The Sacrifices of Albania's 'Sworn Virgins'

Other traditional practices of the north were repressed by the communists, but leaders in Tirana simply never cared if a woman in the impoverished and remote mountains wanted to dress and labor as a man.

Over the years, women became sworn virgins for different reasons. Some swore the oath if the patriarch of the family died. Others swore the oath out of a fierce streak of independence, and others because it was the only way to avoid an arranged marriage without disgracing the family of the selected groom. The oath is traditionally sworn in front of a town's elders, though some women take the oath privately.

One virgin that Dones interviews in the documentary, Shkurtan Hasanpapaj, once served as the local secretary of the Communist Party, the top office in her region. She was in charge of all the men, and though they knew the reality of her anatomy, her authority was unquestioned.

Asked if she would have felt restricted in a marriage, the virgin Ivanaj responds, "Absolutely! More like squashed than restricted. . . . Even when there's love and harmony, only men have the right to decide. I want total equity or nothing."

"I wanted to tell their stories and respect the way they told their stories," Dones says. "I found an extreme sense of beauty in them. They are not bitter. They carry the stories with such dignity. . . . They are so comfortable with their role."

But the virgins in Dones's documentary acknowledge there are many sacrifices with this lifestyle. The women may enjoy the rights of men, but they are denied their womanhood. They will never experience the pleasures of having a lifelong partner or bearing children.

Sanie Vatoci, a 50-year-old who took the oath as a teenager when her father died, speaks of how she has slowly come to regret the life she now leads as a solitary truck driver.

"While looking at other couples, reading books, watching movies -- I began to wonder: Why don't I have a partner? Why am I acting like a man?" Vatoci says. "There must have been a man out there for me."

But it may be too late for her. Even as movies and television creep into northern Albania, even as traditions slowly die, Vatoci could never go back on her oath, she says. Breaking the oath was once punishable by death, and though Dones doubts such punishment would be enforced today, a deflowered sworn virgin would nevertheless be shunned, she says. She would certainly never be accepted as a woman.

It's easy now for people to come down from the mountains. Travel is no longer restricted. The city beckons. And just as many members of the new generation leave their ancestral homelands for a modern life, modern life slowly trickles back into the mountains. The choice between being a woman and having the rights of men is no longer absolute.

"I asked the young girls of the region what they think of the sworn virgins," Dones says. "They said they respect them, but they would never follow their path. Not now."

Vatoci, the truck driver, has applied to immigrate to the United States, where her sister has lived for seven years, and maybe here, Vatoci figures, she could have a fresh start.

"She deeply feels that she needs to give love to someone else," Dones says. "And of course, she's not delusional. She knows that perhaps she will never find a man. And perhaps she could never start a life as a woman at 50."

Though Vatoci speaks no English, she has the "skills of a man," and Dones thinks she could make it in America: "She went to school for being a truck mechanic. She's a tough guy."