Magistrsko Delo

UNIVERZA V MARIBORU FILOZOFSKA FAKULTETA Oddelek za sociologijo

MAGISTRSKO DELO

Mojca Marič

Maribor, 2017

UNIVERZA V MARIBORU FILOZOFSKA FAKULTETA Oddelek za sociologijo

Magistrsko delo

ANTROPOLOŠKA ANALIZA SLOVENSKEGA SISTEMA SORODSTVENE TERMINOLOGIJE

MA Thesis

AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SLOVENIAN SYSTEM OF KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY

Mentorica: Kandidatka: doc. dr. Vesna Vuk Godina Mojca Marič

Somentor: dr. Josephus Platenkamp

Maribor, 2017

(HRBTNA STRAN)

Lektorica: izr. prof. dr. Michelle Gadpaille

Prevajalka: Amy Kennedy, dipl. ples. koreografinja

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This master’s thesis would not have been written without the inspiration and the support of a number of wonderful people – my sincerest gratitude and appreciation to all of them. First of all, I owe my deep and sincere appreciation and gratitude to my mentor Professor Vesna Vuk Godina for her guidance during my research and for expanding my horizons during my time studying. Without her encouragement, guidance, support, knowledge, help, patience and understanding, this thesis would not have been completed. She was a ceaseless source of enthusiasm, not only during this thesis project but also during my studies. I express my warmest gratitude to my co-mentor, Professor Josephus Platenkamp, for his help, suggestions and inspiring lectures during my Erasmus exchange at the Department of Anthropology in Münster.

It is a pleasure to thank all of my friends for the wonderful time and beautiful moments we shared together and for always believing in me and supporting me. Thanks to Suzana, Saša, Sabina, and Bojana for sharing my student years. To Patricia, Aysha, and Gloria, for making my Erasmus exchange unforgettable, to all of the special people from the international seminars of Macedonian language, literature and culture in Ohrid in the years 2011, 2015 and 2016 – thank you for making those days some of the best in my life. To Macedonia, for making me see, experience and feel something completely different, for “giving” me new eyes. To Adriana, Mario, Natalija, Nina and Suzana, for our salsa, bachata and kizomba dancing nights and for our friendship - you really gave me the motivation and energy for writing this thesis. To Marija, Tina, Jana, Jasmina, Teja, Tjaša, Nikolina, Kristina, for our years of friendship. To Andjela, Nuša, Mitja, Žiga, Alja, for all the constructive debates and ideas. To Barbara, thank you for being not just my friend but my sister. To Mojca, thank you

for all of the English advice, and for being my dearest co-worker in the theatre and an even better friend during these four years. Jakica, my dearest little cat, without your presence my nights of reading and writing would have been much more uninteresting and unloved.

Thanks to all who helped in any way in the process of preparing this thesis.

To Nenad, for our story. Thank you for being with me, for making me feel and see the world differently, for all our little special moments, for your support and love. Thank you for existing.

Finally, my deep and sincere gratitude to my parents: for your love, help, understanding and unconditional support throughout my life and my studies. I love you with all my heart.

In loving memory of my grandma, who is one of the reasons that I am who I am today. For all of the wonderful years you were with me.

POVZETEK

Magistrsko delo se ukvarja z antropološko analizo slovenskega sistema sorodstvene terminologije. Prvi del naloge zajema teoretično obravnavo pojmov kulture, jezika in sorodstva ter povezave med njimi v antropološkem smislu, empirični del naloge pa analizira samo sorodstveno terminologijo slovenskega sorodstvenega sistema in njene spremembe skozi čas, pri tem pa upošteva zgodovinski, kulturni, socialni in topografski kontekst. Skozi analizo slovenskega sorodstvenega sistema skušamo prikazati tudi pomembne značilnosti slovenske kulture.

Ključne besede: kultura, jezik, sorodstvo, slovenska sorodstvena terminologija, slovenska kultura

ABSTRACT

This master's thesis deals with the anthropological analysis of the Slovenian system of kinship terminology. In the first part of the thesis, we present the theoretical concepts of culture, language and kinship and the interconnectedness between them in an anthropological sense. The empirical part of the thesis analyzes Slovenian kinship terminology. We try to describe changes in the Slovenian system of kinship terminology over time, according to historical, cultural, social and topographical contexts. By analyzing the Slovenian kinship system, we also try to demonstrate some of the main characteristics of Slovenian culture.

Key words: culture, language, kinship, Slovenian kinship terminology, Slovenian culture

Table of contents

Introduction ...... 1

I The theoretical points of departure ...... 1

1 Culture ...... 1

2 Language ...... 17

3 The importance of language in understanding culture ...... 26

4 Kinship and systems of kinship ...... 55

II Analysis of Slovenian kinship terminology ...... 74

5 Methodological procedure ...... 74

6 Slovenian kinship terminology ...... 77

6.1 Oče (Father) ...... 86

6.2 Mati (mother) ...... 101

6.3 Otrok (Child) ...... 124

6.3.1 Sin (Son) ...... 146

6.3.2 Hči/hčerka (Daughter) ...... 151

6.4 Brat (Brother) and sestra (sister) ...... 158

6.5 Stari starši – stari oče/dedek in stara mati/babica (Grandparents – grandfather and grandmother) ...... 164

6.6 Stric, teta, ujec, ujna (Uncle, aunt, mother's brother, mother's sister/uncle's wife) ...... 172

7 Inheritance ...... 180

8 Marriage ...... 194

8.1 Exogamy/Endogamy ...... 199

8.2 Wedding/Marriage customs...... 209

8.2.1 Vasovanje (Nocturnal visits) ...... 210

8.2.2 Snubljenje (Proposing) ...... 212

8.2.2.1 Dota (Dowry) and bala (trousseau) ...... 214

8.2.3 Zaroka (Engagement) ...... 218

8.2.4 Dekliščina/fantovščina (Farewell to the single state) ...... 218

8.2.5 Poroka (Wedding) ...... 218

9 Conclusions ...... 223

9.1 Changes in the Slovenian system of kinship terminology in the past and in the present, and the connection between Slovenian language, culture and kinship – the debate and findings ...... 223

9.2 The limitations of this master thesis ...... 239

Resources and literature ...... 241

Priloga 1: Obširen povzetek magistrske naloge v slovenščini ...... 267

I Teoretični del ...... 267

1 Kultura ...... 267

2 Jezik...... 270

3 Pomembnost jezika za razumevanje kulture ...... 271

4 Sorodstvo in sistemi sorodstva ...... 274

II Analiza slovenske sorodstvene terminologije ...... 277

5 Metodologija ...... 277

6 Slovenska sorodstvena terminologija ...... 278

7 Dedovanje ...... 289

8 Poroka ...... 293

Zaključek ...... 299

Table of tables

Table 1: Slovenian kinship terms nowadays ...... 85 Table 2: Different connotation and level of formality for the term oče (father) . 100 Table 3: Differing connotations and level of formality for the term mati (mother) ...... 119 Table 4: Different connotations and levels of formality for the term otrok (child) ...... 144 Table 5: Different connotations and levels of formality for the term sin (son) .. 149 Table 6: Different connotations and levels of formality for the term hči/hčerka (daughter) ...... 156 Table 7: Different connotations and levels of formality for the terms stari oče (grandfather) and stara mati (grandmother) ...... 167 Table 8: Different connotations for the terms vnuk (grandson) and vnukinja (granddaughter) ...... 168

Tables of pictures

Picture/Diagram 1: Slovenian kinship terminology in the past (approximately 16th till 18th century) ...... 175 Picture/Diagram 2: Slovenian kinship terminology in the present ...... 176

iii

Introduction

This thesis focuses on the following anthropological topics: culture, language and the importance of language in understanding culture; kinship and the systems of kinship. The main objective of this master’s thesis is to show the importance of language for understanding culture and how language can express a culture from an anthropological perspective. We will focus on the role of kinship in culture. We want to linguistically analyse the Slovenian kinship terminology with the purpose of discovering whether the structure of Slovenian kinship has changed. If so, we want to discover the reasons behind the change. We consider the historical, cultural, social and topographical context and the relations between them. We also want to question the relation between the Slovenian kinship terminology and some Slovenian cultural characteristics. The main research question of this master’s thesis is whether or not kinship terminology genuinely reflects these cultural characteristics.

I The theoretical points of departure

1 Culture

Because the purpose of our writing is to analyse Slovenian kinship terminology, we are dealing with the notion of language, which is understood as a cultural practice in anthropology (Duranti, 1997: 23). Thus, we should begin by presenting the notion of culture. When anthropologists talk about culture, they do not talk about culture as cultivation or the totality of intellectual or artistic achievements of a society, but they talk about culture in a far different and broader meaning. In anthropology, the concept of culture is normally used for explaining the extraordinary diversity

of the ways human beings live life1. Questions typically asked about culture are: how and why do human beings differ in their forms of life? (Ingold, 2005: 329). The first one to articulate the meaning of the term “culture” in a scientific, anthropological sense was Edward Tylor (1994/1871), who writes: “Culture, or civilization, taken in its broad, ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tylor, 1994/1871: 1). Tylor’s notion of culture originates in the German understanding of “cultivation” in the sense of “civilization”2 (Godina, 1998: 84; Ingold, 2005: 329; Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952: 9). For Tylor, culture as a “complex whole”, a totality of a humanly created world comprises human traits that are learned and learnable, so they are socially and mentally (and not biologically) passed on and, therefore, constitute an integrated system (Barfield, 1997: 98; Deutscher, 2010: 9; Monaghan and Just, 2000: 35).

1 Classically anthropology was also portrayed as the study of 'other cultures' (i.e., non-Western ones). It characterized their principal features through an opposition to those of ‘Western culture’ (Ingold, 2005: 331). 2 In an earlier era of anthropology, when it was assumed that societies differed according to their degree of advancement on a universal scale of progress, culture was held to be synonymous with the process of civilization (Ingold, 2005: 329). The notion of “culture” has its roots in the Latin word “cultura” (verb: “colere”) – care, cultivation, etc. (Eriksen, 2001: 3; Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952: 33; Williams, 1976: 77). The origin and development of the notion began in German, French and English speaking areas (Deutscher, 2010: 8). In the English and French speaking areas, the notion of “culture” was connected with the notion of “civilization”. The term civilization means that one stage of human society is more developed than others; one is superior to the others – throughout evolution the concept of natural growth was extended to human development in an enlightened point of view (William, 1976: 77) – high culture in comparison to barbarism (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952: 11; William, 1976: 77). In the Victorian area it was understood that some people could have a greater or lesser degree of culture – for example the theatre was considered to have more culture in comparison to a football match (Monaghan and Just, 2000: 35). In German speaking areas the notions “Kultur” and “Geist” were also used in the sense of national tradition, which could unite the whole German nation (Kuper, 1999: 6, 68). In contemporary anthropology, culture is not understood as polite behavior or activities connected with the arts or a more developed society, but as “shared patterns of learned behaviour” (Monaghan and Just, 2000: 35).

This understanding of culture is a cognitive one, because culture is conceptualized as “knowledge, a system of information that is in speakers’ heads, at least in large part” (Blount, 1995: vii). Even though Tylor’s definition was the first scientific anthropological definition of culture, which is important because of the emphasis that culture is learned, complex and cumulative from generation to generation (Godina, 1998: 84), this definition did not go beyond the evolutionary notion. In the 19th century, evolutionism assumed a superior and an inferior relationship between different races (in bodily form, in mental ability, in moral development etc.) (Barfield, 1997: 99). Tylor (1994/1871: 21) writes: “The main tendency of culture from primaeval up to modern times has been from savagery towards civilization.” Culture is in that sense synonymous with the process of civilization (Ingold, 2005: 329). Franz Boas was the one who used the notion of culture to show that there are no superior or inferior races (Barfield, 1997: 99). He is known as the father of modern American cultural anthropology and cultural relativism (Monaghan and Just, 2000: 36). This is also called the perspective of relativism, according to which the beliefs and practices of any society can only be judged by the values and standards prevalent in that society (Ingold, 2005: 329). Boas (1911) has therefore criticized the concept of primitive culture. He showed that bodily form was not linked to language or to any aspect we associate with culture. As human beings, we are created because of culture and not because of biology (Kuper, 1999: 14). For Tylor (1994/1871), culture is one – a more or less advanced version of the same heritage in a particular society, but for Boas there are different cultures (cultures in the plural form), which are not merely products of evolution, but are constructed by complex local historical causes3 (Barfield, 1997: 99; Ingold, 2005: 329; Eriksen, 2001: 14). For Boas, culture is (1995: 16) “a considerable number of points of view”. Every culture has to be understood on its own terms, without ranking it according to the Western typology of “levels of development”, of a universalistic scheme of development (Eriksen, 2001: 14).

3 Each culture was regarded as a traditional way of life, embodied in a particular ensemble of customary behavior, institutions and artefacts (Ingold, 2005: 329).

Boas’s metaphor for culture is a pair of “cultural glasses”, from which we gain the means for perceiving the world around us and a framework for our actions (Monaghan and Just, 2000: 38). Or as Boas writes, Culture embraces all the manifestations of social behaviour of a community, the reactions of the individual as affected by the habits of the group in which he lives, and the product of human activities as determined by these habits (Boas, 1911: 149).

And:

Culture may be defined as the totality of the mental and physical reactions and activities that characterizes the behaviour of the individuals composing a social group collectively and individually in relation to their natural environment, to other groups, to members of the group itself and of each individual to himself. It also includes the products of these activities and their role in the life of the groups (Boas, 1911: 149).

Culture is, therefore, something we perceive as something natural. It is a part of us, and because of that there are differences between cultures (different people have different abilities, values etc.), but there are also similarities – every human is equally cultural (each culture classifies its content differently, but the systems of classification are common among all cultures) (Eriksen, 2001: 3; Monaghan and Just, 2000: 40). Culture is ambiguous because it refers to basic similarities and to systematic differences between humans (Eriksen, 2001: 3). These ideas were later elaborated by Boas’s students: Edward Sapir, Alfred Kroeber, Robert Lowie, Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, who claimed that despite the fact that we can possess the same biological heritage, our sets of values, institutions, and behaviours differ in different cultures – from this we can also learn about the worldview of certain groups of people (Barfield, 1997: 99; Ember and Levinson, 1996: 292). Ruth Benedict (1934: 16) thinks that ideas and standards that people have in common are what unites humans, as well as

motives, emotions and values (Benedict, 1934: 16, 49); culture is “a total pattern”: “A culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought and action” (Benedict, 1934: 46). Benedict was criticized because of the overly simplistic and reductionist approach to her analysis of Zuni, Dobu and Kwakiutl culture based on people’s personalities, but her work is still important for ethnographic observation (Monaghan and Just, 2000: 44). Alfred Kroeber compares culture to a coral reef, which existed before its living members. It is different from the sum of its parts, so it can change without the knowledge of its members, and it will still live long after they are gone, providing a structure for future generations (Eriksen, 2001: 74; Monaghan and Just, 2000: 46). Margaret Mead writes about culture as follows: Culture means the whole complex of traditional behaviour which has been developed by the human race and is successively learned by each generation. A culture is less precise. It can mean the forms of traditional behaviour which are characteristics of a given society, or of a group of societies, or of a certain race, or of a certain area, or of a certain period of time (Margaret Mead, 1937: 17).

The critic of reification of culture is characteristic of Sapir’s understanding of culture (Godina, 1996: 145). Sapir, in contrast to Mead and Benedict, claims that culture cannot be seen because culture is not simply behaviour, but rather an abstraction of concepts, based on the experiences and behaviour of people (Sapir, 2002: 50–55). Anthropologists can construct culture from the concrete behaviour of people, but with a method of abstraction (Godina, 1996: 146). Cultures do not have collective personalities; cultures are a reification of processes that are rooted in the individuals' personality and psychology. That means that culture is a concept, not a reality (Sapir, 2002: 55). For Sapir, culture is what society thinks and does, it is “the socially inherited assemblage of practices and beliefs that determinates the texture of our lives” (Sapir, 1921: 221). He also believes that culture is a consensus (1968: 572): “the world of socialized behaviour is nothing

more than consensus of opinion”. The true locus of culture is in the interaction of specific individuals and in the meanings that the participants abstract from these interactions (Sapir, 1968: 515). Sapir and his student Whorf have shown, through linguistic analysis and the classification of language and culture, that meaning is culturally created (Moore, 2009: 118). The School of Franz Boas and his students was named the “Culture and Personality School”. Kroeber and Kluckhohn made a famous compilation of 164 definitions of culture between 1871 and 1950. For them, culture describes symbolic, linguistic and meaningful aspects of human collectivities (Barfield, 1997). Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952: 43, 47, 50, 55, 61, 64) divided the definitions of culture into seven groups: descriptive definitions (they define culture as a totality with different aspects, for example Tylor’s definition of culture); historical definitions (emphasis on social heritage and tradition); normative definitions (emphasis on rules and on ideals, values and behaviour); psychological definitions (emphasis on adjustment, on culture as a problem-solving device, on learning and customs); structural definitions (emphasis on the patterning or organization of culture); genetic definitions (emphasis on culture as a product or artefact, an idea and a symbol); and incomplete definitions. Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952: 3) see culture as a key notion in contemporary anthropology. What these definitions have in common is the fact that culture consists of explicit or implicit patterns, that are based on behaviour and symbols, and that they are composed of the important achievements of a human group (ibid.: 357). Boas and his students had a strong influence on subsequent developments in anthropological thinking. Later, the emphasis on culture shifted from manifest patterns of behaviour to underlying structures of symbolic meaning. Culture came to be defined as something opposite to behaviour, much as language was opposite to speech (Ingold, 2005: 329). Different schools of anthropology developed from this point of view. Cognitive anthropology sees culture as a system of symbols; therefore, their research was focused on small domains of culture (Blount, 1995: vii), as a system of conceptual categories (Ingold, 2005: 332); for example, Goodenough (1957: 167) defined

culture as an organization of things, people, behaviours and emotions – it is the model for perceiving, relating and interpreting things. Culture is knowledge. It is a system of information that is in the speakers’ heads (Blount, 1995: vii), or a system of mental representation (Ingold, 2005: 332). The stability of cultural form lies in the intergenerational transmission of linguistically coded, conceptual information (ibid.). Ecological anthropology gives importance to the material dimensions of understanding cultural forms (for example, Harris's cultural materialism in his book The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture, 1968) and the hermeneutic notion of the “translation of culture” by Evans-Pritchard and Clifford Geertz, who characterize anthropology as an interpretive discipline (Barfield, 1997: 100). We can also call this a ‘phenomenological’ approach – cultural form is seen to be held within current human relationships (Ingold, 2005: 332). Geertz (1973: 448), for example, writes: “Culture is simply the ensemble of stories we tell ourselves about ourselves”. Geertz (1973: 5) defines culture as a web of man-made significance, and the analysis of culture as a matter of interpretation rather than explanation, in search of symbolic meaning. The meaning cannot be separated from the process of social interaction (ibid.). For Geertz (1973: 14), “the aim of anthropology is the enlargement of the universe of human discourse”. Culture is read as a text, so fieldwork is, therefore, ‘reading’ and it is important to see how this text illuminates other aspects of society in different ways (Eriksen, 2001: 198; Monaghan and Just, 2000: 44–45). Human beings both create and interpret culture (Duranti, 1997: 37). Wagner (1986: 126), for example, claims that the whole of culture is organized by a single, coherent, semiotic principle that reveals meaning within reference points. Schneider (1976: 202–3), on the other hand, writes about culture as a body of premises carried out by a system of symbols that specify the nature of the universe and a man’s place in it. Boas and his students were fighting with the notion of “culture” against racism and ethnocentrism, a struggle which is still important nowadays. Another issue that is still important is to avoid being too culturally deterministic – these days we can still follow the debates about “nature vs. nurture” (Monaghan and Just, 2000: 48). Here we are dealing with the dualism between what is given to every human

being naturally (nature), and what is given as the result of an interaction between biological nature and people’s social environment (Godina, 1990: 77–115). When we talk about humans, we can never only talk about pure biological nature because the embodiment of humans is always a product of culture. We all have a genotype as predisposition that cannot be realized in personal characteristics without the social environment (Godina, 1990: 77–115). In earlier times it was believed that genetic variations influence racial variations, which we now know not to be true (Eriksen, 2001: 42). We can approach the nature–culture relationship by studying how nature and the nature–culture relationship are conceptualized in different societies or how nature (the environment or the inborn characteristics of a human) influences a society and its culture (Eriksen, 2001: 46). One could claim that ‘nature’ in itself is a ‘cultural’ concept of Modernity or, as MacCormack and Strathern (1980: 4), according to Schneider (2004), claim: “... culture is not nature, but nature is entirely a cultural concept”. Lévi-Strauss (1975: xxxix) suggested that the-nature-culture contrast was an artificial creation of culture. Nature is a system of arbitrary signs that relies on social consensus for meaning. Because of this, the concept of “culture” has also developed the doctrine of cultural relativism (Ingold, 2005: 329; Monaghan and Just, 2000: 49). In this doctrine, which is both a theoretical premise and a methodological rule, societies or cultures are qualitatively different each with a unique inner logic, but equal in their ranking (Eriksen, 2001: 7). If every belief, thought, behaviour, moral or even perception of the world is a product of culture, which means that it is arbitrary and related to the historical experience of people, then we also, as social beings, are an arbitrary, historical product. Therefore, cultures can be judged relative to one another, without being superior or inferior – they can be judged just by the values or standards of their own society (Ingold, 2005: 329; Monaghan and Just, 2000: 49). The meaning of every belief, behaviour, etc. then depends on its cultural context (Monaghan and Just, 2000: 49). The problem appears when a concrete norm is culturally correct for one society, but not for another– when can we claim that something is wrong, or that something is acceptable? Is it possible to follow

the notion of universal human rights and belief in the relativity of cultures? (Monaghan and Just, 2000: 51–52). Platenkamp (2007: 97), for example, claims that we cannot talk about “global values”, because children across the world are not socialized in the same way, neither do we have a universal system of values. Each society morally judges the values of another society. Normally, they see their own culture as superior, which is normal to be able to function in any cultural system (ibid.: 97). Human rights are Western individualistic values in sense that the fundamental values of the West are sovereignty, the separation of state and religion, the equality of all citizens before of the law, the physical and mental inviolability of the individual person, individual freedom of conscience and the right to express oneself. This implies that some other, non-Western societies do not necessarily act according to these values. They have to practice them because of the political, economic and ideological dominance of the West in post-colonial countries (ibid.: 97–98). It is also important here to note how some societies rank certain values in their value systems. Many societies have values such as protection against violence, hospitality towards strangers, compassion with those who suffer, love of family, etc. However, the ranking of these values is different in different societies, as is the effect that they have on people’s actions (ibid.: 100). In many non-Western societies, personal economic wealth is subordinated to collective interest, to solidarity with a close circle, which can sometimes be wrongly understood as corruption or nepotism4 in the West (ibid.: 101). Moreover, the principles of

4 Corruption in anthropology can also be seen as a social exchange (Torsello, 2014). For example, Torsello (2014: 3) claims corruption can be tolerated or even desirable in particular cultural contexts. He also argues that anthropological corruption has not been well researched; it is connected with concepts of gift-exchange, reciprocity, redistribution etc. The lack of research on corruption in anthropology could be explained by a feeling of responsibility for the potential misuse of some ethnographical findings, which have contributed to increasing the ideological gap between a ‘modern’, ‘rational’ and ‘transparent’ West and the ‘traditional’, ‘irrational’ and ‘corrupt’ rest of the world. To have the same definition of corruption is problematic because various cultures have different understandings of this concept. It is also problematic to define the public and private sphere, which is normally used to define corruption – corruption is usually defined as the misuse of public power for private benefit (ibid.: 4–8). It is not just that the State is plural, the laws are also as diverse as their reality and perception (ibid.: 22). Anthropologists

justice are based on the notion of collective responsibility and liability (ibid.: 102). Platenkamp (2007: 101–104) suggests an understanding and awareness of and respect for non-Western values and local codes of conduct, on the basis of which different systems among societies can function. Understanding other values does not mean accepting them as our own; it means respecting them. It is all about discovering and cultivating a common ground between different cultures and values of societies (ibid.: 103) and to methodically “investigate and compare societies without relating them to an intellectually irrelevant moral scale” (Eriksen, 2001: 8). Universalism is not opposed to relativism, because we can be relativistic at some points of an anthropological analysis, while also arguing about a particular underlying pattern that is common to all societies (ibid.: 8). Nowadays, anthropologists may approach culture in a variety of ways with different classifications and definitions. However, what is common to all of them is the assertion that there are highly diverse cultures that make people different from animals because of the human capacity to conceptualize and symbolize the world in abstract ideas. Culture also means the ability to step out of our own way of seeing things and to understand other perspectives (Duranti, 1997: 25). As humans, we have a “theory of mind”; animals do not transmit their traditions by pedagogy5; furthermore, we can operate analogically, which makes us truly different from animals (Foster, 2005: 366; Ingold, 2005: 333–334; Premack and Premack, 2005: 350–363). It is not just language that matters; humans have cultural knowledge. We have cultural beliefs; we can categorize experiences into distinct domains, and this is the seed from which culture grows, both in the life of each individual, and in history as a whole (Ingold, 2005: 333; Premack and

should instead study a number of socio-cultural practices, even though these are difficult to understand (ibid.: 23). The different ways in which varying actors conceive the private and public sphere are therefore important for anthropology (ibid.: 4–8). This has also been shown by, among many other researchers, Marshall Sahlins (1972) in his book Stone Age Economics. In his theory, there are three forms of reciprocity that can characterize social exchange: generalized, balanced and negative. Corruption can therefore also be seen as a form of social exchange (Torsello, 2014: 17). 5 Pedagogy differs from other forms of social learning, which is also known to be true for animals (Ingold, 2005: 333).

Premack, 2005: 361–363). We are able to think abstractly. Forster (2005: 366) claims humans have the capacity to recognize and exploit likeness; we can construct analogy (metaphor) to establish a relation between phenomena drawn from different domains of experience, in terms of a perceived similarity. We also call these symbols6, and each symbol participates in a web of significances that we call culture (Foster, 2005: 366; Ingold, 2005: 334). Only humans manipulate symbols (Foster, 2005: 367–368). In that sense culture is arbitrary just as the relation between signifying and signified dimensions of a word is an arbitrary one (de Saussure, 1959: 67). Much of our cognition and activity is learnt in society and accumulated from generation to generation (Deutscher, 2010: 9; Monaghan and Just, 2000: 34–35). Furthermore, cultures are not homogeneous (closed or static), because societies exist in relation to each other. They depend on each other, and people can change their cultural inheritance by acting (Barfield, 1997: 100–101). Lévi-Strauss (1963) also distinguishes culture from society in presenting symbolic systems as variations of a universal formal code. Culture might look as if it is an integrated, autonomous, “superorganic” whole (Monaghan and Just, 2000: 43–44), but it is also constantly being reworked, renovating its elements into ever-changing elements (ibid.: 46). Culture exists inside history and it is a subject of human agency (ibid.: 46). Anthony Wallace states that the

6 A symbol is an artefact; it exists out there somewhere in space and time. It represents and it is used in a multiplicity of contexts to convey meaning about itself, about cultural processes and about relationships. Symbols are relations, not objects. Culture is in itself not formed of symbols, but of the meaning that lies behind and unites symbols. This meaning only exists in the minds of the participants in a culture. A single symbol is any entity that has a socially participative meaning. “Each symbol shares parts of its meaning with other symbols. /…/ Culture is thus an elaborate system of classification whose units are symbols. It is a generalization from symbolic meanings shared within a society and realized during social interaction” (Foster, 2005: 366). To study symbolism, it is necessary to examine and compare cultural contexts and unravel the symbolic past, because the creative human drive readjusts symbols. The generalization is facilitated by language, which is the most important of all symbolic systems (ibid.: 367). For Foster, language is (2005: 367) a symbolic system expressed in material form (speaking or writing). Words only refer to things as part of a context; reference is a generic conceptualization. Without language, classificational abstraction from particular to general is impossible. Without language, there would be no symbolism and no culture (ibid.: 369–370).

individual mind is not homogenous, but provides a set of shared communicative symbols that organize this diversity (ibid.: 47). The notion of culture was partly born to support tolerance and mutual understanding between people (Barfield, 1997: 101), but recently more and more anthropologists are taking a critical stand toward the concept of culture, or they might even completely reject culture as a concept or as a tool for analysis in anthropology, especially in European social anthropology. Some social scientists claim that the notion of culture is overly identified with the colonialist agenda of ranking cultures (Duranti, 1997: 23). For example, Kuper (1999) claims that the notion of culture can be problematic because of the politics of multiculturalism, where culture can be used to excuse racism or even Apartheid, as was the case in South Africa. The notion of culture is too abstract and does not give a concrete and generalized idea of it (Kuper, 1999), neither can it reduce sociohistorical complexities to simple characterizations and, therefore, hide the contradictions (moral and social) that exist in societies (Duranti, 1997: 23). Moreover, Kuper (1999) affirms: For the same sort of reason, cultural identity7 can never provide an adequate guide for living. We all have multiple identities, and even if I accept that I have a primary cultural identity, I may not want to conform to it. Besides, it would not be very practical. I operate in the market, live through my body, struggle in the grip of others. If I am to regard myself only as a cultural being, I allow myself little room to manoeuvre, or to question the world in which I find myself. Finally, there is a moral objection to culture theory. It tends to draw attention away from what we have in common instead of encouraging us to communicate across national, ethnic, and religious boundaries, and to venture beyond them (Kuper, 1999: 247)8.

7 Eriksen (2001: 310) claims that the interrelationship between cultures is always subjective and intersubjective, never objective. 8 The problem with the notion of culture also rises from the fact that the notion of “culture” was politically exploited in identity politics (Eriksen, 2001: 4).

Ingold also writes about the notions of culture in modern anthropology and about its relation to society (2005: 783): One further opposition, which has proved especially troublesome for anthropology, is between society and 'culture'. So long as society could be regarded as an association of individuals, and culture as the sum of their knowledge, acquired by traditional transmission and imported into contexts of interaction, this distinction seemed straightforward enough. Indeed it served for much of the twentieth century as the rationale for a division between two largely autonomous branches of anthropological inquiry, 'social' and 'cultural', whose intellectual homes lay respectively in Britain and North America. In recent years, however, this division has come to be seen as increasingly artificial. The reasons are various, but at the most fundamental level, they are bound up with a general rejection of what is known as an essentialist viewpoint —that is, one that would treat societies and cultures as real entities 'out there', presenting themselves to anthropological observation as objects to be described, compared and classified. Contemporary anthropology veers more to a process-oriented view, according to which cultural form does not come ready-made, like a suit of clothing to cover the nakedness of the 'biological' individual, but is perpetually under construction within the contexts of people's practical engagements with one another. All culture, then, is social, in that its constituent meanings are drawn from the relational contexts of such mutual involvement; conversely all social life is cultural, since people's relationships with one another are informed by meaning. In short, culture and social life appear to be caught in an ongoing dialectic in which each, in a sense, 'constitutes' the other, through the mediation of human agency (Ingold, 2005: 783).

Then what is culture? Considering the theoretical perspectives on understanding culture in spite of highly complex notions such as the diversity of ways of living life among people, culture is a particular way of living (Ingold, 2005: 329; Monaghan and Just, 2000: 36). Cultures are systems of concrete social actions based on values9 of groups of people that are not concrete. We cannot recognize them, but they can be interpreted from the abstractions and the behaviour of people: “Culture encompasses all aspects of our behaviour that have evolved as social conventions and are transmitted through learning from generation to generation” (Deutscher, 2010: 9). Culture consists “in the way people draw analogies between different domains of their worlds” (Strathern, 1992: 47). Culture is a system of symbolic meanings, and “systems are behavioural artefacts by which people manipulate and continuously transform the total web of meanings within the system” (Foster, 2005: 375). Culture refers to acquired, cognitive and symbolic aspects of life and society and to its social organization (Eriksen, 2001: 4). Under these terms, culture is shared, learned, symbolic, integrated, adaptive, complex, encompassing, cumulative and non-isolated (Ingold, 2005: 333; Kottak, 1994: 39–44). Duranti (1997: 24–49) defines culture in relation to a linguistic system as distinct from nature, as socially distributed knowledge10, as communication (as a system of signs11), as a system of mediation12, as a system of practices and as a system of participation. Geertzian's

9 Shared values are important for the functioning of societies and are learnt through socialization (Platenkamp, 2007: 96). 10 Not all members of a culture have the same knowledge, because people come from different parts of the country, different households, etc. They are part of a sub-culture, which is normally abstracted from a general culture – because diversity also exists within one community (Duranti, 1997: 32). For example, Wallance (1961: 28) writes about culture as an organization of diversity. 11 Culture is the establishment of a relationship among individuals, groups or species. Examples of people’s cultural products are therefore myths, rituals, classifications etc. (Duranti, 1997: 33). This view is based on Lévi-Strauss’ theory that the human mind is the same everywhere; what is different is the way of thinking. So myth and science work like signs, analogies and comparisons; people construct meaning by way of “bricolage”; myths communicate through people (Duranti, 1997: 33–35). Moreover, for Geertz, culture is communication (1973), we have established. 12 We use culture as a tool (material and non-material cultural objects) for mediating between the human and the environment; for example, the umbrella when it is raining (Duranti, 1997: 40).

concept of culture (in the 1960s and 1970s) defines culture as an integrated whole, a puzzle and a system of meaning that is shared by a population; culture is integrated, shared in a group and sharply bounded (Eriksen, 2001: 3). In a wider sense, culture is something universally shared among the human population, and in a narrow sense, it is something distinct from other cultures (ibid.: 44). Anthropology “should be concerned both with abstracting deep symbolic meanings from the surface structure of observed events, and with exploring these meanings both synchronically and diachronically in behavioural contexts” (Foster, 2005: 375). To study culture is to observe the flux of social interaction; to understand culture is to understand the forms and the relationships between forms (ibid.). We can therefore say that, for us, culture is the world of meanings, a system of networks of meanings that are relations between symbols, codes of action, and are transmitted within social communities across generations. Of course, we should not forget that talking about culture also includes material culture and all other aspects of human life (for example, the perception of time and space, beliefs, myth, rituals, art, music, politics and ethnicity (cp. Ingold’s Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 2005). Or, as de Josselin de Jong (1945/6: 1) claims: “Culture is the whole of non- hereditarily transmitted expressions of life of a self-conscious human community.”13 We agree with the concept of culture as Goodenough (1964: 36– 40) sees it: A society’s culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves […] Culture is not a material phenomenon: its does not consist of things, people, behaviour, or emotions. It is rather an organisation of these things. It is the form of things that people have in mind, their models for perceiving, relating, and otherwise interpreting them. As such, the things people say and do, their social arrangements and events, are products or by-products of their culture as they apply it to the task of perceiving and dealing with their circumstances.

13 Special thanks to Professor Platenkamp for the recommendation of this quote and its translation.

However, the concept of culture itself has obstinately resisted a final definition (Ingold, 2005: 329). Throughout the history of anthropology, scholars have adapted their notions of culture to suit the dominant concerns of the day (ibid.). So, it is difficult to legislate a proper meaning for the term. The concept of culture still entails a very high level of abstraction (ibid.: 330). According to Ingold, what we can find is, (2005: 330): In other words, culture is not something that we can ever expect to encounter 'on the ground'. What we find are people whose lives take them on a journey through space and time in environments which seem to them to be full of significance, who use both words and material artefacts to get things done and to communicate with others, and who, in their talk, endlessly spin metaphors so as to weave labyrinthine and ever-expanding networks of symbolic equivalence. What we do not find are neatly bounded and mutually exclusive bodies of thought and custom, perfectly shared by all who subscribe to them, and in which their lives and works are fully encapsulated. /…/ It might be more realistic, then, to say that people live culturally rather than they live in cultures (Ingold, 2005: 330).

This is especially important nowadays when the networks of communication, migration, trade, globalization, politics etc. cross every boundary, and cultures are neither closed nor fully uniform14 (Eriksen, 2001: 306). Understanding culture is multifaceted and multidimensional (Moore, 2009: 391). Ingold claims that the concept of culture is therefore a description of a leading question in anthropology, but it is not an answer. The mains questions are as follows: why and in which ways are humans different from each other? Why do people do things the way they do, and why do these ways differ so much? However, it is much too easy to answer that cultural differences are due to culture; anthropologists should study the questions instead (Angost Fernandez, 2013: 300).

14 The isolated culture was in history always just a figment of the Western anthropological imagination and never a fact. We must recognize the fact of the interconnectedness of the world’s people in transport, communications and history (Ingold, 2005: 330).

2 Language

As previously established, cumulation, accumulation and gradation are typical of culture. We cannot think about cumulation without language, because cultures are transmitted between generations through language (Južnič, 1983: 151). Literally, language is the most frequent form of communication among human beings (Barfield, 1997: 275). Language serves as a means of communication (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 37). Language usually refers “to the human system of units of sound (phonemes) compounded into words, in turn combined through grammatical rules (syntactically) to form a mode of communication that may be realized in both speech and writing” (Barnard and Spencer, 2005: 490). Language is therefore both a system of signs and a concretization of a human’s ability to speak (ibid.) People communicate abstract ideas symbolically, through language (Monaghan and Just, 2000: 35). So, we could also say that language is a cultural convention (Deutscher, 2010: 9). Human languages differ from one another in sound, semantics and grammar. They are all, however, dependent on the human capacity and predisposition for learning languages, which is unique to the human species15 (Barfield, 1997: 275; Monaghan and Just, 2000: 43). George Herbert Mead, a social psychologist and a social philosopher, assigns to language a central position in the symbolic system

15 Also, other species, like chimpanzees, have made progress in language acquisition (Barfield, 1997: 275), but because of their different vocal tract they cannot develop as wide a range of oral articulations as humans can (Barfield, 1997: 275). Human language differs from the communication system of other animals, even from those closely related animals like chimpanzees and gorillas, which can communicate by means of manual sign language (Lieberman, 2005: 108– 109). Nevertheless, chimpanzees, for example, never progress beyond the abilities of an average three-year-old human child (ibid.: 109). Furthermore, linguistic utterances among humans are not directly tied to a particular stimulus. Human language can be used to discuss topics that are not present in the surroundings, to discuss hypotheticals etc. (Barfield, 1997: 276). Human language also uses syntax; this is a hierarchical syntactic structure, which we cannot find among nonhumans (ibid.: 276). Detailed studies of animals (bees, birds, apes and dolphins) has demonstrated that they have very complex systems of intra-species communications which can be decoded by human observers (Barnard and Spencer, 2005: 490). The qualitative distinctions between human language and the communication systems of other animals therefore appear to lie in speech and syntax, because human beings are able to talk (Lieberman, 2005: 110).

through which humans become social beings: “Language is the means whereby individuals can indicate to one another what their responses to objects will be, and hence what the meanings of objects are …” (Mead, 1934). Despite the fact that the particular language a child acquires depends on the child’s particular cultural environment, general properties of all human languages are structured by the characteristics of biological mechanisms that are species- specific (Lieberman, 2005: 108). The human ability to learn language derives from a number of specialized neural and anatomical mechanisms, which anatomically differentiate modern Homo sapiens sapiens from all other living animals (ibid.). Južnič (1983: 19) writes, “Human beings are the most tightly connected with their capacity for speech and with the power of language in their humanity, in preservation of this humanity and in advancement in this humanity.” Besides being diverse, language is universal because every group of people possesses a fully developed language (Sapir, 1921: 21–22). All human groups have a language, and different languages can be learnt by speakers of other languages (Barnard and Spencer, 2005: 490). Language is a dual system of arbitrary vocal symbols. It is a system of sounds (phonemes) and a system of meanings (semantic pattern – meaning, which produce morphemes that connect in words, phrases and sentences) (Južnič, 1983: 47; Shaul and Furbee, 1998: 8). We can talk about the sound pattern and the semantic pattern of speech (Shaul and Furbee, 1998: 8). One of the characteristics of human language is double articulation: meaningful elements of language (morphemes) are composed of meaningless elements (phonemes). A relatively restricted number of phonemes serve to distinguish a vast number of morphemes (Barfield, 1997: 276). In addition to its duality, language is also arbitrary because we cannot predict which features will be found in any particular language; the relation between form and meaning is conventional. There is not necessarily a relation between the form of a linguistic sign or the morpheme and its meaning. For example, oiseau in French, ptica in Russian, and so on, are all used to denote the concept of bird (Barfield, 1997: 276). Furthermore, these concepts are part of, hence derive their meaning from, different semantic systems in French and Russian. The linguistic

unit is always a double entity, one formed by associating two terms. Both terms involved in the linguistic sign are psychological and are united in the brain by an associative bond (de Saussure, 1959: 65–66). A linguistic sign unites not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image – “psychological imprint of the sound, the impression that it makes to our brains” (ibid.: 66). Each linguistic sign is an arbitrary and culture-specific relationship between a signifying sound image (significant) and a concept signified (signifiér) by that sound image. The bond between the signifier and the signified is also arbitrary. But the symbol as the signifier is never wholly arbitrary; it is the rudiment of a natural bond between the signifier and the signified. Differences between signs can be sound differences and conceptual differences (ibid: 67–70). Signs that are wholly arbitrary better realize that the others is the ideal of the semiological process; that is why language, the most complex and universal of all systems of expression, is also the most characteristic (ibid.: 68). Phonemes, the fundamental units of sound, constitute the basic structure of a language. The linguistic community gives a social dimension to any language. Moreover, linguistic signs are arbitrary, and change only occurs with time, not at the whim of an individual. Furthermore, according to de Saussure (1959), a linguistic meaning is generated by connecting various systems of differences to one another. De Saussure’s theory is important to the anthropological understanding, because conceptual differences are concepts in the mind, which is of prime importance for anthropology, because it deals with systems of communication. It studies how this system of communication is structured and how it functions. Anthropology normally analyses the systems of differences through the model of oppositions, which we will elaborate later when we discuss the work of Lévi-Strauss and Leach (private oppositions are anthropologically important). When we talk about language, we must distinguish between the notion of speech (langage), language (langue) and speaking (parole). Speech is “a characteristic, which is like the potential capacity given to all people as members of the human species”; it is the “totality of the language phenomenon – of general and specific, potential and what is created” (Južnič, 1983: 50); it is “a human activity that

varies without assignable limit as we pass from social group to social group”; “it is the historical heritage of the group, the product of long continued social usage” (Sapir, 1921: 2). Speech is the concrete dialog between people – all will reproduce approximately the same signs united with the same concepts (de Saussure, 1959: 13). Speech is heterogeneous, language is homogeneous (ibid.: 15). Language is not merely just a conventional system of sound symbols. It is not enough to have speech alone, which is produced in the brain and associated with particular movements of the “speech organs” (Sapir, 1921: 4–9), because language is a concretization of speech in a specific form. It is a historical, social and cultural variation of speech (language community) (Južnič, 1983: 50). Language is a system of signs that express ideas; it is the social side of speech, because language is not complete in any speaker; it exists perfectly only within the collectivity. In separating language from speaking we are also separating what is social from what is individual, and what is essential from what is accessory and more or less accidental. Lanugage is not a function of the speaker; it is a product that is passively assimilated by the individual (de Saussure, 1959: 14). Language must be associated with some elements or group of elements of experience, for without this, language has no linguistic significance (Sapir, 1921: 9). Language is a symbolic relation “between any possible elements of consciousness on the one hand and certain selected elements localized in the auditory, motor, and other cerebral and nervous tracts on the other” (ibid.: 9). It is an “arbitrary, auditory system of symbolism16” (ibid.: 10, 17). Because humans construct symbols through language, a human is able to think through language about abstract things; language is the capacity for knowledge and thinking

16 Symbols, which are tickets to experience, need be simplified and generalized. They must be connected with the whole group, because communication is possible only through this. To be communicated, they need to refer to a class which is accepted by the community as an identity. The speech element of some notion is therefore always the symbol not of a single perception or a notion of a particular object, but rather of a “concept” – “a convenient capsule of thought that embraces thousands of distinct experiences” (Sapir, 1921: 12). Furthermore, written language or various gesture languages are secondary symbols of the spoken one. The most important thing for language is the connection with a thought, with concepts, because speech symbolism can be transferred from one sense to another (Sapir, 1921: 11–12, 19–21).

