An 85-year-old woman died a virgin so as not to interrupt a curious family tradition | the Chronicle

Stana cerovic She died in 2016 at the age of 85, having remained single her entire life due to a medieval tradition that persists in rural Balkan society. When the male descendants of the family died prematurely, Stana promised her father as a child that she would be the one to keep the last name. However, it came at a cost: dress like a man, socialize with other men, work in the fields and most of all, never get married.

Stana was the youngest in a family of five daughters and two sons, died young, she became the head of the family and completely distanced herself from carnal love. He never broke his promise and died at the age of 85 The last virgin fiancée of Montenegro, which forced her to remain celibate and not have sex for her entire existence.

The Burrneshasor or Promised Virgins, are a typical phenomenon of rural society in Montenegro, Northern Albania and Kosovo, where families without male children turned their daughters into men to preserve the family name. The youngest girl was forced to cut her hair, wear men’s clothes and, most importantly, swear never to marry and never have sex. After this oath, society treated her like any other man.

Stana cerovic He lived under this patriarchal regime in force in the town of Savnik, and started smoking at age 5 to start off as a “man” and at age 7 he was already working in his father’s fields, where he learned to shoot. .

“She considered herself a man and her sisters visited her as if they were with her brother”his cousin recently said Mara Cerovic. Stana never dressed as a woman, and traditional “household chores” such as laundry and cleaning were done by her sisters. She has always been “the man of the family”.

According to her family, Stana never weighed the role and considered herself privileged by the fate that life cast upon her. She never felt deprived of her feminine identity and her life as a woman, but found life more beneficial as a man.

These archaic rules, born in the 15th century, in mountain villages located between southern Kosovo and the northern Albanians, when several tribes imposed a legal code called Kanun, governed the lives of the Stana, the last Montenegrin fiancée virgin, to die far from her house of wood and stone in the mountains.

She was taken to the nursing home after turning 80 to deal with her health issues. His vow of celibacy and his promise to take care of his mother, sisters and family possessions was the commitment of his life. In addition, beyond not staining the surname, it was the only way for a woman to inherit the wealth of her family.