Old maids
Instance, parents noticed it unbecoming so you can wed off their youngest daughter prior to the eldest and, just like the earliest needed a bridegroom and you may probably activities and you may events, the youngest wasn’t allowed to and you may, thus, stayed “within the maidenhood”. However, there were including girls whom just cannot see a couple they preferred. Peasant neighborhood treated them so harshly it is unpleasantly shocking now.
Individuals who had been kept since the girls was indeed entitled a choice of insulting nicknames: vekovukha (‘century-old one’), odnokosok (‘one-braided girl’, once the solitary girls dressed in an individual braid despite adulthood), ‘gray-haired’, perespelok (‘the newest overly ready one’). Including a good girl could even be drawn within village of the her parents toward a good sledge, shouting: “Nadolba, nadolba! (A keyword definition roughly “thick because the a stone”) Who would like an excellent nadolba?” In the event that children conformed, they may currently “struck a deal” and also partnered the following day.
To keep an excellent vekovukha try felt regarding the community good disgrace – it was thought that such as for lovingwomen.org webbplats webb example a female had not understood her virility potential. Also lameness, lop-sidedness or being hunchbacked weren’t believed a hurdle in order to relationships.
In the event that an excellent girl don’t elizabeth more than 25 years old, children perform end inviting their own on the events and she would be taboo to wear girls’ clothes. Today, their unique dresses needed to be out of dark shade, such as those out-of widows and you may dated women. The new vekovukhas usually resided ilies into the a different sort of building, where they remaining her own family.
Widows and you will vekovukhas, even after its slightly disadvantaged condition, was in fact considered from the village because bearers away from real and religious love. As a result, they found of a lot important ceremonial attributes – mainly connected with the fresh changeover to another world. As signs away from emptiness and you may low-parity, widows and you may centenarians failed to sit in wedding receptions, births, christenings – however they participated in the newest rites and laundry of lifeless, watched over the looks before the funeral service, generally speaking managed and kept the latest funeral service life style.
Another essential “work” was the fresh “plowing” of the arable land because of the vekovukhas and you will widows, which had been prevalent in a lot of provinces, that have women that are pregnant (just who represented virility) utilized into plow. So it important ritual was to be achieved simply symbolically from the “barren” ladies in this new dark away from night, with the intention that, quite the opposite, the newest belongings was rich when big date appeared.
Of several vekovukhas and you may widows, immediately following spending many years in this reputation, first started doing anyone treatments and you may witchcraft in their later years. But, there were also women in the newest Russian country side, who felt like that they would alive alone straight from the younger years.
Nuns
The fresh girls which failed to proceed with the family members road of life, but find the roadway out of servitude in order to Jesus, have been entitled chernichkas. The phrase chernichka is actually a feminitive type of the definition of chernets (‘one from inside the black colored robes’) – an effective monk whom belonged towards the “black” (celibate) clergy. In order to become a chernichka, a good girl had to state their need after reaching the ages of matrimony – this is how this new girl carry out beginning to be desired so you can events and you will functions from the village childhood. This could happens by the girl’s version of individual piety – otherwise because of a promise created by their particular moms and dads.
Through to saying their own interest, brand new girl must share all of the her colorful maidenly clothing and you may don ebony attire, for example an effective vekovukha otherwise a beneficial widow. The newest braid has also been symbolically reduce while uttering the language: “Because my tresses cannot go back to each other, I won’t come back to my maidenhood.”