(Južnič, 1983: 126–130). Language is “the highest latent or potential content of speech, the content that is obtained by interpreting each of elements in the flow of language as possessed of its very fullest conceptual value” (Sapir, 1921: 14). Parole17, in contrast, is “concrete language use, which is based on particular speech actions, /…/; it is the final realization of the general capacity for speech, and it is the application of language through speech” (Južnič, 1983: 50–51). Speaking (parole) is never carried out by the collectivity; it is the execution (for example, when we hear people speaking a language that we do not know, we perceive the signs, but remain outside of the social fact, because we don’t understand) that is always individual, and the individual is always the master (de Saussure, 1959: 13). Speaking is an individual act; it is wilful and intentional. Within the act, one can be distinguish between the combination in which the speaker uses the language code to express their own thought, and the pychophysical mechanism that allows them to exteriorize these combinations. Speaking is a storehouse of sound-images, and writing is the tangible form of those images (ibid.: 14–15). Acts of speaking or parole are also evidence of structure and that this is language (Lyons, 1971: 52). Language is then a social system of normative forms, which are transferred to individuals through their membership in a certain language community (Južnič, 1983: 51). Language is a well-defined object in the heterogeneous mass of speech facts. It exists only by virtue of a sort of contract signed by the members of a community. Language, unlike speaking, is something we can study separately, for example we can study dead language, which is no longer spoken (de Saussure, 1959: 14–15). Parole is an individual, creative activity that exists in a social relation with language; language and parole coincide and replace one another (dialectical forms) Individual acts of speaking – parole – mobilize the language as a particular system of meaning. Such systems consist of words-as-signs. Furthermore, language is symbolic because it is associated with the human being’s ideas, actions and objects. For example, Sapir (1921: 7) defines language as “a purely human and noninstinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions,

17 Parole is the French word for speaking (de Saussure, 1959: 13); »parole« in English means something else, e. g. »to be on parole«.

and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.” Language is primarily “a system of phonetic symbols for the expression of communicable thought and feeling” (Sapir, 1995: 43). Language is “an essentially perfect means of expression and communication among every known people” (ibid.: 43). The essence of language consists of the “assigning of conventional, voluntarily articulated sounds, or of their equivalents, to the diverse elements of experience” (Sapir, 1921: 10). In all known languages, “phonemes are built up into distinct and arbitrary sequences which are at once recognized by speakers as meaningful symbols of reference” (Sapir, 1995: 45). The true units of language are conventional clusters of phonemes. The whole procedure constitutes a grammar, which is “the sum total of formal economies intuitively recognized by the speakers of a language” (ibid.: 45). Therefore, the elements of language are symbols, which are tickets to experiences. Experiences are always the experiences of a group, not just of an individual, because they are an arbitrary union of a whole group of experiences (Sapir, 1921: 10–12). Language serves “to communicate ideas according to the traditional system of a particular group” (ibid.: 2). According to Bronislaw Malinowski, language is a “mode of action, rather than ... a countersign of thought” (Malinowski, 1923: 296); it is “an instrument of thought and of the communication of thought” (ibid.: 297). For Malinowski, language is the instrument of communication; it has “a pragmatical nature” (Godina, 1998: 228). Because of this, language is social: behind every speaker and listener exists a language community, which means that language is also means to conceptualise and communicate rules. These rules are not unchangeable because: “languages are live organisms, which are changing /…/ and language is at the same time a compact and changeable human institution” (Južnič, 1983: 50). Language is the human capacity for communication, and language is also an individual language, used in a particular socio-cultural environment (Shaul and Furbee, 1998: 7). Without society, we cannot have language because language is learnt through society (Sapir, 1921: 2).

Language is therefore dependant on external stimuli because human language involves an interaction of innate predispositions for language and the stimuli from the spoken language in a child’s environment. A child does not have an innate disposition for the acquisition of any particular language. He is capable of acquiring any language – he has an innate predisposition for the acquisition of any language, depending on the environment in which the child grows up (Barfield, 1997: 275–276; Sapir, 1921: 2). A child can survive without such an environment or society, but he would be unable to speak (Sapir, 1921: 2). One of the basic concepts in structural linguistics is the concept articulated by Trubetzkoy (1971) in his Principles of Phonology. He claims that it is the opposition between small sound units (phonemes) that produces differences in meaning: “Oppositions of sound capable of differentiating the lexical meaning of two words in a particular language are phonological or phonologically distinctive or distinctive oppositions” (Trubetzkoy: 31). Minimal differences can cause greater differences at the conceptual level. Each phoneme has a definable phonemic content only because the system of distinctive oppositions shows a definite order or structure (ibid.: 67). Trubetzkoy (1971: 67–74) distinguishes among different types of opposition when applied to cultural categories: bilateral oppositions cover all possible terms (they are the basis for comparison); multilateral oppositions between terms also occurring in the other oppositions (it is not limited exclusively to the two respective opposition members; it also extends to other members of the same system); proportional oppositions define various relationships, states of mind or behaviour; isolated oppositions refer to unique relationships (ibid.). In the 1970s and 1980s, Chomsky developed in linguistics the concept of a generative/universal grammar that sees language as an abstract system, which may be studied in isolation from its social and cultural context (Barnard and Spencer, 2005: 491). Chomsky (1986: 3) claims that the generative/universal grammar of a particular language is a theory concerned with the form and meaning of expressions in this language. The form and meaning are determined by a particular component of the human mind. The nature of this component is the “subject matter of a general theory of linguistic structure that aims to discover the

framework of principles and elements common to attainable human languages” (ibid.: 3). Generative/universal grammar is “a characterization of the genetically determined language faculty”;, it is “an innate component of the human mind that yields a particular language through interaction with presented experience”; it is “a device that converts experience into a system of knowledge attained: knowledge of one or another language”; the innate state is prior to any linguistic experience (ibid.: 3–4). We do not have an innate knowledge of a particular language. The inner properties are properties available to all human languages, and their principles, composed of principles and parameters, constitute a universal grammar. These principles are universal in cross-cultural variations. The experiences of one’s culture and language then interact with the innate properties to form “competence” in different systems of knowledge (Stark, 1998). The core of this theory is the particular generative grammar, because theory does not research behaviour but rather states of the mind/brain that are manifested in behaviour. The main concern is the knowledge of language: its nature, origins and usage (ibid.: 3). Using the example of a child’s speech, Chomsky shows that a child uses different grammatical structures without knowing them, and thereby affirms that knowledge of language exists in no relation with practical ability. We possess an abstract system of unconscious knowledge about our language, one that includes knowledge of sentence structure, word order, meanings and sounds (ibid.: 8–9). For Chomsky (1984), the fundamentals of language are coded in our genetic predispositions; the basic structures for our behaviour and language are innate and are the same across the human race, but with some variations: … A human being or any complex organism has a system of cognitive structures that develop much in the way the physical organs of the body develop. That is, in their fundamental character they are innate; their basic form is determined by the genetic structure of the organism. Of course, they grow under particular environmental conditions, assuming a specific form that admits of some variation. Much of what is distinctive among human beings is a specific manner in which a variety of shared cognitive structures develop. Perhaps the

most intricate of these structures is language. In studying language, we can discover many basic properties of this cognitive structure, its organization, and also the genetic predispositions that provide the foundation for its development (Chomsky, 1984: 95).

Furthermore, Chomsky (1984: 95–101) claims that we think not only with language but also in visual images, in terms of situations and events – non- linguistically. The use of language could be both social or antisocial, but the “use of language is a very important means by which this species, because of its biological nature, creates a kind of social space, to place itself in interactions with other people” (ibid.). Nevertheless, general and abstract features are the same for all people – Chomsky names these features a universal grammar. The universal grammar comprises, according to Chomsky

general properties of language that reflect a kind of biological necessity rather than logical necessity; that is, properties of language that are not logically necessary for such a system but which are essential invariant properties of human language and are known without learning. We know these properties but we don’t learn them. We simply use our knowledge of these properties as the basis for learning (ibid.).

The universal grammar is “a system of principles and structures that are the prerequisites for acquisition of language, and to which every language necessarily conforms” (ibid.). All languages share the same universal grammar, the same underlying concepts and the same degree of systematic complexity. The genetic basis of a language is universal, with a variety of intricate abstract principles of alinguistic organization18 (ibid.). On the other hand, Hymes, who is central in following the tradition of Boas, Sapir, Whorf and Bloomfield, still claims that language must be investigated in its social and cultural context. He thinks that speech takes priority over grammar, that

18 Therefore, according to Chomsky (1984), human beings do not differ so much, we just pay more attention to what differentiates us.

competence is communicative competence, which is more of a behavioural rather than a cognitive phenomenon, and that universal forms of speech and language should be discovered by researching specific cultures and making cross-cultural comparisons. The main importance is to do the ethnography of speaking (Barnard and Spencer, 2005: 491; Hymes, 1995: 248–250). To understand the main shift of differences between these two points of view, we must first explain some of the theories concerning the relation between language and culture, and how this relation is seen nowadays, when many anthropologists would doubt that language is the essence of culture. Nevertheless, in contrast to post-Chomskyan linguistics, anthropologists have continued their attempt to use structural approaches to understanding paradigms (Foster, 2005: 373).

3 The importance of language in understanding culture

In the history of linguistic anthropology,19 the key issue from Boas to structuralism and on through postmodernism is how language might influence culture20. First of all, language and culture were connected with the idea that we

19 Linguistic anthropology is one of the main fields of anthropology. Its main subject matter is language. Linguistic anthropology is connected with linguistics, but they differ in their historical development and main focus. For anthropology, the main focus was on non-Western societies, while for linguistics, it was European languages (Blount, 1995). In linguistic anthropology the question is always anthropological. For anthropological linguistics, the questions are linguistic, but it uses anthropological techniques and methods (Ember and Levinson, 1996: 708). 20 Also, before that, philosophers of all persuasions (for example, Bacon or Herder or Emerson etc.) and nationalities had lined up to proclaim that each language reflects the qualities of the nation that speaks it (Deutscher, 2010: 3). Deutscher (2010: 3) claimed that the problem lay within the question of what the particular qualities of language can tell us about the particular qualities of a particular nation. The main idea is that language can express what is important in the culture through ideas that the particular language expresses best. On the other hand, a lack of ideas in a particular language means that these things are not important in a particular culture (ibid.: 3–4). Because of this, the idea of superior–inferior languages was also expressed throughout history (ibid.: 5), but as Deutscher (2010: 2) claims: “No language … is inherently unsuitable for expressing the most complex ideas.”

can access culture and even thought itself through the study of language (Blount, 1995: vii). The status of the language was considered as a repository of cultural meaning. To gain access to people’s cultural understanding of the world, it is necessary to be proficient in their language21 (Ingold, 2005: 331). This idea was embedded in what is called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: the habitual use of language influences the way its speakers view the world22 (Blount, 1995: vii). By learning a language, we learn a world (Monaghan and Just, 2000: 49). The roots of this field lie in the Enlightenment philosophy of the eighteenth century writings of Johann Gottfried Herder and in the philosophy of German historical idealism in the nineteenth-century writings of Wilhelm von Humboldt, who connected language with human thought and history23 (Blount, 1995: 2; Hoijer, 1995: 114). Franz Boas was the first to begin the modern area of language and culture studies and was crucial in the development of cultural anthropology in North America, with his studies of Native Americans and their languages (ibid.: 2). Boas observed that classifications based on language and culture coincided with each other, while at the same time they were not connected to biological classification or race (Boas, 1995: 14). Boas writes That groups of men who are so closely related in bodily appearance that we must consider them as representatives of the same variety of mankind, embrace a much larger number of individuals than the number of men speaking languages which we know to be genetically related (Boas, 1995: 14–15).

21 We know that it is not always like this. Much of the knowledge that we use to get by in everyday life is downright resistant to linguistic articulation (Ingold, 2005: 331). 22 Therefore, for example, it would be hard for Babylonians to understand Crime and Punishment, because their language used the same word to describe both concepts (Deustcher, 2010: 2). 23 Von Humboldt believed that language was a product of the spirit. Language is a regular and preserving production. It is not just a product of activity; it is an activity in itself. So, language is necessary for thought, because the language defines the thought. On the other hand, thought exists before language and forms the basis for everything that language represents (Južnič, 1983: 133– 135).

Despite the fact that language and culture are closely correlated, it is not necessary to assume that each language and culture was confined to a single racial type and that each type and culture was confined to one language (Boas, 1995: 15). Boas (ibid.: 16) rejects the concepts of primitive types, primitive languages and primitive cultures, from which his relativism in the concept of culture also arises. It is therefore important for linguistic investigation “to disclose the history of languages, the contact of people speaking them with other people, and the causes that led to linguistic differentiation and integration” (ibid.: 16). To understand culture, it is important to understand your own achievements and the contact of people with neighbouring people (ibid.: 16). For Boas, linguistic categories are always unconscious, and they condition cultural forms of behaviour (Blount, 1995.: 3; Boas, 1995: 20–21). People’s conciseness and clarity of thought depend on their language (Boas, 1995: 20). Boas compared the English and Indian grammars and concluded that the lack of forms within the same language is due to the lack of any need for them within the same culture. It proves that such forms are not required because of people’s lifestyle (ibid.: 21–22). According to Boas (ibid.: 23), there is no direct relation between culture and language, but “the form of the language will be moulded by the state of culture, but not in so far as a certain state of culture is conditioned by morphological traits of the language” (ibid.: 23). Certain classifications of concepts occur in all languages, which are, according to Boas (ibid.: 23), unconscious processes of the mind. Language phenomena are therefore always unconscious, while other ethnological phenomena often arise in an individual’s consciousness, thus creating secondary reasoning and reinterpretations (ibid.: 23). Boas (ibid.: 24–25) uses examples of concepts of modesty that are conscious, because we have good or bad feelings about doing something that is not customary. All these behaviours, a considerable number of activities, need the form of an underlying idea. This is why language “seems to be one of the most instructive fields of inquiry in an investigation of the formulation of the fundamental ethnic ideas” (ibid.: 25), because “the peculiar characteristics of

language are clearly reflected in the view and customs of the people of the world” (ibid.: 28). Boas therefore shows that “without knowledge of the language, an ethnographer would fail to grasp the content of culture” (Blount, 1995: 2). According to him, “a knowledge of … languages serves as an important adjunct to a full understanding of the customs and beliefs of the people whom we are studying” (Boas, 1995: 19). What is important to highlight here, is the theoretical study of languages as well as the practical knowledge of them (ibid.: 20). Bronislaw Malinowski, who was important in forming British social anthropology and linguistic pragmatics, also came to the same conclusion, even though his definition of language is much more “pragmatic” and denies the connection between language and thought. During his fieldwork he discovered that it is important to know the language of the group of people that one is studying. It is not enough to just have an ideal interpreter, because language is one of the fundamental parts of culture (Godina, 1998: 287–288; Malinowski, 1923: 299–301). The study of language needs familiarity with the ethnographic background of a general culture (Malinowski, 1923: 326). To understand the message in a particular language, its situational context is also important. (ibid.: 287). The meaning of each single word is highly dependent on its context. The concept of context must be broadened in relation to the situation in which words are being uttered (ibid.: 306). Therefore, we cannot make literal translations from the languages we are exploring, but we always have to find meaningful synonyms, and in order for this to occur, it is important to understand the context (Godina, 1998: 288). Or as Malinowski (1923: 299–300) writes, But the object of a scientific translation of a word is not to give its rough equivalent, sufficient for practical purposes, but to state exactly whether a native word corresponds to an idea at least partially existing for English speakers, or whether it covers an entirely foreign conception. That such foreign conceptions do exist for native languages and in great number, is clear. All words which describe the native social order, all expressions referring to native beliefs, to specific customs, ceremonies, magical rites - all such

words are obviously absent from English as from any European language. Such words can only be translated into English, not by giving their imaginary equivalent - a real one obviously cannot be found - but by explaining the meaning of each of them through an exact Ethnographic account of the sociology, culture and tradition of that native community.

Furthermore, according to Malinowski (ibid.: 300), the whole manner in which a native language is used is different from our own. Based on his ethnographic research among the Melanesian societies in Eastern New Guinea, Malinowski (ibid.: 300) observed that within the extremely simple structure of sentences lies a great deal of expressiveness, often achieved by means of position and context, which brings up the problem of meaning. In order to understand meaning, it is important to acquaint oneself not only with a language but also with the relevant culture. The words must be placed in their proper setting in the culture, so that the situation can be understood. We must understand the broad native customs and their psychology, as well as the general structure of their language. Linguistic analysis always leads us to study all those subjects covered by ethnographic fieldwork (ibid.: 301–305). According to Malinowski (ibid.: 305), “Language is essentially rooted in the reality of culture, the tribal life and customs of a people, and ... it cannot be explained without constant reference to these broader contexts of verbal utterance.” Malinowski calls the ethnographic view of language (ibid.: 309) a symbolic relativity, because words are treated just like symbols. An analysis of the function of words, with reference to the given culture, is important to Malinowski (ibid.). However, he does not connect language with thought, because for him narrative speech is “primarily a mode of social action rather than a mere reflection of thought” (ibid.: 313); the same goes for special uses of language to frame and express thoughts (ibid.: 316). For Malinowski, the expression of a thought is (ibid.: 316) a one-sided view of the most derivate and specialized functions of language. Furthermore, “the referential function of a narrative is subordinate to its social and emotive function” (ibid.: 313). The main assumption is that language is always in the function of something: it has a

pragmatic character; it is a mode of behaviour and an element of concerted human action24 (ibid.: 316). Edward Sapir, a student of Franz Boas, claims that speech and language are characteristics of every known group of human beings (Sapir, 1995: 43). Sapir conceptualizes language as a “guide to social reality”, something which was also claimed by Boas (Hoijer, 1995: 114). Consequently, social behaviour is important for groups of human beings. Sapir defines social behaviour as organized and arranged aspects of individual behaviour, but conscious (Blount, 1995: 3–4). According to Sapir (1995: 29–30), each kind of behaviour is individual. The difference between individual and social behaviour lies merely in terms of organization, not in the essence. Social behaviour is that aspect of individual behaviour that “corresponds to certain norms of conduct which have been developed by human beings in association with one another and which tend to perpetuate themselves by tradition” (ibid.: 30). Social behaviour is merely an arrangement of such aspects of individual behaviour as are referred to culture patterns that have their proper context, not in the spatial and temporal continuities of biological behaviour, but in historical sequences that are imputed to actual behaviour by a principle of selection (Sapir, 1995: 3).

Moreover, all cultural behaviour is patterned; it is a generalized mode of conduct that is imputed to society rather than to the individual (ibid.: 31). Underlying cultural patterns are unconscious, much like the structure of language. We can also talk about the “unconscious pattering of behaviour in society”25

24 Malinowski (1923: 319–321) explains this with the development of a child’s speech that has a pragmatic relation to meaning. Otherwise, language has three fundamental uses: active, narrative and ritual. In each of these, sound-reactions are connected with a situation. When we have a speech in action we speak about the referent, in the case of narrative and ritual use also about symbols (ibid.: 324–325). 25 For the normal individual, it is almost impossible to observe “functionally similar types of behavior in other societies than his own or in other cultural contexts than those he has experienced, without projecting into them the forms that he is familiar with. /…/ One is always unconsciously finding what one is unconscious subjection to” (Sapir, 1995: 33–34).

(Sapir, 1995: 32). These patterns can differ from individual to individual, in many cases from generation to generation (ibid.: 39). Language and society are distinct entities, but with a common underlying base, an unconscious pattern, which is in itself a manifestation of culture--of an unconscious pattering of culture (Blount, 1995: 3–4; Sapir, 1995: 39). Sounds, words, grammatical forms, syntactic constructions and other linguistic forms only have value in so far as society has agreed to see them as symbols of reference (Sapir, 1995: 34). The connection between language and culture is not determined, despite the study of patterns of society, so language is a way of studying culture (Blount, 1995: 4). According to Sapir, language is “a perfect system” of references and meanings that a given culture is capable of producing, no matter whether in a form expressible in its language (Sapir, 1995: 45). A language form can discover meanings for its speakers. Here, not only the experience of an individual is important, but language captures a larger common understanding, which constitutes culture. Language is heuristic. Its forms predetermine certain modes of observation and interpretation (ibid.: 46). Language refers to experience, to moulding, interpreting and discovering experience, but also to context – to “those sequences of interpersonal behaviour which form the greater part of our daily lives speech and action supplement each other and do each other’s work in a web of unbroken pattern” (ibid.: 47). Language is symbolic. It is learned in the earliest years of childhood26. Because of this, it always requires an actual context. For example, speech is normally expressive. Patterns of sound, words, grammatical forms, phrases and sentences are intended or unintended symbols of expression. Any message is also interpretive in context (ibid.: 47).

We can discover the unconscious pattering of linguistic conduct not just in the significant forms of language but also in several materials from which language is built, like the vowels and consonants, the changes of stress and quantity, and the fleeting intonations of speech. Every single sound is a socialized/cultural phonetic pattern, which speakers use unconsciously. Furthermore, the average person unconsciously interprets the phonetic material of other languages in terms imposed upon him by the habits of his own language (ibid.: 37–39). 26 As we explained in Chapter 2, language is therefore also a great force for socialization (Sapir, 1995: 50). Language is a socialized type of human behavior, as with anything else in culture; it is primarily a cultural and social product (Sapir, 1929: 214–215).

The fact that almost any word or phrase can have a variety of meanings indicates that there are “intertwined”, “complex patterns” in all languages (ibid.: 48). According to Sapir (ibid.: 48–49), there are patterns of reference and patterns of expression, which are both used in speech. Language is therefore “a perfect symbolism of experience” (Sapir, 1995: 48) with an infinitely nuanced expressiveness that cannot be separated from action in the actual context of behaviour (ibid.: 48). Communication is not the main meaning of language. Language is primarily a vocal actualization of seeing realities symbolically. Common speech serves as a symbol of social solidarity among those who can speak the language (ibid.: 50). Furthermore, according to Sapir, language is important in cultural accumulation and in historical transmission, and it is even a factor in the growth of individuality (ibid.: 51). What is interesting for us is how Sapir explains the connection of language with culture (ibid.: 59). For him, language is important for culture in its definition, expression and transmission. Linguistic details such as content and form are important for understanding culture. Even if there is no general correlation between cultural types and linguistic structures, this does not mean that language and culture don’t correlate (Sapir, 1921: 230). We can discover a culture by analysing the language. According to Sapir, language is “a guide to ‘social reality’” (Sapir, 1929: 209–210), “the symbolic to culture” (ibid.). The linguistic symbolism renders the outlines of a culture significant and intelligible to society (ibid.: 209). For example, “vocabulary is a very sensitive index of the culture” (Sapir, 1995: 59), because “changes of the meaning, loss of old words, the creation and borrowing of new ones are all dependent on the history of culture itself”27 (ibid.: 59). According to Sapir (ibid.: 207), linguistics “is of basic importance: its data and methods show better than those of any other discipline dealing with socialized behaviour the possibility of a truly scientific study of

27 It is also interesting that the “borrowing” of words across linguistic frontiers happens by diffusion, where we can find a range of similar patterns in meaning among different cultures (Sapir, 1995: 57–58). Therefore, intercultural communication is not impossible; it is just more or less difficult, depending on the differences among cultures (Hoijer, 1995: 115).

society.” Sapir states that language is important when we want to study a society, because Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the "real world" is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached /…/ We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation (Sapir, 1929: 209).

According to Sapir (1921), “language does not exist apart from the culture, that is, from the socially inherited assemblage of practices and beliefs that determines the texture of our lives” (Sapir, 1921: 221). On the other hand, languages may sometimes spread to other territories and to other spheres of culture (for example, the language which is in use among people hostile to the people of its original speakers, cultural borders are being rearranged, etc.) (Sapir, 1921: 222). Also, unrelated languages can be shared in one culture (ibid.: 228). Nevertheless, in a broader sense, culture means what a society does and thinks, and language is “a particular how of thought” (ibid.: 233), because language is “the most massive and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations” (ibid.: 235). Benjamin Whorf showed, in his fieldwork, that there is a connection between the language and culture of the Hopi that is similar to how grammar patterns were

related to the way its speakers categorized and viewed the world and how grammar patterns were reflected in the speakers’ behaviour (Blount, 1995: 5). Whorf was researching “how language influence the thought processes of its speakers” (Deutscher, 2010: 5). According to Whorf (1995: 64), “an accepted pattern of using words is often prior to certain lines of thinking and forms of behaviour”. Whorf was analysing Sapir’s theory in practice. He has analysed the circumstances surrounding the starting of fires, where the linguistic meaning was also important for the situation. By studying the Hopi language, Whorf made a comparison of it with the Indo-European languages28. He discovered that the experience of “time”, “space” and “matter” is partly conditioned by the structure of particular languages, especially “upon the ways of analysing and reporting experience which have become fixed in the language” (Whorf, 1995: 83). Secondly, cultural and behavioural norms are connected, but they are not correlated to linguistic patterns (Whorf, 1995: 64–84). According to Whorf (ibid.: 74), a “thought world” (more than simply a language, ie. linguistic patterns) is a “microcosm that each man carried about within himself, by which he measures and understands what he can of the macrocosm”. Language is a system. It is a representation of the mind of masses, affected by little and slow inventions and innovations (ibid.: 82). According to Whorf (1952: 11), users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types of observation and different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somehow different views of the world.

Whorf has often been criticized for his deterministic view that the language a person speaks determines the way that person sees the world (Blount, 1995: 5). Blount (ibid.: 5) claims that in Whorf’s view “the common origin of the

28 According to Whorf, the European habit of separating the world into objects and actions is not a true reflection of reality but merely a division thrust upon us by the grammar of the European languages (Deutscher, 2010: 5).

underlying patterns is what made the “results” similar, not that the world could not be seen or experienced in any other way”. Sapir’s and Whorf’s interest in the relation between language patterns and cultural expressions of behaviour came to be called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (ibid.: 1995: 5). The formative stage of language and cultural studies was, in the first half of the twentieth century, dominated by the description of Native American languages and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was constructed because of the interest in Sapir’s and Whorf’s views on language and culture, and it was examined and discussed at a conference in 1954. The basic idea is that language patterns can reveal the cultural patterns of a given culture (ibid., 1995: 104). Language is included in its structural and semantic aspects29. Language functions are not simply devices for reporting experience, but a way of defining experience for its speakers. Language plays a large and significant role in the totality of a culture. It is “a way of directing perceptions of its speakers and it provides for them habitual modes of analysing experience into significant categories” (Hoijer, 1995: 114 –115). In the second half of the twentieth century, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis idea was maintained and applied in new ways. We must mention two developments in this respect, namely, “ethnoscience” and “structural anthropology” (Blount, 1995: 104). Ethnoscience sought to improve the description of a society's culture through direct experience in a field research setting. The model for ethnoscience

29 The structural aspect of language includes its phonology, morphology and syntax (language grammar). The semantic aspects of a self-contained system of meanings make it impossible to precisely determine the meaning of any single form in language, but we can recognize the structural-semantic patterns. These patterns are not equally important to its speakers in their observations, analysis and categorization of an experience (Hoijer, 1995: 116–117). According to Hoijer (1995: 118–120), we first have to determine the structural patterns of language and, secondly, the semantic patterns that are attached to the structural patterns. After that, we have to distinguish the structural and semantic categories that are active in a language from those that are not. Furthermore, we examine and compare the active structural-semantic patterns of the language and draw conclusions from the fashion of speaking there evidenced. This comprises a partial description of the thought world of its speakers. The thought world can be reflected in other aspects of culture – here we can seek connections (these connections are not direct) between language and the rest of culture.

was structural linguistics (ibid.). It was also called the new ethnography and required a more in-depth and detailed investigation of special domains, such as kinship and ethnobiology. The general idea in ethnoscience was to identify the domain, collect the set of names or terms for the objects in the domain (for example all kinship terms) and then do a component analysis of the terms. These features were reflections of the knowledge of the culture in the particular domain (Blount, 1995: 104). The second development of the Sapir-Whorf idea was in structural anthropology (Blount, 1995: 105). Claude Lévi-Strauss, a French anthropologist, wrote about the unconscious nature of a linguistic structure and the potential of the phenomenon for uncovering deeper realms of meaning (ibid.). He applied insights and methods from linguistics to the study of social behaviour. Invariant properties of language, though useful devices for analysing social life, are manifestations of a more basic structure of the human mind. For Lévi-Strauss, the structure of the human mind was responsible for the underlying similarity in social behaviour, language, and cognition – American anthropology would call this culture (ibid.: 105). Lévi-Strauss was interested in universals30 – “basic social and mental processes of which cultural institutions are the concrete external projections or manifestations” (Jacobson, 1963: ix).

30 For Lévi-Strauss, anthropology should be a science of general principles. Anthropological theories should be applicable to all societies and valid for all possible observers (Jacobson, 1963: ix–x; Lévi-Strauss, 1963). Lévi-Strauss is also important because of his structural method: he considers the relations among phenomena and not phenomena themselves. The systems into which these relations enter are also important (ibid.). For Lévi-Strauss, it is important to understand constituent units of an institution, and furthermore, the relations (opposition, correlation, permutation, transformation) among them. A generalization by Lévi-Strauss always departs from empirical observation and returns to it. His anthropology emphasizes the close relationship between field work and theory, between the description of social phenomena and structural analysis. Lévi-Strauss’s approach is holistic and integrative. For him, anthropology is the study of man, the past and present, in all its aspects – physical, linguistic, cultural, conscious and unconscious (ibid.: x–xi). According to Jacobson, (1963: xi), Lévi-Strauss relates the synchronic to the diachronic, the individual to the cultural, the physiological to the psychological and the objective analysis of institutions to the subjective experience of individuals.

For Lévi-Strauss, language is important because the goals and methods of linguistics provide a scientific method for anthropology – “the close methodological analogy which exists between the two disciplines imposes a special obligation of collaboration upon them” (1963: 31–32). Anthropology and linguistics can each benefit from the technical and methodological advances of the other (ibid.: 32–33). Structural linguistics is of prime importance for him (1963: 33) because it shifts from the study of conscious linguistic phenomena to the study of their unconscious infrastructure. It does not treat terms as independent entities, but it takes the relations between terms as the basis for analysis instead; it introduces the concept of system, and structural linguistics aims at discovering general laws. It is important that it introduces relationships (ibid.). According to Jacobson (1963: xii), for Lévi-Strauss both language and culture are built of oppositions, correlations and logical relations. Language is therefore a conceptual model for other aspects of culture, which are regarded as systems of communication (ibid.). The question of the relationship between language and culture is one of the most difficult ones. Language is, on the one hand, the product of the culture, so it expresses culture; on the other hand, it is a part of the culture--it is one of the elements of culture. Language is therefore the product of culture, a part of culture and a condition for culture (Lévi-Strauss, 1963). Lévi-Strauss is important because with his structural approach to social life, language and mind, he studied cross-cultural kinship and social exchange, which will be precisely described in Chapter 4 of this thesis. Kuper (1999: 18) claims that Lévi-Strauss defends the structural thesis that all cultures and languages share the same structure, which corresponds to the collective human mind. In the focus are binary oppositions. Noam Chomsky also argues with a similar point of view. So, we should ask ourselves, as Deutscher (2010: 6) did, Does language reflect the culture of society in any profound sense, beyond such trivia as the number of words it has for snow of for shearing camels? And even more contentiously, can different

languages lead their speakers to different thoughts and perceptions? (ibid.).

For most anthropologists and linguists, the answer nowadays is no, or that the relation has not been confirmed, as is claimed by Noam Chomsky (1984)31. Deutscher (2010: 19) names this school of thought “nativists”, because for them, grammar reflects a universal human nature. On the other hand, there are still scientists (especially in American cultural anthropology), who claim that cultural differences are reflected in a language in profound ways and that our mother tongue can affect how we think and how we perceive the world (Deutscher, 2010: 7). Any language has to categorize the world in such a way as to bring together things that are similar in reality32 – or at least in our perception of reality (ibid.: 12). According to Deutscher (2010: 12), the human brain is innately equipped with pattern-recognition algorithms, which sort similar object into groups. For Deustcher (2010: 13), language is divided into two distinct territories (labels and concepts), where the labels reflect cultural conventions, while concepts reflect nature. Each culture bestows labels on concepts33 as it pleases (ibid.). Furthermore, each language also has abstract concepts that are specific to each language – “specific ideas” of a particular language (ibid.: 14). Language also needs grammar – “a sophisticated system of rules for organizing concepts into coherent sentences” (ibid.: 19). Deutscher (2010: 20) as a culturalist, also suggests that “the complexity of some areas of grammar reflects the culture of the speakers” (ibid.). He also claims that it is empirically difficult to prove or disprove any influence of language on thought. Nowadays scholars (especially from the field of linguistics and psychology) deny it or claim that any such influence is at best negligible (especially in research with colours). On the other hand, some researchers have attempted to apply sound

31 More is written in Chapter 2: Language. 32 For example, different types of birds are named as one concept (Deutscher, 2010: 12). 33 In some cultures, “hand” and “arm” are the same concept; in others, they are not – it depends on the cultural conventions of a particular society (Deutscher, 2010: 16–17).

scientific methods to this question and have discovered that the idiosyncrasies of the mother tongue do affect the mind (ibid.). As has been established, the question about language-culture is also interesting for structural anthropology. Needham (1973) explored the formal semantic dimensions of dual, or oppositional symbolic classifications. His analysis of syntagmata showed that oppositions between male and female are equated paradigmatically with other oppositions such as good versus bad and right versus left. Lévi-Strauss (1969) used this in the study of the kinship domain and mythology, which will be explained later. Lévi-Strauss (1963) also claims that in the field of social sciences the object of study of individual behaviour or the study of culture is affected by the observer, who is himself an individual. The observer's working hypothesis and his methods of observation, which are cultural patterns themselves, are derived from his own culture. Because the observer cannot completely dissociate himself from his own culture, Levi-Strauss (1963:55–56) suggests that it can help the field of language. Language is in his terms “a social phenomenon” with two fundamental characteristics: much of linguistic behaviour relies on unconscious thought,34 and we are not conscious of the phonemes that we employ to convey different meanings (ibid.: 56). Language lives and develops only as a collective construct, so the observer cannot influence it35 (ibid.: 57). Furthermore, language appeared very early in human history, which is of prime importance for the spatial research dimension (ibid.). With language, we can discover “fundamental and objective realities consisting of systems of relations which are the products of unconscious thought process” (ibid.: 58). He suggests treating marriage regulations and kinship systems as “a kind of language, a set of processes permitting the establishment, between individuals and groups, of a certain type of communication” (ibid.: 61). The mediating factor should be groups of women, who are circulated between clans, lineages or families, in place of the

34 We are not conscious of the syntactic and morphological laws of our language (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 56). 35 Normally in anthropology we do not do research about our own culture, because some things are simply too mundane for us, but in the case of linguistic analysis, we can do it because of that fact.

words of the group, which are circulated between individuals. The essential aspect of the phenomenon is identical in each case (ibid.). To address the question of language-culture, Lévi-Strauss claims we should do an experiment: we should validate each system separately, and all of them together: It would thus be possible to ascertain if one had reached their inner nature and to determine if this pertained to the same kind of reality. In order to develop this point, an experiment can be attempted. It will consist, on the part of the anthropologist, in translating the basic features of the kinship systems from different parts of the world into terms general enough to be meaningful to the linguist, and thus be equally applicable by the linguist to the description of languages from the same regions. Both could thus ascertain whether or not different types of communication systems in the same societies— that is, kinship and language— are or are not caused by identical unconscious structures. Should this be the case, we could be assured of having reached a truly fundamental formulation (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 62).

If this were true, we should be able to find languages, whose structures would be comparable to kinship systems, in the following regions of the world: the Indo- European system, the Sino-Tibetan system, the African kinship system, the Oceanic kinship system and the American Indian system (ibid.: 63–64). In the final analysis, “collective consciousness” would be no more than an expression, on the level of an individual thought or behaviour, of certain time and space modalities of the universal laws that make up the unconscious activity of the mind (ibid.: 65). Furthermore, Lévi-Strauss (1963: 67) spoke about the relation between a language and a culture, language and culture and linguistics and anthropology. In the first relationship, he notes that it is necessary to know the language of the culture being studied, and to have some knowledge of culture besides its language (ibid.). The second relationship is not of great importance to him, because he claims that certain cultures exist that are thrifty in relation to language (ibid.: 68).

