Old maids
Such as, mothers considered they unbecoming in order to get married off their youngest daughter prior to the newest earliest and you may, once the oldest was looking for a groom and browsing parties and you may gatherings, the fresh youngest wasn’t permitted to and, so, stayed “during the maidenhood”. Of course, there had been and additionally girls just who just cannot come across a few it preferred. Peasant people handled them so harshly that it is unpleasantly shocking today.
People who was remaining once the girls have been named an option out of insulting nicknames: vekovukha (‘century-dated one’), odnokosok (‘one-braided girl’, because the unmarried girls used a single braid even in adulthood), ‘gray-haired’, perespelok (‘this new very ripe one’). Like a good girl could even be pulled inside the village of the their own moms and dads toward an excellent sledge, shouting: “Nadolba, nadolba! (A keyword meaning about “thick once the a brick”) Who would like a good nadolba?” If the a household concurred, they might already “strike a package” and then have hitched a day later.
To stay a beneficial vekovukha are thought on the community a good disgrace – it absolutely was thought that such as for instance a lady had not realized their unique fertility potential. Even lameness, lop-sidedness or becoming hunchbacked just weren’t thought a barrier so you can matrimony.
When the good girl don’t age more 25 years old, children create end appealing their particular to their events and you will she would become forbidden to wear girls’ clothes. Now, their clothes had to be regarding black colors, such as those out-of widows and dated female. The newest vekovukhas constantly lived ilies from inside the a new building, where they remaining her own home.
Widows and you will vekovukhas, even with their a bit disadvantaged condition, was in fact thought about regarding viktig lГ¤nk the town since bearers off physical and you may religious love. Therefore, they came across of a lot important ceremonial attributes – mainly linked to the brand new transition to another community. As the icons regarding condition and you may low-parity, widows and you may centenarians didn’t sit in wedding parties, births, christenings – but they participated in the fresh new rites and you can laundry of the deceased, watched over the looks before the funeral, in general maintained and left the latest funeral service lifestyle.
Another important “work” is actually brand new “plowing” of arable home by vekovukhas and you can widows, that has been prevalent a number of provinces, which have pregnant women (who symbolized virility) utilized into plow. It extremely important ritual were to performed simply symbolically by “barren” feamales in the dark away from evening, to make certain that, to the contrary, the newest homes would be rich whenever date showed up.
Of many vekovukhas and you will widows, immediately after purchasing age within position, began exercising folk medication and you may witchcraft in their old-age. However,, there are together with ladies in the Russian countryside, exactly who felt like which they carry out live alone from the young age.
Nuns
The latest girls which failed to stick to the family road from lifestyle, however, find the street away from servitude to Jesus, was indeed named chernichkas. The definition of chernichka are a great feminitive kind of the phrase chernets (‘the main one within the black colored robes’) – an excellent monk which belonged on the “black” (celibate) clergy. Being good chernichka, an effective girl needed to claim their particular wanna after achieving the ages of relationship – and here brand new girl create beginning to become enjoy so you’re able to events and you can events of the town childhood. This could happen because of the girl’s variety of private piety – otherwise because of a promise created by their unique mothers.
Up on claiming her attention, the brand new girl was required to hand out all of the their colourful maidenly dresses and you can wear ebony gowns, for example a beneficial vekovukha otherwise a widow. The braid has also been symbolically slashed if you are uttering the text: “Since my personal hair doesn’t return together, I will not return to my maidenhood.”