Zbornik Radova Filozofskog Fakulteta u Prištini (Jan 2011)
About the social status of women in premedieval and medieval Serbia
Abstract
An attempt to make the sociologically-anthropological retrospective view on a social status of women in the patriarchal premedieval and medieval Serbian society. The starting point for the realization of this aim is the status of a woman in a family, firstly in 'zadruga', after a short introduction to the historical context of it's origination. The following are considerations of legal, as well as religious conventions and practice, customs, differences between a social status of women, and differences between those who lived in towns and villages, with the emphasis on examples from relevant ethnographic and historygraphic material. In the end, an insight of the national poet's manner in showing female characters in the oldest epic poems, as the chosen segment of Serbian folklore creative work, that gives information about the topic. All considerate material indicates the complexity of the topic. The conclusion imposes that, although a woman is generally inferior and practically deprived, it's not justified to take generalizations about inferiority of a woman as completely true, disregarding vertical structure of a society, different life conditions for women in a village and in a town, as well as diversity of customs and life in different regions. Considered material points out to the complexity of the topic. To simply establish that a woman in premedieval and medieval Serbia is subordinated and 'the citizen of the second order' is simplifying, which sociology can't afford. Precisely the historygraphic and ethnographic material fully confirm that a woman was perceived as a second-class being, so her social reality is indeed certainly different than her father's, brother's or husband's reality. Mainly they determine her life, where tradition and religion help them greatly, affirming their superiority, hence her inferiority in society. 'Trapped' in the web of a patriarchal society, she's left with no choice but to apprehend herself in this manner and accept the necessity of her inferiority, inequality and burden of everyday-life that those bring. She's not, and can't be the mistress of her own life in the patriarchal context. But, a woman carries great responsibility for the children's moral education. However, that same material gives examples of women who are independent to some extent and take on a part of the social power, mainly due to their husbands' social status, or possessing a property, which could happen under certain circumstances. The conclusion imposes that, although a woman is generally inferior and practically deprived, it's not justified to take generalizations about inferiority of a woman as completely true, disregarding social structure of a society, different life conditions for women in a village and in a town, as well as diversity of customs and life practical in different regions. We also can't avoid the fact that a woman, with reducing her social life to the family and her social contacts to family and neighbor relations, had sort of protection at her home, in conditions when a person's bare survival out of the family was hardly feasible.
