WOMEN'S CELIBACY – CURSE AND/OR SENTENCE (OBSERVATIONS ON BULGARIAN PERIODICALS AND LITERATURE BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS)
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Date
2024
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Plovdiv University Press "Paisii Hilendarski"
Abstract
This text tries to trace how in the interwar period public attitudes on the topic of old maids change, which factors increase sensitivity to the issue of female celibacy, what perspectives for its understanding articles in the periodical press set and how ideas about the old maid, already formed in the public space, are (re)reconsidered in Bulgarian literature when they are integrated into certain stories. The authors' assessment of female celibacy is different – for men it is a pathology, producing “monsters“, “hermaphrodites“, “camel birds“, ugly creatures; a sentence more terrible than death (Achchiiski, Mutafov, Ferrero); from a female point of view, celibacy is an “undesirable condition“ (Zlatareva), and insofar as some pathological deviations in the behavior of old maids could be seen, they are precedent and should not be used to build a typology of the phenomenon. It is evident from the articles and artistic works reviewed that for women to remain old maids is as much a compulsion imposed by unconquered patriarchal prejudices against them as it is a choice born of an unwillingness to accept compromising roles in society and in the family. And while celibacy may seem like a dangerous defect of emancipation, it can also be seen as an effect that allows a woman to spin the threads of her life according to her own rules and patterns.
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Keywords
old maid, life of an old maid, celibacy, social hermaphroditism, provincial teacher