For Lévi-Strauss (1963: 68), language can be the result of culture (the language spoken by one population is a reflection of the total culture of the population). On the other hand, language is also part of culture (it is one of the elements of a culture). Language is also a condition for culture in a diachronic way (we learn about our own culture through language) and it is built out of the same materials as culture: logical relations, oppositions, correlations, etc. Language is a form of foundation for the more complex structures that correspond to the different aspects of culture (ibid.: 81–82). For Lévi-Strauss (1963: 71) the question is not whether language influences culture or vice versa, but whether this fact is also connected with the human mind. Both language and culture are the products of activities that are similar in origin. There should be some kind of relationship between language and culture, because language and culture have taken thousands of years to develop, and both processes have been taking place side by side within the same minds (ibid.). But, according to Lévi-Strauss (1963: 72), certain problems also arise: the level at which to seek correlations between language and culture, and with the things we are trying to correlate. Nevertheless, Lévi-Strauss (1963: 73) tried to combine anthropology and linguistics, because in his opinion both disciplines work in a more or less parallel way – they are both trying to build a structure with a constituent unit. But we should be careful because, for example, in Lévi-Strauss opinion Whorf correlates things that belong to entirely different levels. What Whorf was trying to correlate with the linguistic structure is, according to Lévi-Strauss (1963: 73), a crude, superficial and empirical view of the culture itself. Instead, he suggests we should compare the way of expressing time on a linguistic level with the way of expressing time on the kinship level and analysing the following three different points of view: marriage rules, social organization and the kinship system (ibid.: 76). So, he discovered similarities between the structure of the Indo-European kinship system and the structure of languages: a great discrepancy between form and substance, a great deal of irregularities in relation to the rules, and a considerable freedom regarding the choice of means to express the same idea (ibid.: 79). So Lévi-Strauss (1963: 79–80) is not deterministic in view of the relation between culture and language. Rather, he claims that some kind of correlation

exists between certain things on certain levels, and our main task is to determine what these things and levels are using the connection between linguistics and anthropology. We have to incorporate all of the different approaches that can be used and will provide a clue as to how the human mind works. Other anthropologists have applied it to the analysis of other cultural systems (Foster, 2005: 374) – Leach (1976) for example, applied it to the use of structural methodology in understanding various domains of everyday life. For Leach (1976: 2) culture communicates; the complex interconnectedness of cultural events itself conveys information to those who participate in those events. In his essay about the semantics of cultural form, he suggests the procedure by which the participant observer anthropologists “can set about decoding the messages embedded in the complexities which he observes” (ibid.). Leach (1976: 4) claims that Lévi-Strauss’ structuralism is about the structure of ideas rather than the structure of society. He also compares it to Malinowski’s empiric-functionalism and claims that these two approaches are not contradictory: instead, one is a transformation of the other. Leach uses both of them in his analysis. The act of economic transactions (also the analysis of the anthropologically well-known gift economy), that flow from reciprocity, are socially cohesive, while reciprocity is also the mode of communication (ibid.: 5–6). For him, communication36 and economics can never be separated37 in practical affairs (ibid.: 7). The act of communication for Leach (1976: 5) is observing the interactions between individuals – “in communicative terms the sense of reciprocal obligation is an expression of a mutual feeling that we both belong to the same social system” (ibid.: 7). For Leach (1976: 7), individual items of the observed behaviour and the

36 Communication is a complex continuous process, which has many non-verbal as well as verbal components (Leach, 1976: 10). Leach (1976: 10) distinguishes three aspects of human behavior (natural biological activities of the human body, technical actions and expressive actions). They are never completely separated – they communicate and offer information about cultural background. 37 For example, even in a Christian Mass, where the priest offers the communicants bread and wine, which represent Jesus's body and blood, there is an economic substratum, for someone has to purchase the bread and wine (Leach, 1976).

individual’s details of custom can be treated as analogous to the words and sentences of language, or passages in a musical performance. For Leach (1976: 11), the modes and channels through which we communicate with one another are very diverse and complex, but human communication is achieved by means of expressive actions that operate as signals, signs and symbols38. According to Leach (1976: 11):

... all the various non-verbal dimensions of culture, such as styles in clothing, village lay-out, architecture, furniture, food, cooking, music, physical gestures, postural attitudes and so on are organised in patterned sets so as to incorporate coded information in a manner analogous to the sounds and words and sentences of a natural language (Leach, 1976: 11).

So, it is as meaningful to talk about the grammatical rules of wearing clothes, as it is to talk about the grammatical rules that govern speech39. On an abstract level all of our different senses are coded. The messages that we receive in different modes are transformed into other modes, and there must be ‘logical’ mechanisms that allow us to translate them. However, there is only an analogical similarity between the generation of new sentences in spontaneous discourse and the generation of new customs by cultural communication over a period of time (ibid.: 11–12). A communication event, as a unit of communication, consists of the sender (the originator of the expressive action), the receiver40 (the interpreter of the product of the expressive action) and the message (which is the action or the product of the action itself and is, on the other hand, encoded by the sender and decoded by the

38 For Leach (1976: 12), signs and symbols are contrasted sub-sets of index. This terminology differs depending on the author. Firth (1973), for example, made a sign a box category within which symbols, signals, indexes and icons are subdivisions. 39 If we grammatically change the sentence and make a completely new sentence, people will understand us. But this is not the case with most forms of non-verbal communication. Customary conventions can only be understood if they are familiar. So the syntax of non-verbal language must be simpler than that of spoken or written language (Leach, 1976: 12). 40 They may or may not be in the same place and time (Leach, 1976: 12).

receiver). Furthermore, Leach (1976: 13–16) writes about the differences among symbols, signs, icons, indexes and signals41 and also between metaphor (depends on asserted similarity) and metonymy (implies contiguity). His point is that sign relationships are contiguous and, therefore, mainly metonymic, while symbol relationships are arbitrary assertions of similarity and, thus, mainly metaphoric42. But all kinds of human actions serve to convey information (writing, musical performance, dancing, painting, etc.) (ibid.: 16–17). Leach (1976: 18) also deals with the relationship between the observable patterns of the world and the unobservable patterns in the mind. Every word in a mother tongue is, as a sound image, indissolubly linked with an internalised mental representation or concept. A linguistic sign is, therefore, a combination of a sound image and a concept (as de Saussure (1959) named it “the signifying” and “the signified”). Leach (1976: 19) also connected this with non-linguistic aspects of life. He sees general patterns in connecting various images with concepts:

The very fact that names which are applied to the things and events of the external world are arbitrary conventions implies an ambiguity about the sense-images and conceptualisations which the appearance of these things evoke and about the kinds of things we use as representations of metaphysical ideas (Leach, 1976: 19–20).

We also do binary symbolic linkage to things (like white for a bridal dress and black for a widow) that are part of the same message (a bride is entering into marriage, a widow is leaving it). The two customs are logically related, even

41 A signal is always a part of the cause and effect sequence, but it is the message itself (for example, if I do not drink for hours, I become thirsty – feeling thirsty is a signal). With an index, the message-bearing entity is an indication of the past, present and future existence of a message. Therefore, in an experiment with Pavlov's dog, food is a signal for the dog. But the dog learned to associate the bell with the food, so the bell was an index for the presence of food, but was treated as a signal (Leach, 1976: 23–24). So both signs and signals masquerade as signals (ibid.: 47). 42 Metaphoric (symbolic) and metonymic (sign) relationships are notionally distinct, and we keep them apart. But latent ambiguity is always there in many special, important situations – as in poetic or religious utterance for example. We can go to the opposite extreme by switching between symbols and signs (Leach, 1976: 23).

though we do not see it as such, because they are normally separated by time. The relationship between the concept in the mind and the sense-image is intrinsic, but the relationship between the sense-image and the object in the external world is always arbitrary. The linkage between the last two is always symbolic (metaphoric), but when this linkage becomes stabilised by convention and habitual use, it is a sign. Any arbitrary association, which is used over and over again, appears to be intrinsic (Leach, 1976: 20–21; 26–27). Furthermore, these can change, as Lévi-Strauss has already shown (1969), with the structure of myth, where the metonymic mode switches to metaphoric and back to metonymic. This principle is common to all verbal expressions and all ritual activity. Also, while interpreting a message we are constantly transforming the modes (Leach, 1976: 24–27). Leach (1976: 28–31) explains this with theories of magic and sorcery. All signs, and most symbols and signals, cohere together as sets. Meanings depend upon contrast (ibid.: 32). We are also creating artificial boundaries when we use symbols to distinguish one class of things or actions from another. We also need time for this. For example, the change of status from ‘unmarried’ to ‘married’ is simply a switch of categories, but on the level of action switching this is called a ritual. In the same way we distinguish domesticated areas from wild areas, towns from the countryside etc. (ibid.: 32–33). Leach (1976: 33–34) calls this the boundaries of social space and time, where a ritual is needed – a transition to make a change from one social status to another, from one social category to another (puberty rite to transform from child to person) – also called ‘rites of transition’ (ibid.: 34). A ritual is timeless (ibid.). Leach (1976: 34) also discovers that we focus our attention on the differences not the similarities, and this makes us feel that the markers of such boundaries are of special value, ‘sacred’ or even ‘taboo’. And this is culturally universal to all human societies (ibid.). Furthermore, we engage in rituals in order to transmit collective messages to ourselves (ibid.: 45). Regarding the language–culture connection Leach claims that concepts are linked to particular words in a particular language; things are linked to the world with different words in different languages. The same applies for the non-verbal

context (ibid.: 22). All could be used to convey culturally recognized messages (for example, in English, conventionally weeping means sorrow, laughter means joy, a kiss means love) (ibid.: 47). But Leach (1976: 22) claims, he does not want to be dogmatic, despite the fact that the artistic representation of common objects follows widely different conventions in different cultures43. It is perfectly possible that each individual perceives his world to be what his or her cultural background suggests it to be (ibid.). Colours are also symbolically coded – the same distinction may turn up in different cultures, even within the social context, but differently arranged44 (ibid.: 58–59). However, what is important is that we always talk about a set of contrasts: symbols always occur in sets, and the meanings of particular symbols are to be found in the contrast with other symbols rather than in the symbol as such (ibid.: 59–60)45. Everything that we do (for example, cooking or preparing food, bodily mutilation, noise or silence etc.) within any single cultural context, is certainly patterned in a systematic way (ibid.: 61–65). Many concepts are the mental aspects of sense-images, which are culturally determined responses to objects and events in the external world, but we can also generate abstract ideas in our heads (the opposition good/bad) and then give them form by projecting them onto the external world (good/bad becomes white/black – symbolism normally happens in religious rituals, myths etc., which Leach analyses) (ibid.: 36). With symbolism, we use our human imagination to associate together two entities, either material or abstract, which ordinarily belong to quite different contexts (for example, the ideology of totemism is a system of social classification) (ibid.: 38–40). It is important that non-verbal systems, like verbal

43 Leach (1976: 52) defines culture as “not simply a static topographical arrangement of man-made things, it is also a dynamic progression of segmented, time-bound, events, each of which is associated with a particular location in man-made space” (Leach, 1976: 52). 44 For example, the color of a bride's dress in different cultures ('West': white, China: bright red and green etc.) (Leach, 1976: 59). 45 This set of contrasts will also be important for our analysis of Slovenian kinship system terminology.

communication systems do not have meanings in isolation but only as members of sets46 (ibid.: 49). A rather different structural approach was characterized as ‘the new anthropology’ and was derived from the linguistic field of phonology. One such approach involved ‘folk taxonomies’, which are hierarchical paradigms abstracted from cultural systems (Foster, 2005: 374). Blount (1995: 105) conceptualised this approach as a development of ethnoscience in the late 1960s and in the beginning of the 1970s, where two areas of research were especially important: colour terms and ethnobiology. Berlin (1981), for example, studied the hierarchical properties of plant taxonomies to discover prototypical levels of focus. He proposed that the ethnobiological vocabulary of all languages can be described by six ethnobiological categories: generic, specific, major life form, varietal, intermediate and unique beginner (Berlin, 1995: 153). He discovered uniformity and consistency across diverse societies. This suggests a common human perception of the natural world, or as Berlin (1995: 184) states, “aspects of man’s lexicon develop in a regularly patterned fashion”. Berlin did something similar with Kay (1969) in the semantic analysis of colour terms etc. Along with ethnobiology, colour terminology has been one of the central pursuits in nomenclatural and classification systems –a great deal of literature exists on that subject (Blount, 1995: 390). Kay, Berlin and Merrifield (1995), for example, show that the naming of colours, as well as plants and animals, is not arbitrary across different societies and cultures; these are semantic universals. Basic colour terms are more or less present in a stable order, even though there are some variations. The language acquires the names for colours in a predictable order, but cultures can vary in how they set the boundaries between colours. Berlin and Key (1969) found, in their study of colours within different cultures, that ‘foci’/focus colours are universal constants of the human race and are biologically determined and independent from culture. Culture remains free to choose how many of these foci receive separate names and what labels to give them. Here we deal with a switch

46 A sign or symbol only acquires meaning when it is discriminated from some other contrary sign or symbol (Leach, 1976: 49).

of position from previous years after 1969: colour terms are perceived as natural and universal. Berlin’s and Kay’s book inspired many researchers to re-examine the concept of colour in many more languages with more detail and with greater accuracy. Many of these also rejected the universality of colours (for example, brown is not always the first colour to receive a name after blue). The debate never came to a final conclusion (Deutscher, 2010: 89–90). Deutscher (2010: 90) claims that both culture and nature have legitimate claims on the concept of colour. Nevertheless, in trying to test linguistic relativity, anthropologists and linguists in the 1950s and 1960s focused on psychological reality, choosing domains such as kinship, colour terms and folk biology for investigation. These domains are also easily verified from outside a particular language (Shaul and Furbee, 1998: 85). Further developments happened in linguistic anthropology. They represent a number of new lines of inquiry, but some themes are persistent: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis; the presentation of oneself through the choice of language form; and research on language, culture and society. The ethnography of speaking developed within linguistic anthropology (de Bernardi, 2005). For example, Silverstein (1995) claims that language cannot be limited to one function of reference, because language is multifunctional. In his view, the study of language and culture should not be restricted to one highly constrained function, whereas the bulk of relationships was found in relation to other functions. Language is a systematic construct that helps to explain the meaningfulness of speech behaviour, and speech is also linked to the wider system of social life. For Silverstein, culture is pragmatic (ibid.: 220). Hymes (1995), for example, writes about the ethnography of speech, and Hill (1995) writes about the grammar of consciousness and the consciousness of grammar. There, she shows that the Mexicano and Spanish speakers in Mexico have developed an interesting form of bilingualism, where Spanish is the second language and has a symbolic value (for matters external to the local community, for economic and political affairs) different from Mexicano. However, elements of Spanish were also “refunctionalized” into Mexicano as markers or indicators of the power and status of men (ibid.). Gumperz (1995) came to a similar conclusion in his study of the

speech communities of Khalapur and Hemnesberget. The following issues remain open to further discussion: the cognitive organization of grammatical categories, the influence of context on learning and the use of categories, including which linguistic and cultural categories are binary in nature (Shaul and Furbee, 1998: 85). Furthermore, there were also developments about this topic in semiotics, in the new relativism, in cognitive anthropology and in interpretivism (ibid.). Lucy (1995) writes about Whorf’s view on linguistic mediation and asserts that the most common misconception was that Whorf claimed that language determined thought and thus world view. Whorf, in his opinion, claimed that based on the way speakers habitually think, the assumptions they make about the world which lead them to categorize and classify the world in predictable and patterned ways and how these are codified in language. Lucy (1992) claims that the distinctive patterns of thinking are related to the differences between the two languages. In his book Language Diversity and Thought (1992) he examines the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and proposes a new, more adequate approach to future empirical research. He still agrees: “In its most elementary form, the linguistic relativity hypothesis posits that diverse languages influence the thought of those who speak them” (Lucy, 1992: 263). For him, “the description of reality for the purposes of comparison ideally should be neutral with respect to any one cultural or linguistic system” (ibid.: 274). Moreover, “A description of reality developed in this way is an analytical tool, a theoretical language, constructed for the purpose of comparison, and cannot be seen as a definitive description of reality for everyone or for any specific linguistic or cultural group” (ibid.: 275), because “reality can be described as it appears through the window of language" (ibid.: 275). Furthermore, nowadays the influence of language on thought can be divided into three categories: the semiotic, structural and functional categories. The semiotic category is basically about how speaking one language can influence thinking, while the structural level concerns how speaking one or more languages influences thinking. The functional level is slightly different in that it incorporates simple language usage as influencing thought. Many different hypotheses for the theory of linguistic relativity have been advanced, but there are really only three

common characteristics that they all share. “They all claim that certain properties of a given language have consequences for patterns of thought about reality” (Lucy, 1997). The common property of language is that it will vary in all aspects of speech. Another common property is that thought may be a cause of perception and attention. The final claim is that reality involves everyday experiences. These three characteristics are connected by two main ideas: that language involves interpretation and that it can influence thoughts about reality. Eugene Hunn (1995) writes about the connection culture – behaviour – language – speech from a cognitive-semiotic anthropological point of view and also from the point of view of ecological anthropology. He shows that culture is an ideational and adaptive system. Culture allows individuals to have knowledge about the world and to adapt to social and ecological environments. An individual inherits genetic material, a genotype, that sets a limit on morphology and behaviour, but the end results of morphology and behaviour are a consequence of their interaction with the environment. Culture defines behavioural possibilities. Language belongs in the nomenclatural and classificational systems that individuals have for their environment and ecological relations within it (ibid.). Hymes (1995) argues that children have to learn not just the vocabulary and grammar of a language, but the cultural rules as well in order to communicate effectively with other members of social groups. This is also called the language and culture approach to socialization (Blount, 1995: 391). At this point anthropological research borrowed from all three disciplines: anthropology, psychology and linguistics (ibid.). Ochs and Schieffelin (1995), for example, claim, upon researching the Anglo-American white middle class, the Kaluli (New Guinea), and the Samoan societies, that children’s speech is highly culturally organized and patterned. Studies of language and culture have, since the 1980s, been connected with the topics of gender, children’s speech, language socialization, ideology, power in the language etc. (Blount, 1995: 391–394). Nowadays, studies differ, and there is still no agreement regarding the question of the connection between language and culture. In the following, we will summarize some of these theories. Deutscher (2010) describes language as having two lives’: like “a system of conventions agreed upon by speech community for

the purpose of effective communication” (ibid.: 233) and as “a system of knowledge that each speaker has internalized in his or her own mind” (ibid.: 233). In his book he shows, through the evidence supplied by language, that the fundamental aspects of our thought are influenced by the cultural conventions of our society, even though this does not mean we cannot understand the concepts of another language (ibid.: 233–235). He also writes about the possible links between the structure of society and the structure of a grammatical system, even though he claims there is insufficient evidence for that conclusion (ibid.: 235– 236). Furthermore, in his opinion we do not know enough about how the human brain works and what is actually encoded in it (ibid.: 237–238). According to Black (2013), language matters in three ways. First, language matters in itself; second, language is material, tangible, and felt; it is “explored in research on topics as diverse as the semiotics of human artefacts, the movement of bodies in space and time, and the connection between language and the phenomenal world of lived experience” (Black, 2013: 273). And third, the subdiscipline of linguistic anthropology says that language matters because language, conversation and discourse have their own distinct properties, which are important for the study of society and culture (ibid). Black (2013) also reviews matters of language-expansion and refinements of existing research topics, including linguistic relativity, language socialization, sociolinguistic variation, and language ideologies. He considers a trend towards research on topics of embodiment, materiality and the senses, discussing the matter (in the physical sense) of language. He uses the term engagement to comment on developments in research on language endangerment, language circulation and shift, language and health, language and education and language and social justice. This is rooted in the notion that language makes a difference (or matters) in cultural practice and also indicates the important directions of research in American linguistic anthropology.

According to Duranti (2003), language as culture could be described in

American anthropology as three paradigms: Whereas the first paradigm, initiated by Boas, was mostly devoted to documentation, grammatical description, and classification

(especially of North American indigenous languages) and focused on linguistic relativity, the second paradigm, developed in the 1960s, took advantage of new recording technology and new theoretical insights to examine language use in context, introducing new units of analysis such as the speech event. Although it was meant to be part of anthropology at large, it marked an intellectual separation from the rest of anthropology. The third paradigm, with its focus on identity formation, narrativity, and ideology, constitutes a new attempt to connect with the rest of anthropology by extending linguistic methods to the study of issues previously identified in other (sub)fields. Although each new paradigm has reduced the influence and appeal of the preceding one, all three paradigms persist today, and confrontation of their differences is in the best interest of the discipline (Duranti, 2003: 323).

Shaul and Furbee (1998: 228–229) write about the neo-Boasian tradition, being concerned with classification, grammatical description and cross-linguistic comparisons, and more interpretive views. Others may follow the language and culture tradition of using linguistic models for nonlanguage analysis, the linguistic metaphorical approach. Although the number of linguistic anthropologists is small (and restricted normally to American cultural anthropology), the effect of language and culture studies remains strong in anthropology (ibid.). Daniel L. Everett completely rejects Noam Chomsky’s idea of a universal grammar (1986) in his article about the language and culture of the Pirahã people who live in Brazil’s Amazons basin47 (2005) and in his book Language: The

47 Pirahã language seems to have many unique characteristics: the absence of numbers of any kind, the absence of a concept of counting and of colour terms, the absence of embedding, the absence of “relative tenses”, the absence of creation myths and fictive accounts, and the refusal to talk about the distant past or a distant future – the lack of individual or collective memory of more than two generation’s past, the ability to keep a process going forever in the syntax, the simplest kinship system yet documented, etc. Pirahã culture constrains communication to nonabstract subjects that fall within the immediate experience of the interlocutors. Pirahã culture severely constrains Pirahã grammar in several ways, because grammar and other ways of living are

Cultural Tool (2012). For Everett (2005; 2012), there is no such thing as a universal grammar; there does not seem to be much evidence for that. The rules of language are not innate but spring from necessity and circumstances. A complex interplay of factors in each culture, and the values human beings share, play major roles in structuring the way we talk and the things we talk about. For Everett (2005; 2012), language is made possible by a number of cognitive and physical characteristics that are unique to humans but none of which are unique to language. Coming together, they make language possible. Nevertheless, the fundamental building block of language is community. Humans are a social species more than any other, and in order to build a community, which humans for some reason have to do in order to live, we must solve the communication problem. Language is a tool that was invented to solve that problem (ibid.). Everett argues that “the unidirectionality inherent in linguistic relativity offers an insufficient tool for language-cognition connections more generally in that if fails to recognize the fundamental role of culture in shaping language” (Everett, 2012: 623). If culture is causally implicated in grammatical forms, one must, according to Everett (2012: 633), learn one's culture to learn one's grammar; grammar is not simply ˝grown˝. Language and culture should be studied together in a cultural community of speakers, so that we can understand both (ibid.)48.

restricted to concrete, immediate experience. The immediacy of experience is reflected in the immediacy of information encoding – one event per utterance (Everett, 2005: 621–622). The constraints, according to Everett (2005: 626), are cultural: there is a cultural value that they share, the value of referring only to immediate experience. It is also interesting that Pirahã people continue to be monolingual after more than 200 years of regular contact with Brazilians and other non-Pirahã (Everett, 2005: 622). Everett (2005: 634) explains that, without their language and their culture, Pirahã would fail to be Pirahã; the Pirahã say: “We are not Brazilians. We are Pirahã.” (ibid.). According to Everett (2005: 632), their kinship system is the most economical. Kinship terms refer only to known relatives; one never refers to relatives who died before one was born. So, kinship terms conform exactly to the principle of immediacy of experience, which is a cultural constraint. Also, marriage is relatively unconstrained. Pirahã can marry close relatives (ibid.).

48 Of course, Everett's theory was also criticized, mostly by sceptics criticizing Everett’s recent analyses that seemed questionable to them (Gonçalves, 2005; Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch, 2002;

We could describe more contemporary research and studies, but to conclude this chapter, we are not deterministic about the relationship between culture and language. We agree that they are correlated and that language is a symbolic representation of what is important in a certain culture, but we should not study it in isolation, rather in connection with other, different segments of life, for example kinship. We should study the relations between elements, which give us meaning, because the semantic system is a part of the culture into which we are born. So we should agree with Duranti (1997: 337) that language is not just a representation of an independently established world. Language is also that world. Not in the simplistic sense that all we have of our past is language but in the sense that our memories are inscribed in linguistic accounts, stories, anecdotes, and names just as much as they are contained in smells, sounds, and ways of holding our body. If language is action, as proposed by Malinowski, and the ways we speak provide us with ways of being in the world, as suggested by Sapir, Whorf, and many others, linguistic communication is part of the reality it is supposed to represent, interpret, and evoke.

4 Kinship and systems of kinship

Kinship is a topic that has been consistently central to anthropological practice and theory (Parkin and Stone, 2004: ix). Kinship commanded the highest position among the theoretical realms of anthropology (Barnard, 2005: 783). Until the last decades of the 20th century, for example, kinship was regarded as the core of British social anthropology (Carsten, n. d.). Nowadays, it is no longer true that

Nevins, Pesetsky and Rodrigues, 2009). Nevins, Pesetsky and Rodrigues (2009) claim that “universal grammar” is only a name for the human capacity to form language. They claim that there is no evidence among the Pirahã of the particular causal relation between culture and grammatical structure suggested by Everett (2005). We can find the critic’s response in Everett’s article Pirahã Culture and Grammar: A Response to Some Critisism (2009).

kinship holds the most important position in anthropology, but it remains as important as ever as an element of human society (ibid.). The anthropological study of kinship has traditionally been divided into three areas: group structure (in the classification including descent and residence), alliance (relations through marriage) and relatives. Rules and prohibitions are marked out within each of these areas (ibid.: 783). Kinship has been explored and analyzed by many scholars. As the theoretical core of the newly emerging discipline of anthropology, kinship was also the subject that solidified the reputations of the leading experts in the field, including scholars such as Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Kroeber, Murdock, Fortes, Evans- Pritchard and Lévi-Strauss (Carsten, n. d., Parkin and Stone, 2004). But what is important for kinship? According to Barnard (2005: 784), kinship marks a boundary and a bridge between the non-human and human social order (for example, incest taboo is universal, hence belonging to the domain of the human biology, and socially specific, hence belonging to culture). Kinship has long been conceived as somehow logically distinct from other aspects of society, and through kinship, in the history of anthropology, the variety of human conceptual systems and the internal logic of diverse social structure came to be recognized. This started with evolutionists, such as Morgan and Radcliff-Brown, and went further with interpretivist and structuralist views (Barnard, 2005: 784). Furthermore, kinship is, according to Barnard (2005: 785), the most transparently structured realm of human life. It was also believed in anthropological history that kinship was built on models that were more ‘real’ than those of religion, economics, politics or law. This is not true, but kinship structures are more apparent cross-culturally than other structures are. In the history of anthropology, the debate about the relation between culture and the problem of the concept of kinship is also recognized. Witness for example the debate about Gellner’s biological view, Needham’s49 and Barnes’s social anthropological criticism of

49 Needham (1971) was engaged in a philosophical debate that focused on the distinction between “physical” and “social” kinship. He had claimed that “there is no such thing as kinship, and it follows that there can be no such thing as kinship theory” (ibid.: 5).

Gellner’s in the late 1950s, and the later rejection of the term by Schneider during the 1970s (Barnard, 2005; Parkin and Stone, 2004). Wilson (2016: 571) describes kinship studies early on in history as a key to understanding the functioning and evolution of human culture. Later on, kinship was an essential part of the ethnographic study of social structure and cultural practices through much of the 20th century (ibid.). Barnard (2005: 788) following Needham claims that we need a polythetic definition of kinship, because kinship: is understood cross culturally not because it has a single defining feature in all societies, but because similar sets of features are found in every society, without any single feature being necessary as the defining one. There are universals in kinship, but these universals are the constructs of anthropologists rather than of informants (Barnard, 2005: 788).

The idea of kinship is different cross-culturally – the biological idiom is dominates in Western societies whereas other societies do not need to have the same notions about procreation (Barnard, 2005: 788). In Western societies, kinship is defined through birth, blood, adoption, fostering and step-relations; however, ultimately this is arbitrary and therefore culturally determined (Parkin and Stone, 2004: 2). In the Western conception, the notion of nurture is just as important as nature. Nurture is the term used to describe socialization as a part of upbringing as the care and protection of infants until they are mature (Parkin and Stone, 2004: 2–3). Kinship is, therefore, one of the more complex systems of culture (Barnard and Good, 1984: 2), but it is also a part of culture and not of biology (Sahlins, 2013). Parkin and Stone (2004: 1) note that kinship has been thought of as a form of social organization in most of the societies anthropologists have chosen to study. All human communities have a kinship terminology, a set of terms used to refer to kin (Barnard and Good, 1984: 2). This means that all human societies impose a privileged cultural order upon the biological universals of sexual relations and continuous human reproduction through birth (Parkin,

1997: 3). Kinship is in most cases an important aspect of social organization (Barnard and Good, 1984: 2). However, as Lévi-Strauss claims (1963: 48), the kinship system does not hold the same level of importance in all cultures. For some cultures it provides an active principle regulating all or most social relationships. In other cultures (as in our “Western” societies), this function is either absent or greatly reduced. In other societies it is partially fulfilled. Schneider (2004) goes even further and rejects the idea of kinship. Anthropologists are primarily concerned with kinship as a system of social relations between people (Barnard and Good, 1984: 9). There are several anthropological perspectives in the study of kinship (Barnard and Spencer, 2005: 469). Early writers on kinship took it for granted that all levels of kinship data were mutually congruent (Barnard and Good, 1984: 10). For example, Morgan’s main interest was to develop a model of the evolutionary stages through which the kinship institutions of mankind as a whole had passed. He had amassed a large amount of data on kinship terminology and through this on the classification of kinship systems. He assumed that relationship terminologies or “systems of consanguinity” were conservative aspects of culture that reflected earlier socio- structural forms (Morgan, 1870; Barnard and Good 1984: 10). Morgan (1870) was also important because he was the first to talk about the classificatory system of kinship, which differs from the descriptive system of kinship. His work, Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, marks the beginning of scientific analysis of kinship systems for anthropology (Gaillard, 2004: 13; Godina, 1998: 50; Trautmann, 1988). Even Morgan’s evolutionist assumptions, especially the idea of “primitive promiscuity”, were later rejected in anthropology. Some scholars (for example Rivers, 1914: 1) agree that “the study of relationship terminologies gave information about the histories of the groups using them” (Barnard and Good, 1984: 10). Since then, anthropologists have debated the connection between relationship terminology and social structure. Kroeber (1929), for example, argued that there is no correlation between relationship terminologies and either

past or present social structures; however, he did discover principles that were used in separating kinds of kin: generation, affinity, collaterality (distinction between siblings and lineal relatives), sex of a relative, bifurcation (relatives may be traced through either a male or female connective relative), sex of speaker, relative age and decadence (different term, depending on whether the relative is alive or dead). Kroeber’s paper (1929) is also important because in it he dismissed the classificatory/descriptive typology of kinship. All kinships have both classificatory and descriptive terms (ibid.). On the other hand, Radcliffe-Brown (1952) argued that relationship terms reflected existing social facts: for example, when an ego addresses two people of distinct types with the same relationship term, this indicates that these two types of people are structurally equivalent in some sense (Barnard and Good, 1984: 11). For Radcliffe-Brown kinship is “the local groups within which personal relations are developed in work, rite, and recreation are at the same time bodies of relatives who have ancestors in common and among whom a complex web of ties links every person with others throughout the community” (Radcliffe-Brown, 1952: 1). Kinship is “a complex set of norms, of usages, of pattern of behavior between kindred” (ibid.: 10). A kinship system is part of the social structure; the actual social relations of a person to other persons, their interactions, and their behavior with respect to one other are important. A kinship system is “a network of social relations, which constitutes part of that total network of social relations which is the social structure” (ibid.: 13). What is applied to a system is a complex unity, an organized whole. Social structure is “any arrangement of persons in institutionalized relationship” (ibid.: 43), and the kinship system is one of these arrangements. Furthermore, according to Radcliffe-Brown (ibid.: 4), kinship is based on descent. What is important for him is that descent is not physical, but a specifically social relationship. Two persons are kin when one is the other’s descendant, the way a grandchild is descended from a grandparent. Both are descendants of a common ancestor or ancestress. The same applies to marriage, which “is a social arrangement by which a child is given a legitimate position in the society, determined by parenthood in the social sense” (ibid.: 5).

On the other hand, Lévi-Strauss did not consider kinship as based upon descent links between parents and children; instead, he focused on the alliance relationship created by marriage (Barnard and Spencer 2005: 471). Lévi-Strauss gives priority to kinship as a social rather than a biological category (Wilson, 2016: 575). Lévi-Strauss agrees with Morgan (1870) that the kinship terms constitute systems, but we still do not know their function (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 37). Lévi-Strauss was thinking about the interchangeability of terminological structures, on the one hand, and marital alliances, on the other (Barnard and Good, 1984: 12). For Lévi-Strauss it is important that “preferred or prescribed, the spouse is spouse solely because she belongs to alliance category or stands in a certain kinship relationship to Ego” (Lévi-Strauss, 1969: xxxiv). Lévi-Strauss deals with kinship mainly as a means of classifying persons – the classification of relatives with rules of marriageability (Barnard and Spencer, 2005: 471). He places marriage or alliance at the heart of kinship studies, showing how marriage is a structure of exchange resulting from the incest prohibition50 (Lévi-Strauss, 1969). For Lévi-Strauss (1963), “primitive systems” such as kinship, magic, mythology and ritual are scrutinized under similar linguistic dichotomies of an abstract normative system (objective) and an utterance (subjective). For Lévi-Strauss (1963: 47–48), a kinship system is “a language; but it is not a universal language, and a society may prefer other modes of expression and action”. Lévi-Strauss (1963: 32) claims that it was a linguist and a philologist (Schrader and Rose) who demonstrated the improbability of the hypothesis of matrilineal survivals in the family in antiquity.

50 Incest prohibitions or incest taboos prohibit an ego from having a sexual relationship with particular relatives. They appear to be present in some universal form, though their exact range varies considerably from society to society (Parkin, 1997: 37). Negative marriage rules refer strictly to rules prohibiting marriage with a particular kin type; they can be congruent with incest prohibitions, but not necessarily (ibid.). Positive marriage rules also exist – the category of a preferred spouse (ibid.: 45). Here, the term exchange is also normally used, because with marriage we do not just exchange spouses, but we also convert one kinship group to our kinship group (ibid.: 46).

The linguist provides the anthropologist with etymologies which permit him to establish between certain kinship terms relationships that were not immediately apparent. The anthropologist, on the other hand, can bring to the attention of the linguist customs, prescriptions, and prohibitions that help him to understand the persistence of certain features of language or the instability of terms or groups of terms (ibid.).

For Lévi-Strauss (ibid.: 34) kinship terms, like phonemes, are elements of meaning, and they acquire meaning only if they are integrated into systems. Like phonemic systems, kinship systems are built by the mind through unconscious thought. Although kinship systems belong to another order of reality, that of kinship phenomena, they are the same type as linguistic phenomena (ibid.). Furthermore, diachronic analysis must account for synchronic phenomena (ibid.). Lévi-Strauss (1963: 35) claims: Each detail of terminology and each special marriage rule is associated with a specific custom as either its consequence or its survival. We thus meet with a chaos of discontinuity. No one asks how kinship systems, regarded as synchronic wholes, could be the arbitrary product of a convergence of several heterogeneous institutions (most of which are hypothetical), yet nevertheless function with some sort of regularity and effectiveness.

According to Lévi-Strauss (1963: 35), it is therefore incorrect to equate kinship terms and linguistic phenomena from the viewpoint of their formal treatment. Lévi-Strauss defends an analogous method, with which anthropologists can analytically break down the kinship terms of any given system into their components. In each system, relationships are expressed, and each term of the system carries a connotation (positive or negative) regarding each of the following relationships: generation, collaterality, sex relative age, affinity, etc. Here we can also discover the most general structural laws. The system achieved through a

procedure is more complex and more difficult to interpret than the empirical data51 (ibid.: 35–36). Furthermore, Lévi-Strauss (1963: 36) claims that relationships are not necessary at the vocabulary level, which also applies to kinship terms. So, we should be careful about misinterpretations of an initial situation, which can reduce most structural analyses to pure tautology. They demonstrate the obvious and neglect the unknown. Therefore, we should introduce and discover meaning in the kinship nomenclature; furthermore, we should recognize “the special problems raised by the sociology of vocabulary and the ambiguous character of the relations between its methods and those of linguistics” (ibid.: 37). For Lévi-Strauss (ibid.: 37), the kinship system consists of two quite different orders of reality (as language is constructed of langue and parole): a terminology system (terms through which the kinds of family relationships are expressed) and a system of attitudes (prescribed behavior in relations52 between individuals; it is not expressed solely through nomenclature). The vocabulary system is linguistic, whereas the system of attitudes is both psychological and social in nature. When dealing with phonemic systems, we also examine systems of attitudes. With them, we can ensure group cohesion and equilibrium; however, we do not understand the nature of the interconnections between the various attitudes, nor do we perceive their necessity. We only know their function, but the system is unknown (ibid.: 37–38). According to Lévi-Strauss (1963: 38), attitudes are not expressions or transpositions of terms on the affective level, as Radcliffe-Brown defines them53

51 The result is more abstract than the principle; if there is a system, it is not concrete, but conceptual (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 36). 52 Relations are, for example, respect or familiarity, rights or obligations, and affection or hostility (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 37). 53 For Radcliffe-Brown reality is “not any sort of entity but a process, the process of social life” (Radcliffe-Brown, 1952: 4). Radcliffe-Brown places emphasis on learning the social form, especially the kinship system. The general analytical description of a kinship system is as constituting a system. The systems consist of a structure – “some sort of ordered arrangement of parts or components” (ibid.: 6–7). Function is the intervening variable between process and structure. Moreover, it is a contribution to the life of an organism as a whole (ibid.: 179).

(1952). Kinship systems do not constitute the principal means for regulating interpersonal relationships in all societies. Even if they do, that function does not fulfill the role everywhere to the same extent. We need to distinguish between diffused, uncrystallized and non-institutionalized attitudes and those attitudes which are stylized, prescribed and sanctioned by taboos and privileges and expressed through a fixed ritual. The system of attitudes constitutes a dynamic integration of the system of terminology (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 38–39). If kinship systems, preferential marriage rules and linguistic structures could be formulated in the same terms, we would be one step closer to understanding the unconscious process which underlies the various manifestations of social life (Jacobson, 1963: xii). Based on the examples of a mother’s brother in South Africa54 and the correlation of attitudes among societies of the Trobriand and the Cherkess type, Lévi-Strauss claims that it is not enough to study the correlation of attitudes between father/son and uncle/sister’s son. This correlation is just one aspect of a global system containing four types of relationships: brother/sister, husband/wife, father/son, and mother’s brother/sister’s son. In both groups, the relation between maternal uncle and nephew is to the relation between brother and sister as the relation between father and son is to that between husband and wife. Thus if we know one pair of relations, it is always possible to infer the other (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 42).

Lévi-Strauss (1963), based on various examples of relationships (positive (+) free and familiar relations; negative (-) hostility, antagonism and reserve) among family members in different cultures and different social organizations (matrilineal/patrilineal descent), shows that

54 The classical study of Radcliff-Brown (1952), where he claims that attitudes between the mother’s brother and the mother’s son are oppositions according to patrilineal/matrilineal societies. Lévi-Strauss (1963: 41) opposes that an interpretation like this arbitrarily isolates particular elements of a global structure which must be treated as a whole.

the correlation between types of descent and forms of avunculate does not exhaust the problem. Different forms of avunculate can coexist with the same type of descent, whether patrilineal or matrilineal. But we constantly find the same fundamental relationship between the four pairs of oppositions required to construct the system (ibid.: 44).

