You know me, sometimes I'm not sure where to post things... but brought this to Original Thought because I was curious about how others felt about this tradition.

Items about Eastern Europe always catch my eye, like this article from the Washington Post.

The Sacrifices of Albania's "Sworn Virgins".

"...an ancient northern Albanian tradition in which women take an oath of lifelong virginity in exchange for the right to live as men..."

It's actually an interesting read for many reasons. It reminded me of how different life is around the globe. On one of my trips to Romania I was up along the Ukraine border. I saw peasants with ox-drawn carts (heck, I saw that in Bucharest too) and I saw people getting their water from wells, plowing fields with ox or donkeys, and living lives so far removed from what most of us consider modern life.

In this country, anyone who wants a sex-change operation and has the means to do so can have it done... but there is so much stigma attached. Over there, these women are simply respected for the choices they've made.

And as for anyone's choices... live and let live. But that's just my perspective. Your thoughts???

I hope that the younger women of that region have enough choices available to them that it will never be necessary to do that. Having said that, had I been born there in 1957 instead of here, I may just have chosen that path for myself. It sounds odd, but I'll bet that there is still much that is beautiful in the lives of those women.

I do too.
And I admire them. In a region/time when they could not vote, buy land, or sometimes enter certain places, they came up with a way to control their fate.
A very brave thing!

I saw a tv show about these women once...at least I think it was the same area. Anyway, it was interesting because they were treated just like men...had the same access to business and male social activities that the men did.