring
their population increased solidarity both within the very large extended families and between those
families, especially following the mass bloodfeud reconciliations of the early 1990s. It seems likely
that the events of the last ten years of the 20th century will impact profoundly not only on Kosovars
but also on the people of northern Albania. Kosovar women have had to take on assertive roles resulting from the increasing absence of men throughout the 1980s when men left the country as migrant workers. Later, as Serb persecution gathered momentum, and more left under threat and finally in the last two years of the twentieth century, as murder has disposed of thousands more. The
forced evacuation of over half a million, mostly women, children and old people through northern
Albania, will surely have a long term effect on the social structure which survived through both
Ottoman and Communist rule.
References
ABRAHAMS, Fred (1996), Human Rights in Post-Communist Albania. New York, London: Human Rights
Watch.
BACKER, Berit (1979), Behind the Stone Walls. Changing Household Organization among the Albanians of
Kosovo. Oslo: PRIO Publications S-8.
CARVER, Robert (1998), The Accursed Mountains: Journeys in Alba-nia. London: John Murray.
DJALOSHI, Djana (1998), Northern women and the position between Kanun and law. Albanian Civil Society
Foundation Newsletter 17, November/December, p. 4.
DRAKULIĆ, Slavenka (1991), Balkan Express. London: Hutchinson.
DRAKULIĆ, Slavenka (1994), Tirana Postcard: Bananas. The New Republic, 20 June, pp. 16-19.
DURHAM, M. Edith (1928), Some Tribal Origins. Laws and Customs of the Balkans. London: Allen & Unwin.
EMADI, Hafizulla (1992), Devlopment Strategies and Women in Al-bania. East European Quaterly 27/2:7996.
FICO, Delina (1999), Women’s Groups: The Albanian case. Journal of Communist and Transition Studies
102
15/1. Special Issue: En-dangering Change: Gender and Identity in Central and Ea-stern Europe,
April.
GJEÇOV, Shtjefën (1989), Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit - The Code of Lek Dukagjini. New York: Gjonlekaj Publishing Co. (translated by Leonard Fox).
HASLUCK, Margaret; MYRES, John Linton (1933), Bride price in Alba-nia: a Homeric parallel. Man 33/202203:191-196.
HASLUCK, Margaret (1954), The Unwritten Law in Albania. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.
POST, Susan E. Pritchett (1988), Women in Modern Albania. Jeffer-son, North Carolina, London: McFarland.
PRIFTI, Peter R. (1975), The Albanian women’s struggle for emanci-pation. Southeastern Europe 2/2:122.
REINECK, Janet (1991), The Past as Refuge: Gender, Migration and Ideology among Kosova Albanians. University of California at Berkeley: Ph.D. thesis.
SCHÖPFLIN, George (1997), The functions of myth and a taxonomy of myths. In: SCHÖPFLIN, George; HOSKING,
G. (eds.), Myths and Nationhood. London: Hurst & Co.
STAHL, Paul H. (1986), The Albanians. In: Household, Village and Village Confederation in Southeastern
Europe. (East European Monographs No. CC). Boulder, Colorado, New York: Colum-bia University
Press, pp. 88-137.
VINCE-PALLUA, Jelka (1996), Introducing a second wife: a matrimo-nial aid in cases of a childless marriage.
International Journal of Anthropology 11/1:35-40.
YOUNG, Antonia (2000), Women who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins. Oxford: Berg Publishers, New
York University Press.
103