Furthermore, Lévi-Strauss (1963: 46) argues that in “order to understand the avunculate we must treat it as one relationship within a system, while the system itself must be considered as a whole in order to grasp its structure”. Structure is constructed by four terms (brother, sister, father and son), “which are linked by two pairs of correlative oppositions in such a way that in each of the two generations there is always a positive relationship and a negative one” (ibid.). A structure is “the unit of kinship”; it is “the most elementary form of kinship that exists” (ibid.). This is the function of a structure. Based on this, there exist three types of family relations, which are the deep structures of kinship: a relation of consanguinity (between siblings), a relation of affinity (between spouses), and a relation of descent (between parent and child). These “microsociological” levels serve to discover the most general structural laws. The character of the basic unit of kinship is, according to Lévi-Strauss, a direct result of the universal presence of an incest taboo55 (ibid.: 46–47). The error of traditional anthropology and traditional linguistics was, according to Lévi-Strauss (1963: 46), to consider the terms, and not the relations between the terms. It is of high importance that “like phonemes, kinship terms are elements of meaning; like phonemes, they acquire meaning only if they are integrated into

55 This means that “in human society a man must obtain a woman from another man who gives him a daughter or a sister” (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 46). The relationship between “brothers-in-law” is the necessary axis around which the kinship structure is built. Because kinship is not a static phenomenon, it exists in self-perpetuation; the child (born or yet unborn) is of prime importance (ibid.: 46–47). The child is “indispensable in validating the dynamic and teleological character of the initial step, which establishes kinship on the basis of and through marriage” (ibid: 47). The most elementary kinship structure exists both synchronically and diachronically because of the initial disequilibrium between the generation that gives and the generation that takes the woman. It is always (the) man, who exchanges (the) woman (ibid.).

systems” (ibid.). Lévi-Strauss therefore identified complex avuncular relationships, contrary to atomism and simplified labels of avunculate associated with matrilineal descent. Moreover, Lévi-Strauss (1963: 50) suggested that kinship systems therefore have a social-cultural character and do not consist of objective ties of descent or consanguinity between individuals; instead, they “exist only in human consciousness; it is an arbitrary system of representations, not the spontaneous development of a real situation” (ibid.: 50). Kinship is allowed to establish and perpetuate itself only through specific forms of marriage (ibid.: 50– 51). Families are not those (isolated terms) that are truly “elementary”, but rather the relations between these terms. The meaning of an element (avunculate) only exists in relation to a kinship structure (ibid.). Lévi-Strauss (1969) also applies the principle of binary oppositions to describe the systematic variation in different societies between the positive and negative attitudes among close relatives (father/son, husband/wife, mother’s brother/sister’s son, brother/sister). The relations among close family members are systematic, with very limited alternative possibilities--just as the distribution of phonemes in different languages is limited. Oppositions are also highly important in the organization of ‘elementary’ marriage systems: the prohibition of incest and exogamy is universal because these are perceived as natural facts. Every culture has specific rules of complex systems which forbid marriages between certain relatives (normally close relatives). Elementary systems therefore prescribe marriage between certain categories of relatives. Then we get two groups that are culturally defined: a group of wife-givers and a group of wife-takers (ibid.). Also, in the field of structural anthropology, Leach (1976: 66) claims that both kinship terms and formal marriage rules constitute distinguishable ‘sets’ of metonymically related cultural items. As we move across the ethnographic map, we often find that neighboring communities of broadly similar cultures adopt strikingly different conventions regarding the classification of kin (ibid.). For Leach (1976: 66), ideas such as ‘marriage’ and ‘fatherhood’ are generated in the mind. They do not describe any material objective ‘thing’ in the world out there. It is universal that all human societies distinguish kin categories and recognize mating conventions that are analogous and have rules that apply to them. Any rule

that has the implication (for a man) that ‘women from the A category are marriageable, whereas women from the B category are not’ is a part of a system of social classification which serves to map out the social environment of the individual whom it concerns. Any rule that has the implication that ‘if the category of marriageable women includes the sister of X, then my own sister falls into the category of marriageable women for X’, also implies that I and X are of equal standing – they exchange similar things of the same kind. If my sister does not fall into the category of marriageable women for X, then I and X are on an unequal standing (ibid.: 66–68). These rules, according to Leach (1976: 69), are very important for the empirical structuring of all self-perpetuating human social systems. Our ideas about how society is put in order or ought to be put in order are often expressed in attitudes toward particular types of marriage possibilities. Explicit and implicit rules serve to inhibit marriage across the frontiers of ‘class’, ‘race’ and ‘caste’ to see the importance of such a mode of classification. Furthermore, there exist exogamy rules that prohibit mating between members of the same social segment of a single overall system: we need to make alliances with others. This is connected with marriage rules and rules about sexual behaviour (rules about ‘incest’56). There also exist endogamy rules that prohibit mating between members of different social segments of the same overall system (for example, castes in India), and these are also connected with marriage and sexual relationships (for example, sexual taboo) (ibid.: 69–70). In the history of social anthropology, theoretical approaches such as those of functionalism and structuralism have focused on how social groups are formed, how individuals are related to one another through kinship and the mutual rights and duties they have as a result. Cultural anthropologists, by contrast, have chosen to focus more on the symbolic aspects of kinship. This approach has predominated in America since around the 1900s but has been reinvigorated periodically and become more influential in the world of anthropology, especially in the poststructuralist phase starting in the 1970s. The kinship domain can be

56 At the core of an incest taboo is the prohibition of sexual relations between brothers and sisters. Rules of exogamy call for the exchange of women between male dominated groups (Lévi-Strauss, 1969; Leach, 1976).

divided into descent (more specifically, relations between generations), marriage and siblingship. As we have seen, early works (especially from the functionalist school) tended to see kinship only as a matter of descent57 (relations that arises in one’s group of origin), which produced the phrase “kinship and marriage”. Later works, starting with structuralism, tended to include marriage within the overarching rubric of kinship, adding the notion of affinal alliance (human kinship through marriage58) (Parkin, 1997). Dumont addressed this distinction in his Introduction to Two Theories of Social Anthropology: Descent Groups and Marriage Alliance (1997), where he summarized the descent theory and the theory of marriage alliance in the history of social anthropology during the twentieth century. He even claims (after comparing English and French kinship) that all kinship systems entail a notion of filiation, rather than descent (Dumont, 1997: 99). Dumont (1997) also focuses on the variants of cross-cousin marriages and the implications of the global formulas of exchange.

57 The simple link between a parent and a child is a tie of filiation (patrifiliation – between a father and a child; matrifiliation – between a mother and a child). If filiation links are repeated generation after generation, we can talk about descent. Descent does not take the same form everywhere and may not be recognized at all (Parkin, 1997: 15). Furthermore, when links traced through one parent are emphasized at the expense of another, we talk about patrilineal or agnatic descent (if links are emphasized through a father), matrilineal or uterine descent (if links are emphasized through a mother) and unilineal (the descent line is formed by these links traced back in time through the people of the same sex to the ancestor or the founder of the line). Unilineal descent typically gives status to children of both genders. Unilineal descent groups are regularly called clans and lineages. Lineages are descent groups that are shallow enough for the links between all their members to be known and traceable. Clans that have a deeper extent and unilineal descent groups are typically descended from a mythical ancestor that is neither alive nor recently deceased, nor is he even historical (ibid.: 15–18). Unilineal descent groups are also exogamous (request from its members to marry outside the group) and endogamous (request from its members to marry inside the group) (ibid.: 19). We can also distinguish descent by authority – patriarchal and matriarchal (ibid.: 25). 58 Marriage is frequently accompanied by property transfers of two basic types: bridewealth (paid for the bride by the groom and very often by his kin group as well) and dowry (paid by the bride’s family or kin group either to her husband or to the bride and/or her husband) (Parkin, 1997: 40– 41). We also distinguish different affinal alliances: symmetric and asymmetric, etc. (ibid.).

We should also present some contemporary theories of kinship. Sahlins (2012), for example, claims that kinship is culture and not biology. The special quality of kinship is the “mutuality of being”: “kinfolk are persons who participate intrinsically in each other’s existence; they are members of one another” (Sahlins, 2012: ix, 2). The “mutuality of being” applies to the local constitution of kinship by social construction or by procreation or a combination of these (there exists a great variety of transmitted substances: blood, semen, milk, bone, genes, flesh, soul, etc.) (ibid.: ix, 2, 4). The “mutuality of being” also means that relatives emotionally and symbolically live each other’s lives and die each other’s death – enigmatic effects of kinship bonds (ibid.: ix, 2). Furthermore, the “mutuality of being” applies equally to interpersonal kinship relations, whether “consanguineal” or “affinal,” as well as to group arrangements of descent59 (ibid.: 2). For Sahlins (2012: ix), kinship takes its place in the same ontological regime as magic, gift exchange, sorcery and witchcraft. Kinship categories are not a representation or metaphorical extension of birth relations, but birth is a metaphor for kinship relations. Sahlins (2012: 3) even claims that brothers by compact may be closer and exhibit more solidarity than birth brothers. Kinship is culture; it is not biology (ibid.). Barnard (2005) has quite a similar notion of kinship. Kinship is not a fact of nature but is rather constituted within a specific human discourse on a social relationship60. If we take, for example, the relationship between a father and a son, there are firstly, a set of expectations surrounding the proper performance of

59 For example, across a number of societies, two human beings are insufficient to produce another human being; the intervention of a spiritual third is also required. This seems particularly true in the descent-based kinship orders, where lineage or clan ancestors are necessary participants in conception. The ancestor is the co-generator of a child (Sahlins, 2012: 4). 60 This discourse includes ideas about sharing our bodily substance, as it is conceived in the indigenous theory of procreation. In Western societies the substance of kinship has been commonly identified with blood (as in the notion of consanguinity), though nowadays this is giving way to the pseudo-conception of genetic material. Statements like “we are of one blood” or “we have inherited the same genes” should not be understood literally, but rather metaphorically – as ways of talking about an experienced, social reality. Kinship is ‘biological’ only insofar as ‘biology’ enters into the vernacular discourse on social relations (Ingold, 2005: 740).

fatherhood, just as there are attached to being a good son. In this sense 'father' and 'son' are roles to be enacted, and the relationship between them is inscribed within the framework of the normative orientations of the society in question. We can talk about ‘social’ kinship. Secondly, the members of a society claim that the father and the son are linked by virtue of the father’s material contribution to the formation of the body of the child; this is constitutive of a ‘biological’ kinship relation. We can also have a situation where one component can occur without the other: where a man extends his fatherhood towards children who are not thought to share his bodily substance, or denies it to children who do. None of this has anything to do with an actual genetic connection. So, we need to understand the concordance between social and a biological kinship as being culturally perceived (ibid.). Furthermore, Schneider (2004) completely denies the term kinship and deconstructs the kinship system. He criticizes the extension of our own biological fixation to an understanding of kinship in other societies. Kinship, for him, is culturally constructed. There is no such thing as kinship (he deduces this from the similarities between American kinship and his bargain definitions of nationalism and religion). In his well-known studies of American kinship, he demonstrates how all kinship is conventionally made through relatives by marriage. He established that in this case kinship symbols are “the symbols which are American kinship” (ibid.). “Substance” is as constructed as “code” is: what has to be conveyed in procreation is not merely the physical substance but social status61 as well (ibid.). Schneider (2004) saw U. S. kinship as a system of meanings structured around the twin symbols of blood (shared biogenetic substance) and love (“diffuse, enduring solidarity”)62. Parsons’ and Schneider’s (2004) tradition made a radical differentiation of the ‘normative’ system of social actions and the relations from a pure ‘cultural system’ of symbols and meaning. The social or

61 Therefore, among Amazonians, a birth may not involve kinship ties to anyone. A woman bore the child of an animal (Vilaça, 2002). Parenting is also devalued in the reincarnation concepts in many circumpolar societies. It is not even inevitable that the kinship of procreation is essentially different from the relationships created postnatally or the capacity of shared food to generate kinship (Sahlins, 2013: 4–6). 62 This is also the key to understanding kinship in U. S. culture.

normative system involves prescriptions of people’s interactions, ordered by ‘symbols and meanings’; he positions kinship in the realm of ‘symbols and meanings’ (Schneider, 2004: 263) or, as he says, “in the pure cultural level there is no such thing as kinship” (ibid.: 257). If “kinship” is studied at the cultural level … then it is apparent that “kinship” is an artifact of the anthropologist’s analytic apparatus and has no concrete counterpart in the cultures of any of the societies we studied. Hence the conclusion that “kinship”, like totemism, the matrilineal complex and matriarchy, is a non-subject, since it does not exist in any culture known to man (Schneider, 2004: 284).

As Wilson (2016: 572) claims for Schneider, the bio-essentialist grid was an ethnocentric projection imposing a peculiarly American-European conception of kinship onto other cultures. Schneider (1984: 187) also claims that kinship, alongside economics, politics, and religion, forms one of the four privileged institutions, domains of social science, each of which is conceived to be a natural, universal and vital component of society. Wilson (2016: 574) claims that Schneider's kinship has been constructed primarily “as a bio-essentialist relationship of one kind or another, one between biological ancestor-descendant pairs that, over time, constitute biological ancestor-descendant lineages” (ibid.). Also, sexual relations matter insofar as they are the biological means through which these pairs and lineages are generated (ibid.). According to Wilson (2016: 575), what Schneider did, therefore, was to show that those working on kinship had continually projected onto non-Western cultures a conception of kinship according to which biological, genealogical, and reproductive relations play distinctive roles in structuring and governing the social relations and cultural practices subsumed under kinship (ibid.).

Despite Schneider's rejection and reduction of his interest in kinship in the 1970s and 1980s (Parkin and Stone, 2004), kinship is still a topic of research in

anthropology, especially nowadays, when it is more and more often included under studies of gender, personhood, the body, ritual etc., with a great deal of ethnographic research. Despite the notion that “there is no such thing as kinship,” some anthropologists have persisted in developing traditional approaches, with many fruitful results (Parkin, 1997: ix–x). There have also been numerous studies of the family, theoretically less influential than very recent studies of the new reproductive technologies, and their implications for what we mean by kinship63 (ibid.; Wilson, 2016: 572). Theoretical and political changes to the discipline during the 1970s brought changes like the emergence of feminist perspectives on gender, family and social structure (Ortner, 1984). Also, the structural approach to understanding society was replaced by the interpretive understanding of culture64 (Geertz, 1973). Nancy Levine (2008: 376) even claims that Schneider's critique was “the most devasting and most productive for future research”. Wilson (2016: 570) claims that Schneider's critique is often taken to have shown the limitation of and problems with past views of kinship based on biology, genealogy, and reprodution, a critique that subsequently led those reworking kinship as relatedness in the new kinship studies to view their enterprise as divorced from such bio-essentialist studies. (Wilson, 2016: 570).

Anthropologists have learned many interesting things about kinship terminologies. In terms of our topic today, how cultural ideas are organized, kinship terminologies provide a means of classifying relationships with other people for each person in a society (Fischer, n.d.). We described these in diagrams that show us an actual genealogy (the ways in which real living or deceased

63 The revival of kinship in a post-Schneiderian guise opened up a novel array of topics – reproductive technologies, chosen families, autoethnography, gay and lesbian imtimacy, invented communities, the body and personhood, artificial life, Internet dating, identity politics, disability activism, ethnicity, and adoption practices – and innovative approaches for those working on the various meanings that relatedness has for individuals and cultures. Such studies normally emphasize the performativity and lived experience of kinship (Wilson, 2016: 572). 64 Schneider's symbolic anthropology was distinguished from the related hermeneutical, interpretive approach (Wilson, 2016: 574).

individuals are said to be related one to another in the society in question; genealogies may also include mythical figures). Furthermore, the diagrams show us kinship systems in the way in which representative individuals, or organized and defined groups of individuals (for example, descent groups, alliance groups) are typically or ideally related to one another in a particular society. We can also see the content of such relations (for example, the circulation of gifts among particular kin groups that Malinowski observed), and with this anthropologists also generate abstractions or models of kinship systems65 on the basis of features that are more or less common to a number of societies (for example, bilateral cross-cousin marriage). Of course, we can also see kinship terminology from the diagrams66 (Parkin, 1997: 12–13). The schools of functionalism and structuralism had an interest in kinship terminology, the terms used for relatives and the different patterns they make when seen as whole systems. However, whereas functionalism tended to view the terminology in terms of descent, structuralism connected it with marriage, especially affinal alliance involving marriage to various classes of cousins, from which came the terms, respective to the schools, of descent theory and alliance theory (Parkin, 1997). Nowadays, anthropologists have come to speak more freely of relatives rather than of kin, of relationships rather than of kinship. Relative and relatedness came to be the preferred terms of cultural analysis for the emerging forms of kinship (Wilson, 2016: 573). This is a more pluralist conception of kinship67 (ibid.: 576). Therefore, the conceived

65 Kinship systems are patterns of behavior and attitudes in relation to differences in terminology. Some anthropologists saw through kinship systems the relations between kinship categories and patterns of marriage, including forms of marriage, restrictions on marriage and cultural concepts of the boundaries of incest (Parkin, 1997). 66 Kinship terminology is the whole ensemble of kinship terms. A kin term or kinship term or relationship term designates a particular category of kin or relative regarded as a single semantic unit (Parkin, 1997: 47). Kinship terminologies have discernible patterns, but these vary from society to society and are not always internally consistent in the logical sense. The terminology of direct address often differs in detail from the terminology of reference used in the same society (ibid.: 49). 67 This conception includes relationships of intimacy, such as friendship and love, of enmity, of being a neighbor etc. (Wilson, 2016: 576).

kinship should be studied both in Western domestic places and spaces as well as cross-culturally (Carster, 2004; Wilson, 2016). As we can see with kinship terms, classifications are always important, which means relations and their function for society. There is no social relation without an exchange. So, with any analysis of a kinship system, we are discovering, ordering and classifying relations of exchange.

II Analysis of Slovenian kinship terminology

5 Methodological procedure

In our thesis we seek to describe the Slovenian system of kinship terminology to improve our understanding of the Slovenian culture. We will employ structural anthropological analysis, where the meaning of elements is determined by the relationship between them (Lévi-Strauss, 1963, 1969; Leach, 1978). Such relationships constitute systems or sets of relations; the organization of such systems is called their structure (ibid.). Culture is important because it transforms the structure of meaning (ibid.). We also consider previous data and research that deal with Slovenian kinship terms and other aspects of Slovenian society, such as historical facts, which could help to explain changes in Slovenian kinship terminology (theoretical holism). Furthermore, we will pay attention to relatedness (Wilson, 2016) in Slovenian culture and society. To begin, kinship terms and their changes over time will be presented. Here, it is vital to understand that within any society people are both organized in groups and classified in categories. A group may be identified by the outsider analysing a society, or it may be labelled by members of the given society and so form a category in their system of ideas. In many societies, basic groups include descent groups or lineages. Whenever a society has a name to describe these groups; this name designates a category. People have roles assigned to them in virtue of the categories into which they fall (Mair, 1992: 54). Kinship is the most important social institution because the kin group takes care of one’s livelihood, career, marriage, protection and social identity (Eriksen, 2001: 93). As with other people, kin have status and roles. With these, the various kinds of social relationships engaged in by humans can be described. All members of society have certain rights and duties in relation to other members. Rarely do any two individuals have exactly the same rights and duties. Each person also has many different rights and duties in relation to different persons and distinct situations. In this regard, it is customary to speak of differences in status. A status is “a socially defined aspect of a person which defines a social relation and entails certain rights and duties in relation to others” (ibid.: 49). The social person is

composed of the sum of different statuses. Each status is also connected with social expectations (ibid.: 50). A role is a “dynamic aspect of the status, that is, a person’s expected behaviour within the limitations set by the status definition;” it is “what one actually does” (Eriksen, 2001: 50). The notions of rank, hierarchy and stratification also need to be considered. Rank may be ascribed on the basis of descent: for example, persons belonging to certain lines of descent regarded as superior to others are entitled to receive formal marks of respect and may sometimes have other privileges (Mair, 1992: 58). Hierarchy, on the other hand implies relationships of authority and obedience, superiority and subordination (for example, the army), while rank in itself implies status. Rank and authority commonly go together, but they need not (ibid.: 59– 60). If a person’s status is ascribed, this means that “a person’s place in society, his rights and duties, his claim to property, largely depend on his genealogical relationships to other members” (ibid.: 69). Furthermore, many societies are stratified: their members are unequal in status. Stratification can be described as resembling geological strata or the layers in a cake: all members of one section are held to be superior to all members of another (for example, in the history of Europe, full citizens, free men in comparison to others who are slaves or serfs) (ibid.: 60). It is also important to stress that the terms ‘kinship’ and ‘descent’ are not identical and are not always distinguished with sufficient clarity. People are in one sense kin if they have what is called ‘common blood’(genes): that is, they have an ancestor in common68. However, nobody recognizes kinship with all the people to whom he is linked by common descent (ibid.: 70). It is not the biological calculation that measures nearness of kin; it is the law of any given society: kinship is “the social recognition of biological ties”69 (ibid.: 69). Descent is not a biological thing; ‘physical relationships’ are used ‘for social purposes’ (Gelner, 1973: 170). Following Needham’s and Barnes rejection of Gelner’s concept,

68 In that sense, nobody knows all his kin--just those who are close relatives (Mair, 1992: 69). 69 All the people who are related by 'blood' in any way to an individual are his cognates. Those who are related to him by marriage are his affines. Affines may have been kin before the marriage, but very often this is not so. They come to be thought of and treated as kin (Mair, 1992: 71).

Barnard (2005: 788) also claims that ‘physical relationships’ are socially constructed ‘biological’ knowledge. This knowledge is not universal but culturally specific70 (ibid.). As was discussed in Chapter 4 Kinship and the systems of kinship, some writers, such as Schneider, even reject the idea of kinship or the idea that kinship has something to do with biology. So, as Mair (1992: 69) suggests, “kinship is the expression of social relationships in a biological idiom”, even when people in societies treating one another as close kin based on biological relatedness. It is important to take into account how members of different societies consider it appropriate to trace their kin and the arrangements of people that result71 (ibid.: 70). Kinship is a cultural phenomenon and not per se a biological one; it is a cultural and social construction (Barnard, 2005: 785–786). What is also important, as Mair (1992: 71–75) claims, are corporative groups – that is continuing property-holding groups. Based on kinship, these are recruited by descent, and a clear principle of descent is established by the rule that it is traceable in one line only – either through male descent (patrilineal, agnatic descent) or through female descent (matrilineal descent). This is called the principle of unilineal descent. A corporative group recruited by descent is called a lineage72. Through whichever parent a person traces his descent, he recognizes

70 Kinship is understood cross culturally not because it has a single defining feature in all societies, but because similar sets of features are found in every society, without any single feature being necessary as the defining one (Barnard, 2005: 788). 71 These may be looked at in two ways. An older method (dating to the time when Morgan discovered the 'classificatory system') is to put yourself in the place of an individual, and ask whom he regards as kin and how he arranges his different kinsmen into categories. The other is to stand outside the society you are looking at and see if you can identify corporate groups organized on some principle of kinship (Mair, 1992: 70). 72 If descent is patrilineal, then the child of a legal marriage belongs to his father’s lineage. Through his father he has a claim on the productive resources of the lineage. He can draw on these not only for his own subsistence, but for special needs, such as payment required to make his marriage legal, or the payment of compensation for a wrong done by him to a member of another lineage. His rank is fixed by his lineage membership. It is his duty to obey the senior man of his lineage, and it is the duty of that senior man to further the welfare of his lineage. A man ought to stand by his lineage mates in any conflict with outsiders. In a matrilineal society, every person

mutual rights and obligations with the kin of the other. ‘Lateral’ means ‘on the side’; lineal means ‘in a line’. The relationship of a person with his kin through the parent from whom he does not trace descent is called complementary filiation. A few societies also trace descent in the male line for some purposes and the female for others. This is called double unilineal descent. Recognition of unilineal descent is important for discovering the principles of social structure. However, there are also a large number of societies in which descent is not traced in a unilineal manner – bilateral or cognatic descent. In non-unilineal systems, where people can choose to which parent’s side they will belong, there are no distinct groups maintaining their distinctness over time (ibid.; Barnard, 2005: 794–795). It is therefore meaningless to talk of descent unless we are talking of a relationship that follows (ibid.: 75). Furthermore, the significance of a continuing group is that it holds and transmits property (ibid.). So, in this thesis, it is not just differences in terms that will be presented, but for each kinship term, the status and roles historically and at the present. Furthermore, marriage customs and inheritance rules will be described as important components in understanding how kinship groups were and are formed. Additionally, the changes over time and the connections between the main notions of language, culture and kinship will be explained.

6 Slovenian kinship terminology

The current Slovenian term for family is družina. Družina (etymologically: *druž-in-a) is based on the root druž-, which means “friends, companion, fellow passenger”. In the Dictionary of Standard Slovenian (Bajec et al., 2014: 302–303) the term družina is described as meaning “married couples with children or belongs to the lineage of his mother. Women are treated with great respect, but lineage authority nevertheless always rests with men. Authority then rests not with one’s father, but one’s mother’s eldest brother (Mair, 1992: 72). Societies where most lineage members live close together can also be found. In that case lineage and local grouping are largely identical. It is very common to find in one village or neighbourhood a mixture of people, some of whom have come to live there because of other kin ties with members of the ‘owning’ lineage (Mair, 1992: 73).

without them; one married person with children; a group of people who are connected through a kin link; a group of people who are united by organized shared work, descent or servants”. These meanings cover the broad usage of the word in everyday speech (Ravnik, 1996: 36). According to the Slovenian Linguistic Atlas (Škofic et al., 2011: 239), the word is used in all dialect groups of present-day Slovenia as meaning “married couple with children or without them” (ibid.), “all those living in one house” (ibid.), and even “ aunts and uncles staying at the house and living in the same household” (ibid.). In the past the term rodbina (*rod-bb-in-a) was used, which means “descent or tribe”. Rodbina is based on the root rod-, which means “a community of people, of descent from the same ancestor; level of kinship, people of a certain degree of kinship; historical community of people in a family-tribal society, who are blood relatives” (Bajec et al., 2014: 453), or, nowadays, “who belong to one house” (Škofic et al., 2011: 240). Rodbina is a “group of people based on kin ties; archaic for družina” (Bajec et al., 2014: 453). Sergij Vilfan (1961: 248–250) said that these two terms (rodbina and družina) were important in the Slovenian legal system. Rodbina designates a community of persons according to descent, while družina designates a community based on a shared household. Rodbina in the broad sense means all relatives, whether or not they live in the same household, and rodbina in the strict sense means only those relatives who live and maintain household together. The družina is composed of those relatives who live and maintain a household together (the meaning of rodbina in the strict sense) and of those people who are not relatives but who form part of a labour force and are, as such, part of the household (Vilfan, 1961: 248–250; Ravnik, 1996: 35; Stramljič, 2007: 252). It is interesting that nowadays the term družina73 is in use. This word was once used in a wider sense to denote only descent involving close or distant relatives. This means that other people were once important for society and not just relatives; under feudalism, extra residents were important because they constituted an extra work force. Vilfan (1954: 157–195) and Ravnik (1996: 37) discussed using the term “house community” – hišna skupnost – because many

73 The term rodbina is still in use and it can be noticed only in a dialect of Prekmurje, the region of Eastern Slovenia.

families used to live under one roof, especially in the region of Slovenia near the seaside, called Istria (Ravnik, 1996: 37). After each new division of the family, the living quarters were separated by carrying out minor alterations, or through the construction of annexes, but people continued to live under the same roof or its extension; this can be described as a type of household group or community (ibid.: 282). So, it could be said that, particularly in a historical context, the Slovenian extended family – defined as a domestic unit, usually understood as a less formalized collective of relatives sharing the same dwelling place (Barnard, 2005: 793) – was of prime importance. Nowadays, it is becomes important in case of survival (for example, if a nuclear family cannot survive because of job loss etc.) – distant kin represent what Barnard (2005: 794) called the “politico-juridical domain”. In dialectal use, especially in the southern and eastern part of Slovenia, the term familija (Italian: Famiglia, German: Familie) is also in use: “all people, living in one house, including aunts, uncles and grandfathers” (Škofic et al., 2011: 239). The term familia was originally a Latin word with the meaning “house; community of people, living under the same roof” (Černič, 1988: 544). Of central importance in Slovenia is the concept of dom (home): “place, house, where someone regularly lives, from where he came”, “family community, in which someone lives”, “peasant house, normally with farm building”, “landed property, home” (Bajec et al., 1970: 277); family, relatives are also “domači” (from one home). In Slovenian sorodniki/sorodstvo/sorodstvena skupina (kin/kinship/kinship group) are “members of family who live in separate households (whatever near or far away)” (Ravnik, 1996: 37). In the Dictionary of Standard Slovenian (Bajec et al., 2014: 577), the terms are described as denoting “relations of a human/being, from whom a human/being came or with whom it shares an ancestor”. Also widespread in dialectal use is the term “žlahta” (relatives) (Škofic et al., 2011: 240). For the Slovenian kinship system, territory is also important. It is not only significant that the system was cognatic, which will be explained later, but also very important who lives close together. Ravnik (1996: 283) said that

virilocality74 is important for Slovenian family structure and that this structure is built upon egalitarian division of farms (perhaps this is why the term družina is in use instead of rodbina, because even non-relatives in families mattered, such as the dekla (maidservant) and hlapec (farmhand), not just people of same descent or “blood relatives”). Terms for household members were also important in the past. These were not family members, but they formed part of the family (družina), as in the case of the hlapec75 (farm worker) and the dekla (maid servant)76. The dekla could be služeška dekla (maid-servant), kravja dekla (cow-maid), kuhinjska dekla (kitchen-maid) or svinjska dekla (swine-maid). Families in the past were more diverse than nowadays (Stramljič, 2007: 256). Because the hlapec and dekla were part of the family – family members--they could, in special cases, inherit the property (Ravnik, 1996: 289). There is a well-known proverb: “Dekla se po gospodinji vrže, ne gospodinja po dekli” (“A maid follows the example of the lady of the house, not the other way around”). Locality is also important for the wider structure of relations. In Slovenia we have many phrases showing that neighbours have a positive connotation: ˝Dober sosed je vreden več kot vsa žlahta˝ (˝A good neighbour is worth more than all the kin together˝). This shows that relations between neighbours were always of great importance as well as locality. Or, as Mair (1992: 73) claims, in the co-operation of daily life – when extra labour is needed at harvest time, or to build a house – people look to the whole body of their neighbours and not only to their lineage mates. This kind of cooperation is based on the principle of reciprocity, that every service deserves a return, and who helps his neighbor can expect the neighbor to help him. It is not an obligation inherent in the relation of kinship.

74 Virilocality means ˝in the natal locale of the husband;˝ virilocal residence would keep the men of the group together (Barnard, 2005: 795). 75 Later, in the 19th century, hlapec acquired the negative connotation of a man wihout his own will, especially in the writing of the most famous Slovenian writer Ivan Cankar, who claimed that the entire Slovenian nation was born and educated as hlapci, without a will to rebel or stand up for themselves. It became a characteristic descriptor for Slovenian people (Puhar, 1982: 399, 401). 76 It was not uncommon for a ten-year old girl to go and work as a maid, whether in the same or a neighbouring village with relatives, neighbours or godparents (Ravnik, 1996: 288).

For example, Maček (2007) wrote that Slovenians were a nation of farmers till the middle of the 19th Century; 90% of people lived in rural areas and were dependent on agriculture. In this context, co-operation between members of a community was important; you were more dependent on your neighbours than on extended family members. Godina (2014: 184) asserts that we can call Slovenian society a proto-tribal society from the age of the Slovans, till today. In Economic and Social History of Slovenians (Gospodarska in družbena zgodovina Slovencev) (1968), we can also find the fact, that, till 1848 (with the unrealized political programme of the Slovene national movement, formulated during the Spring of Nations in 1848), farmers were more dependent on feudalist relations than on the nation. Furthermore, no one had a farm in one piece – they used different parts of a field, so they had to cooperate with each other (Godina, 2014: 208–209; Maček, 2007: 86). It can also be seen that relations are always connected with the economic side of people’s lives, because kinship is always ‘the idiom through which certain kinds of political, juridical, economic, etc., relations are talked about and thought about’ (Beattie, 1964: 102; Bernard, 2005: 784). Reciprocity77 and reproduction of goods throughout a community are important for Slovenian culture, and the same is true for social relationships. Moreover, social relationships are also kinship based; this involves reciprocal exchange78 – as Sahlins (1972: 180–200) sees it and calls it a domestic mode of production. Within this same domestic mode of production, the degree of social distance – kinship in particular – affects the kind of reciprocity (generalized, balanced or symmetrical and negative reciprocity). Since kinship is the major way in which these societies are organized, nonkin/strangers are viewed negatively, as will be demonstrated later in this thesis. A general model of

77 Reciprocity is a whole class of exchanges, a continuum of forms (Sahlins, 1972: 191). 78 The concepts of 'exchange' and 'reciprocity' are closely related. Exchange is 'the action or act of, reciprocal giving and receiving', and reciprocity 'mutual action, influence, giving and taking'. Exchange is a total social phenomenon, its study involves the fields of economics, law, linguistics, kinship and politics and many others; reciprocity is normally seen as a distinction between market and non-market forms of valuation, even if we can also find reciprocity in commodity trading and market exchange (Gregory, 2005: 911–912).

reciprocity must recognize that the closeness of the kin tie will vary according to the type of kinship system. In so far as kinship also determines residence, kinship closeness may also translate into spatial closeness (ibid.), a concept which can be seen in Slovenia in the importance of neighbours. Generalized reciprocity (putatively altruistic generalizations, the obligation to reciprocate) is normally found within the household-kinship group, and balanced reciprocity (direct exchange of customary equivalents without delay) within a spatial community (ibid.: 193–195). Here it is also important that the kind of reciprocity reflect the moral nature of the social relationship; hence, morality is not universal but dependent on social distance (ibid.). Moreover, reciprocity after Sahlins is also seen in a new way, as Gregory (2005: 924) claims; thus as kinship distance increases, it is not that positive reciprocity gradually becomes negative but rather that one form of positive (or negative) reciprocity is transformed into another form of positive (or negative) reciprocity. Perhaps this is why the term neighbour is also perceived in a positive way: in Slovenia an advertisement for the Mercator shopping centre is well-known: “Mercator – najboljši sosed” (“Mercator – the best neighbour”). The term for relatives – žlatha – can also be perceived as having a negative connotation, as in the phrase “Žlahta je raztrgana plahta (ki se ne da zašiti)” (“Family – a torn canvas (that cannot be mended)”), which means they do not cooperate among themselves; you cannot rely on relatives (Stramljič, 2007: 256). On the other hand, the phrase “Žlahta vkup trahta” (“Relatives support each other”) has a positive connotation. The phrase “Skakati čez plot” (“jumping over the fence”), which describes cheating, is also interesting. The fence provides an association with the neighbourhood. So, neighbours are of prime importance for understanding the Slovenian cultural context. The fence is important in that it defines the border between the family and other: neighbours. We define ourselves in terms of the other – the neighbour, or as one Slovenian proverb says: “Sosedov nič bolj ne zbliža kot dobra ograja” (“Good fences make good neighbours”). Family is therefore more important, more personal, and closer: “Domače perilo naj se doma pere” (“Dirty linen should be washed at home”), but it is defined in relation to the

neighbours. Nevertheless, you cannot deny your family: “Kri se ne zataji” (“Blood does not grow thin”). Here we can introduce the fact of relatedness, which is familiar in current anthropology. Therefore, locality was and sometimes still is more important than affinity. The Slovenian kinship system has different terms according gender and generation. Normally, we talk about three generations back in time. Affines in generation +1 (for example, a father’s and mother’s sister’s or brother’s wives and husbands) have the same kinship term as consanguines79. Consanguinity therefore supports affinity. Affinity is in fact irrelevant. Examples for of this are the terms tast, tašča, zet, snaha, svak and svakinja. These terms are completely different from other terms. They denote “marriage strangers”, because marriage converts them into kin80.

79 In some regional dialects there exists the term strina, which designates the father’s brother’s wife. In Istria, the term strina is also used to describe an old lady, not necessarily a relative (Ravnik, 1996: 265). We also have the term strinič for a cousin of this lineage/uncle’s son. Nowadays, this is used in the dialect of some parts of Styria, along with strnič in the Istrian dialect. In the Styrian dialect, we also find the terms sestrič for the mother’s or for the father’s sister’s son and bratranka for the father’s brother’s daughter. In Istria (the region of Slovenia near the Adriatic coast, influenced by Italy and Croatia), there are terms like dever – father’s brother, zava, zeva – brother’s wife, husband’s sister etc. This dialectal preservation of some terms could be seen as a territorial and historical fact – because different parts of today’s Slovenia territory were placed in different contexts – for example, before World War I, Prekmurje (the region of Eastern Slovenia) and Porabje (nowadays part of the Hungarian region with a Slovenian minority) formed part of the Slovenian region within the Austro-Hungarian territory. For more about their family and kinship systems, see Ravnik (1999). For an analysis of family and kinship terms in Istria, see Ravnik, 1996. 80 In the remainder of the thesis, our hypotheses will be presented, along with examples from the Slovenian literary tradition, to illustrate some of our arguments. The literary sources function to reveal how Slovenians see the world. They represent the cosmology of Slovenians. Poyatos (1988: 3–50) sees literary anthropology as the study of people and their cultural manifestation through their national literatures. Literature is therefore, without doubt, the richest source of documentation of human life-styles. It is the most advanced form of our projection in time and space and of communicating with contemporary and future generations. So, literary anthropology could mean “the analysis and understanding of literary texts in a broad, cultural perspective” (Poyatos, 1988: 335).

The Slovenian kinship system therefore has classificatory terms that differ only in gender. Meanwhile, terms for affines do not reflect connections with consanguinity. The relations between other people are thus transformed into affinal relations through marriage. As Mair (1992: 69) claims, spouses are not kin at all but affines. Rodbina enter into the marriage but not into kinship groups. So, through marriage, we turn strangers into kin, which is the internal logic of this process. It seems that a spouse is just the brother’s or the sister’s partner and not an ego’s close kin. In the remainder of this thesis, each term will be presented, along with the past and present marriage and inheritance rules to understand this situation. All current Slovenian kinship terms are presented in Table 1. Kinship term Genealogical referent Level oče/oči*/ati*/ata* father (F) +1 mati/mama*/mami* mother (M) +1 starši parents (P) +1 sin son (S) -1 hči/hčer/hčera/hčerka/ daughter (D) -1 otrok child (C ) 0 stari oče/dedek* grandfather − FF, MF +2 stara mati/stara mama/babica* grandmother − FM, MM +2 stari starši grandparents (GP) +2 vnuk grandson -2 vnukinja/vnučka granddaughter -2 brat brother (B) 0 polbrat** half brother 0 sestra sister (Z) 0 polsestra half sister 0 teta aunt − FZ, MZ, FBW, MBW +1 stric uncle − FB, MB, FZH, MZH +1 bratranec cousin − FBS, FZS, MBS, MZS 0

sestrična female cousin − FBD, FZD, FMD, FZD 0 nečak nephew 0 nečakinja niece 0 tast father-in-law − HF, WF tašča mother-in-law− HM, WM zet son-in-law − DH snaha daughter-in-law − SW svak brother-in-law – ZH, HB svakinja sister-in-law − BW očim stepfather mačeha/krušna mati/mrzla mati*** stepmother pastorek/pastorka**** stepson/stepdaughter mož/soprog husband (H) žena/soproga wife (W) vdovec/vdova widower/widow praoče/praded great-grandfather − FFF, FMF, MFF, MMF +3 great-grandmother − FFM, FMM, MFM, prababica MMM +3 pravnuk great-grandson -3 pravnukinja great-granddaughter -3

* The terms ati, ata, oči, mama, babica and dedek are informal terms to address a person and are in current use. Šekli (2011: 22) also describes these terms as extensions of children’s words. A similar finding is reported in research in the Slovenian Linguistic Atlas (2011).

** Polbrat (half-brother): po poli brat. *** Mačeha (stepmother) is also called krušna mati (foster mother – she gives bread to a child which is not hers – she supports the child of her husband), or mrzla mati (cold mother). Often the stepmother has negative connotation, especially in Slovenian literature. **** Other terms for pastorek/pastorka (stepson/stepdaughter) include rejenec/rejenka (foster son/foster daughter), mrzli sin (cold son).

Table 1: Slovenian kinship terms nowadays

Mati/mama (mother) and oče/ati (father) are together starši (parents): “man and woman in relation to his/her child” (Škofic et al., 2011: 241). In slang, they can also be called ta stari (the old ones) (ibid.).

6.1 Oče (Father)

Oče (father) is “a man in a relationship to his child;” it is “a man who has a child” (Bajec et al., 2014: 1016; Baš et al., 2004: 378; Škofic et al., 2011: 243). The same meaning is attached to ata, atek, but these are used just in the family sphere, affectionately (Bajec et al., 2014: 101), or they are extensions of children’s words (Škofic et al., 2011: 243; Šekli, 2011: 22). Oče also mean stari oče (grandfather), especially in the historical period when fathers transmitted property to sons – so, for the child, his father was ata and his grandfather oče, or oče could mean prednik (ancestor) in general: “Naši očetje so živeli tu” (Our fathers were living here) (Bajec et al., 2014: 1016; Škofic et al., 2011: 241). Additionally, oče or in some dialects oča can mean “older married man”, “neighbour’s father” and “householder” (Škofic et al., 2011: 243), especially in rural areas (Bajec et al., 2014: 1016). Oče could also mean “a priest”, “member of a monastic order who is a priest” or “initiator of an idea”, “author of an idea” (ibid.). Etymologically, the term oče is known from the 10th century (Snoj, 2009: 462). In the 16th century there are variations of this term, such as očka, oči, and oča; according to the Slovenian Linguistic Atlas (Škofic et al., 2011: 243) and Šekli (2011: 22), these terms are extensions of children’s words. In Old Slavic society, the term for father was otъcь – Slovenian: ótec (Snoj, 2009: 22–23). In Proto- Slavic society, there existed the term *otъcь̏ (oče, father), from which we get oče (Snoj, 2009: 22–23). *Otъcь̏ is a diminutive of *otъ, which developed from *ata, a children’s term for father. A similar term is also familiar in Gothic (atta), Latin (atta), Albanian (atë), Greek (átta) and Hittite (atta-), but we cannot maintain that this term developed from the same form, because the origin of these terms are children’s words. Ata, atek, atej (dad, daddy) have all been used in the Slovenian area since the 16th century (Snoj, 2009: 22–23; 462).

