The journalist Arjola tells her story of being an emancipated mother in the Albanian tradition and shares views with her friend Ana about the existence of an Albanian term for lunàdigas, i.e. women who do not want to have children. In Albania there is not a specific term because it is inadmissible for a married woman not to desire motherhood.
Testimony realised for the Mediterranean Women’s Archive project with the contribution of Mediterranean Women’s Fund – Fonds pour le femmes en Méditerranée.
Please note! If you have not accepted the website’s cookies, viewing contents from YouTube may be disabled.
Vuoi ascoltare e leggere altre testimonianze? Sostieni l’archivio vivo di Lunàdigas!
Ecco la trascrizione completa del video:
ARJOLA: «I am Arjola, I am from Shkodra, Albania. I am 46 years old and I have two children, a girl and a boy. I work as a journalist in a public television, here in Shkodra. Now my husband no longer lives with me let’s say from 9 years. I was…. when did I decide? Well… I feel complete on my own, with and without children, as my daughter got married, my son goes to university and also works, maybe he’ll emigrate. I am fine with it. I’m a strong woman, a woman who has endured everything.
I had a family from a young age, since I was 20. I created it on my own, with my husband, of course, but I have always been aware of what I was doing, even though I was very young.
When I had my first daughter, my first child was a daughter, abortion was not legal.
Actually… doctors helped you if you wanted to have an abortion, but I didn’t decide to have an abortion, I never even thought about having an abortion. It was a dream for me, I didn’t understand anything, I was just… I only knew that i was… I was becoming a mom. That was the wonderful idea of having a child. My need to have a lot of love, to give love, to receive love, to do… to give birth to a wonderful creature.
I regretted having problems with my health, after my second child I didn’t know what it would bring, my second child. And I regretted that. I love my son, he’s wonderful, but I paid a big price, my life.
I think that we women have to live with the truth, because it’s not a burden. Truth is not a burden, repentance is not a burden and making our choices is not a burden, it is a right. We are creatures, too.
In Albanian culture really, if you want to get married you have to become a mother, you need to start your own family. This mentality still exists. If the first child is a boy, it means you’ve been successful, you carried on the tradition, you can carry on the last name, inheriting the roots. People think that the roots pass only through the boys and not through the girls, which is absolutely not true. Are there any voices against it?
Surely, there is a part that thinks that I shouldn’t have had two children. someone wondered why I had children with all the deprivations that entails. At first, there is always some prejudice, even among people who live in the art world, because they are very close to the maternal embryo, as the word mother is very rooted in Albanian culture and beyond, and the words woman and girl originate from there. If you want to be a mother, you need to separate this part in daughter, wife and mother, they can’t share this part. It’s not like we don’t see the girls, with my daughter, I was probably one of the most emancipated mothers.
I didn’t agree with her getting engaged when she was young even though she had found her life partner, and decided to marry him. Even though I didn’t influence the situation, the people around us have an enormous influence, but that’s one thing that we have to keep changing. It takes a lot of work to change, I think it takes decades to change such a term, the term girl must mean girl or woman and then it is the woman who chooses whether to be a mother or not.
As for the legacy in Albania, there is something in Albania which has been around for a long time, something that’s been handed down from primitive culture, that a boy should inherit everything a parent has. And there are still areas where the boy inherits everything, the girls getting married receive a dowry, a small wealth, maybe in cash or expensive jewellery, and they think they’ve got it all covered up there. While today at least in the city of Shkodra things have changed because all the laws have changed, people are more educated, especially those who are more emancipated they understand that things have changed.
As for myself, I’ve been like this since I was born, and will be as long as I’m alive. I divided things between the three of us equally, that it’s the house we live in, I currently live with my son not with her daughter, but whatever else we have on our property I divided them equally, realizing they’re all the same to me. I don’t care who is male or who is female they are both my children, both were born from me my heart aches for both the same, so they deserve the same of everything.»
ANA: «Hi Arjola.»
ARJOLA: «Hi Ana.»
ANA: «How are you? Do we have a term that can describe the lunàdigas women, women who choose not to have children?»
ARJOLA: «So, for women who cannot bear children we use the word “shterpë,” but it’s not the same for women who don’t want to have children. I don’t think we have a word for women who don’t want to have children, because it’s not in our culture not having the desire to have a child. We absolutely have to have a child!»
ANA: «I too have never heard or met a woman who is married but decides not to have children. Never heard of it before.»
ARJOLA: «There are these two categories: women who can’t have children, “shterpë,” and women who have children. But not…»
ANA: «Or women who don’t marry.»
ARJOLA: «Or women who don’t marry.»
ANA: «For those we know the reason.»
Vuoi ascoltare e leggere altre testimonianze? Sostieni l’archivio vivo di Lunàdigas!
