POSITION OF WOMEN AND INCEST IN ALBANIAN SOCIETY
by Mr. Pavle Dželetović Ivanov
Albanians are a group of people whose traditional laws remain stagnant and preserved in almost unchanged form since ancient times. Among them often occur discrepancies in behavior as well. From government they demand performance of protective, educational, cultural, economic and social functions, but they do not give anything in return to the state by abandoning traditional laws, and they want tribal autonomy. This level of societal organization has been abandoned by other European peoples long ago. We can infer that Albanian traditional tribal law is based on three to them characteristic aspects: blood revenge, subordination of woman and power given to the patriarch of the house. One can find such behavior among Albanians even today, in 2000. In their society a woman lives in a very difficult position. By Albanian traditional law, she represents a patriarchal slave; Albanian women don't have any right to own or inherit property. Marriage is just a formality which is reached after an engagement agreement for the purchase of the bride. Infraction of that contract is morally sanctioned by the practice of blood revenge against the father or brother of the bride.
Albanians pay for their brides expensively. A woman can not choose her partner, and she also can't ask for cancellation of engagement nor for a divorce. Every man who allows a married woman to come into his house without her husband’s approval could have his life endangered. Her safety is ensured by her husband or father. Albanian women live in isolation, usually in rooms that cannot be seen by men outside (of the house). Women are especially watched in order to avoid female ''besa'', and to be kept away from contacts and relationships with the opposite sex, to prevent promiscuity and other immoral acts from taking place. From female ''besa'' are born false heirs, murders of wardens of woman, and house robberies. For this reason, illegitimate relationships with women are causes of blood revenge in most cases. When a murder is committed for (allegedly) a less important reason, the real motive and background is a woman. In order to keep fidelity of an Albanian woman, she is often burdened with pregnancies and accouchements. The belief is that woman with frequent pregnancies and children will be inseparable from her husband. This is the most important reason why Albanians have such a high birthrate.
By Albanian traditional law, a woman who is divorced by her husband can't be trusted to take care of her children, their alimony and nurturing. She is considered ''theirs'' only if she bears children for her husband. A woman wouldn't be able to support her children alone because she owns no property. A divorced woman is not paid with any alimony, and she can marry again only if her ex-husband did not forbid her from doing so. A divorced husband usually announces that in case someone marries his ex wife, he will kill that man. Albanian can sell his daughters and make a good profit on it. Among Albanians a woman is treated as an object, and at the same time a husband has the right to have more than one wife. Thus in case if a man dies, one of his brothers can take his wife for himself, regardless of whether or not he already has a wife. Albanian girls often have to marry men which they have never seen earlier in life. They are often sold very young. Thus, there are cases when fifteen year old girls are sold to man who is fifty and even older.
Because of living in this social status Albanian woman is secretly revolted, but never does she dare to protest because she would be severely punished. Albanian woman is dependant on her husband in many aspects of life. She is the one who has no stake in decision making and who must abide by everything. She is the one who is abused. One such abuse is incest. Incest is a very old and common occurrence among Albanians, but since WWII when many Albanians went to work abroad, this social phenomenon became more frequent. It is important to mention that Albanian families in Kosovo have inherently bigger number of members than those in Albania.
Here is an example from a village in Peć municipality which happened about two years ago. A father had five sons, four of them worked abroad and one of them stayed with his father to run the household. This son who stayed in the household was to take care of wives and children of other four brothers, but at the same time, he was the one who committed incest by having sex with his sisters-in-law. There are thousands of cases such as this one among Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija. A man is the one who stubbornly insists on having sexual relationship with women regardless if they are family. Some Albanian women are doing this because they are revolted with their social status, and most of them are committing incest voluntarily. There are also cases when a father-in-law has sexual relations with his daughters-in- law and his wife knows about this, but she never dares to complain. No one dares to speak about such cases, whether they are the ones who are committing it or whether they know who is doing it. Anyone who tries to speak about this problem meets with cruel death. Many Kačak's (Albanian) criminal mobs were in conflicts with each other because of women, and the real background of these conflicts was always masked with other reasons. Besides, among Albanians there is a belief that a woman can be a cause of great evil and misery in family.
Incest still exists among Albanians, and it's been on the increase in recent years. Meanwhile, it seams that events which took place in 1999 have helped increase such practices in Kosovo and Metohija. Namely, there has been a great devaluation of morals in both sexes in the Albanian society. In the so called ''Kosovo Protective Corps'' which consists almost exclusively of Albanians, there are Albanian young men who are involved in illegal trade of women. It is not a rare case when they kidnap an attractive Albanian woman and sell her as a prostitute in western Europe. Thus, in March 2000 two Albanian girls were kidnapped in a Pristina café.
In Albanian protective corps, there are criminals who are involved in illegal trafficking of drugs and weapons, and at the same time they are involved in smuggling of illegal immigrants from Middle East to western Europe. They are also procurers of women to foreign soldiers in Kosovo. It is very interesting that even women are found among procurers. These women usually have a past history of incest... and there is even a case when a woman procured her daughter-in-law to an American soldier who paid her well for it. Occupation of great portion of Albanians in Kosovo is in connection with black market and pillaging. Depravity flourishes in such conditions and incest becomes less noticeable.
When an Albanian kills his own brother allegedly because of a land dispute or debt, it must be known that this is not the real reason for murder. The real reason is because he slept with his wife. There are cases when an Albanian who works abroad finds that his wife cheated on him with his father or brother for years, and because of it he very rarely visits his family. He finds a woman abroad and never takes her to his village or town.
An Albanian man once said that there is a special and odd feeling in incest which he will remember for the rest of his life.
In The Serbian Mountains
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Originally Posted by Guapo
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