Dialectally, oče is the main term for father in the West and central parts of Slovenia. The variety oča is in use in Styria and Pannonia (Škofic et al., 2011: 241). The second most common term for the whole Slovenian region is ata. Another extension of children’s speech is the term tata, used in western dialects, and čača, in those parts of Slovenia that have contact with Croatian. Varieties of these terms are ate, ati, atej, atek, tati, tatej, tatek; varieties of oče are as follows: oča, očka, oček, očej, oči, oč (ibid.). Foreign words such as fater, foter (from German Vater), fati (from German Vati – diminutive of Vater), papa (from German Papa), japa (from Hungarian apa) are also in use, but merely as unique cases in peripheral dialects (ibid.: 241–242). According to the definition of status and role by Lucy Mair (1992) and Eriksen (2001), our question is what the status of father is in Slovenian history and in modern times, and what role the father plays. First of all, historically Vilfan (1961: 49; 54–55) claims that in Old Slovene society (from the 6th to the 9th or 10th century)81, there existed rodbinska zadruga (family cooperatives), which comprised a community of male kin and their wives, living together in a shared household, although there is no proof that such cooperatives really existed. Men were starešine (seniors), which means a man had political and social power in comparison to women (ibid.: 247–248). They held a public function. This is not so just for fathers; sons and brothers had the same function in Old Slovene society. After feudal colonization, farms where composed of just one family – but the role of a man in the family remained the same. He was the authority of the family,

81 From the 6th to the 10th centuries (Vilfan, 1961: 49). In this period people lived in communities called “župe” (parish). These involved “personal kinship links,” organized by the logic of affiliation (Godina, 2014: 193). A “Župa” could include one family or a few families, a small village or a village. The land was collectively owned. These “Župe” were preserved under feudalism, even in different circumstances – the land was owned by a feudal lord – the farmers had “hube,” which were the same in terms of size and quality. The principle of equality is important. Furthermore, the use of the land was the main criterion and not the borders. The whole village took collective decisions about land use. Land was collectively cultivated, and the village had its own autonomy (ibid.: 194; 205–209; Maček, 2007: 64–85). Later on, in the 19th Century (1848), the land become private property – the farmers received land according to usage (the poorest ones received nothing) (Godina, 2014: 228–229).

which is connected with inheritance and marriage customs (see Chapter 7 Inheritance and Chapter 8 Marriage) (ibid.: 247–248). For the father, it was therefore characteristic of his role as authoritative person that the children should display unconditional respect towards the father: “Očeta je treba spoštovati, če bi tudi bil škopnik (bukov štor)” (“The father should be respected even if he were a beech stump”) (Stramljič, 2007: 259). The personal characteristics of the father are transmitted to the sons: “Kakršen oče, takšen sin” (“Like father, like son”); “Oče skopuh – sin goljuf” (“Niggardly father – cheating son”). His role was also connected with his economic role: he was the farm worker, the one who supported the family with his work. After industrialization (from the 18th to the 19th century) marriage for love became more common (but still within the same social class), women started to work etc., so relationships and status also began to change (Tomšič, 1956: 8). Miklavčič (2014: 187) argues that children before World War 2 still exhibited great respect for their parents, even parents who failed to care for them. In contrast Slovenian literature has Kernik’s82 (2011/1886) short story Mačkova očeta (The Cat’s Fathers). When the father becomes ill, he leaves a farm to his son. However, one son subsequently treats him very badly – even biting him; the father leaves the home and goes to live at a neighbour’s place. When the son is old, the same happens to him. The story also casts light on circumstances of poverty, but conversely on the fact that old people no longer possess the strength for adult tasks. Nevertheless, in Slovenian history and also in many societies, people usually attach great importance to seniority because age is associated with wisdom. In Kersnik’s short story, however, seniority is not highly valued. After World War 2, Slovenia changed its state system: it became part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Tomšič (1956: 8–18) writes about the family under socialism from a Marxist perspective. From this perspective, the ideal family type is one built on love, but with equality of women and men – not just politically, but also economically. Women and men should think about their child and about their responsibility toward the child when they are thinking about

82 Janko Kersnik (1852–1897) was a Slovenian writer and politician. He is one of the most important representatives of literary realism (Kos, 1980: 188).

getting married (ibid.). The parent’s role towards children is divided equally (Baš et al., 2004: 379). A child represents a personal, moral and social responsibility, so it is not just the responsibility of its parents. Tomšič (1956) also deals with the institutions, that share the responsibility for raising a child: kindergartens, schools, educational institutions etc. (ibid.: 20–23). A father and mother should play an equal role in raising a child (ibid.). Makarovič (1982: 46) writes about the rural areas of Carinthia in the 1970s. She claims that rural work was still valued, and even though some farmers became workers, the father as authority figure was still central in the socialization of a child. Moreover, the mother was subordinate to the will of the father (ibid.: 461– 462). However, she also noted that children enjoyed more freedom that they had previous. They are attached to their parents; but the relation is no longer strict. Until the beginning of schooling, parents represented the only source of knowledge for their children, especially in the case of knowledge about farming. Children helped on the farm from an early age. The planning of the farm’s work was the duty of the father – the householder. Even when the men worked also in factories and the women took care of the farm, they still took orders from men. A men gave orders for what was to be done before he went to work (ibid.: 462–463). It seems that the father was still the main authority even under socialism in rural areas of Slovenia. Therefore, historically, one side of role of the father concerns authority. Miklavčič (2014: 187–188) claims that parental authority can be seen in physical punishments in the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. If children did not obey or fulfil the moral expectations of the period and of their parents, the punishment was to be beaten with a rod, or to be made to kneel on corn, or to be confined to dark place (basement) etc. The father was normally the one who punished the child. Some of them did not use physical punishment; just a strict look was sufficient to make the children obey (ibid.). According to Miklavčič (2014: 189), mothers were often the ones who ordered fathers to punish a child. The same claims can be found in Puhar (1982: 103): that family members were hierarchically ranked, which also influenced family relationships. Children had to

obey their parents without contradiction, even without expecting an explanation for the order. According to this author, who writes about childhood in 19th century Slovenia, the family was patriarchal: the main authority was the father. He was also the owner of the land or the holder of the inheritance. Puhar (1982: 104) even claims that a father was a ruler; the ideal of a good father was one who was strict and authoritative, but kind, fair, caring and wise, sparing of words and with a strong will, firmly clinging to life. “Oče je udaril po mizi” (“Father pounded the table”) – this means that he decided about things, he was the head of the family. Additionally, when sitting at the table, the father had the best and most spacious place, which provided a view over the whole room, especially the doors. If a guest came, the first set of eyes he would meet belonged to the father, i.e., means the householder, the head of the house. He was also the first to begin eating and the recipient of the best portions of food (normally meat). This was true for both rural and middle-class families (ibid.: 104–114). Fathers always had shoes to wear, in comparison to their wives or even more to their children, and better clothes (clothing also differentiated rural from middle- class families). Moreover, when they were walking inside as a family, the father went first, followed by the mother and the children. It is also true that parents made the decisions on or had expectations about what their children would do in life; education fell on the one hand under the influence of the Catholic church (especially in rural areas), but on the other, was ranged against it, with humanistic ideas (especially in bourgeois ideology). Under the influence of this ideology, intimidation and discipline were common, including the use of physical punishment. A father normally gave children the birch, and the rod also used in schools. Nevertheless, no matter which source we take into consideration, such punishment was legally recognized. It was not meant to be too stringent, and parents were not supposed to beat children when they were angry, but only for corrective purposes, so that the children would understand why they were being beaten and that their parents still loved them. Physical punishment was recommended especially for young children, but not too regularly, just on particular occasions when the child had made serious mistake. Otherwise, punishment would lack meaning. It was better to use a strict look, or a trenchant

word. Normally, children were raised with punishment, including physical punishment. A father should be serious when punishing the child. Nevertheless, they were also many cases of fathers who punished the children while drunk, and punishments were not just punishments, but torture (ibid.: 117–253). A Slovenian man were normally characterized as hardworking (he worked hard all day, from morning till night). After work he often went to the pub to relax for two reasons: male company and drinking. After that, he often came home and was violent. Normally, he also didn’t show his feelings, weakness or his vulnerability; he continually strove to be the head of the family (ibid.: 158–159). The positive imagine of the father emerges from the following associated characteristics: a good householder, a good husband to his wife and an attentive father to his children. In exchange, he demanded unconditional support, loyalty and obedience from other members of the family. The father was the equivalent of a country’s sovereign83 (ibid.: 104–109). Particulary in rural families, the father was the head of the family, he took care of the economic survival of the family; he arranged the work; he educated the children, especially the sons, in how to work. He was the one who passed on to his inheriting son the ways of rural economy. This knowledge was transferred from father to son in tradesmen’s families, as well. The basis of the father’s authority was his working ability and the experience needed for survival. Parental authority was lower in working-class families. In the ideal middle-class family environment, the father took care of economic welfare and the assured social status of his wife and children (Baš et al., 2004: 378–379).

83 It seems that these are also the values according to which Slovenians imagine what the president of the country or any other kind of leader should be like (strict, decisive, superior and in control, but wise and taking care of everyone in the country, treating them equally) – Slovenians want as a leader the figure of the good Slovenian father, but normally they are dissatisfied because presidents or local political leaders are not like that, but rather corrupt and inclined to self-interest. Or, as Nakane (1997: 4, 8) writes for Japanese society, the concept of the household is a concept which penetrates every nook and cranny of Japanese society; in particular, a company is conceived through household logic, with all its employees qualifying as members of the household and with the employer as its head. The same holds true for Slovenians, and because of that the logic of self- management in Yugoslav socialism was really close to the Slovenian mentality.

On the other hand, the (functional) absence of the father is often noted. Absence of the father is connected with the important role of mothers in Slovenian culture, about which more will be written in Chapter 6.2 Mati (Mother). In Slovenian history, fathers were often obligated (because of work – money, or war) to be away from home; they existed but were functionally absent, so the mother’s father or brother became more important for the children. Ravnik (1996: 287) claims that families were badly affected by people moving out of the villages, in reaction to the two world wars, the new state borders and disease84. Even Janez Vajkard Valvasor85 (1684) wrote about this in his great collection called Iconotheca Valvasoriana86 – a history of the Slovenian territory of the 17th century; he writes about how men were absent from the houses, while working for example, in the rafting trade etc. Baš et al. (2004: 379) claim that, in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, fathers were also absent seasonally or for longer periods because of work. Lah (2014: 70) states that the figure of the mother in the Slovenian collective consciousness is steadier than the figure of the father, even though father figures feature in Slovenian literature to the same extent. Lah (2014: 71) furthermore claims that, in Slovenian literature, the image of the father is dual one. First, the father was an almighty patriarch, someone who because of his patriarchal power has a right to decide on and direct the life of other family members. He decides what he thinks is the best for the family/community, even if he has to take extreme measures. Such an example is

84 Other changes to families were also common: a childless couple could take in the child of relatives who had too many children to support; or they could adopt a child; a child might be transferred from a mother with many children to her sister who had none; vulnerable old people without children or whose children had left home were often ˝adopted˝ by unrelated people, who looked after them and who were allowed to use their property in return. Even a maid or a farmhand could replace relatives, not just though work but as family members (Ravnik, 1996: 287). 85 Janez Vajkard Valvasor (1641–1693) was a historian from Carniola, present-day Slovenia, and a fellow of the Royal Society in London. He wrote The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola, published in 15 books in four volumes – it was the main source for early Slovenian history (accessible on: http://www.valvasor.org/). 86 Because of Valvasor (2009), we know what cities and towns, castles and monasteries looked like in the 17th century and can learn about how the people of the region went about their daily lives and customs.

the father Polikarp in the novel Visoška kronika (The Visoko Chronicle) by Ivan Tavčar87 (1938/1919). Tavčar wrote in the voice of Izidor Kalan who, as the eldest son, is the heir of Visoko, but who renounces this after the fatal Škofja Loka witch trial in 1695; he also renounces his beloved Agata, who was saved from the waves of the torrential Sora River by his younger brother Jurij. Father Polikarp is described in the following passages: At the time I as yet knew nothing about all of this, I only sensed that Polikarp Khallan was a hard, dark and heartless master, into whose soul the sun never shone. Beyond all bounds he maltreated his lawful wife who bore him me and my brother by five years younger, Jurij. Our house was not a house blessed by God. We had more than others, we possessed enough of everything, but beneath no roof was there less prayer and such plenty of cursing as beneath ours. Our master knew the curses of the whole world. He cursed in the language spoken by the common folk in our parts but he also called upon the devil in languages spoken by peoples in other lands. Later, when I came among foreigners, I realized that he cursed in German, in Italian and even in Spanish. Thus when he died he carried with him dossiers of such bloody sins that even today I pray that Polikarp Khallan's sins may be overlooked in heaven, otherwise I do not know how he will come before his Judge in the other world. When I began be aware of life, my father was already fifty years old. But he was tall, like an apple tree, and sturdy, like the bear that rips sheep apart around Blegos. He spoke few words and no kind ones, and he stalked the hired youths and girls so that they would not loaf and shirk their work. Whomever he surprised was beaten to within an

87 Ivan Tavčar (1851–1923) was a Slovenian writer, lawyer and politician. Tavčar was influenced by the literature of the older generation of Slovenian nationalist and liberal authors, but he was the one of the first who fully adhered to literary realism. In his works he often depicted rural environments of his native Upper Carniola – he wrote rural and historical stories (Kos, 1980: 202– 205).

inch of his life and they often only just escaped unscathed. (Tavčar, 1938/1919/ Pogačar, 1998-1999: 89, 91). (…) While I was in very deep thought about how I would buy the proud weapon, an iron fist seized the hand in which I clasped the Venetian money. As if I had been caught in a trap, so hard did my father press my hand, and I could feel the ducat piercing the skin and flesh of my palm. My father had returned to the cellar, but in my rapture I had not noticed his approach. With his right hand he clung to my hand and with his left he grabbed some rags from the bed and threw them over the chest. My hand quivered, but so did my father's fist because a most terrible anger was ravaging him. "Diavolo," he yelled, "you creep about your father's bed, who gives you to eat and drink!" He dragged me along, not releasing my hand for an instant. Outside he pulled out his key with difficulty and with even greater difficulty locked the door to the cellar. "You meant to steal!" The blood flowed to his face and his eyes flashed. I began to cry in terror, which only enraged my elder more. He pulled me up the stairs and into the hallway, from the hallway into the room, and to the table, from which arose clouds of flies. The sun illuminated the whole room, setting the white wall and the ceiling above it aglow. In that glow my quivering soul caught sight of the crucifIx in the corner and on it the white likeness of the Saviour, bloodied and with a crown of thorns. "Christ help me," I groaned and tried to wrench my hand from my father's fist. "The devil help you," he roared and pressed my hand to the table so that my tiny fingers opened and the ducat flew out from under them, as the kernel flies from its ear when grain is threshed on the floor. "He stole, he stole from his own father!" In a haze I saw that his mouth was foaming. And I sobbed, "Father, I won't do it again!"

"You won't," he yelled hoarsely, "I'll make certain you won't!" He uttered some curse in a foreign tongue. With his left hand he pressed four of my fingers together so that only my little finger lay on the table. And then it happened! "So you remember when it was you stole!" With those words he grabbed the sharp Friulian hatchet that someone had left on the table. He swung it and cut off half of my little finger, and the blood bedewed the table in thick droplets, as if a red rain were fal1ing on it. My head whirled; the table, the ceiling and Christ in the corner spun about me. (Tavčar, 1938/1919/Pogačar, 1998-1999: 93, 95).

A similar figure of the inexorable father can be found in Voranc's88 (2010/1937) novel Samorastniki (The Self-sown), where the father Karičnik forbids the marriage of his son with Meta because she is not from an equal social class. On the other hand, in Slovenian literature the topos of the absent father has proliferated especially in the 20th century (Lah, 2014: 71), for example in Cankar’s89 (2000/1902) Na klancu (On the slope). Nevertheless, the figure of the responsible and careful father could also be found, although not as often, especially after the 19th century, for example in Kosmač’s90 (2004/1950) Pomladni dan (Spring day) or in Tavčar’s Cvetje v jeseni (Flowers in Autumn). Father Boštjan Presečnik in the story Cvetje v jeseni (Flowers in autumn) is an

88 Prežihov Voranc (1893–1950) was the pen name of Lovro Kuhar, a Slovenian writer and socialist political activist. He wrote novels and short stories in style of social realism; these were notable for their depictions of poverty in rural and industrial areas of Slovenia, especially Carinthia. He is the most important representative of social realism in Slovene literary history (Kos, 1980: 357–359). 89 Ivan Cankar (1876–1918) was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, poet and political activist. He is considered the initiator of modernism in Slovene literature, alongside Oton Župančič, Dragotin Kette and Josip Murn. He is regarded as the greatest writer in the Slovene language. In his work he dealt with social, national and moral themes (Kos, 1980: 230–241). 90 Ciril Kosmač (1910–1980) was a Slovenian novelist and screenwriter. He is mostly known for his short stories, which are frequently praised for their subtle psychological depth. His early work shows an affinity to social realism; later, he turned to modernist features, especially surrealism and a type of magic realism (Kos, 1980: 363–365).

example of a careful father, but also a good farmer: “The farmer is a king. If he has a good and a pretty machine, if he has suitable land that he uses for living and taxes; if he has no debts, indeed, he has full stables, and if he still has many healthy and obedient children, a farmer is a king, independent of this world. Such a king and householder was Presečnik’s Boštjan in Jelovo brdo” (Tavčar, 2003/1917: 22). The role of the father is always defined by his social relation to a child: in the sense of being glava družine (head of a family), providing for the family, educating and deciding and making decisions for the children, being an authority. On the other hand, the relation children-child is determined by the absence of the father – which is once again a social relation – because the father is not fulfilling his expected social role. So, we have three pictures of the Slovenian father: first is the picture of a father who is authoritarian, but not good to his children. Normally, he is violent, he drinks too much, and he is not good in his economic role and therefore also not in his parental role, as we have seen in the examples of Tavčar’s father Polikarp or Voranc’s Karičnik. The second role is that of the absent father, and finally, the father’s role is also connected to his economic role. As is seen in the example of Tavčar’s Cvetje v jeseni (Flowers in autumn) the father can be a good householder/farmer and a good father. The economic role of the householder is in fact very important to understanding the role of the father. It seems a father has a healthy degree of authority as long he is a good householder and farmer. Because the family is the main unit of Slovenian society and its function is one of survival, family is always connected with other spheres of life, and here economic function is very important. It seems that a good farmer means a good father, a bad farmer means a bad, violent father, and a father who is absent working to support his family is an absent father. As Eriksen (2001: 93, 95) claims, kinship is the single most important social institution, but not just because of the reproduction of society and the transmission of cultural values and knowledge between the generations; it is also important in politics and in the organization of daily affairs. Family members join forces in economic investments (ibid.), which is also characteristic of the Slovenian family. Or, as Mair (1992: 69–70) claims,

The ties of kinship which are recognized in different societies give people claims to land for cultivation, to other kinds of property, to mutual assistance in the pursuit of common interests, to authority over others; and obligations which complement these claims, on those in authority to regard the welfare of those subject to them, on these to obey, on all to co-operate on occasions where the recognition of kinship requires it.

Fatherhood is then biological, true biology is being irrelevant as Barnard (2005: 789) claims: … the notion of ‘father’ is supposed to encompass two basic elements which, in relation to any particular child, may or may not specify the same individual. These elements are (1) the indigenous recognition of having contributed something by way of material substance to the child; and (2) the recognized conferral on the child of a specific identity with its attendant rights and obligations.

The first element is the child’s genitor; the second is its pater, or ‘social father’ (ibid.) – and pater is also the concept in which the Slovenian concept of the father can be recognized. Even though there exists a concept of the same ‘blood’, the social role of the father is paramount91, which can be recognized in cases of ‘fostering’ and ‘adoption’92 of a child, when the father is not biologically the father but plays that role in relation to a child.

91 Social parenthood is best defined as a culturally recognized relationship which involves one or more of the following roles: nurturing and socialization (these are not necessarily exclusive of biological input); obligations of guardianship; and equivalent right as guardian. In particular cases, social parenthood may or not may coincide with any specific kind of biological parenthood, but within a given society as a whole it is generally expected that those designated as ‘parents’ will normally have biological or pseudo-biological ties to their children. The nature of ‘parenting’ is extremely variable (Barnard, 2005: 792). 92 Fostering involves nurturing and socialization without full social parenthood (often as an initial step towards adoption), while adoption does involve full social parenthood (Barnard, 2005: 793).

As has been established, social relations between fathers and children have been evolving through history to the present, becoming more and more informal as work increasingly takes places outside the family. The change in social relations can be noticed in the forms of address used for parents. Children once used onikanje – “the use of a verb in the masculine third person plural to address a respected person”93 (Reindl, 2007: 155; Bajec et al., 2014: 1081) – to address their parents ultra-formally in the past: for example, “Oče so šli v goro” (Father, they went to the mountain). Onikanje was also in use for expressing respect towards those of higher class (social differences). Slovene has a system of address that differs from the basic binary address system of many European languages by grammatically distinguishing up to four levels of formality (informal, semiformal94, formal, and ultra-formal). Onikanje in written form can be found in 17th- and 18th-century sermons of Janez Svetokriški95, and until the 19th century, when vikanje (formal address) came into use (Reindl, 2007: 151; Toporišič, 2010: 389–390). So, it could be said that oče had a higher rank or status, according to Mair (1952: 58), through history, although nowadays this status is losing its power. Nowadays, onikanje is a manner of speaking that has passed almost completely out of use. Younger informants generally recount that their grandparents used to speak this way. The form of onikanje is clearly in decline. In these days, Slovene distinguishes between informal and formal (also referred to as honorific, deferential, or polite) address in pronominal choice (i.e., ti vs. vi), verbal

93 Ultra-address level was regularly used in direct as well as indirect address (i. e., reference to the absent person). Although the grammatical characteristics of Slovene ultra-formal address (3rd person plural) appear to have been the result of contact with German, the Slovene application of this form to indirect address appears to have been an independent innovation (Reindl, 2007: 151). 94 Polvikanje, polovično vikanje, or pogovorno vikanje (semiformal address; spoken, conversational formal address) express formal address with a numerical shift in verbal morphology (singular to plural), but retain the singular gender markers for adjectives and participles – for example: Kam ste (2nd person Plu.) pa šla? (Fem. Sg). (Where did you go?) (Reindl, 2007: 154; Toporišič, 2010: 389–390). 95 Janez Svetokriški/Tobia Lionelli (1647–1714) was a Slovene-Italian preacher and writer in the Baroque period – his sermons had a crucial role in the affirmation of the Slovene language (Snoj, 2006).

morphology (i.e., indicative –š vs. –te, imperative –ø vs. –te), and name and title usage (e.g., Janez (John) vs. gospod (sir))96 (ibid.). For addressing their father and also their parents, children nowadays use the informal mode of address – tikanje (Reindl, 2007: 151, 155; Toporišič, 2010: 389–390). The same could be said for the term oče (father) itself; it is becoming more and more informal. In slang young people can also call their father ta stari (the old one) (Škofic et al., 2011: 241). This expresses a change in father’s position; historically, the father was addressed in the ultra-formal manner (oni) and represented authority in the family; then fathers were addressed formally (vi) and retained the leadership role in the family; nowadays, both fathers and mothers tend to play the role of friend to the child, especially given the dominant capitalist ideology of permissive education, the product of which is a narcissistic individual who does not produce, but spends (Godina, 1990; Lasch, 1979; Vodopivec Kolar, 2010). A father is no longer the “pater familias”, and the distinction between socialization by the father and mother is no longer important; it is a product of a person’s personality, a “free” choice. This can also be seen in the roles of homosexual parents (Keržan, 2008: 244). This is evident in informal modes of address (ti) and in calling a father ati, očka (daddy), terms which, as previously established, are extensions of children’s words, or infantilisation (Škofic et al., 2011: 243; Šekli, 2011: 22). In current usage, some children also call their parents by name. This is an even more informal mode of address. The varying terms for father thus have different connotations, from negative, through neutral, to positive. In Table 2 the connotations of various terms for father are presented, reflecting today’s varied use of terms like foter, or ta stari (especially when children are talking in slang between themselves about the father; such terms have a negative connotation), ati, oči, atek, očka (terms with positive connotations) etc. These terms are also becoming more and more informal.

96 A number of other variations exist in the address system. In the contemporary system these concern primarily gender distinction, and secondly, phenomena involving the dual number (Reindl, 2007: 154).

Neutral Terms with Terms with negative terms positive connotations connotations - oče - očka, oči, - fater/foter Level of formality (from oča, oček, formal to - ata - ta stari informal) očej, oč - tata, - atek, atej, čača ati, atej, ate

- tati, tatej, tatek

- name of father

Level of formality (from formal to informal)

Table 2: Different connotation and level of formality for the term oče (father)

Additionally, new reproductive techniques should be considered when talking about the modern role of fathers in Slovenian society. Normative ways of thinking about kinship are being disrupted by new technologies; kinship is therefore no longer seen as meaning “blood ties”, or biological connection, but as a social connection between people97. Kinship relies on the social importance of care and presence in defining what it means to be parents or kin, rather than biological closeness. Strathern (1992: 3) claims that “kinship systems and family structures are imagined as social arrangements” which are “based on and literally deploying

97 Nevertheless, opposition to the new Family Law in Slovenia, which would allow in some cases the right to adopt a child even for same-sex partners, was built on the Christian notion of the family as a biological connection between a woman and a man, having a child, which is still perceived under the notion of family not just in the West, but also in Slovenia. In 2012 about the 55% of Slovenian voters voted against the change of the Family Code in the referendum, while around 45% supported it. Only about 26% of voters participated in the referendum (Oblak, 2013).

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processes of biological reproduction.” With the advent of reproductive technologies, kinship has become ‘dispersed’, and biological ties do not always translate into social ties (ibid.: 71). Kinship is understood as constitutive of the relational interaction between people: one cannot be a parent without a child (ibid.: 14). Conventional kinship norms rely on natural biological closeness and then act upon the social categories through the social relationship that underpins the biological one. As scientific technology develops, so does the meaning of kinship. It could thus be said that, if conventionally the family was understood as a married couple with children, today the family is understood mainly as an emotional community, which can be founded on genetic or consanguineous relatedness, but these are no longer necessary (Keržan, 2008: 255). The new definition of a family is a community of at least two individuals, one of those acting as a parent, the other as a child. Their relationship is founded on emotional investment. In Slovenia nowadays, family can also be a project of the individual, not a project of the couple. Children are families' emotional capital. New types of relatedness are presumed: for example, a man can be related to a child socially, genetically or in both ways simultaneously (ibid.: 255–256). From this perspective we could understand the terminological change from oče (father), to očka, oči, ata, ati (daddy) etc., and the change from ultra-formal to informal modes of address. The role of the father (besides his historical functional absence) is becoming increasingly non-authoritative, emotional and friendly.

6.2 Mati (mother)

Mati (mother) is “a woman in relationship to her child” (Bajec et al., 2014: 767; Baš et al., 2004: 312; Škofic et al., 2011: 245). The same meaning is attached to the synonym mama, the variations of which are mami98, and mamica, but these are used affectionately in the family sphere (Bajec et al., 2014: 755; Škofic et al., 2011: 245). Mati (mother) can also mean stara mati (grandmother), “father’s mother or mother’s mother” (Bajec et al., 2014: 767; Škofic et al., 2011: 245). Mati can also

98 Mami is the contemporary term for mama (Škofic et al., 2011: 245).

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mean “older married woman, normally housewife,” especially in rural areas (Bajec et al., 2014: 767) and also “the correct address form for the head of a nunnery or an order bound by solemn oath” (ibid.). Other meanings include “something that makes possible the rise of something else” – for example, “the past is the mother of present,” or the word can modify a noun, for example, mati domovina (mother country) (ibid.). Etymologically, the term mati dates from the 15th century, although it was previously in use (Snoj, 2009: 385). In Old Slavic society, the term for mother was the same: mati, genitive matere (ibid.). The same terms with the same meaning also exist in Croatian and Serbian mȁti, Russian mátь, and Czech máti. In Proto-Slavic society, there existed the term *ma̋ ti, genitive *ma̋ tere, which developed from *mah2tē (r) from Indo-European *máh2tō r, which is preserved with the same meaning in Old Indian (mā tár-), Avestan (mā tar-), Armenian (mayr), Old Greek (mē̄́tē r), Latin (mā ter), Old Iranian (máthir), Old High German (muoter), German (Mutter), Anglo-Saxon (m̄ odor), English (mother), Latvian (mate) and Old Prussian (mū ti). The same sound pattern is preserved with a different meaning in Lithuanian (mótė; meaning: the legitimate wife) and in Albanian (motër; meaning: the sister) (ibid). The terms mama, mamica, mamca, mami, mamka have been known since the 18th century. The same terms exist in Croatian and Serbian (mȁma), Russian (máma), and Czech (máma). Proto-Slavic *ma̋ ma developed from Indo-European

*mā mah2, which is also preserved in Latvian (mama), New Persian (mā mā , mā m) and Old Iranian (muimme; meaning: wet nurse). From a similar source (mamah2), there developed Lithuanian (mamà), Greek (mámma), Albanian (mëmë), Latin

(mamma) and the Welsh, Cornish and Breton (mam). *Mā mah2 and *mamah2 are primary extensions of children’s words, the results of duplication of the easily pronounceable syllables *mā or *ma, which mean mummy. From this, is also formed *ma-h2tē r- in Indoeuropean, meaning mother (ibid.: 377). Dialectally, mati and mama are the main terms for mother in all parts of Slovenia. In some regions these words can also mean stara mati, stara mama (grandmother), but such usage is more historical than current. Mama is similar to

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the terms for father--ata, tata—in being an extension of children’s words; variations of the term mama include mamej and mamika (Škofic et al., 2011: 245). As we have established, our question concerns the status and role, defined by Mair (1992) and Eriksen (2001), of the mother in Slovenian history and in modern times. First of all, historically Vilfan (1979: 363) claims that, in Old Slovene society, the wife was without public rights. Men were starešine (seniors): as previously described, they controlled most of the political and social power in comparison to women. Economic leadership also was in male hands. Only in the case of widows and blagarica (a single daughter who herself inherited all the land), was this not the case (Vilfan, 1961: 245). In some cases, if a woman became a widow, she was dependent on the help and support of her father’s family (ibid., 1979: 363). Or, as Lucy Mair (1992: 55) writes, “Households, homesteads, kin groups, political communities, normally have male heads, and a woman is usually expected to have a male guardian, a kinsman if she is not married, a husband if she is, who protects her interests and is responsible for any offences that she may commit.” The wife/mother played an important role in the family workforce from the period of Old Slovene society onward (Vilfan, 1961: 250). She was still a worker at home and for wages in other places in the 19th century, when many men went abroad in order to support their families (Puhar, 1982: 417). Baš et al. (2004: 312) claim that the mother in rural families did housework and agricultural work, while the poor ones earned money through dnina (day labour), and by marketing the harvest and so could not devote as much of their attention to the children99, even though a woman’s most important role was that of mother. Mothers from working-class families often couldn’t take care of children properly, or of the housekeeping; children often spent time in the street with their peers. In middle-

99 Normally, the help for mothers was offered and organized by the grandmothers or wider family, so that there were multiple women taking care of the children. When her other children had left home, a mother normally stayed with the son who inherited a farm (rarely with a daugther), and his family and single daughters and sons, who stayed at home. With her other children, she would have less contact (Baš et al., 2004: 312).

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class families, the mother cared for and educated the children as well as doing the housekeeping (Baš et al., 2004: 312). The general characteristics of a mother are described in the Dictionary of Slovenian Literary Language as follows: a mother is dobra, skrbna mati (a good, careful mother); draga, ljuba mati (a dear, dearly beloved mother); skrbi zanj kot mati, požrtvovalno (she takes care of him like a mother, self-sacrificing), or she is even defined as “a woman, who takes great care of somebody, normally an older one” (Bajec et al., 2014: 767)—all of which have positive connotations for the role of the mother. The same characteristics were ideally transmitted to the daughter, a feature that we can notice in Slovenian proverbs: “Kakor mati prede, tako hči tke” (“As the mother spins, so the daughter weaves”), “Prikupi se materi, če hočeš roko njene hčere” (“Befriend the mother to woo the daughter”), “Hči je cela mati” (“The daughter is entirely her mother”). The same goes for the mother- in-law, who in Slovenian cultural tradition, is known for being less friendly to her daughter-in-law because a mother-in-law pays too much attention to her son: “Tašča pozablja, da je bila tudi sama snaha.” (“The mother-in-law forgets that she was once a daughter-in-law”). Puhar (1982: 19) claims that, in the 19th century, motherhood was still very important; in the Slovenian consciousness it normally appeared as the idealized, unselfish sacrifice of a mother for her family and children. This she also designates the myth of the Slovenian mother (ibid.: 25). A wife without children was called a “jalovka” (a barren woman). She was disrespected, because in the eyes of society, she was good for nothing (ibid.: 217). Children in the 19th century were still born at home – only a few were born at maternity hospitals, although the first hospital maternity departments were established in the time of Maria Theresa100 (ibid.: 45–47). Ljubljana acquired one in 1789. When the child was born at home, normally the family closed the doors and windows to protect the child and mother from evil spirits. The mother gave

100 Maria Theresa (1717–1780) was the female ruler, the Enlightenment-era Empress of the Habsburg dominions. She ruled for 40 years, from 1740–1780. She is remembered for her many reforms. She had 16 children (Grah, 2015).

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birth to her child with the help of an older woman, a folk healer101. Most births took place in the small room or kitchen next to the fireplace; only upper class women gave birth in the bedroom. Normally, women didn’t give birth in bed102, but on the floor, which was covered with straw or litter, on a low chair next to the fireplace. Even nowadays, in some Slovenian regions people still say of a woman who is giving birth, “ženska je šla na slamo/v slamo” (“the woman went to straw or into straw”) (ibid.). Because of Christian tradition (a woman was considered as impure for a while), a woman who had given birth was temporarily eliminated from society and church life. She was considered dangerous. After thirty or forty days, she went to church, normally with the child, if he was already baptized103 and sufficiently strong. In a short ceremony, the priest purified her symbolically and returned her to the church and society (ibid.: 49). A mother was still expected to be innocent and stainless (Miklavčič, 2014: 33), even sexual activity before marriage was judged very negatively (ibid.: 36).

101 In addition to the folk healer, there existed many superstitions when a woman was giving a birth; for example, the woman in childbed should drink a glass of her husband's urine – if this urine came from the biological father of the child, then she would give birth more easily; if not, she would die (Puhar, 1982: 48). 102 Till the 19th century, a bed was still a luxury. Normally, beds were reserved for the householder and his wife, after them, for the former householder and his wife, after these, came the servants and children. The bed is one of the rare matters where women took priority over men. Daugthers had a greater chance of sleeping in a bed than did sons, maidservants more than farmworkers (Puhar, 1982: 79). Normally children slept on the floor or on the stove (ibid.: 85). The majority of people only gained the right to have a bed in their adulthood (ibid.: 91). Otherwise, in the 19th century cities and villages became overpopulated. It was not strange in cities for more then one poor family to share a single room (ibid.: 81). In cities, “stanovanjske kasarne” (residential barracks) were normal; they renovated old factories to make places for residence, for people to live. The only problem with these kinds of buildings was again that they were overpopulated and really poor. In villages, some families lived in stables; the parents of the Slovenian writer, Ivan Cankar, began their marriage in a stable (ibid.: 80–81). 103 Baptism means that the child is cleaned of any evil inside him, but still parents “were supposed to give children the birch to save their souls from hell” (Puhar, 1982: 50). Children were baptized even when they were born weak or dead; the midwife performed the rite instead of the priest in the church. In the 19th century it was still almost impossible to be non-Christian (ibid.: 50–51).

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Besides being a mother, women were occupied with a variety of housework, depending on the social status of the family. For example, washing the clothes was a common occupation for village and proletarian woman. In rich, middle- class families, in tradesmen’s and innkeepers’ families, and among mid-level and higher-level peasants, the laundry was done by a woman from lower down the social scale, for example a maidservant or an unmarried sister or sister-in-law (Puhar, 1982: 101). A mother also gave orders to the children in connection with her area of work – the housework (ibid.: 105). A mother was also a wife. Puhar (ibid.: 108) and Miklavčič (2014: 15, 33) claim that in many cases the wife was beaten104 by the husband if she was not obedient105. The characteristics of the ideal wife included being obedient, loyal, kind, tender, careful, attentive, patient, regardful, pleasing, innocent, clever and smart, attractive (Puhar, 1982: 108–112; Miklavčič, 2014: 10–11). In her family memoir, Stanonik (1997) writes that a husband usually gave advice to his wife about what she had to buy, how to repair something and what she had to sow; on the other hand, a wife also took care of her husband. The most important point was to look after each other and to support the family (ibid.). Even if Stanonik (1997) writes about four loving mothers, the descriptions of the father tell us that he was loving, kind, and careful. Makarovič (1982: 458–459) also claims that, especially in the second part of the 20th century, after the World War II, wives in rural families received more consideration from their husbands. They decided jointly about work, even if the husbands were still the ones making the final decision. Wives and husbands attended social gatherings together; they bought things jointly, and they went away together on trips. Nevertheless, women were

104 One characteristic of a man was that he was only a real man if he knew how to give beatings. Even in marriage customs, there was a custom for an older woman before the wedding to instruct the bride that, when she washed her husband's shirt for the first time, she should to tie up the right sleeve, so that her husband wouldn't beat her too much. Restraint in beating one's wife was useful (Puhar, 1982: 156–158). 105 There also existed loving husbands, but normally society called these copata (slipper), meaning that they were henpecked, under the wife's thumb (Miklavčič, 2014: 16). Wife beating was particularly common when the husband was unsuccessful, and drank a lot of alcohol. Normally, a woman in this situation had to worked a great deal to support the family (ibid.: 38).

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more occupied with work than before, because after the war, maids left the farms, leaving wives alone with the housework, child care and farming (ibid.). Miklavčič (2014: 13), on the other hand, claims that wives were supposed to obey their husbands – men still represented more authority (Miklavčič, 2014: 13). The author (ibid.: 15) additionally claims that at the beginning of the 20th century, a woman had only three rights: to be a housewife, to bear babies and to give pleasure to men (ibid.). The ideal characteristics of a mother included being devoted, friendly, gentle and serene. If a father brought his fist down heavily on the table, a mother would utter a sound from the fireplace. Even more telling is the hierarchy around the dinner table: if the places around the table were occupied, a mother drew back. In many stories it can be seen that mothers also secretly gave more food to the children (Puhar, 1982: 108–112). A real mother is one who knows how to lock her heart, so that she doesn’t show her feelings, love and pain; she exhibits simultaneous softness and hardness. A good mother doesn’t cry in front of others (ibid.: 160). Historically, fathers in Slovenia were often (functionally) absent (because of military service, seasonal jobs or emigration), as has been explained in Chapter 6.1 Oče (father). Because of the absence of men in Slovenian families, especially in the 19th century, the mother became even more central to the family. Sometimes, when the father was functionally absent – he drank, he was violent or he was an economic failure – the mother took over care for the material side of the family: she would work, for example, as a day labourer to support the family106 (ibid.: 148). She became a symbol – this is why the figure of the mother in the Slovenian collective consciousness is steadier than that of the father (Lah, 2014:

106 Nevertheless, many women from the coastal part of Slovenia, called Primorska, went to Egypt as a working force – as wet nurses. When they didn't have milk anymore, many of them stayed on for years as cooks, chambermaids, dry nurses and dressmakers. Meanshile, these women couldn't take care of their own children, if they ever returned. They would send money to their families, so that the farms could survive (Puhar, 1982: 327). However, women from poor rural families tended to have many children (as many as 12 to 16 children), so that they could produce milk and work as wet nurses for children of the upper class. Their children normally didn't get milk and even received less food than children from better-off families (ibid.: 338–339).

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70). This might explain the following Slovenian proverb: “Ženska drži pokonci vse štiri/tri vogale hiše.” (“A woman holds up all four/three corners of the house”). In the first number of the newspaper Slovenska gospodinja (Slovenian Housewife) from 1905, an ideal mother is described as a good housewife and mother, and as being a joy in any family and a pillar of every society. She should be strong and unshakable, wise, honest, smart, educated, persevering, serious, civilized, brave and experienced. As such, she is worth the most and is the best teacher of children (Vas’čeva, 1905: 1). According Vas’čeva (1905: 1), a good mother can influence the child’s intellect, heart and character even from a very young age. In this way, the child comes to respect his native country, descent and language. The mother represents to her child its native country, descent and language. Good mothers are expected to give the nation strong, self-confident, gentle, hardworking sons, and sober, smart, independent daughters. For this author, it was not good that Slovenians adored others and failed to respect their own, while even fighting among themselves (ibid.: 1–2). Taking care of the family and the household was normally entirely up to the women – not just housework, socialization and child care, but also work and financial support for the family (for example, throughout the World War I when soldiers were on the front lines) – the fourth corner of the house. The same goes for the phrase “Žena nosi hlače” (“The wife wears the trousers”). Trousers were symbolized the man in a patriarchal family, but historically in Slovenia, the woman took the main role in the household (Kržišnik, 2008: 34). The proverb “Mož je glava družine, žena pa krona – zlata ali trnova” (“A man is head of the family, his wife the crown – of gold or of thorns”) also indicates the main role of the woman within the family. Another proverb, “Ženska joka pred poroko, moški pa po njej” (“A woman cries before the wedding, a man after”) is similar in effect. Because of all this, women as mothers and housewives had important roles in both everyday and annual customs. In everyday living customs, for example, at the wedding feast, a woman would accepted the bride at the door and give her loaf of bread, salt, wine or other signs of welcome. In the annual customs, she is the one who prepares food at Christmas or Easter (Baš et al., 2004: 312).

