Vanishing Breed: Albania's Sworn Virgins

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KRUJE, Albania - Pashe Keqi recalled the day nearly 60 years agowhen she decided to become a man. She chopped off her long blackcurls, traded in her dress for her father's baggy trousers, armedherself with a hunting rifle and vowed to forsake marriage,children and sex.

For centuries, in the closed-off society of rural northern Albania,swapping genders was considered a practical solution for a familywith a shortage of men. Her father was killed in a blood feud, andthere was no male heir. By custom, Keqi, now 78, took a vow oflifetime virginity. She lived as a man, the new patriarch, with allthe swagger and trappings of male authority - including theobligation to avenge her father's death.

She says she would not do it today, now that sexual equality andmodernity have come even to Albania, with Internet dating and MTVinvading after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Girls here do not wantto be boys anymore. With only Keqi and some 40 others remaining,the sworn virgin is dying off.

"Back then, it was better to be a man, because before, a woman andan animal were considered the same thing," said Keqi, who has abellowing baritone voice, sits with her legs open wide like a manand relishes downing shots of raki. "Now, Albanian women have equalrights with men and are even more powerful.

"I think today it would be fun to be a woman."

The tradition of the sworn virgin can be traced to the Kanun ofLeke Dukagjini, a code of conduct that has been passed on orallyamong the clans of northern Albania for more than 500 years. Underthe Kanun, the role of a woman is severely circumscribed: take careof children and maintain the home. While a woman's life is worthhalf that of a man, a virgin's value is the same: 12 oxen.

The sworn virgin was born of social necessity in an agrarian regionplagued by war and death. If the patriarch of the family died withno male heirs, unmarried women in the family could find themselvesalone and powerless. By taking an oath of virginity, women couldtake on the role of men as head of the family, carry a weapon, ownproperty and move freely.

They dressed like men and spent their lives in the company of othermen, even though most kept their female given names. They were notridiculed but accepted in public life, even adulated. For some, thechoice was a way for a woman to assert her autonomy or to avoid anarranged marriage.

"Stripping off their sexuality by pledging to remain virgins was away for these women in a male-dominated, segregated society toengage in public life," said Linda Gusia, a professor of genderstudies at the University of Pristina, in Kosovo. "It was aboutsurviving in a world where men rule."

Taking an oath to become a sworn virgin should not, sociologistssay, be equated with homosexuality, long taboo in rural Albania.Nor do the women have sex-change operations.

Known in her household as the "pasha," Keqi said she decided tobecome the man of the house at age 20 when her father was murdered.Her four brothers opposed the communist government of Enver Hoxha,who ruled Albania for 40 years until his death in 1985, and theywere either imprisoned or killed. Becoming a man, she said, was theonly way to support her mother, her four sisters-in-law and theirfive children.

Keqi lorded over her large family in her modest house in Tirana,where her nieces served her brandy while she barked out orders. Shesaid living as a man had allowed her freedom denied other women.She worked construction jobs and prayed at the mosque with men.Even today, her nephews and nieces said, they would not dare marrywithout their "uncle's" permission.

Woman Assumed She Was Male

When she stepped outside the village, she enjoyed being taken for aman. "I was totally free as a man because no one knew I was awoman," Keqi said. "I could go wherever I wanted to and no onewould dare swear at me because I could beat them up. I was onlywith men. I don't know how to do women's talk. I am never scared."

When she was recently hospitalized for an operation, the otherwoman in her room was horrified to find herself sharing closequarters with someone she assumed was male.

Being the man of the house also made her responsible for avengingher father's death, she said. When her father's killer was releasedfrom prison five years ago, by then a man of 80, Keqi said, her15-year-old nephew shot him dead. Then the man's family tookrevenge and killed her nephew.

"I always dreamed of avenging my father's death," she said. "Ofcourse, I have regrets; my nephew was killed. But if you kill me, Ihave to kill you."

In Albania, a majority Muslim country, the Kanun is adhered to byMuslims and Christians.

Albanian cultural historians said the adherence to medieval customslong discarded elsewhere was a byproduct of the country's previousisolation. They stressed that today, the traditional role of theAlbanian woman was changing.

"The Albanian woman today is a sort of minister of economics, aminister of affection and a minister of interior who controls whodoes what," said Ilir Yzeiri, who writes about Albanian folklore."Today, women in Albania are behind everything."

Some sworn virgins bemoan the changes. Diana Rakipi, 54, a securityguard in the seaside city of Durres who became a sworn virgin totake care of her nine sisters, said she looked back with nostalgiaon the Hoxha era. During communist times, she was a senior armyofficer, training women as combat soldiers. Now, she lamented,women do not know their place.

"Today women go out half naked to the disco," said Rakipi, whowears a military beret. "I was always treated my whole life as aman, always with respect. I can't clean, I can't iron, I can'tcook. That is a woman's work."

'Uncle' Wears The Trousers

Even in the remote mountains of Kruje, about 30 miles north ofTirana, where long dirt roads snake through olive groves, residentssay the Kanun's influence on gender roles is disappearing. Theysaid erosion of the traditional family, in which everyone oncelived under the same roof, had altered women's position in society.

"Women and men are now almost the same," said Caca Fiqiri, whoseaunt Qamile Stema, 88, is the last sworn virgin in his village. "Werespect sworn virgins very much and consider them as men because oftheir great sacrifice, but there is no longer a stigma not to havea man of the house."

Yet there is no doubt who wears the trousers in Stema's one-roomstone house in Barganesh, the family's ancestral village. There, ona recent day, "Uncle" Qamile was surrounded by her clan, dressed ina qeleshe, the traditional white cap of an Albanian man. Her onlyconcession to femininity was a pair of pink flip-flops.

After becoming a man at 20, Stema said, she carried a gun. Atwedding parties, she sat with the men. When she talked to women,she recalled, they recoiled in shyness.

Stema said becoming a sworn virgin was a necessity, and asacrifice. "The truth is, I feel lonely sometime, all my sistershave died, and I live alone," she said. "But I never wanted tomarry. Some in my family tried to get me to change my clothes andwear dresses, but when they saw I had become a man, they left mealone."

Stema said she would die a virgin. Had she married, she joked, itwould have been to a traditional Albanian woman. "I guess you couldsay I was partly a woman and partly a man," she said. "I liked mylife as a man. I have no regrets."