Original scientific paper
Pardon, thats my wife!
Jelka Vince-Pallua
; Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The intention of this article is to contribute to the knowledge of the status of woman in Dalmatia and its hinterland in the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. The work is based on the archival sources written in Italian and Latin by some Dalmatian writers. The author focuses on six crucial thematic wholes: 1/ a bride 2/ pregnancy - delivery 3/ work - everyday life 4/ morality 5/ the attitude of man towards woman 6/ possessed wom¬en - witches. In the third chapter the author refers to the paleoslavic etymon ved 'to know' /cf. skr. veda "knowledge' etc./ which is reflected in the words nevjesta and vještica, the first word showing an unprivileged and the second one privileged position of woman. Secondly - these sources are useful and instructive because they give us the possibility to follow and to reconstruct the development of ethnological thought The impact of evolutionism is present in their explanation of cultural phenomena. Two op¬posite points of view concerning the value of Montesquieu's anthropogeographical theory are being discussed in connection with the status of a woman. At the end the author states that the status of the woman in Dalmatia and especially in its hinterland is heavily determined by dinaric patriarchal codex and points to the better condition of woman in that part of the costal region once inhabited by Liburnians, especially in Primorje.
Keywords
position of women; Dalmatia; archival sources; ethnological thought
Hrčak ID:
75784
URI
Publication date:
2.6.1991.
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