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This topic is also a familiar one in Slovenian literature. In Slovenian imagery, the symbol of the mother has a powerful presence. The leading Slovenian writer, Ivan Cankar, wrote about the absence of the father in his novels and short stories. For example, in his novel Na klancu (On the Slope) (slope is a symbol for the part of town where poor people lived), Cankar writes about his proletarian family and the social conditions of the 19th Century. He especially writes about the life of his mother, who lived alone with twelve children, because his father worked in another town, while she took care of everything alone (home, children etc.) in poor conditions (Cankar, 2010/1902). Puhar (1982: 25) claims that Cankar was always fatally attached to his mother; he was her eternal debtor – for him a mother represented a supreme moral principle and a symbol of liability and debt. The majority of Cankar’s works are a monument erected to the memory of his mother (ibid.), even if Cankar, according to words of his sister Neža Cankar, was not nice to his mother. He wasn’t obedient; he was fond of teasing, headstrong and pretentious. As a result, he experienced guilt after his mother’s death (ibid.: 233– 234). For Cankar, his character’s Super-Ego is not represented by the father, but instead by the mother (Pirjevec, 1964: 437). The mother is the bearer of the Ideal- Ego; she is the one he owes; his very method of survival lies in concealing his mother (Žižek, 1987: 36, 39). In the mother’s supreme sacrifice lies her narcissistic enjoyment; this role gives a mother her imaginary identity: being exploited and a victim of her own family constitute her symptom. Moreover, she loves that symptom more that she loves herself, because this symptom provides her identity. Her only fear is that family will not accept her sacrifice. A mother’s other side is her alcoholic husband, whom she needs so that she can live her own subjective position as the sacrificing mother and wife (ibid.: 39–41). Puhar (1982: 26) warns that Cankar was writing thus about his dead mother. While his mother was alive, his relationship to his mother was headstrong and stubborn, and because of this he felt guilt and betrayal after her death (ibid.). This is noticeable in the best known of Cankar’s stories Skodelica kave (A Cup of Coffee), widely known in Slovenia. In the story Cankar asks his mother for a cup of black coffee, despite being aware of how difficult it was for his mother to afford it. When the mother brings the coffee, he roughly rejects it--and her.

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Then I heard light steps on the stairs. It was mother, ascending carefully, carrying a cup of steaming coffee. Now I recall how beautiful she was at that moment. A single ray of sun shone directly into her eyes through a crack in the wall. The divine light of heaven, love and goodness were there in her face. Her lips held a smile like that of a child bringing one a gift. But— "Leave me alone!" I said harshly. "Don't bother me now! I don't want any coffee!" She had not yet reached the top of the stairs; I could see her only down to the waist. When she heard my words she made no movement; only the hand which held the cup trembled. She looked at me in alarm, the light in her eyes died away. The blood rose into my face for shame, I stepped quickly towards her. “Give it to me, mother!” It was too late, the light had gone from her eyes, the smile from her lips. I drank the coffee and consoled myself: “In the evening I’ll say it to her, that word of kindness of which I cheated her love…” I did not say it that evening, nor the next day, not even when we parted. Three or four years later when I was abroad, a foreign woman brought coffee into my room. At the moment there shot through my heart such a pang that I could have cried out with pain. For the heart is a righteous judge and knows nothing of great or small… (Cankar, 2007/1910). Puhar (1982: 26) writes that, for Slovenians, Cankar’s mati is the personification of the Slovenian mother107. Her great care and sacrifice for family, which mean

107 Children encounter these characteristics of the Slovenian mother as early as primary school, especially in textbooks of Slovenian literature (Puhar, 1982: 28). For example, in the primary school curriculum (Poznanovič Jezeršek et al., 2011), there are many obligatory texts of Slovenian literary classics, where the characteristics of mothers and other family members are taught by means of these texts. The main topics of literary works for children over 10 (4th to 6th grade), for example, are as follows: childhood, growing-up, tradition and family (ibid.: 34). In 8th grade, for example, the obligatory texts include (Poznanovič Jezeršek et al.: 69) Kersnik's Mačkova očeta (2011/1886), mentioned before in Chapter 6.1 Oče (father), and Cankar's Bobi (1909), where the

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the renunciation of her own life for the good of her children and suffering constitute the supreme ideal and primary role of the Slovenian mother (ibid.: 26– 28): “Mati ne sprašuje, ali hočeš, temveč da.” (“Mother does not ask if you want something, she just gives it.”, “Materinska ljubezen se ne stara.” (“Motherly love never grows old.”). On the other hand, it is the father who is acting irresponsibly: he is (socially) absent108 – and then the mother takes the role of responsibility for protecting the children, to prevent them from going the same way as the father. The mother takes the dominant role in the family; she tries to arrange things, as she knows best, even if she is not always completely successful (ibid.: 27–28). In that area, two female myths formed: the divine, mystical woman and the evil, bewitching whore109. The first one was ideal mother, or muse as an object of desire – the innocent virgin. The second one is the whore, an erotic, demonic icon. The true, honourable and ideal mother was also the mother of the nation (Jensterle-Doležan, 2009: 149–153). Puhar (1982: 29) argues that motherhood in the Slovenian context is seen as one-dimensional, one-directional, and not as a relation between two people, the mother and the child. The same maternal role can be found in the previously mentioned stories Samorastniki/The Self-Sown (2010/1937), where, because of social inequality, the father cannot marry Meta, and she is left on her own with nine children: Meta had to support her flock nearly entirely on her own. And that was extremely hard since there were always at least four children in the house; one was in the cradle, the second one had just barely learned to walk, the third was wearing his first pair of pants, and the

mother is understanding and she wishes the best for her son. When the son tells her that he has not brought food from the neighbour because he has eaten there, she praises him, even though, in reality he was ashamed of asking for food, and he gives the only doughnut he receives to his little sister. 108 Some characteristics of rural and labouring families were the same: they were normally confronted with poverty, overpopulation of flats etc., so habitual drinking was another common characteristics of fathers, given the poor living conditions (Puhar, 1982: 276). 109 This is connected with the Catholic tradition of the erotic as an eternal battle between spirit and body. The erotic was the most disturbing, frustating, and confusing topic at the time (Jensterle- Doležan, 2009: 149; Puhar, 1982: 269).

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fourth was getting ready for his first job as a shepherd. It went on like that for almost fifteen years. Meta had to work practically day and night. In the summer, she toiled as a day labourer in the fields; in the winter, she worked at home, spinning, weaving mats, baskets and hampers; she made wooden utensils, spoons, salt shakers and wall racks--in a word, she undertook any job that she could find. And there was not a single one that she could not master! She was known in the neighbourhood as the best labourer, who did not find any distance too long, any weather too unpleasant. Although she always brought her children along, people used to fight for her services when seasonal work was pressing. She left her home at dawn, with her youngest one sleeping in the cradle on her head and two or three toddlers trotting along beside her, and she returned late at night. Her persistent effort was nearly superhuman. Meta's readiness for hard work, stemming from her enormous love for her children, was the sole reason that her large family grew up without too much privation and that all her children were healthy and bright. Meta's eternal superhuman fight for existence earned her the respect of her neighbours, which grew from year to year. Step by step, public opinion turned in her favour. People became more and more critical of old Karničnik's obstinacy, which he continued to display in his opposition to the marriage between Ožbej and Meta. In order to have things going his way for sure, he continued to manage the estate even though his younger son had already come of age. (Voranc, 2000/1937/Ožbalt110, 1998/1999: 189). And: … Because of all this, she was often gloomy, thinking about her misfortune, and she could not understand why she had to be the one to be punished by life so harshly. All these thoughts, however, disappeared as soon as she remembered her children. The enormous, difficult and immediate duties of motherhood pushed her with even

110 The translator of Samorastniki/The Self-Sown.

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greater force into the struggle for family bread. In this day-to-day battle, she never for a moment forgot that an injustice had been perpetrated on her, that she was suffering without being guilty, that a great sin had been committed against her; knowing this, she became a loner, nearly a recluse, shunning the outside world. Nevertheless, she did not hate those who were the cause of her misfortune: she despised them. This very contempt, which was building a higher and higher fence between herself and the rest of the world, bound her more and more tightly to her brood. She lived in her own world, in which there were few bright days, and she accepted her fate as best she could. She now wished to marry Ožbej only for the sake of the community111, for the sake of her children, who would in this way acquire a father, so that they could become equal to other people, at least according to the old customs. (Voranc, 2000/1937/Ožbalt, 1998/1999: 191).

For the children, too, the important figure is their mother: All of her children were beautiful as well, all of them slender and walking tall, all strong, with bright shining eyes, and all of those features which they had inherited from their mother. Step by step Meta's self-sufficiency became part of her children's characters as well. For them, their mother was everything; the image of their father Ožbej hovered somewhere in the background of their consciousness, slowly fading away (Voranc, 2000/1937/Ožbalt, 1998/1999: 191). And: … Out in the world, they first became shepherds, then farm-hands, servants, lumberjacks, day labourers, blacksmiths, miners; shepherdesses became dairy maids and house servants. Meta established the custom of yearly family gatherings at her place on Low Sunday. These visits developed into a species of Hudabivnik conventions, which people in the valley would talk about long after Meta had been dead and buried and the young Hudabivniks had no

111 The marriage is a social convention.

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one left to come home to and visit, long after the shrine to which they had journeyed like pilgrims was no longer there. On such occasions Meta saw all her children gathered around her, and for the children this was the only opportunity to see one another. They kept up the custom112 until their mother's death. They kept coming long after Meta's hair had turned grey, after her body had stooped under the weight of hard work, deception and pain, after nothing remained of her beauty but her deep shining eyes. Every Low Sunday the cottage was filled with Easter eggs, sausages and meat, full of brown bread, buckwheat dumplings, white bread and all kinds of cakes which the children had saved and brought to their mother. Many a farmer's wife pushed an extra gift into the hands of her servant or maid who was about to leave for his yearly visit with his mother, and said: "Here, this is for Meta." (Voranc, 2000/1937/Ožbej, 1998/1999: 193).

Meta is strong and a symbol of everything just. She is not just a passive suffering mother, used to bearing everything for her children; she is also active, fighting for her rights, working so that her children can have everything. Even if in normal life, she a mother of illegitimate children in the 19th century, as Puhar (1982: 30–39) claims, worked hard, she was still exposed to shame, her children received no Christian names, and the family lived in poor conditions marked by hard work (ibid.). In many cases, there were dekle (maidservants) who had to have a sexual relationship with the householder, and from these relationships children were born (Miklavčič, 2014: 35–37). A poem by France Prešeren (19th Century) has the same topic of the unmarried mother and her unconditional love for her child:

The Unmarried Mother113

112 The custom of family reunion gatherings is described (these were also held on Sundays). 113 Translation of the poem is from the official website of France Prešeren: http://www.preseren.net/ang/3_poezije/18_nezkonska.asp, translated by Janko Lavrin.

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What was the need of you, little one, My baby dear, my darling son, To me - a girl, a foolish young thing, A mother without a wedding ring?

My father cursed and beat me, My mother in tears would entreat me; My friends would blush and pass me by, Strangers pointed at me on the sly.

And he who was my own true love - Your father by the will above - He wanders God knows how far from here. Shamed because of us, poor dear.

What was the need of you, little one, My baby dear, my darling son? But whether there was need or no, With all my heart I love you so.

There seem to open azure skies Whene'er I look into your eyes; And when on me you sweetly smile, All I've suffered is gone for a while.

May He, by whom the birds are fed, Joy and blessings on you shed! Whether there was need or no, With all my heart I love you so.

(Prešeren, 1846)

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Given the foregoing, we could define matrifocality as a social strategy for survival in the Slovenian context. The high importance of the concept of the mother in Slovenian culture should be also understood in the same way. On the other hand, besides the concept of the Slovenian mother as good, protective, careful and self-sacrificing, for women, motherhood was also challenging, especially if they had an illegitimate child. In some of these cases, mothers even committed infanticide, as described by Puhar, (1982: 64), even if it is impossible to give exact numbers. Often children were physically separated from their mothers; mother didn’t always nurse their infants114, and in some cases, especially those of illegitimate children, mothers would give them up to foster families. Another picture of a mother, where motherhood is depicted as taking away a woman’s freedom, can be found in Slovenian literature in works by the female writer Zofka Kveder115. In Zofka Kveder’s works, topics appear such as pregnancy, feelings connected with giving a birth, maternal suffering, and the killing by a mother of her own daughter etc. On such female topics, she is best known for the short story collection Misterij žene (The Mystery of a Woman) (1900) and the novel Njeno življenje (Her Life). In Njeno življenje (Her Life) (1995/1914), birth means suffering for a woman, and nothing improves after the birth. For a mother, having a child means stress, care, and the incapacity to be independent. In Misterij žene (The Mystery of a Woman) she describes a life of woman as suffering, in the following words: I find it so strange. I walked through life on difficult, thorny paths.

114 Each historical periodal has different recommendations for how a mother should treat her child. Puhar (1982: 65) describes how, in the 19th century, it was not recommended to nurse a baby when it cried, because the child would become accustomed to this, and would cry more often; it would become spoiled, etc. It was the same with breast-feeding. If a woman wasn't from a higher social class, she soon had to return to work – because of that, she had to limit her breast-feeding to minimum. Children were fed artificially: from using an animal's udder, to feeding with the help of spoons, bottles etc. (ibid.: 67–68). It was also common to avoid washing your child too often; various diseases were not always treated because of the the common conviction that these were good for the child. Chidren shouldn't be left in the dark, to avoid evil spirits (ibid.: 71–73). 115 Zofka Kveder (1878–1926) is one of the first Slovene women writers, feminists, playwrighters, translators and journalists. She wrote in Slovenian and later also in Croatian. Her main topic was the destiny of a woman in a middle-class marriage and family (Kos, 1980: 308).

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I was dying in pain, but persevered, my heart full of hope. And all of my hopes fell into darkness, into a giant, grey pit of resignation. I do not keep going. I am at the finish line, the sad and unhappy end. And I am waiting. Not for happiness. For my time to sleep. I had a husband. He came to my home, lived with me ... We had children. I had to feed them, take care of their needs – when they grew up, they went off into life...

For a long time, I had a child every year – a part of myself, and for a long time they left me, one every year. I waited a long time for happiness, but I did not see any beauty at the end. Fog, giant, thick, blunt fog covering my heavy, bloody footprints. All of my effort was desecrated and ridiculed. They did not show me the right mountain ... I had walked up the mountain for cattle. I gave birth and slaved – me, human cattle! And I thought I was walking up the sacred mountain of human souls! ... (Kveder, 1900: 5–6).

Normally, postnatal depression and infanticide could be interpreted as a wish for the destruction or cancellation of motherhood. The root of this lies in the fear of pregnant women that their own mothers would punish them for their sin116 (Puhar, 1982: 215–216). Puhar (1982: 147) even claims that mothers did punish and beat the child, when necessary, a topic dealt with in the following proverb: “Kjer mati tepejo, tam šeh raste” (“Where the mother gives beatings, there the bacon is growing”). It is important to stress that sometimes mothers were violent, especially when they were poor, when they worked all day and became exhausted. Then they came home, the husband was not a home and the children didn’t obey or were beaten up by the neighbour’s children, and so on. And because of all the frustrations of a

116 Many women achieved abortion with the use of folk medicine, which even at that time was prohibited. Normally, they aborted more girls than boys (Puhar, 1982: 219, 221).

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hard life, the mother would then engage in serious physical punishment (ibid.: 152–153). Miklavčič (2014: 10) claims that a mother in the 19th century didn’t inform her daughters about, for example, what awaited them after marriage (a sexual relationship), or they didn’t educate them about the onset of menstruation (ibid.: 29). It was still a formal relationship. Again, it seems that the socialization function is connected with the economic one: a good mother does everything for her child, but when the father doesn’t perform his function, he fails to fulfil his role, the mother takes on his role as well. Under socialism, the common discourse emphasized the equality of women. The aim was to make woman economically, socially and politically equivalent (Tomšič, 1956: 9). Love became the ideal basis for marriage. Socialist mothers were also supposed to take care of their noble love towards the children. However, it was not just mothers, but fathers, too: both parents were supposed to give love to the child and be responsible for him or her (ibid.: 16–17). Abortion was discouraged and used only in special cases; socialism stressed the idea that young people should protect themselves (through contraception) (ibid.: 18). Household work was also to be divided; it was not just the woman’s job, just as it was not her sole responsibility to educate the children. Education of the child became the joint responsibility of society, while institutions of different spheres (medicine, education etc.) should take responsibility and so give help to families (ibid.: 20–21). Moreover, because of the growth of employment among women under socialism, mothers also needed help in educating their children; this they received from grandmothers and from nurseries and kindergartens (Baš et al., 2004: 312). Family members were supposed to respect and love each other, while children were to have happy childhoods (Tomšič, 1956: 22–23). Nowadays, the child is the core of the family. If in the 19th century children addressed their mothers ultra-formally and always with the term mati, never mama, mami or mamica (Puhar, 1982: 128), nowadays it has become normal to use these terms. In the past, onikanje (plural reference to an absent person) was normal; onikanje in indirect address went as follows: “Mati so bili bolni” (“Mother was ill”) (Reindl, 2007: 156), or “Spoštuj svojo mater in pomni, kaj so vse zavoljo tebe prestali; kedar ti pa umerjó, pokoplji je zraven mene” (“Honour

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your mother and remember everything that she endured for you; when she dies, bury her at my side”) (Janežič, 1873: 200). Nowadays, children use the “thou” second-person form to their mothers; they can also call their mother by her first name or speak about her in slang as “ta stara” (the old one). As we described before for the term oče (father), terms for mati (mother) also have varying connotations. What is interesting is that, in some dialects nowadays, mati, which used to be the formal term for mother, can also mean “a mother whom children don’t respect” (Škofic et al., 2011: 245). Otherwise, the varying terms for mother thus have different connotations, from negative, through neutral, to positive. In Table 3 the connotations of various terms for mother are presented, reflecting today’s varied use of terms like mati, or ta stara (especially when children are talking in slang among themselves about the mother, such terms have a negative connotation), or alternatively, mama, mami, mamica, mamca, mamka (terms with positive connotations) etc. These terms are also becoming more and more informal.

Neutral terms Terms with Terms with positive negative connotations connotations - mati - mami, - mati, mat’ Level of formality (from mamica, (sometimes) formal to - mama informal) mamca, - ta stara mamka

- name of mother

Level of formality (from formal to informal) Table 3: Differing connotations and level of formality for the term mati (mother)

As Barnard (2005: 790) says, the concept of ‘motherhood’ entails three distinct elements, each of which has the potential for social recognition: 1) the culturally

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defined genetic mother117, 2) the bearing or carrying mother118, and 3) the social mother. The first two are often known under the term genetrix, and the last by the term mater (ibid.). As established in the chapter about the father, nowadays the role of mother specifically means the social mother, one who takes care of children and educates them. It was like this before, because mothers didn’t always take care of their own children, but of other women’s children (Miklavčič, 2014; Puhar, 1982). But nowadays children can theoretically have more than one mother, because artificial methods are possible now being implemented. If we consider the possibility of a person other than the genetic mother receiving a fertilized ovum or embryo, and where neither this surrogate mother nor the genetic mother becomes the social mother of the child, and where the sperm donor, too, is different person from the child’s intended social father. This would give the child no less than two ‘fathers’ and three ‘mothers’! /.../ The existence of customs such as wet-nursing among the European upper classes of historical times raises a further consideration, as in such cases the nurturing mother is yet another category, and one with a biological as well as a social role (Barnard, 2005: 792).

Even when this is part of indigenous ideology, social parenthood remains the primary focus, in its meaning of “a culturally recognized relationship which involves one of the following roles: nurturing and socialization, obligations of guardianship, and equivalent rights as a guardian.” Social parenthood may or not coincide with any kind of biological parenthood, but within a given society it is

117 She gives a material substance to the child – it doesn’t need to correspond to that which modern biological science deems to be definitive of ‘true’ genetic motherhood. The true facts of genetics are irrelevant for the anthropological study of kinship; what are important are the indigenous theories (Barnard, 2005: 790). 118 The bearing or carrying mother is the person who gives a birth to the child. In the overwhelming majority of cases, this is the same person as the culturally defined genetic mother, but the concept is nevertheless distinct (for example, the case of the Orthodox Christian doctrine of the Virgin Mary, the modern medical notion of 'test-tube babies' etc.) (Barnard, 2005: 790).

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normally expected that parents have pseudo-biological ties, judicial ties, and social ties to their children, as already mentioned before. Nevertheless, the nature of ’parenting’ is of primary importance, even if extremely variable (ibid.). The boundaries between the ‘biological’ and the ‘social’ are decidedly blurred, and in some cases not visible at all (Carsten, 2000). As Keržan (2008: 255–256) claims, the family nowadays is an emotional community, a project of the individual. New reproductive technologies have separated biological kinship, which can be defined either genetically or substantially/gestationally. Women today in Slovenia can be related to a child in seven different ways: genetically, gestationally, socially or in any combination of these (ibid.: 256). This means the roles of a mother could be defined as any of the following: complete mother (she is the genetic, gestational and social mother; the baby is the product of sexual intercourse or impregnation, from her own egg; the mother gave birth to the baby and took care of him/her); gestational and social mother (she donated her eggs, she was pregnant and she gave birth to the baby); genetic mother alone (she was the egg donor); genetic and gestational mother (a surrogate, child-bearing woman, who also donated her eggs); social mother (she needed donor eggs and a surrogate; she is now takes care of the baby, or has adopted the baby); genetic and social mother (her egg was used, but she couldn’t give birth, so she needed a surrogate for child bearing); and gestational mother (she is the child-bearing surrogate who gives birth to a baby, from an egg donated by the social mother or another donor). Nevertheless, the identity of the child will arise more from mutual relations of love and attention, than from these technological arrangements, and thus from social parenthood. Through taking care of children, parents are changing their identity (ibid.: 206). On the other hand, the role of the mother remains the same: whether she is the biological mother or the surrogate mother, she is described as a careful mother toward her child or sometimes still as Cankar’s mother – a self-sacrificing mother. In a contemporary novel by Brina Svit119 Smrt slovenske primadone (Death of a Prima Donna, 2002), a mother is even too demanding of her daughter, a Slovenian opera singer. For her, the mother represents the Ideal-Ego, as Cankar’s

119 Brina Svit (1954- ) is a contemporary Slovenian writer, who has lived in Paris since 1980.

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mother did for him, which a daughter cannot reach, and because of that she is frustrated and dissatisfied; she lives with feelings of guilt and even runs away from home (she moves to France) and commits suicide by the end of the novel. Mazzini (2011), for example, writes about the Slovenian mother as unconditionally caring for her children: Waiting in a queue to buy some bread one Saturday morning, an elderly lady in front of me asked the shop assistant to place the loaf into her shopping trolley as she could not lift her arm because “she had ironed 25 of her son’s T-shirts the previous day!” I came across her again at the till. The cashier was stacking everything she had bought into the trolley, the lady still pointing at her numb arm with an extra explanation, “You see, I’m in a hurry, my son is going on a family trip and I need to get their sandwiches ready.” /…/ The former selflessly does everything, irons, slaves away, gets up early so the sandwiches are made when her children and grandchildren wake up, her arm withering away with the effort – 25 T-shirts! /…/ It’s scary, isn’t it? The attentive Slovene mother compared to the American one who is getting on with her own life and business whilst her thirty- something children wander around the world alone.

Moreover, Mazzini (2011) claims that the importance of the mother today is still connected with the father, who has been absent from the child's upbringing and life. Fathers have begun to appear in recent years as a romantic wish, according to Mazzini (2011). The product of that is a son who is incapable of surviving on his own; he needs the mother to function and is still a child, even at forty or more. The daughter becomes a copy of her mother and later the mother to her own husband. According to Mazzini (2011), it is because of this that Slovenes do not think for themselves; they are obedient and make wonderfully subservient workers and officials. Žižek (1987: 154) claims that this is because the mother's Ideal-Ego transforms itself to the Super-Ego of child and is governed by fear. If the Super-Ego is the mother's, it means subordination of a particular caprice is of the Other, who has not integrate into him/herself the extension of universal Law.

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Thus, such a Super-Ego always seeks to comply with the demands of the Other, when the father's Super-Ego is liable only to his internalized, universal Law, the voice of conscience, no matter if this mean a decrease in pleasure. So Slovenians are dependent on the Other – on the wishes of the Other; the Subject is dependent of the inclinations of the Other (ibid.: 153–155). The figure of the Slovenian mother is not the mother's Super-Ego figure, who would create the pathological narcissist, who is governed by the command to enjoy himself and be socially successful. It is a specific picture of the symbolic Law, which renders the Subject internally in debt – the Subject needs to make a masochistic sacrifice of him/herself (ibid.: 157). This Subject is in debt to his mother, to his home; he cannot go abroad but must return to his roots. This subject has a debt towards his/her suffering mother. The figure of the mother is the bearer of symbolic identification, of the takeover of the symbolic mandate. Meanwhile, the father embodies the spoilt, “sybaritic” call of the Super-Ego (ibid.). Mazzini (2011) claims that “The Slovene son has to stay at home, forever at hand for the mother to exert a little additional programming. His energy is spent in disagreements with parents rather than his own life and career” (ibid.). The mother also wants for him a wife who is a person much like herself. So, a wife also has to maintain and support a husband (ibid.). The perfect role for the Slovenian mother remains that of Cankar's ideal mother: silent suffering, unconditionally good, unconditionally there, loving, and caring for her family (Mazzini, 2011). In poetry and prose, a mother is still the symbol of love and home (Baš et al., 2004: 312). In a poem by Tone Pavček120 (1986), the connotations of the mother are particularly positive: she is just unique and precious: Every single mum is the right one, the one that you have been given to provide you with happiness and joy. The right one. Only one. For your entire life.

120 Tone Pavček (1928–2011) was a Slovenian poet, translator, and essayist from the first post-war generation. His poetry is socialrealistic, with a lyrical character (Kos, 1980: 390–391).

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On the other hand, Keržan (2008: 244) claims that today any differences in the roles of fathers and mothers are merely an artefact of personality. A father is no longer the traditional pater familias; indeed, the roles of mother and father are becoming equal, as their social function becomes one. Only the biological and social gender differences are still present. The focus of prime importance for the family is no longer marriage and the sexual act. A family can arise from adoption, can be reorganized through death or divorce, or can be only a decision made by an individual121. What is really important nowadays is the mutual emotional and socially-confirmed relationship between a parent and an individual child (ibid.: 244–245).

6.3 Otrok (Child)

Otrok (a child) is a boy or girl in the first years of his/her life. Otrok (a child) is also a human descendant in relation to his/her parents (Bajec et al., 2014: 1120; Baš et al., 2004: 396). The following meanings are also connected to the word child: the subject mostly shares the characteristics, condition or nature of the subject designated by the noun, for example: “on je otrok fantazije” (“he is a child of fantasy”); is the result or fruit of something, for example: “uspeh je otrok truda in vztrajnosti” (“success is the child of effort and perseverance”) (ibid.). Diminutives for the word child are: otrokec, otročič, otročiček, otroček, also otroče, meaning small, tiny child. One can also use the expressions otročaj for one child, and otročad for multiple children (ibid.). The word otrok (child) originated in the 15th century, as early as in Old Slavic society, where the word otrokъ existed, meaning ‘boy, child, servant’ (Snoj, 2009: 482). For Serbs, Bulgarians, Ukrainians and Czechs, the term otrok means a slave (Puhar, 1982: 17). In Old Croatian and Serbian, òtrok meant ‘child, boy, servant,

121 Even if public opinion in Slovenia is still not friendly toward to question of fecundation of single women. New family and kinship relationship are for people interesting, but on the other hand the awake a lot of doubts and fears (Keršan, 2008: 253).

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villain’; in Old Russian, ótrok meant ‘boy, page boy’, and in Czech, otrok meant ‘slave, farmhand’. In Proto-Slavic *otròkъ is a derivative of *otret’i̋, the compound of Proto-Slavic *ot – ‘from, away’ and *ret’i̋ - to say. The primary meaning is *the one, who doesn’t speak, doesn’t have speech’, because he still doesn’t know how to speak or is not allowed to speak. The Latin word infāns ‘baby, breastfed child’ holds the same meaning (Snoj, 2009: 482). Before starting a historical overview, it is important to stress that the basic principle is the experience of childhood122, which is dependent on the social and professional group into which the child was born, and on the type of family in which the child lived. The subsequent forms of childhood depend on the child’s cultural and residential environment, which mark the relation to the child and his/her needs of specific family and household circumstances, of the economic situation of the household, of individual conflicts and events – and of general political, mental, social, legal, environmental and economic circumstances (Čeč, 2012: 10). Vilfan (1961: 248) claims that in early history children were subordinated to the head of the family. Because of this similar position, there are also similarities between the words hlapec123 (farmhand) and otrok (child) in some Slavic

122 Childhood is normally defined as the time from birth to puberty (Krebs, 2012: 15). The same definition occurs in the Dictionary of Slovenian Language: “doba v človeškem življenju od prvih let do mladostne dobe” (“the period in human life fromone's first years to puberty”); the second meaning: “kar je značilno za to dobo” (“what is characteristic of this period”) (Bajec et al., 2014: 1121). Krebs (2012: 18) claims children should be the subject of interdisciplinary research – in view of distinctive disciplines. Nowadays, we can talk of prolonged childhood; nevertheless, childhood is also variable, with differing content and forms (ibid.: 20). The anthropology of childhood normally deals with how children are raised in different cultures, what their role is, how families and communities are structured around them, and how society/culture percieves them in the past and present (Lancy, 2014: i). 123 Hlapec, in Slovenian and also in all Slovenian dialects, means ‘permanently hired farm hand for rural work’ (Bajec et al., 2014: 440; Škofic, et al., 2011: 300). Historically, the word hlapec existed from the 16th century. It has the same meaning as Old Croatian hlȁpac ‘servant’ (Snoj, 2009: 205). In Czech it means chlapec ‘boy’. The Proto-Slavic is *xő lpьcь a diminutive of *xő lpъ ‘servant, slave, boy’, which is preserved, for example, in Old Slavic xlapъ; in Russian, xolóp ‘serf, farm worker’, which is similar to Russian páxolok ‘boy’ and Czech pachole ‘boy’ (ibid.).

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languages (Vilfan, 1961: 248; Puhar, 1982: 106–107). The head of the family could also sell or pawn a child (ibid.). According to Baš et al. (2004: 396), in early society, the end of childhood was marked by sexual maturity and, especially for girls, by marriage. Paulič (2012: 42) writes about Early Modern society, where besides the Catholic tradition, which prevailed till the 19th Century, a new Christian confession also arose – Protestantism, which had a profound effect on child rearing and schooling. The emerging Protestant society had to establish a new social order that would no longer be based on the organized Church structure, but on the home as the centre of society. Home is a place of religious and secular education outside of school (ibid.). For example, later we write about the Catholic doctrine of strict education for children124. In contrast, Protestant writers appreciated children. Children were of great importance in their texts, because they knew that they would most easily carry their ideas through to new generations. Parents should take care of their children, while the children should behave correctly (Paulič, 2012: 42, 50–51). The readers of Protestant texts were mainly the bourgeoisie of the 16th century; the lower classes125 generally couldn’t consider these ideas, because children were necessary in the workforce (ibid.: 51). Therefore, in the 16th century, it was seen as more moral to punish a child than to be lenient to him/her; even Protestant writers wrote positively about this attitude towards the child (Paulič, 2012: 51).

Etymologically, the word hlapec has not been thoroughly explained; it maybe derived from Proto- Slavic *xoli̋ ti ‘to take care of, to care for’, with the primary supposed meaning of ‘to cut’, which is preserved in Russian xólitь ‘to shingle’. If this supposition is correct, then hlapec primarily means ‘cut boy’ (ibid.: 205–206). Vilfan (1996: 248) claims that the similarity arises from the fact that, in patriarchal slavery, slaves were part of the shared economy and the household, meaning that a child occupied a position similar to that of a farmhand or slave (Puhar, 1982: 106–107). According to her analysis of Slovenian folk songs, Mihelič (2012: 29) claims that sons and daughters of a hlapec (farmhand) or a dekla (maidservant) were normally given the same job as their parents. 124 With the Enlighment in the 18th century, there also appeared the concept of the child as an inocent being and as a blank sheet of paper (Paulič, 2012: 44). 125 The lower classes comprised the main population of Slovenians at that time (Maček, 2007; Vilfan, 1961).

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Primož Trubar126 (1973/1564: 146), for example, in his Cerkovna ordninga writes about the relationship between a child and their father as affectionate. The relationship between a parent and a child is like the relationship between a human being and God (ibid.). According to Puhar (1982: 17), in 19th century children were at the bottom of the social scale127, even if they represented (from babies to 5-year-old children), as in earlier centuries, one-third of the whole population. Children had the status of third-class citizens. Many Slavic languages have expressions for children similar to those used for various levels of people put to work (for example, slaves and farmhands) (Baš et al., 2004: 396; Vilfan, 1996: 248; Puhar, 1982: 17). This is also because parents had authority, even public authority, over children, as was normal for people in slavery (Baš et al., 2004: 396). Nevertheless, there was also a difference depending on whether the child was born into a poor family or a rich bourgeois family (the economic situation of the family was also important) (Čeč, 2012: 10). In the 19th century, the role of children was to work; they worked as farm workers, or in trade workshops, spinning mills, ironworks etc. (ibid.: 17–18). Normally, they worked for foreign people (German or Italian) to help their families to survive (ibid.: 281), or because of the state decree already in place in the 18th century (ibid.: 285). Children worked from ancient times to the end of the

126 Primož Trubar (1508–1586) was a Slovenian Protestant Reformer of the Lutheran tradition. He is best known as the author of the first printed book in the Slovene language. In 1550, he wrote two books in Slovene: Katekizem (Catechismus) and Abecednik (Abecedarium). Katekizem (Catechismus) also contained the first Slovene music manuscript in print. Becuase of his defiance of Catholicism, he had to run away, first to Trieste, and later to Germany (Kos, 1980: 38–40). 127 Children were in the category at the lowest point of the social scale, next to animals, people who are different, and strangers. Being different meant those who were invalids in a physical and/or mental sense, those who were above average according to social origin (being of too high or too low social origin), and those who were too ambitious (Puhar, 1982: 166–167). Moreover, children from rural areas who went to school in the cities were considered strange and different in cities because of their rural origin, and they were also strange to their neighbours back home because they went to the city (ibid.).

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19th century and even at the beginning of the 20th century128 (child labour is not just a matter of capitalism), no matter whether they lived in rural or urban surroundings. The Slovenian territories were less industrially developed, especially before the end of the 19th century; they were more rural and their survival depended on farm work. Children were helping and working at an early age. Aside from those working on farms, most children worked as apprentices. Craft labour was quite highly developed in the Slovenian area. Apprenticeship was understood as schooling, not work, and the children working as apprentices were of higher class, because their parents had to pay the tradesmen for their schooling. They normally brought goods like a chicken, a pig, or some corn to the tradesman. Children remined as apprentices for three or four years; their work was unpaid, and they were subordinated to the tradesman. They also did other work, for example, farm work. Normally aprentices were boys, not girls. Girls normally worked as nurses, nursemaids, servant-girls, chambermaids, waitresses, shop assistants or laundresses (Puhar, 1982: 298–306). At the end of the 18th century (1774), it started becoming obligatory for children to attend school, at least for some years. Initially, children still worked, but it was becoming increasingly the norm for children go to school instead of to work (ibid.: 286–287). Makarovič (1982: 20) claims for Strojna (Carinthia region) that even in the 20th century, children still work alongside their schooling. They worked from morning till evening, first in the stables, and later in the fields (ibid.). In the 1842 a law was passed in Vienna allowing children to start work at the age of 12. Their working hours were limited to 10 hours, and for children between 12 and 16, to 12 hours. Children under 16 were prohibited from working at night. However, the new law was rejected by factories and also by many professionals, including doctors, technicians and educators (Puhar, 1982: 291). Previously, it had been normal for children age 6–10 years to work for 16 hours per day, living in poor conditions, with a great deal of illness and high mortality (Vilfan, 1996:

128 For example, in the mercury mine in Idrija, a town in western Slovenia, children worked from its opening onwards (15th century). They worked there as regular employees or as replacements for their ill fathers (Puhar, 1982: 287).

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495). They stared work as early as 3 or 4 years, normally at age 6 or 7. They worked up to 14 or 15 hours per day with a one-hour break129 (Puhar, 1982: 228). Children did all kinds of works identical to adult labour, especially the tasks that adults shunned, or were unable to do (ibid.: 286–287, 300). With age, the types and extent of work increased (ibid.: 228; 285–290). Usually children were paid less than adults, or weren’t paid at all (ibid.: 302). They also worked at home. When they became an economic, emotional, spatial burden, or consumed too much parental time, children had to leave home130 (ibid.: 319). This phenomenon is mentioned in the stories Samorastniki/The Self-Sown (2010/1937), where very young children must go out to work as herdsmen. From herdsmen131, they became farm workers, woodmen, journeymen, blacksmiths, mine workers, maids etc. Moreover, linguistically, priden otrok (hardworking child) is a common phrase, which means that from a child, we should have benefits. We also have the phrase that “Ta otrok ni nič kaj prida.” (“This child is not good, in favor of”) (Puhar, 1982: 286). The same holds for the binary expression dober, ubogljiv otrok (good, obedient child; positive connotation), in comparison to lažnivi, razvajen otrok (mendacious, spoiled child; negative connotation) (Bajec et al., 2014: 1120). Still, besides the obligation to attend school, children worked (helping on farms, working in factories, etc.), because they had to survive. Often they were only formally registered in school, so that their parents could aviod paying a penalty (Puhar, 1982: 310). Moreover, not working also meant being morally in sin. In rural areas in the 19th century, intellectual work still wasn't comprehend as work. Working meant work with the hands (ibid.: 311). Normally, those children who

129 Three meals per day were also provided for in the workday timetable (Puhar, 1982: 293). 130 Where they went depended on the social and financial situation of the family and other relatives, on gender, age, on physical development and also on the historical period (Puhar, 1982: 319). 131 Herdsmen had one of the most difficult jobs. These children worked all day and didn’t get paid. They were free only on holidays like Christmas and Easter, when they were allowed to visit home. They got also a present for these holidays: sausages, better quality bread, smoked meat and so on. Normally, they received just one suit of clothing per year. They slept among the animals. But because the children were alone in the pastures, they could also play, talk etc. (Puhar, 1982: 312–315).

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worked were illiterate. Child labour was till then something normal and self- evident (ibid.: 286–287, 300). From the end of the 18th century on, schools also had a major influence on the education of children, on their personal development (ibid.: 368). Especially from the second half of the 19th century, schools and others institutions became important; it was no longer just the home that provided education (ibid.: 398). According to Puhar (1982: 368–377), children tended to dislike school because of its Germanization, strict education and discipline with punishment. Poor children were normally more exposed to punishment and injustice, because their parents didn’t bring gifts like meat for the teachers. They also had to sit in the back row of benches. Teachers would sometimes order other pupils to punish a child who had done something wrong (ibid.: 376–379). Because of this, some children didn’t want to go to school (ibid.: 385), or they came into conflict with the teachers, for example, by sending dead animals to a hated teacher (ibid.: 390). However, there also existed memories of good teachers, who brought out the best in children, no matter their social class. These teachers also didn’t beat the children (ibid.: 379– 380). Nevertheless, there arose a movement towards a different type of education: although the major teachers and educational counsellors still believed in an education in humility, there began to spring up anarchistic, working class movements with ideas about a free human society with a different, and fairer system, including in education (ibid.: 398). Puhar (1982: 35–36) claims that mothers gave away many illegitimate children132 in the 19th century to grandmothers or to other female kin or to foster

132 Normally, the mothers of illegitimate children were maids, servant-girls, chambermaids, cooks or working women (Puhar, 1982: 38; Žibert, 2003: 33). In Slovenian folk tradition, there are songs telling that someone's father was, for example, the lord of the castle – a man of higher class than the mother (Mihelič, 2012: 33). Žibert (2003: 33) claims that the godfathers of these children were usually men from the upper class of townsmen or tradesmen, which could indicate that these men were also the fathers (Žibert, 2003: 33). Because of circumstances (poverty, poor living conditions, inadequate milk, living in dark, cold stuffy rooms or disease), these children were exposed to a higher degree of mortality than other children. The mortality of children in the 19th century was generally high (Puhar, 1982: 38; Žibert, 2003: 33). Parents would mourn for a child aproximatelly half a year, while children mourned their parents for a period of one year (Puhar, 1982: 128).

