Louis-Alexandre Dated maids
For example, mothers believed it unbecoming in order to wed from other youngest daughter just before the fresh new earliest and you may, given that eldest needed a groom and you can attending people and gatherings, the brand new youngest was not permitted to and you can, thus, remained “during the maidenhood”. Definitely, there have been together with girls just who only could not select a couple they appreciated. Peasant people handled all of them so harshly it is unpleasantly alarming now.
People who had been left due to the fact girls had been named a selection of insulting nicknames: vekovukha (‘century-old one’), odnokosok (‘one-braided girl’, just like the single girls wore an individual braid in adulthood), ‘gray-haired’, perespelok (‘brand new extremely ready one’). Instance a great girl can also be pulled around the village by the her mothers towards a beneficial sledge, shouting: “Nadolba, nadolba! (A keyword definition about “heavy because the a stone”) Who would like a great nadolba?” In the event that children concurred, they may currently “struck a deal” and then have partnered a day later.
To keep a vekovukha is actually noticed on the town a disgrace – it actually was thought that particularly a female hadn’t know their own fertility prospective. Actually lameness, lop-sidedness or being hunchbacked were not noticed a barrier to matrimony.
In the event that a girl didn’t age more 25 years dated, youths create stop appealing her on their events and you can she’d getting forbidden to wear girls’ dresses. Now, her attire must be away from ebony colors, such as those out-of widows and you can old women. This new vekovukhas always resided ilies inside the yet another strengthening, in which they left her very own domestic.
Widows and vekovukhas, even after their slightly disadvantaged status, have been regarded as on the village as bearers out of real and you can spiritual purity. As a result, they came across many essential ceremonial characteristics – primarily pertaining to the new changeover to another business. Once the symbols out of condition and you can low-parity, widows and you may centenarians don’t sit-in wedding events, births, christenings – nonetheless they participated in new rites and you may laundry of lifeless, watched across the human body before the funeral service, overall was able and you can left brand new funeral service living.
Another important “work” try the latest “plowing” of your arable homes because of the vekovukhas and widows, which had been widespread in many provinces, that have women that are pregnant (exactly who symbolized fertility) harnessed with the plow. It crucial ritual were to be performed merely symbolically from the “barren” ladies in the newest darkness out of evening, making sure that, quite the opposite, new belongings will be fruitful when date arrived.
Of many vekovukhas and you can widows, after spending years inside position, first started exercising individuals treatments and you will witchcraft inside their old-age. But, there were along with feamales in the brand new Russian countryside isländsk tjej med äktenskap, just who felt like which they would alive by yourself right from its younger ages.
Nuns
The new girls exactly who did not stick to the family road away from lifetime, however, find the road of servitude in order to Jesus, had been named chernichkas. The term chernichka was a good feminitive kind of the expression chernets (‘usually the one when you look at the black robes’) – a monk just who belonged to the “black” (celibate) clergy. To become a chernichka, a girl needed to state their unique wish right after reaching the age of relationship – and here the latest girl carry out start to become acceptance so you’re able to gatherings and people of the town youngsters. This might takes place by the girl’s sorts of individual piety – otherwise on account of a promise created by their parents.
Through to saying their particular attention, the latest girl must share all the her colorful maidenly dresses and you may don ebony gowns, instance a great vekovukha or an effective widow. New braid was also symbolically clipped when you are uttering the words: “Given that my personal hair cannot return together, I will not return to my personal maidenhood.”