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families133. If these children did remain with their mothers, they seldom stayed long at home. They went out to work when they were 7 or 8 years old. They went to work in near or far villages as herdsmen. For payment, they received food, temporary accommodation, and clothes and shoes once a year. This was not true just for illegitimate children, but also for the children of cottagers, vine workers, small farmers, tradesmen, and factory workers (ibid.: 228). It was not only poor children who left home. Many of these stayed by their mothers, while rich urban children, had already as infants been fostered out to wet nurses. They stayed there till their second, third or fourth birthdays (ibid.: 320). However, industrialization meant that even in the lower, working classes many women didn’t have time to care for their babies because of all-day work, so they gave out these babies to be fostered (ibid.: 328). It was normal for one family to have several children – around eight or nine, normally not less than four (Puhar, 1982: 85). Although there existed the proverb “Many children are a gift from God”, in some situations, having numerous children could mean extreme poverty, especially for those parents who owned nothing (ibid.: 218). On the other hand, society expected people to have a lot of

Makarovič (1982: 452) describes the poor living conditions for the children of renters, the housing proletariat before World War II in Strojna (Carinthia region), where renters formed a cheap labour force. The children of renters died more frequently at birth and during early childhood (ibid.). Illegitimate children were normally also marked negatively. For example, such a child could be called nezaželen otrok (undesired child), zanemarjen, zapuščen otrok (neglected, abandoned child), in contrast to an otrok ljubezni (child of a love) (Bajec et al., 2014: 1120). In this connotation we can note that not just nowadays, but also in past times, it was still important that a child needed care. Mihelič (2012: 29) also noted that in Slovenian folks songs the community took a negative view of illegitimate pregnancy. Many variations of folk songs (from Upper Carniola, Carniola, Carinthia, Styria and Western Slovenia) sing about rejected illegitimate children who embarrass their mothers on the wedding day (ibid.: 32). In some cases, a child comes to the herdsman and addresses him as ujec (mother's brother). Then a child tells ujec (mother's brother), he is the child of his sister, and together they expose the mother/sister (ibid.). 133 Normally, foster families were cottager families, because they received extra money for it. They preferred boys to girls, because boys made a better labour force. They also could go into the army, so that the family's own sons could stay home (Puhar, 1982: 331). Moreover, mortality among these children in foster families was high, according to Puhar (1982: 337).

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children. For example, as Miklavčič (2014: 30) claims, to women, who started to bleed134 during mass, the priest gave the advice to have as many babies as possible. Many children also died even with help of their parents, especially mothers; normally, parents wished for “Dosti kruha pa malo otrok” (“Much bread and few children”). Despite this, fertility rates were high in those times (Puhar, 1982: 221). Normally, children shared one room; they sometimes slept in a bed, but also on the floor, on the stove, or on strewn bedding (depending on the type of family: rural or urban) (ibid.: 77–87). Miklavčič (2014: 21), for example, claims that children slept in the lower part of the house, behind the stove or in the vestibule. When rural children were older, they also slept in the barn or corn-crib. Parents had their own small room upstairs. Even in a teacher’s family, the daughters slept in a shared bed in one room, and the son on the kitchen floor (ibid.: 21–26). Children also shared clothes – the younger ones inherited from the older ones. Sometimes they walked around dressed inadequately, because of the family situation. They wore just a shirt till six or seven years old, which was a sign that they belonged to the lower, poorer class (Puhar, 1982: 77–87; 122–123). They normally acquired shoes only when they went to school, sometimes not even then. Normally, shoes would have been shared among several brothers and sisters. For middle-class families, shoes weren’t such a problem, but still children didn’t have many pairs. In rural area some children didn’t go to school in winter, because they lacked shoes or appropriate clothes (ibid.: 116, 123). When 6- or 7-year-old boys got a a pair of trousers or girls a long skirt, this signifie that they had begun to belong to a gender – male or female. This was also the age when they started to work on farms; later it would mean the age when they started to go to school. The first real clothes were normally cheap, old or inherited, but symbolically a child became a person when he or she acquired these – a little man or woman (Puhar, 1982: 122–123). We can find this story in a Slovenian fairytale by Fran Levstik135

134 Because women then didn't have sanitary towels as they do today, it was normal for some droplets to fall on the floor (Miklavčič, 2014: 29). 135 Fran Levstik (1831–1887) was a Slovenian writer, poet, essayist, political activist, playwright and critic. His writing style ranged between romanticism and realism (Kos, 1980: 147–148).

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Kdo je napravil Vidku srajčico (Who made a shirt for Videk?), where Videk is a 4-year-old boy from a poor family. He has 6 brothers and sisters. Because his mother has to work all day in the field, she doesn't have time to make new shirts for her children. Videk always got the shirt that was the most worn out. One day, his shirt tore, and he wanted a new one. He went into the forest, where the animals helped him, and a bird made him a shirt. The shirt was so white and new that all his brothers and sisters envied him (Levstik, 1999/1887). In this fairytale, the poverty of children at that time is made clear: /…/ Once, his little shirt became so thin it fell off one of his shoulders. It was summer and his mother had work to do every day, so she could not sew him a new one. The poor boy had to frolic around in a torn shirt. One day, he went into the forest to pick berries, when he met a little lamb. The lamb felt sorry for the little boy in the ragged shirt, so it asked him: “What is the matter with your shirt?” In a sad voice Vid replied: “This torn shirt is the only one I have, and my mother cannot make me a new one before winter. It won’t really be new; only my oldest sister gets new shirts. Mine will be old. Oh, how I would love to have a new shirt for once!” /…/ (Levstik, 1999/1887).

The children earned a place at the table when they had learnt how to eat “nicely”. Before that they ate on the stove or at the servant’s table. Children in both rural and urban areas ate less food and lower quality food than, for example, their father. They also got their food last, after their father and mother. They never took food for themselves; food was always given to them. Sometimes they also asked for food (for sausages, doughnuts, fruit, etc.), but not just for themselves, but for the whole family (Puhar, 1982: 109–111). This is visible in the short story by Ivan Cankar, “Bobi” (Doughnuts): /…/ Peter looked around – the day was already bright. He got up quickly and dressed, but had trouble putting on Mihče’s boots. They hurt his feet, because he was so used to going barefoot on workdays.

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Then he drank his coffee, a bitter, gray, watery beverage, and ate his share of bread, which was smaller that morning than on other days. “You won’t be hungry today!” said his mother, smiling. “No, I won’t!” laughed Peter. ”I’ll go there straight after church!” ”Take a handkerchief with you to wrap it in!“ said his mother. Peter stuffed a large, colorful handkerchief into his pocket. “Don’t eat too much Peter!” begged his youngest sister, who had only just learned to speak. “Don’t eat too much, save some for us!” Peter laughed and was overcome with happiness. “I will bring the biggest doughnut for you Frančka, it will even be covered in sugar!” ”Come back quickly, don’t hang around for no reason!” his mother called after him. /…/ (Cankar, 1909: 135).

In the story Peter gets almost nothing, just one doughnut, and a friend of the rich family treats him in a humiliating manner: /…/ “What are you doing here, skulking around?” called the housekeeper, because he had stepped too close to the door. God himself willed him to come too close. That’s when he was spotted by Mihče, who was seated at the table with a white table napkin, his face all bright, his mouth greasy from the roast and the doughnuts. That, God have mercy, is when he saw him, standing in the hall, small and shy, in his patched clothes and awkward boots, his eyes round and gleaming – and that large handkerchief in his pocket; now, I believe I knew about that colorful handkerchief, prepared to carry doughnuts and bread. I was holding a big, still hot, sugary doughnut, which I threw towards the door. To this day I can see how it flew past Peter’s cheek, most likely gently brushing it on its way past, and landed on the hall floor. And the housekeeper closed the door. /…/ (Cankar, 1909: 137).

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Peter saves the doughnut to give to his little sister, even though he is hungry and meanwhile their father has brought the roast meat, which the family have eaten up, because they thought Peter would be eating at his friend’s house. At home he never told what had happened (Cankar, 1909: 135–138). It was similar in the case of bathing; children bathed only after their parents. The first was, of course, the father. The water was normally already dirty when the children’s turn to bathe came around. Because of poverty and lack of water, they often didn’t bathe every day (Miklavčič, 2014: 24). In the 19th century, they swaddled a child, so that he or she didn’t hurt him/herself, or because of posture, or to cover the genitals. One of the reasons was that a child would be calmer – he or she wouldn’t cry or eat so much (Puhar, 1982: 52–53). Puhar (1982: 58) claims that infants were cudded less than today; children were put in cradles. Before that, in ancient times and the Middle Ages, they slept in shared family bunks, beds, together with the mother. There was a chance a mother could smother the baby – the punishment for the death136 of baby in that manner was first mentioned in Europe in the 9th century (ibid.: 61–62).

136 Mortality among children was extremely high. But the perception of people was of a child as an innocent being, so he or she would go to heaven directely in comparison to an adult. Because of that, the death of a child shouldn't be the cause of great sadness, because the child would be going to a better place. The child was not suffering; those who suffer, were his or her parents. Besides that, a human being was not guilty for the death: it was God that decided who would die (Puhar, 1982: 184–185). On the other hand, they were afraid of a child dying before gaining the sacrament, because this would mean he or she would not have entrance to heaven. The folk song Otrokova duša se pokori (The child's soul submits) speaks about this: “majceni duši so bila vrata v nebesa zaprta: prej se je morala pokoriti” (“the door to heaven was closed to the tiny soul: it has to submit before”) (Mihelič, 2012: 30). Slovenian folk songs often speak about pregnancy and childbirth, which are really dangerous for both mother and child. Such songs also deal with dying and death at birth. There are songs about burying a mother who proves to be still alive, and who gives birth at the cemetery (ibid.: 29–30). Other examples include folk songs about infanticidal mothers; such songs exist in Lower Carnolia, Upper Carnolia and Styria (ibid.: 32), but examples of songs dealing with intfanticidal fathers are also known (ibid.: 33). Children also needed to see dying and dead people, in order to learn humility. If their parents died, they also needed to wash the skull and bones, to wrap them in the shroud and put the body into the grave. In this way, parents would find peace. Normally, this ritual was reserved for already grown-up children, but even little children did sometimes assist in this ritual (ibid.: 192–193).

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Subsequently, cradles, baskets and handcarts became recommended. On shared sleeping bunks were found only among children of the lowest social rank – mostly children of the industrial proletariat, because in the villages people would borrow or inherit cradles (ibid.). In Slovenian folk songs, babies lie in cradles, mothers breast-feed their children, swaddle them in linen, and cradle them in cradles. Mothers also lull children to sleep with lullabies (Mihelič, 2012: 31). In the 19th century there were many superstitions connected with children. So, children normally didn’t get much attention; instead, education was quite strict. Parents and visitors used to spit on babies to protect them against evil spirits, or bewitchment (Puhar, 1982: 74–76), because they are still not fully-formed adults. Even when a child became ill, it was normally healed by folk medicine. For example, if a child had epilepsy, which back then meant that a child was bewitched by evil spirits, they healed it with water containing a few drops of the father’s or godfather’s blood, along with the blood of cats etc. (ibid.: 196). They wanted to make the children stronger, so they washed them under the cold water etc. (Miklavčič, 2014: 187). The main characteristic of a child in the 19th century was to obey his parents – a child should be pious, humble, clean, obedient, hardworking, moderate, patient, thrifty and god-fearing. Children of both genders were meant to obey immediately, without excuses137 (ibid.: 105). They should not be stubborn, lazy (ibid.: 115) or headstrong (ibid.: 229). They should be obedient and well-behaved, should not stray too far from home, but be quiet, not crying, nor waking up in the middle of the night etc. (ibid.: 175). They should eat everything and be as

137 There existed two approaches to education in the 19th century: one was humanistic and rationalistic (from German and Austrian pedagogical literature), and the other was Christian. According to the latter, education was equal to agricultural and fruit growing activities, and to stock breeding, because education demanded domestication and taming. Children were not completely persons, but needed to be shape as plants were, and pruned like trees. Parents needed to be careful that beetles/bad habits didn't spoil them (Puhar, 1982: 134). Both approaches to education included punishment with the rod, but not violent or repeated punishment, so that children wouldn't get too used to punisment. Parents should punish the child from birth. The rod was used to uproot the evil in the child – to teach the child obedience, which is the basis for ensuring that a child was not spoiled (ibid.: 137–140).

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independent as possible, because their mother had to work, so the parents had no time for them (ibid.: 227). They shouldn’t their parents any trouble (ibid.: 233). If a child was mischievous, parents took it as their own characteristic (“Bog me je kaznoval s porednim otrokom!” – “God has punished me with a bad child!”), so they punished the child. Another example is as follows: “Otrok stopa staršem na prste, odrasel pa na srce.” (“The child treads on their parents’ toes, and the adult on their hearts.”). Many Slovenian proverbs describe the educational function of punishment: “Pametnega prepriča razum, neumnega pa palica.” (“A wise person is ruled by reason, a fool by the rod.”), “Kjer beseda ne zaleže, se palica ureže.” (“Where a word will not suffice, the rod will.”). On the other hand, punishment with the rod is also criticized: “Palica spremeni dobrega v slabega, slabega pa še v slabšega.” (“The rod will make a good person bad, and a bad one worse.”). In her analysis of songs of Slovenian folk heritage138, Mihelič (2012: 27) discovered that growing children were often abused by parents, especially step-parents (stepmother), sometimes even fatally. In Slovenian culture there also existed many customs that included ritual preventive beating, for example beating children with nettles to make them diligent (ibid.: 155). On holidays, parents would dress up as various mysterious figures to frighten the children139 (ibid.: 176). They also frightened children with fire – with being put into the stove140 (ibid.: 200). The main root of everything

138 Slovenian folks songs are song texts that have been transferred through oral tradion from generation to generation. They usually date from the Middle Ages or Early Modern period. They accodamated to the speech and circumstances of a certain place and time. Folks songs normally addressed simple people, although they also spoke of kings and lords of castles. Their meaning is not literal, but they transfer moral messages and direction. They try to bring collective order, according to custom. Their content does not deal with real events, but offers an analogy with the everyday life of the community (Mihelič, 2012: 27–28). 139 By the 19th century they had begun to reject such frightening (Puhar, 1982: 179). Nowadays, the discourse is reversed: punishment, especially physical punishment, is seen as not good for children. 140 There were many folk stories about this. There was also the belief that if a child were born with an old face, it should be put into a stove to rejuvenate. Fire also served to check whether the child was devilish (Puhar, 1982: 200–205). One of the main characteristics of a child was that he/she was a pure being, and thus asexual. Teenagers were punished if they showed any kind of sexual

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was fear; children should be obedient because the world outside was dangerous and they should fear it141 (ibid.: 172). Children should also be present when someone was being hanged for their crimes. This was considered an educational tool to teach them obedience and diligence (ibid.: 194). Children were to consider the wishes of their parents in choosing a profession142, and in deciding whether and whom to marry (ibid.: 237). Normally, the exemplary man was one who acted according to others, not taking into account his own feelings and beliefs (ibid.: 357). Parental authority lasted longer than the obligation of parents to take care of their children. Normally, they took care of their children until 12 years of age (Baš et al., 2004: 396). The difference in education for children in rural places in comparison to education in cities was the expectation that children should grow-up sooner so they could live on their own143 (Puhar, 1982: 342). Miklavčič (2014: 186) claims that parents weren’t always violent towards children. They also bought toys and they loved them, but the education was still stricter than nowadays. If the children cried that they were already full, parents left them alone. Parents didn’t cuddle the children; it was usually older sisters who took care of little children (ibid.: 186– 187). Children also respected their parents highly (ibid.) Children thus addressed their parent ultra-formally or formally, and they knew when to kiss their parents’

behaviour. Strict sexual morality was common in the 19th century. On the other hand, there also existed sexual abuse of children, or touching of babies' genitals as a punishment or to make them sleep (ibid.: 273–274, 279). 141 This kind of discourse is connected with Christian doctrine, which prevailed at that time (Puhar, 1982: 174). 142 In the 19th century one of the best professions was to become a priest, because that meant gaining a higher position on the social scale for the entire family and its descendants. It also meant access to heaven for the parents. A priest could never have an illegitimate child (Puhar, 1982: 238– 240). Some boys resisted their parents' wish and became something else: doctors, historians, linguists, lawyers etc. However, this resistence also meant punishment; children could often be left without economic support, parents or kin would reject further contact with them, they had to move from their current place, they went hungry, and became poor and homeless etc. (ibid.: 241–253). 143 They were not just sent out to work; some went to stay with other people, other relatives at around the age of two or three, if there was no space or food for them at home, or if one of their parents had died. Some children went to be apprenticed or to school (Puhar, 1982: 342–350).

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hands. The same polite behaviour was expected towards other people, especially towards gentlefolks. A child knew when it was correct to doff a cap, when to make a bow, how to greet, when to kneel down etc. (Puhar, 1982: 128). They were expected to take care of ill parents: they did many tasks; they served them, comforted them in sadness and misfortune; they mitigated their suffering, saving them from poverty. They also bore all their torments and were ready to die for their parents. They also unconditionally loved and respected their parents (ibid.: 223–224). All these clarify the hierarchy: children and parents were not equal, with equal rights; children were not complete human beings. On the other hand, their behaviour towards the children also shows that parents often didn’t want to have a child, but an adult. They sought for fathers and mothers in their own sons and daughters. The purpose for a child in this world was to be come mature as soon as possible. Here it is also interesting to note some terms for a child: beba, which is really close to the term for grandparents – baba, babica (grandmother), dete (baby) – ded, dedek (grandfather) (ibid.: 214–215, 224–225). Linguistically, the Slovenian language has a dative, which is used especially in the child–parent relation, emotionally, and to show how parents never let the child be really free, unattached to a parent. For example, sentences such as “Da si mi čisto pri miru!” (“You should be really calm for me!”), “Kako mi moreš storiti kaj takega?” (“How can you make me something like that?”) express that a person is never for himself/herself, but always attached to an Other (ibid.: 253). In the 19th century children were named after relatives: the firstborn son often after his father, and the firstborn daughter after her mother. Later children were named for the godfather or godmother or after the saint on whose day the birth or baptism of a child happened to fall. Some saints were not suitable, so people would choose the name of a near by saint’s day. Illegitimate children were not to be named after saints. By being named after kin, children became linkages of descent. In the past the choice of partner or profession could also be connected to the interests of descent (Puhar, 1982: 124–127).

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Illegitimate children normally lived and grew up in orphanages. By the 18th century, in the time of Maria Theresa, children in orphanages had to work without getting paid. In the orphanages there were children from 7 years old, up to 20 years, in the case of girls, and 24 years, for boys. Children normally had get up at half past five in the morning; they had to make their bed, say their prayers and start work. While working, they were not to talk or laugh. If they did so, they were punished. Like other children, they usually worked 12 hours per day. Mortality among these children was high (Puhar, 1982: 282–284). On the other hand, according to Puhar (1982: 320), 19th-century bourgeois families also gave us a new ideology of the family: a family, constructed from love, a nuclear family with just two generations – parents and children, and the family privacy. The essential novelty, Puhar (1982: 320) claims, was emotional warmth. So, children born from love normally stayed at home with their mothers. They were able to live a child's life, without taking on adult roles. Moreover, fathers began to take care of children and their nurture. Taking care of a child began to be seen as an investment144, and not a burden. As a result, the age when children left home began to rise. This was the start of a change in ideology which continues also nowadays. Still, families back then had wet nurses145, who moved to the cities to work. Many wet nurses later became nurses and dry nurses. Later, governesses and home teachers took care of children. Mothers thus took on the role of managers more than mothers (Puhar, 1982: 320–324). We still have to stress that only a small percentage of Slovenian people lived like that, according

144 Children were an investment in rural families, as well, since children were the ones who would learn how to work on the farm so that the farm could be preserved in the future. 145 Wet nurses were often also mothers of illigitimate children. Their children were cared for by grandparents, aunts or people in foundling homes. Many of these children died (Puhar, 1982: 325– 326). Women from Istria, normally married ones, even went to Egypt as wet nurses to help support their families. At the time, milk was a valuable commodity; a woman gave it to a foreign child instead of to her own child because of the financial situation of the family. A woman with more milk and brighter skin was paid more (ibid.: 326–327). In Slovenian folk tradition, there is the story of Lepa Vida (The Beautiful Vida), who longs for her child, husband and home country in Egypt, which refers to wet nurses, who did historically travel to Egypt (see remark on page 107).

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to Maček (2007); 90% of the population lived in rural areas and were dependent on agriculture. At the turn of the century discourse also changed – at the beginning of the 20th century146, discourse demanded a different education, without physical punishment (Puhar, 1982: 403). Under socialism, childhood and children were comprehended differently than before. People were moving from rural farms to urban cities (Tomšič, 1959: 20). The child became someone who needed material and educational support. Parents had the material and moral responsibility for the child, as did society. Children were to receive care and individual love (Tomšič, 1956: 17–18). For the family, emotional connectedness among members was a necessity (Tomšič, 1959: 33). Contraception also became a desirable possibility (Tomšič, 1956: 18), since the family pattern was a nuclear family with low fertility (Tomšič, 1959: 20). In addition, the function of rural and urban families was narrowing (ibid.: 21). In children’s education there was an increased emphasis on the role of institutions such as maternity hospitals, health services, schools and school kitchens, kindergartens, playgrounds, youth homes, as well as all kinds of educational, social and health institutions. Additionally, the planning of housing development schemes was supposed to consider children and their needs (Tomšič, 1954: 21; Tomšič, 1959: 33). Institutions were for the enrichment of the social system of education for children (Tomšič, 1959: 33). If children didn’t have parents, it was the responsibility of the society to take care of them (Tomšič, 1954: 21). Because of parental work, another type of expanded family began to appear: the residential community (Tomšič, 1959: 30). According to interviews made by the American anthropologist Joel M. Halpern in 1961/1962 in the Slovenian town of Šenčur in the north western region of Slovenia, called Upper Carniola, it could be seen that families were usually nuclear, and still partly self-sufficient, with gardens and rural work, even when both husband and wife worked. Economic support was provided by the land and jobs, a combination of both. Both wife and husband were simultaneously

146At the beginning of the 20th century, in literature (prose, poetry, or fine arts), childhood was becoming more popular as a main motif, as well as depictions of childhood problems (Puhar, 1982: 424).

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farmworkers and workers. For children, schooling was desired, especially education to a level beyond what the parents had. These children could choose what to become. Children also helped in the house and around the garden (Hudales, 2015: 8–28). The same claims are made by Makarovič (1982: 464) for Strojna (in the Carinthia region of Slovenia). According to Hudales (2015: 8–28), relationships between husband and wife were equal; they made decisions jointly and shared the money, while the wife also helped out financially, with outdoor work and gardening in addition to housekeeping. Makarovič (1982: 458) claims that husbands still had the authority; he was the one who gave the orders about what work to do, although the change lay in the fact that husbands also respected their wives and sought their opinions. Nevertheless, husbands were still the ones who did all the deciding, arranging and planning (ibid.: 458–459). According to Hudales (2015: 8–28), husbands were still mostly the owners of houses. The wife would take more responsibility for educating the children; here the difference between husband and wife is still evident. Mothers and fathers would help the children with school homework, but still just showing them how to do something, and then the children had to do their homework alone. They would listen to the radio together (ibid.). Normally, the family comprised 5 family members. Children (from a minimum of one, to a maximum of three) were desired in both genders, although in some families sons were still more valued (ibid.). Makarovič (1982: 459) claims that in Strojna (a rural area) a family still comprised 5 to 7 members. Hudales (2015: 8–28) according to interviews by Halpern, claims that a good education for the child was still valued; this meant the child knew how to greet people; he could behave politely on the street, at various events etc. Some people, however, noted that children were becoming more and more spoiled, especially the ones who had everything at home. Respect for elders was losing importance, as was solidarity, which parents saw as weakness. Parents rarely employed physical punishment; if children did not obey, they would punish them verbally or prohibit them from going where they wanted. Parents still thought children should not be allowed to do just anything (Hudales, 2015: 8–28; 118–154). Socialization and education in rural areas were still the main task of primary families; the

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impact of schools was greater than before, but still small. The father was still the main authority in the family, and even the mother was subordinate. Although children were more open, they could also say when they thought that the children hadn’t been justly treated (Makarovič, 1982: 460–462). Knowledge about working was transmitted from parents to children from the early childhood (ibid.: 463). Hudales (2015: 8–28) also noted that parents were still the primary educators of children; later, institutions became more important (ibid.). A Slovenian proverb shows that education was very important: “Otroka ni težko roditi, temveč vzgojiti.” (“It is easier to bear children than to raise them.”). In the parents’ opinion, a suitable age for marriage for the boys was 25 or older, and for girls, no less than 20. It was also recommended that before marriage children have some material things, such as an apartment. Parents expected children to help them in their old age (Hudales, 2015: 8–28). In rural areas it was also expected that one of the sons would stay on the farm and take over its care (Makarovič, 1982: 461–462). Today, names and choice of partner and profession are made freely, with no connection to descent. An individual is understood as a unique, irreplaceable totality (Puhar, 1982: 127). Furthermore, relationships between children and parents are no longer as stable and strict, but parents have less time for their children (ibid.: 19). On the other hand, parents are more and more sensitive in their relationswith children; family life is more oriented to the needs of children (ibid.: 22). In the past as in the present, children weren’t seen as full persons; they were half human, but today they are seen as persons who need care, protection and love, who have their own needs. A child is one whom adults care for, nurse and change. They educate him/her, sometimes they adopt the child – they take him/her for their (vzeti otroka za svojega) (Bajec et al., 2014: 1120). In the past children were viewed more strictly – they represented extra workforce, those who would continue the descent, and who had to obey and love their parents etc. If in the past education was too authoritative, nowadays it too permissive, and even overprotective. Children were and still are nowadays seen as less than adult, unformed human beings; only the discourse changed: now adults need to protect and take care of a child; in the past they should incarnate him/her with authority,

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and expect them to behave as adults – to work and care for other family members. Nevertheless, an obvious characteristic of a child is that he or she is immature, non-adult. For example, here are some examples from the Dictionary of Slovene Literary Language: “Jokal je kot otrok.” (“He cried like a baby.”), “Pusti ga, saj je še napol otrok.” (“Leave him alone, he is still half a baby.”), “Razumi vendar, saj nisi otrok.” (“Understand this, you are not a child.”), “Ne bodi tak otrok” (Don’t be such a child.”) (Bajec et al., 2014: 1120). Nowadays, forms of address between children and parents are informal. Some children, for example, call their parents by their first names. The varying terms for child have different connotations, from negative, through neutral, to positive. In Table 4, the connotations of various terms for child are presented.

Table 4: Different connotations and levels of formality for the term otrok (child)

Neutral terms Terms with positive Terms with connotations (diminutives, negative presenting the smallness, connotations Level of formality childishness of child) (from formal to - otrok - otrokec, - otroče informal) otroček, - otročad, otročič otročaj - otročiček - froc (from German; lower colloquial)

Level of formality (from formal to informal) Statistically, for example, nowadays Slovene children leave home by about thirty-five. ‘Leaving home’ means moving to the top floor or the building next door, meaning that the mother is still around to wash, iron or perform other tasks for the son etc. (Mazzini, 2011). The phenomenon of the extended cohabitation of parents and grown-up children places Slovenia as one of the leading countries in

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this regard (in second place)147 (Klanjšek and Lavrič, 2011: 347; Kuhar, 2012: 365–366). This happened especially in the post socialist period; families became the core providers of material and non-material resources (Kuhar, 2012: 368). After the second World War, it became normal that children move out after marriage, which meant emancipation and self-expression (ibid.: 367). Adulthood means heading your own household, making independent decisions about you own finances, consumption, free time etc. It also means a change in the relation between children and parents (Klanjšek and Lavrič, 2011: 347). In Slovenia this has not been obligatory since the 1960s, especially since the 1980s; statistically, 50% of children move away from their parents after marriage (Kuhar, 2012: 367– 368). The main reasons for longer cohabitation between parents and grown-up children are economic, structural factors: education of young people is of long duration, young people cannot find jobs, or they have precarious work. The place of their work/studies is near to home because of the smallness of Slovenia. It is also difficult to get one’s own apartment because of the characteristics of the residential market. Also important are psychological factors, such as the increasing apathy and lack of psychological independence among young people (Klanjšek and Lavrič, 2011: 348–364; Kuhar, 2012: 368–369). Nevertheless, one of the factors is the comfort of living with parents; living with parents is also a cultural practice, a life style (Kuhar, 2012: 373). As Keržan (2008: 243) claims, a child nowadays is a family’s emotional capital. One reason is nevertheless a type of socialization: permissive socialization, because of which youth people are less functionally adult; they lack some essential competences for living alone. On the other hand, they are searching for comfort, which parents have provided from an early age (Godina, 2009: 8). Klanjšek and Lavrič (2011: 358) claim that youth between 25 and 29 (generation Y) living at home, use more internet and

147 Statistically, sons left the family at age 31.5; girls at age 29. Across the European Union, children left home at approximately age 25. In Slovenia 90% of young people from 18 to 24 live with their parents, 60% of those between 25 and 29 years, and 30% of men from 30 to 34, and 33% women of the same age. Normally, Slovenians think that a suitable age for leaving home is 25 years old (Kuhar, 2011: 366–367). In the research project Youth 2010, Klanjšek and Lavrič (2011: 349) claim that in Slovenia 66.8 % of youth between 25 and 29 years live with their parents.

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information and communication technologies; they focus on amusement and enjoy good relationships with their parents. This way of living for them is far more attractive than the risk of poverty or social exclusion from living alone (ibid.: 358–359). Naterer (2011a: 568), based on of qualitative interviews, claims that even though the majority of young people live with parents, this does not mean that they are living on their parents financially. They think that cohabitation with their parents is good, but you always should establish internal borders, which assure the independence, privacy and freedom of every family member (ibid.). Young people also don’t think that having their own household means being grown-up; instead, it is important to be economically independent of one’s parents and to have children (ibid.: 570–571). Most important is to be economically independent, then to be the owner of an apartment or house, and then to create one’s own family with children (Naterer, 2011b: 583–584). Naterer (2011b: 581) claims that all this doesn’t indicate the permissiveness of education of children; it is rather a type of good intergenerational collaboration. So, Slovenian children nowadays don’t grow up functionally, especially boys; they remain children – the parents do everything for them (Mazzini, 2011). Meanwhile, in the past even children had to grow up and didn’t have a childhood (Puhar, 1982). Today children are usually narcissistic, which means they also make ideal consumers. The child remains non-independent and incompetent (Mazzini, 2011).

6.3.1 Sin (Son)

Sin (son) is a man in relation to his parents (Bajec et al., 2014: 514; Škofic et al., 2011: 246). The second meaning is a man according to his origin, or social appurtenance, for example sin svojega naroda (son of his nation), or according to characteristics connected with what the attribute expresses, for example sin planin (son of the mountains) (ibid.). The diminutives of sin are sinek, sinček, sinko (Snoj, 2009: 655). Etymologically, sin (son) is the same as Old Slavonic synъ, Croatian sin, Serbian sîn, Russian sín and Czech syn. Proto-slavic son is *syˆnъ, which is similar to Lithuanian sū nùs, Old Prussian soū ns, Old Indian sū nú-, Avestian hū nu,

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Gothic sunus, Old High German sunu, German Sohn, Anglo Saxon sunu and English son. The origin is Indo-European *suHnú-. The word has the primary meaning *´rojeni’ (to be born) and is a derivative of the Indo-European *seu̯ H- (to be born) (Snoj, 2009: 655). Dialectally, the primary form sin (son) is most widespread in all Slovenian dialects. Some dialects also include the words sinič (sinek) (diminutive form, little son), fant (boy) and pob (boy). Fant originates from the connection between Slovenia and Italy: in Friulian fant and in Venetian Italian fante in meaning of ‘sluga, sel, kurir’ (manservant, messenger, courier). Pob is from Old German buobe (boy) and Bavarian Old High German puobe (Škofic et al., 2011: 246). A similar role, but not with the same status goes to pastorek (stepson). He is a child in relation to his stepmother/stepfather or wife’s/husband’s child before the common marriage (Bajec et al., 2014: 1149; Škofic et al., 2011: 276). Pastorek is not used so often any more; nowadays the more common words are pastor (stepson), rejenec (foster child) – diminutive rejenček, rejenik (foster child), posvojenec (adopted child), posvojen (adopted one), also mrzel sin (cold son) (Škofic et al., 2011: 276). The role and the status of a son are historically the same as described for a child in relation to its parents. Nevertheless, there are some gender differences, what is always important for the socialization of two words in one culture: the male and female worlds. The differences are important in understanding the roles of men and women in Slovenian society, because the son when grown up, will take on the role of father. In Old Slovene society, sons were those who continued the family community by growing up, marrying and producing children (Vilfan, 1996: 54). In the 19th century, being a son was better than being a daughter. Being a son meant you’re your parents were happy when you were born. A son was the inheritor, the bearer of the lineage and name (Puhar, 1982: 219). A son, especially the first-born one, usually inherited the farm in rural families (it was not always like that; there were differences from province to province). The father was the one who passed on knowledge and experience about running a farm – so it is important that one of the sons be the person to whom the knowledge is transferred

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(Baš et al., 2004: 312). This characteristic of an important relationship between son and father can also be noticed in the Slovenian proverb: “Kakršen oče, takšen sin.” (“Like father, like son.”) (Bajec et al., 2014: 514). Mihelič (2012: 29) discovered that sons are more often mentioned in Slovenian folk songs than daughters, for example: Kaj jo148 bom skrivala! Sinka bom zibala! Sinka ravnala bom, študirat ga dala bom!

Why would I hide it, I will cradle my son, I will teach my son, I will send him to study.

A son should not be greedy (Puhar, 1982: 115). The education of sons was even stricter, because in the 19th century people had the idea that boys were wilder than girls (ibid.: 135). From the beginning, a boy was supposed to suppress all his needs for tenderness and caresses. Only in this way could he become a real boy and a real man. He shouldn’t allow himself weakness, sentimentality or effeminacy. He shouldn’t cry. He shouldn’t show that he too was vulnerable. He shouldn’t hang out with girls. He shouldn’t seek the protection of women. He shouldn’t behave like a woman. If he observed all these, he would conform to the ideal of a real man (Puhar, 1982: 159). Under socialism, the father took care of his son until he finished studying or got a job (the desired and recommended jobs for sons were mechanic, electrician or builder). After military service, he should then become financially independent. Parents still wished that their sons would live with them (Hudales, 2015: 11, 16). Makarovič (1982: 465) states that it was the sons who were expected to take over the farm. Nevertheless, even nowadays there remains the opinion that children should stay in their parents’ house; because of this, Slovenians built larger houses,

148 Ljubezen/love (remark of the author).

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with one more floor (Klanjšek and Lavrič, 2011, Kuhar, 2012, Mazzini, 2011), although from the period of socialism on, things may not have been so gender determined. Linguistically, relationships also changed: as Keržan (2008) claims, the relations between parents and children are more emotional nowadays, so also parents call their children, sin (son) and daughter (hčerka) by their first names (Škofic et al., 2011: 246). There are only neutral terms and terms with positive connotations for sons:

Table 5: Different connotations and levels of formality for the term sin (son)

Neutral terms Terms with positive connotations (diminutives, suggesting little son) - sin - sinek - dialectally: pob, fant - sinič - sinček - sinko

Level of formality (from formal to informal)

One story that offers a prototype of the Slovenian son is the folk story about Peter Klepec. This narrative was rewritten by France Bevk149. Peter Klepec was known for having chased the Turks from Slovenian territory. In the beginning he was a weak shepherd boy, who was beaten by his peers. He was highly attached to his mother, who was widow, very poor but hardworking, careful and good hearted. Peter wished that someday he would become strong, and a good fairy made his wish come true. He became strong, he punished the bullies who had beaten him and built his own home for him and his mother (Bevk, 1978/1956).

149 France Bevk (1890–1970) was a Slovenian writer, poet, dramatist, translator and editor. He became a social realist following various influences in his childhood. He became known for his novels describing the struggle of Slovenian people against Fascist Italianization. His best-known novel on this topic is Kaplan Martin Čedermac (Curate Martin Čedermac). Bevk is also known for his children's literature (Kos, 1980: 326–329).

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Clearly, this family is constructed around a mother and her son, with the typical Slovenian characteristics of self-sacrifice150. The father is absent. It is the son who stays with his mother as the happy ending, and takes care of the farm in the future. Nevertheless, one aspect includes the relation to foreign people, strangers, who are seen as dangerous and against “our” group; this topic about the relation to Others will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 8 Marriage. In contemporary literature, the idea of childhood in a novel by Mazzini151 Otroštvo (Childhood) (2016) is expressed in these sentences: “Odrastemo takrat, ko spoznamo, da smo člen v verigi predhodnikov in potomcev in da moramo v sebi imeti čim več zaključenih celot.” (“We are grown-up, when we realise that we are links in a chain of ancestors and future generations and that we must have inside us as much as possible concluded totalities.”) (Mazzini, 2016: 12). Mazzini’s novel telling autobiographical, but invented stories about the childhood of a boy and his relation to an insane religious grandmother and an immature mother. The relation of men towards women, full of fear, can also be found in folk tradition in a song about a little herdsman, who dreams that three woman are taking the heart from his chest (his mother, aunt and sister or his sweetheart) (Mihelič, 2012: 33). This could be explained in relation to the previously mentioned statement by Žižek (1987: 154) that the mother's Ideal-Ego transforms itself into the Super-Ego of child and is governed by fear.

150 In Slovenian folk literature, the attachment of mother and son can also be seen in the negative relation between a tašča (mother-in-law) and a snaha (daughter-in-law) (Mihelič, 2012: 31), which emerges nowadays in jokes or general convictions. For example, in Slovenian folk songs the mother convince her son that his wife is sterile. In one variation of the folk song, the son believes his mother and cuts off his wife's head. In the second variation, the son believes his wife and takes the keys from his mother, giving them to his wife with instructions that the wife should treat the mother as the mother has treated her (Mihelič, 2012: 31). 151 Miha Mazzini (1961– ) is Slovenian writer, columnist, script writer, and producer (http://www.mihamazzini.com/).

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6.3.2 Hči/hčerka (Daughter)

Hčerka or hči (daughter) is a woman in relation to her parents (Bajec et al., 2014: 429; Škofic et al., 2011: 247). Other meanings include the following: a woman, according to her origin, or social appurtenance, for example: poročil se je s kmečko hčerjo (he married a farmer’s daughter); any financial, economic unit that springs from the basic, primary unit, but it is still connected with it, for example hčerinsko podjetje (subsidiary company) (Bajec et al., 2014: 429). A diminutive for hči/hčerka is hčerkica (Bajec et al., 2014: 429). Etymologically, the word is the same as Old Slavic dъšti, genitive dъštere, Croatian, Serbian kćî, genitive kćȅri, Russian dóčь, genitive dóčeri, Old Czech dci, genitive dceře and Czech dcera. Proto-slavic *dъt’î (or *dъ̏ ti), genitive *dъt’erȅ (hči, daughter) is the same as Lithuanian duktễ, genitive dukter͂ s, Old Prusian ducti, Old Indian duhitár-, Greek thygátēr, Gothic daúhtar, Old High German tohtar, German Tochter, Anglo-Saxon dohtar and English daughter, h h which developed from Indo-European *d ugh2tḗr, genitive *d ugh2trés. The Indo- h European word is derived from the root morpheme *d ug- and the suffix *-h2ter-, which is familiar from other kinship signs, for example *ph2tḗr (father), *máh2tōr h (mother), *b ráh2tōr (brother) (Snoj, 2009: 200). Dialectally, the prevailing terms are hči, hčer, hčera, and hčerka in all Slovenian dialects. One variation is šči in the East Carinthian dialects and some Inner Carniolan and Lower Carniolan speech. The second most frequent term for daughter is dekle (girl), with its variations deklica, deklič, dečla (Škofic et al., 2011: 247). With a similar role, but different status is the pastorka (stepdaughter). She is a child in relation to her stepmother/stepfather or wife’s/husband’s child before the common marriage (Bajec et al., 2014: 1149; Škofic et al., 2011: 276). Another term is rejenka (foster daughter) or neprava hči (not right daughter) (Škofic et al., 2011: 276). The role and status of a daughter are historically the same as described for a child in relation to parents; nevertheless, a daughter seems to have less power. A son or brother could be the head of the family, but a daughter was valued because

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she could be exchanged by her parents to establish cooperation between two families (Vilfan, 1996: 248–250). Daughters were nevertheless in the Middle Ages the ones who inherited the mother’s things; the father’s things belonged to the sons. There also exists a proverb: “Kar pride s klobuka, gre na klobuk, kar pride s peče pa na pečo.” (“What comes from the hat, goes to the hat, and what comes from the stove, goes to the stove.”). Until the year 1208, daughters could also inherit feudally; later on this became the right of the last male. If there were no sons, in the year 1365 it was the eldest daughter who inherited the land (ibid.: 258–259). Before the 19th century, people normally didn’t speak of educating sons and daughters, but just of children in general. By the end of the 19th century, people began to discuss the education of girls. The main characteristic for a daughter was to be as innocent as a saint; the main stress was on her humility. A girl was supposed to be gentle, humble, submissive and never vain (Puhar, 1982: 106; 115). For girls, education was restricted. Repression had meant strength in a woman’s life. Girls were meant to suppress their need for physical and emotional closeness to their parents. They shouldn’t show their feelings, but despite all that, their upbringing was still not so strict. Even if the girls had to convert their own weaknesses into strength, their youth into adulthood and independence, parents still forgave their mistakes more readily than those of their brothers (Puhar, 1982: 160). Nevertheless, mothers were strict with their daughters in the matter of education (Mihelič, 2012: 34). Daughters also took care of their parents in case of illness – they became mothers – lovely nurses and mediators for God (ibid.: 223). The oldest daughter also took over the role of a mother to her brothers and sisters if their mother died. An exemplary child had to cease being a child; instead, he or she become an adult when the needs of other people demanded (ibid.: 256). Miklavčič (2014: 25) also gives us examples of cases where mothers worked all day, so an older sister took charge of the younger brothers and sisters, even though she was just 8 years old. Miklavčič (2014: 186, 205) also claims that boys/sons were often more desired, and parents allowed them to do many more things. The upbringing of daughters was stricter, and for such families, it was senseless for a daughter to attend school

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– “Baba ne sme biti preveč pametna, ko se omoži.” (“A woman should not be too smart when she gets married.”) (ibid.). Girls were punished if they did something wrong; it was not important how they felt, but whether they were doing things correctly. The same went for sons, but the type of punishment differed depending on the type of parents (ibid.: 188–193). In the 19th century, parents were still the ones who normally decided whom their daughters would marry. This custom can be seen in the saying, Dati hči nekomu. (To give a daughter to somebody), meaning to marry a daughter to someone (Bajec et al., 2014: 429). A folk songspeaks of promising to marry off a daughter while she was still in the cradle: K’ so te mamca obljubili, (When the mother promised to give you,) k’ še s’ v zibuki bwa! (you were still in the cradle) (Mihelič, 2012: 33). In Slovenian folk songs, mothers are also described as the ones who decide on the daughter’s spouse, or as the jealous ones, when they give away a son (ibid.). It is the mother who has the power to decide. For example, there is a folk song describing a marriage proposal: Bom pa dov’ pokleknov, (I will kneel down,) pa prosov za njo, (and I will ask for her,) da bi cartana mamica, (so that her dear mother,) dali mi jo. (will give her to me) (ibid.).

The destiny of a daughter in cases where the parents decide whom she will marry is usually sad: she becomes the victim of an evil tašča (mother-in-law) or husband (ibid.). The same story line features in Jurčič’s152 Sosedov sin (Neighbour’s son), where a rich peasant has only one daughter, Franica, but won’t permit a marriage between her and Štefan, the son of a less prosperous neighbour. Franica’s father decides to marry Franica off to another man, although Franica’s mother doesn’t agree. In the end Franica escapes from the wedding. When they

152 Josip Jurčič (1844–1881) was Slovenian writer and journalist, also a dramatist and poet. He was one of the most influential Romantic realists. With his story, Sosedov sin (Neighbour's son), he reached the pinnacle of his creativity. He is also the writer of the first Slovenian novel, Deseti brat (The Tenth brother) (Kos, 1980: 174–181).

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find her, she is seriously ill, but she recovers and the father allows her to marry Štefan (Jurčič, 1992/1868). Nevertheless, the function of arranged marriages was to forge alliances with other families, generally for financial reasons. In this sense, in the Slovenian tradition, a daughter was a “supreme gift”, whose fertility was vital for the reproduction of the next generation, and who could make alliances between different groups of people, as Lévi-Strauss (1969: 52) claims. More about marriage customs and the function of marriage (including arranged ones) appears in Chapter 8 Marriage. Daughters also worked, by helping their mothers or by going out to work as nurses, nursemaids, servant-girls, chambermaids, waitresses, shop assistants or laundresses. They also worked in factories. They were never apprentices because parents never paid for this – they were in a situation worse than that of boys (Puhar, 1982: 306). A tale by France Bevk Pestrna (The Babysitter) (1977/1939) from the 20th century tells about a very poor family, the Grivars, where the mother stays alone with the youngest daughter Nežka, because the father has gone to work abroad to support the family. The older children have also gone to foreign countries. After some time, Nežka has to baby-sit the little daughter of the Mejačevi family. In their house, Nežka has a hard life: she cares for the baby, while also doing all the other housework, everything that Mejač's wife demands. Nežka runs away, and by the end of the story the father and her brothers and sisters return and Nežka is happy again. The story describes the suffering of Nežka as a nursemaid and the general suffering of Slovenian poor people (Bevk, 1977). Something similar goes for the Slovenian folk tradition of the desetnica – the tenth daugther, who has to leave home at the age of 7. The main reason was poverty, which forced her out to work at an early age (Mihelič, 2012: 34; Puhar, 1982; Ravnik, 1996). The tradition of the tenth daughter (also the ninth, twelfth or thirteenth daughter) can be found in the folk heritage of the Slavic, Irish and the Baltic nations. In an era when rural families tended to be very large, traditional beliefs required the tenth-born son or daughter to leave the family. In the Slovenian lands, the tenth son was believed to be possessed by spirits and had to seek his fortune outside the family, often wandering the world as a singer or

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storyteller. The tenth daughter – often symbolizing death (especially in the Styrian region of Slovenia – hill Pohorje) – was thought to have been taken by the fairies (especially in Carniola, where a desetnica was called rojenica – one of the Fates), and was not allowed to return until seven years had passed (Baš et al., 2004: 85; Kropej, 2000: 75–79). In many tales the desetnica (tenth daughter) was pursued by white female spirits, Marija or fairies. When she returns to her birth village, nobody recognizes her, and they don't allow her to enter the house; the consequence of all this is the death of the mother or a storm accompanied by fire (Baš et al., 2004: 85). The Desetnica (tenth daughter) belongs to a deity connected to destiny, birth and death (cyclic renewal) (ibid.). Desetnica/tenth daugther is also the name of a fairy tale ballad, in which the desetnica is the daughter of the lord of the castle or a farmer's daughter, who harvests the fields with her sisters. The mother kneads the bread with a ring inside and cuts it into ten pieces to aviod the destined fate – but the ring falls to the youngest one (a 7-year-old), and she must leave, although her parents love her. After 7 years when she returns, nobody recognizes her. The mother dies of sorrow, and the desetnica (tenth daugther) leaves for ever (ibid.; Mihelič, 2012: 34). The same story occurs in a folktale, Desetnica (The Tenth Sister), adapted from folk tradition by Fran Milčinski153 (1964). In working-class families, daughters were meant to have knowledge of housekeeping, sewing and horticulture, skills which mothers transferred to daughters, and in such things they continued to help and advise each other later on, when the daughter got married (Baš et al., 2004: 312). The same is claimed by Makarovič (1982: 464) for rural families in 1970, where fathers went to work in factories – daughters are taught how to help their mothers, and do their work. The same claim can be found in Hudales (2015: 10, 27) about daughters under socialism, although parents then still sought to influence what their children should become. For daughters, it was suitable for them to become workers in

153 Fran Milčinski (1867–1932) was a Slovene lawyer, writer and playwright. He was humorist and satirist. He also wrote numerous fantasy short stories, in which he took on the ancient story motifs of Slovene folk songs. He was active during the early 20th century Slovenian contemporary period (Kos, 1980: 289–290).

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textile factories, chemical factories, or machine factories, although it was still important for them to know how to cook and sew. All parents, however, thought that children of both genders should be educted (ibid.: 126–127). Hudales (2015: 119) claims that in 1960, sons were more desired in some regions, because they survived more readily and had more options than daughters, in their parents' opinion. On the other hand, parents generally felt that a family should have four family members, one son and one daughter – children of both genders are mostly desired. One recorded opinion was that: 'today' all are the same, boys and girls. Both sons and daughter helped with homework and work (ibid.: 118–126). The connotation of the terms for daughter are described in the table below. Nowadays, parents address their children, thus also their daughters by their first names. Table 6: Different connotations and levels of formality for the term hči/hčerka (daughter)

Neutral terms Terms with positive connotations (diminutives, suggesting little daughter) - hči, hčerka, hčer, hčera - hčerkica - šči (dialectally for hči) - deklica, deklič, dečla (primary meaning is a little girl)

Level of formality (from formal to informal)

As Cankar Žakelj and Ivanuš Grmek (2012: 76) claim, nowadays even officially daughters are equal to sons (when they come of age, daughters can inherit, they have formal equal rights in the public spheres of social life, and they are socialized more equally). Through the influence of our social environment, both boys and girls learn their sexual norms, specific rules and values from early childhood thought socialisation. For example, it determines women's and men's behaviour, and meaning given to differences in their actions and roles (Moore, 2003: 823). Children thus grow up in different worlds according to gender, which

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nowadays is no longer diferentiated into just two genders154, as normally understood in the social sciences (Moore, 2005: 824). Cankar, Žekelj and Ivanuš Grmek (2012: 76) therefore noticed that children adopt these widespread stereotyped conceptions in developing their self-image in their efforts to act according to them. This includes behaviours, emotions and roles. These authors carried out their research in primary schools (7th grade), and discovered that there are differences in sports (boys are oriented to towards swimming, football, seven-a-side, basketball, and girls towards dance, badminton, calisthenics, volleyball and beach volleyball); in cultural activities (although both boys and girls enjoy going to the cinema, attending home parties, discos and concerts, watching TV and going to the library, boys are more likely to attend sport games, girls more theater plays, fine arts openings and classical concerts; they also participate more in drama clubs or choirs), in domestic activities (the most suitable tasks for girls are cooking, shopping, tidying up, dusting and watering flowers, for boys domestic up-keep, mowing the lawn or riding a motorcycle). In the last activities, Slovenian girls think that dusting, gardening

154 Differences between women and men are also not a matter of biology; the connoted distinction between 'woman' and 'man' is formed by social and cultural constructs. Gender differences and gender relations are culturally and historically variable (Moore, 2005: 813–814). Differences between women and men are not biological, but 'physiological' – they exist in certain domains of social life: with regard to spiritual potency, ritual efficacy or moral worth (ibid.: 815). Social science also assume that there is binary sex differences – but in fact biological sex and gender are both socially constructed; because different cultures also assign bodies and embodied practices different meanings, even though human bodies have distinguishing genitals. In many cultures in the world, according to indigenous or local knowledge that reigns supreme, there is no sex. Sex is understood as the culturally specific discourse practise which make sense of body parts and their relation to physiological processes and substances (ibid.: 816–819). Conceptualizing gender is a processual and multiple process (ibid.: 820). The recognition of the existence of multiple models and discourses, and the investigation of how models and discourse intersect in any given context constitute, according to Moore (2005: 824), a new direction for the analysis of gender in anthropology. Also, it should be considered that economic, political and socio-ideological forces are transforming the concept of gender (ibid.: 825). All forms of social change involve the reworking of gender relations to a greater or lesser degree: gender as a powerful form of cultural representation is caught up in emerging struggles over meaning and in attempts to redefine who and what people are (ibid.: 828).

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and tidying the home are activities equally suited to boys (ibid.: 78). Nevertheless, both genders like to socialize, and boys don't deny their sensibility (ibid.: 79), which marks a change in discourse from the previously desirable socialization of boys in the 19th century, even if domestic chores are still quite fixed. However, it seems children are, according to their activities and irrespective of gender, the product of todays leading ideology of consumer capitalism, which is proclaimed as the society of fun and recreation (ibid.: 80). Children are nevertheless the product of socialisation and cultural transmission in some period155, even though they are also social actors, and not just passive subjects.

6.4 Brat (Brother) and sestra (sister)

Brat (brother) is a man in relation to the other children of his parents (Bajec et al., 2014: 154–155; Škofic et al., 2011: 249). Other meanings of brat (brother) are: member of the same or a similar nation, for example južni bratje: southern brothers; when somebody is similar to someone according to thinking or according to destiny, for example: vinski brat/vinski bratec (literary wine brother/little brother in the sense of wine drinker), brat po mleku (brother according to milk – someone whom the same woman has breast fed), brata v nesreči (brothers in misfortune); member of monastic order who is not priest (Bajec et al., 2015: 155). Expressively, veliki brat (big brother) means a country or an institution that collects data about people to maintain control over them. If someone says: “Kakor brata sva si.” (“We are like brothers to each other.”), this means they are genuine friends (Bajec et al., 2014: 155). The diminutive of brat is

155 For parent nowadays, children represent a financial burden, because the child needs to be supported, the child must survive, and his/her wishes should be satisfied. In addition, parents want a good education for their children, good jobs, success, money etc. (Kanduč, 2003). The child is their project and the centre of their world (Raner et al., 2006: 74). Parents nowadays are, in accordance with neoliberalist ideology, bombarded with advice on how to educate and treat children in the best way (Kanduč, 2003). Today, there are educational institutions, not just families (Satir, 1995). All this is called “protective” childhood, with intense care for children, their education, etc. Children are seen as individuals, whose autonomy should be ensured; on the other hand, there is now increased control over children: children have to be the best, without mistakes (Raner et al., 2006: 80–81).

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bratec (little brother) (ibid.). Pravi brat (real brother) is a male child from the same parents, while polbrat (half-brother) is a man in relation to children with whom he shares only one common parent (ibid.: 96). Etymologically, there can be found the variation bráter in the 10th century (dialectal and archaic). Old Church Slavic brat is similar to bratrъ, Croatian, Serbian brȁ t, Russian brat and Czech bratr. Proto-Slavic *bra̋ trъ and after dissimilation r – r>r – ø arises *bra̋ tъ ‘brat’, which is similar to Old Indian bhrā̄́ tar-, Greek phrátēr, Latin frāter, Old Iranian bráth(a)ir, Gothic brōþar, Middle High German bruoder, German Bruder, English brother, Old Prussian brāti, Lithuanian broterė͂ lis, broils, all with the meaning of brat (brother). All these words developed in congruence with vocal principles (the exceptions are Lithuanian and Slavic material) from Indo-European *bhrah2ter- ‘brat’ (brother) (Snoj, 2009: 54). Dialectally, all Slovenian dialects use brat or the vocal variation brater (in dialects of the most northwest – in Carinthia and the Littoral – Škofic et al., 2011: 249). Sestra (sister) is a woman in relation to other children of her parents (Bajec et al., 2014: 503). Other meanings are as follows: medical worker who takes care of patients – medicinska sestra (hospital nurse); when a woman is similar to someone in thinking destiny; and a nun (Bajec et al., 2014: 503). The diminutive of sestra (sister) is sestrica (little sister) (ibid.). Prava sestra (real sister) is different from polsestra (half-sister): a woman in relation to children, with whom she shares only one common parent (ibid.: 109). Etymologically, this word is the same in Old Church Slavic sestra, Croatian, Serbian sèstra, Russian sestrá, Czechsestra. Proto-Slavic *sestra̋ is the same as Old Prussian swestro ‘sestra’ (sister). Both are formed from Indo-European *sṷésōr, genitive *sṷésor(e)s ‘sestra’ (sister), which still preserves in Old Indian svásar-, Avestian xuaƞhar-, Armenian kcoyr, Greek éor, Latin soror, Lithuanian sesuõ, Tocharian A ṣar, B ṣer, Gothic swistar, Old High German swester, German Schwester, Anglo-Saxon suster, soster, Old Norse systir (from this comes the English sister). Indo-European *sṷésōr is a compound word from Indo-European *sṷe- ‘svoj, se’ (one’s own, oneself) and *sor- ‘žena’ (woman) and primarily

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means *’ženska (približno iste starosti) lastnega rodu’ (a woman, approximately same age, of own descent) (Snoj, 2009: 651). All dialects use the term sestra (sister). Any differences are due to accent alone (Škofic et al., 2011: 331). Brat (brother) and sestra (sister) define relations between children – so, historically the characteristics of their roles are similar to the relation sin (son) – hči (daughter). For example, sisters used to baby-sit younger brothers, and sisters often took on the role of the mother – taking care of a child, but also punishing them if necessary (Puhar, 1982: 316–317). The relation between brother and sister is described by Mihelič (2012: 36) according to Slovenian folk songs. In songs can be found the motif of killing a sister – in the ballad about Zarika and Sončnica, where Zarika poisons her sister with snake poison out of jealousy of her beauty and the fact that her husband bought her from the Turks. After poisoning her, she recognizes that in fact she has killed her own sister. Zarika then kills herself (the sisters were separated when they were young – Zarika was married to a Spanish king and Sončica was sold to the Turks) (ibid.). Mihelič (2012: 36) also describes the responsibility of a brother for his sisters, or even incestuous attraction between brothers and sisters (ibid.: 36–37). Hudales156 (2015: 11, 17) confirms that sisters and brothers helped each other with their work (ibid.).The roles expected nowadays from brothers and sisters include providing emotional support for each other at social gathering and having regular contact marked by mutual affection among themselves; they provide support in solving the problems of the others, and they help in urgent circumstances (Mlakar, 2015: 6). The relation brat (brother) – sestra (sister) is mostly important for two things: first, because of inheritance and marriage relationships (see more in Chapters 7 Inheritance and 8 Marriage), where this relation determines some rules; and second, because this relation also determines the relations and the terms stric (uncle), teta (aunt), ujec (mother’s brother), ujna (mother’s sister/uncle’s wife), which will be explained later, as well as the terms for their children. For example, the term for a cousin – bratranec means a type of brother, and the female cousin – sestrična a type of sister. Bratranec (cousin) means the son of a

156 Hudales (2015) is writing about the second half of the 20th century.

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stric (uncle) or teta (aunt) (Bajec et al., 2014: 155; Škofic et al., 2011: 268). Baš et al. (2004: 47) claims that a mali brat or mrzli brat (little brother or cold brother) is the son of the father’s or mother’s bratranec or sestrična (male or female cousin). The mala sestra or mrzla sestra is the daughter of the father’s or mother’s bratranec or sestrična (male or female cousin) (ibid.: 529). In the Slovenian Linguistic Atlas, we find that bratranec means mali brat (a little brother) and sestrična, mala sestra (little sister) (Škofic et al., 2011: 268, 270). Thus affines are once again the same as consaguines, in that case merely “a little ones”, ones that are less close. Etymologically, the original meaning of sestrična (female cousin) in Old Slovene was sister’s daughter (18th century). A word which is the same in Church Slavonic language sestričьna (sister’s daughter, niece), is a substantivized adjective in the female gender from sestríca, a diminutive of séstra. From a diminutive of the masculine gender comes Slovenian sestrič (sister’s son, nephew – 16th century) < *sestri̋t’ь. From the diminutive *sestri̋ ca is derived the diminutive of the masculine gender, known in Church Slavonic as sestričištь (cousin). Sestrîčna was originally *sister’s daughter, niece. Nowadays, the meaning uncle’s (or aunt’s) daughter originated in the fact that the term was transferred from parents to children without considering the change in the kinship relation. The same goes for the term bratránec, similar to Latin consobrīnus (cousin), consobrīna (female cousin), which originates from Indo-European *k’om- ‘together, with’ and *sṷesrīno- (sister’s), and also from Bulgarian séstrenik (nephew), Polish siostrzenica, and Czech sestřenice (female cousin). Similarly, today from brȁt has been formed bratȉč (cousin, originally used for a father’s or mother’s brother) and bratîčna (brother’s daughter, niece) (Snoj, 2009: 651). Bratranec (cousin) is a term known since the 18th century; the same applies to the term bratranka (female cousin). Related or similar is Church Slavonic bratanъ (brother’s son, nephew, brother’s grandson), Old Croatian bràtan (brother’s son), Old Russian bratanъ, dialectally Russian bratán in the same meaning, dialectally Polish bratrańec (cousin), Czech bratranec in the same meaning. Proto-Slavic *bratra̋ nъ, derived from *bra̋ trъ (brother) originally meant *’brother’s son, nephew’. Nowadays the meaning ‘stričev (ali tetin) sin’ (uncle’s

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(or aunt’s) son) originates from the term’s being transferred from parents to children. The original meaning is preserved alongside the given Slavic examples in the rarely used Slovenian bratȁn (brother’s son, nephew), bratána (brother’s daughter, niece). Similarly, from séstra there has formed the nowadays rarely used sestrānec (cousin – primarily meaning the father’s or mother’s sister) and sestrāna (female cousin) (ibid.: 55). Bratranka is the daughter of a stric (uncle) or teta (aunt) (Bajec et al., 2014: 155). Škofic et al. (2011: 270) claim that the Styrian and Carinthian regions of Slovenia distinguish between sestrična and bratranka (also bratrančka). The original distinction between sestrična meaning sister’s daughter, niece and bratranka/bratrančka meaning brother’s daughter, nephew turned into sestrična – cousin on the mother’s side and bratranka/bratrančka – cousin on the father’s side (ibid.). Strinič, also strenič exists in dialects in the Karst and Istrian regions, and bratranec (cousin) (Bajec et al.: 648; Baš et al., 2004: 586). Sestrana is archaic for sestrična (female cousin) (Bajec et al.: 503). Dialectally, the same goes for strnična (ibid.: 649), and bratrančinja (Baš et al., 2004: 46). Dialectally, bratič in Styria and eastern dialects in a brother’s son (nephew157), bratična a brother’s daughter (niece) (Bajec et al., 2014: 155). The same is claimed by Baš et al. (2004: 46), along with variations of the term: bratan, bratana, bratranka, bratična. In dialects from Styria and the easter regions, sestrič(en) is bratranec (cousin), and he is a sister’s son, a nephew (Bajec et al., 2004: 503; Škofic et al., 2011: 268). However, in Styrian dialect nowadays, bratran(ec) can also mean stričev sin (uncle’s son), and sestrič(en) can mean tetin sin (aunt’s son). In the city of Velenje and its vicinity, this meaning has begun to

157 Here what is important is the the relation of the father’s or mother’s brothers or sisters toward their children. Otherwise, the terms for nephew and niece in use today are nečak and nečakinja. Nečak (nephew) is the son of a brother or sister, nečakinja (niece) the daughter of a brother or sister (ibid.: 912). It looks as though children nowadays took over the terminology from the parental generation (Snoj, 2009: 651), but terms like nečak/nečakinja, which nowadays mean nephew/niece, have existed since the 19th Century. It would be interesting to know why this change happened, but we have been unable to establish more facts about it.

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mix with bratran(ec) – bratranec po očetu (cousin on the father’s side) and sestrič(en) – bratranec po mami (cousin on the mother’s side) (ibid.: 268). Sestran, female sestrana, also sestrič, sestričen, female sestranka, sestrična therefore have the following meanings: a sister’s son, a nephew, a cousin; a sister’s daughter, a niece, a cousin (Baš et al., 2004: 529). What is also interesting is that the terms brat/sestra – brother/sister are also used for members of a community or collectivity (Bajec et al., 2014: 155, 503), which are not our kin, but with whome we share a close relationship or similar thinking or destiny – this means relatedness. Baš et al. (2004: 46) write about bratovščina (brotherhood) having the meaning of an association of people for religious or charitable purposes. The oldest Slovenian brotherhoods date from the 14th century. The second meaning is companionship (ibid.). Bratinstvo is to fraternize with somebody, to have frequent ritual reconciliation with somebody (ibid.). Bratstvo (brotherhood) is a large, exogamic kinship group, comprising two or more lineages or clans, which originate from the same mythic ancestor. Additionally bratstev means linked in a tribe (ibid.: 47). The same relatedness is noticeable for the term brother/sister, meaning a “member of a monastery” from the Christian church ideology which form the main religious background on Slovenian territory. As a result of the Christian tradition, there are also the expressions boter – godfather, botra – godmother, krščenec – godson and krščenka – goddaughter158. In Slovenian folk tradition there is also known the legend of the deseti brat (tenth brother), desetnik (tenth son), similar to the desetnica (the tenth daughter), mentioned before in Chapter 6.3.2 Hči/hčerka (Daughter). The deseti brat (tenth brother), according to folk tradition, is the tenth brother, who must leave home (Bajec et al., 2014: 155). The first Slovenian novel, written by Josip Jurčič in the

158 In the past the godparents at baptism and first communion were chosen from amongst brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, neighbours and friends. The ties between the godparents and the godchild operated both ways, reciprocally. Normally it was preferable that the godparents were better off so that they could give their godchild a valuable present, a gold chain or a watch, for example (Ravnik, 1996: 287). Nowadays, this remains the same.

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19th Century, was titled Deseti brat (The Tenth Brother). In the novel the tenth brother is described as follows: We have not been hearing about the tenth brother for a long while! Yet in the olden times it could happen that a tenth son was born to a mother, endowed with wondrous properties and abilities, ousted by the will of God, roaming the wide world from door to door, predicting good fortune, disclosing treasures, singing songs and telling tales like none before him (Jurčič, 1866/Kropej, 2000: 78).

In the story Martinek Spak took for himself the designation deseti brat (tenth brother) because he was the illegitimate child of the lord of Piškava castle, who had taken advantage of his mother for money and left her. The main story is about the love of Manica (daughter of the lord of castle Benjamin) and Lovro (a student), who cannot marry because of social differences – Manica's parents want to marry her off to Marijan, Piškav's son. Martinek, by revealing the truth, solves the problem: at the end of the story Marijan leaves the castle and Manica to Lovro, so Manica and Lovro can marry. The parents are also satisfied because Lovro has the property (Jurčič, 1972).

6.5 Stari starši – stari oče/dedek in stara mati/babica (Grandparents – grandfather and grandmother)

Stari oče (grandfather) is the father of a father or mother (Bajec et al., 2014: 1016; Baš et al., 2004: 76; Škofic et al., 2011: 253). Dedek (granddad) is affectionately stari oče (grandfather), ded (grandfather). Other meanings include an old man, an elder (Bajec et al., 2014: 227). Some variations of the term include stari ata, tata, stari oča, oče, dedej, dedec, deda, dedi, ta stari, nono, fot(e)r, opa (Bajec et al., 2014: 227; Baš et al., 2004: 76). Dedej is dialectal Carinthian stari oče, ded (grandfather), a man, usually older and also a (legal) husband (Bajec et al., 2014: 227). Dedec is expresively a man, usually older, lowly a (legal) husband, expresively also a handsome, well-shaped man, archaic stari oče, ded (grandfather), and also referring to minor preparations for seduction, for example:

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“Ali je še kaj dedca v tebi?” (“Is there still some man in you? ” – in the sense of manhood, bravery) (ibid.). Stara mati (grandmother) is the mother of a father or mother (Bajec et al., 2014: 767; Baš et al., 2004: 18). Babica (granny) is stara mother (grandmother), archaic, also an old woman. Other meanings of babica (granny) include a helper during childbirth, archaic, also an (animal) spinster, usually a bird, the upper part of a sharpening-anvil (Bajec et al., 2014: 109). The variation are stara mama (grandmom), bica (the short form of babica) and mama ta stara (mum, the old one) (Bajec et al., 2014: 109; Baš et al., 2004: 18). Etymologically, bábica appeared in the 16th century and is similar to baba (ugly old woman). It is the same as Old Slavic baba. In Proto-Slavic *ba̋ ba is an old woman, but the sense of baby is also known – from the Indo-European children's word *bā̆ ba, which originates from the doubling of the easily pronounceable syllable ba (Snoj, 2009: 27). Dedek (granddad), similar to ded, also dȅd, is the same as Old Church Slavic dĕ dъ, Croatian djȅd, Serbian dȅd, Russian déd and Czech dĕ d. Proto-Slavic *dĕ̋ dъ (grandfather, head of a large family) is related to Lithuanian dėdis̃ (uncle), Greek thē̄́thē (grandmother) and Venetian deda (aunt). This term originates from children's reduplication from the Indo-European h h *d ēd o/ah2– 'an older member of a family: grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt' (Snoj, 2009; 98). The term used for grandfather (stari oče, déd/dèd, dédek) in dialect is most frequently and geographically the most widespread the term (ta) stari oče (this grandfather), also (ta) stari oča, which appear in the central Slovenian area. The variations oče and oča and their derivatives očka (dad, daddy) and očanec (old man) also appear, while *otec appearsonly in the two-word lexeme stari otec (grandfather). The lexemes, which derive from children's speech and are formed by repetition of syllables, are stari ata (granddad), stari ate (granddad), tata (granddad), and čača (granddad). They also exist the variations stari ati, stari atej and stari atek. The substanitivized adjective occurs in the term sta stari (the old one) – starček (old man). On a frequent domestic basis, there occur the terms ded (grandfather), deda (granddad), dedek (granddad), dedec (grandfather), dedček (granddad), and dedej (grandfather). On account of the influence of Italian in

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West Slovenian dialect, the term in use is nono (grandfather) – also the variations nonič, noni, and owing to German influence in the Styrian region, stari foter or opa (grandfather) (Škofic et al., 2011: 253). In the central Slovenian area the most freuquent and geographically widespread terms (ta) stara mati (this grandmother) and mati (mother in the sense of grandmother) are labelled archaic; also frequent is the term (ta) stara mama/mama ta stara (grandmum; mum, the old one). The term ta stara (the old one) is now rarely used. In the north and east part of Slovenia, the term babica (grandmum) (taken from literary Slovenian and also used in other areas of Slovenia) is widespread. The term baba (old woman) is used in Prekmurje, a region in Eastern Slovenia, and in Resia, the Slovenian comune in the Italian Province of Udine. In Carinthia the term babej (dialectally grandmum) is in use. Adopted terms in use include nona (from Italian), oma (from German), omama (from German) and baka (from Croatian) (Škofic et al., 2011: 256–257). From the lingustic connotations and analysis, it is noticeable that roles and status are the same for a grandfather as for a father, and for a grandmother as for a mother. The difference is just +1 generation. The most important matter is their relationship to the children of their children – vnuki (grandchildren). Vnuk (grandson) is a son's or daughter's son, vnukinja (granddaughter) a son's or daughter's daughter (Bajec et al., 2014: 912; Baš et al., 2004: 680; Škofic et al., 2011: 258). Diminutives are vnuček, vnukec, vnučec, vnukič for grandson159, and

159 Some longer phrases are less widespead: sinov/hčerin sin/hčera/otrok (son's, daughter's son/daughter/child), od sina/hčere/otroka (sin/hčera/otrok/fant/deca) (from son/daughter/child son/daughter/child/boy/children), sin/hčera/otrok od sina/hčere (son/daughter/child from son/daughter), sina/hčere sin/hčera (son's/daughter's son/daughter), ta majhen pob (this little boy), ta mali/ta mala (the little one). Adopted terms include nevot (Furlanian grandson, nephew), nipote (Italian grandson, nephew), enkel (German grandson) and enkele (German diminutive for grandson) (Škofic et al., 2011: 258–259). Etymologically, the terms vnuk, and vnukinja appeared in the 16th century. The same etymology appears in Church Slavic vъnukъ, Croatian, Serbian ùnuk, Russian vnúk and Czech vnuk. Proto- Slavic *vъnű kъ probably originates from *unō̄́ ṷ-ko-, a diminutive of *unō̄́ ṷ, which originates from

Indo-European *h2anō̄́ ṷ, genitive *h2nṷés (grandfather). Primarily, the word means little grandfather and is semantically of similar origin to the Slovenian dệdič. There existed related

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vnučica, vnučka for a granddaughter (Bajec et al., 2014: 912; Baš et al., 2004: 680). The roles of grandchildren are the same as for children, but relationships are perhaps even more emotional. The connotations of all these terms – for grandparents and grandchildren--are given in the table below.

Table 7: Different connotations and levels of formality for the terms stari oče (grandfather) and stara mati (grandmother)

N Neutral Te Terms with Terms with Dialectal terms terms positive negative connotations connotations - stari oče - stari oča - dedec - dedej Level of formality - ded - stari ata, - ta stari - nono (from ate, tata (diminutives: formal to informal) - dedek, nonič, noni), deda, - foter dedi, - opa dedček - dedej

- stara - babica, - mama, ta - nona mati bica stara - oma, omama - baba - nona - babej

Level of formality (from formal to informal)

terms from Indo-European, from (supposed primarily child's) the root *h2an- (grandfather, grandmother) (Snoj, 2009: 828).

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Table 8: Different connotations for the terms vnuk (grandson) and vnukinja (granddaughter)

Neutral terms Terms with positive connotations vnuk vnuček, vnukec, vnučec, vnukič vnukinja vnučica, vnučka

So, for example, Puhar (1982: 38) claims that illegitimate children in the 19th century were given to the grandmother to take care of them – so they could be more attached to the grandmother than to the mother. The grandmother took the role of a mother; the status is normally connected with an older generation, which might in the past have been more appreciated (because of the wisdom of older people), but today, not always – even if in the past the short story Mačkova očeta (The Cat’s Fathers) was familiar, a tale in which a grandfather is treated very badly by a son (Kersnik, 2011/1886). Other children, not just illegitimate ones – for whom there was no place at home, or because of the higher employment of women in the 19th century, were normally given to grandmothers, aunts or older relatives who came to live to with a family to perform this function (Puhar, 1982: 344; Žorč, 2006: 25). In rural families, grandmothers were part of the family and helped to take care of and educate the children (Baš et al., 2004: 312). The term babica is also used for a professional helper at childbirths160 (Bajec et al., 2014: 109; Baš et al., 2004: 18), which indicates that the role of grandmother is especially to take care of children; meanwhile, the role of grandfather is similar to that of the father. The grandfather has the important role of the householder or the householder's father in patriarchal rural families (Baš et al., 2004: 76). He was the one who, along with the son and other family members, decided who should receive the farm; he also decided in cases of rendundancy and he assured for himself

160 The other terms for a helper at childbirth are baba, babca, hebanka, hebama and šantla. Helpers were mostly older women who had experience of childbirth. They were also female relatives, female neighbours, or women known in the region as birth helpers. A midwifery school was established in 1753 in Ljubljana. In the second half of the 20th century, unprofessional women still assisted at childbirths. Babica, from the 1960s came to mean a health worker in a maternity hospital (Baš et al., 2004: 18–19).

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preživitek (alimony). On that also depended his relationships with family members and his situation in the family. Depending on his power and degree of health, he collaborated within the family division of work; he made decisions and gave advice to the son (ibid.). Alongside babica (grandmother), he was an important educator of the children. Children generally enjoyed a better relationship with the father's father, because he lived with the family. Contact with the mother's father depended on his remoteness and on relations between the father's and mother's kin (ibid.). Žorč (2006: 24) also claims that a grandparent in Slovenian history, as a householder with ownership of a farm, has considerable power, worth and reputation. He took decisions about everything. It was the same in tradesmen's families – the father normally transmitted his knowledge to his son. Nevertheless, grandparents in the past did have a strong educational role, because education and learning were part of the home, not school. Grandparents were also educators, because they had more free time and much more experience (ibid.). In the 19th and 20th centuries, the role of grandparents was otherwise weaking161, but it is once again becoming prominent again, since grandparents are a great help in providing guardianship for their grandchildren (Pečjak, 2007: 88). According to Pečjak (2007: 88), a grandmother had an important role in patriarchal rural families, which included a legitimate couple with children, the parents of one of the married couple and their single relatives, as the housewife and householder's wife. She collaborated in the work, depending on her strength and health. The leading of household and the care of the little children fell to her in old age (ibid.). Mostly, grandchildren had a better relationship with their father's mother, who was in the family. The relationship with a mother's mother was dependent on her remoteness and on relations between the father's and mother's family, as was true for the grandfather (ibid.). The role of the grandmother was to be the most important educator of the children besides the grandfather; she would tell fairy tales to the children, sing them songs, and teach

161 For example, Miklavčič (2014: 311) writes about his grandfather, who didn't really talk to his grandchildren; he said to their mother: “Če bo (otrok) dovolj močan, bo preživel, če ne, bo pa umrl, Bog pomagaj.” (“If the child is strong enough, he will survive; if not, he will die; God will help”) (ibid.: 311).

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them their first games (ibid.), in fact to teach them culture and values. For example, a collection of Slovenian folk stories is eventitled Babica pripoveduje (Grandmother tells) (1982). Pečjak (2007: 88) claims that the traditional view of the role of grandparents was that babica (grandmother) would tell fairy tales to her grandchildren, while the grandfather would make them whistles or other toys (ibid.). Makarovič (1982: 465, 328–329) claims that in the 1970s even aged farmers still had the opportunity to work till the end if they were healthy enough; they formed a helpful work force for families. Great respect for grandparents is obvious in rural, half rural and working-class families, and among older children, a grandparent provided calm attention and patient answers to those questions that their parents could not respond to, because of their working hours. Children and grandchildren didn't want to send grandparents to an old people's home; they also took care of them when they were ill (Makarovič, 1982: 327–328, 465–466). Makarovič (1982: 328–329) claims that grandchildren still adressed their grandparents formally, sometimes even ultra-formally, out of respect: “Deda so rekli, bica so prišli.” (“Grandfather said, grandmother came.”). Grandchildren would generally holidays give their grandparents holiday gifts – clothing or sweets they liked (ibid.). The differences in the family between fathers and mothers equalized with the retreat of patriarchal values, with neolocal young families living away from grandparents, even though grandparents still help their children and grandchildren financially and take over the roles of parents for the grandchildren during the parents' absence (ibid.). Nowadays, because of the aging population, multi- generation families are appearing, so, grandparents are taking their roles more often (Mlakar, 2015: 4). 62% of Slovenian grandparents function as guardians of their grandchildren every day or very often (ibid.: 10). Nowadays, the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren is an important emotional bond (Mlakar, 2015: 3). This might constitute a difference from the role of parents, because from an emotional point of view, grandparents are often more indulgent to their grandchildren that parents (Mandić, 2001: 13– 15). The author of the study, The Role of Grandparents in the Lives of Their

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Grandchildren (2001), discovered that even though the grandparents' gender does not play a significant role in the strength of the emotional bonds they form, it is nevertheless grandmothers who spend more time with their grandchildren than grandfathers; they showed greater involvement in the past, as well. Grandmothers were also shown to be trusted more by their grandchildren (ibid.: 3, 11–12). Older grandparents are more involved in the lives of their grandchildren than younger ones, and grandparents with health problems spend less time with their grandchildren than younger ones (ibid.: 3). The financial situation of the grandparents is one of the factors, especially in relation to financial help for their grandchildren (ibid.: 7). Grandparents spend free time with grandchildren, help them with school activities, take them along on holidays etc. – they provide emotional, educational, social and material support (ibid.: 4, 6). Grandparents take on the roles of guardian, teacher and bearer of tradition. According to the study, Aging in Slovenia (Ramovš, 2013), 48.7% of grandparents think that being a grandparent is one of the most important things in their life (ibid.). At least two- thirds of Slovenian children have regular contact with their grandparents (Ramovš, 2013). Grandchildren were asked what they thought about when they heard the word grandparents. They mentioned talking about old times, loving looks, soft hands, sweets and presents (Mlakar, 2015: 5). They also speak of helping their grandparents – grandsons with tasks such as mowing, movement of furniture and tree cutting, granddaughters with shopping and housekeeping. Both also give assistance with ill grandparents (ibid.: 6, 8). Grandchildren also have a positive influence on their grandparents: grandparents staying vital because of them; grandchildren provide novelty, which happens over time, meaning that they remain more mentally and emotionally fresh. It seem grandparents and grandsons have good intergenerational solidarity (ibid.: 7–8). According to this, it could be claimed that the role of grandmother is more similar to and can be substituted for the role of the mother, and the role of grandfather is similar to that described for the role of father in Chapter 6.1 Father – but grandparents, as has been established, can be just formal grandparents, than grandparents as emotional, social and financial support or even a replacement for parents; nevertheless, they are seen as sources of knowledge and wisdom.

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6.6 Stric, teta, ujec, ujna (Uncle, aunt, mother's brother, mother's sister/uncle's wife)

Stric (uncle) is a father's or mother's brother (Bajec et al., 2014: 648; Baš et al., 2004: 586; Snoj, 2009: 705). Baš et al. (2004: 586) claim that stric is also tetin mož (aunt's husband). Mali or mrzel stric (little or cold uncle) is a father's or mother's cousin (Bajec et al., 2014: 648). The term stric could also be used to address an older, well-known man: “Kam ste namenjeni, stric?” (“Where are you going, uncle? ”) (ibid.). Expressively, the meaning of the term can also be “A man who because of his situation can mediate for someone else” – for example: stric iz ozadja (uncle from the backroom; someone hidden who makes decisions about something important) (ibid.). Another meaning is biti, ostati doma za strica (to be, stay at home like an uncle). This appeared in the rural environment, where an unmarried brother stayed at the house of a married brother or sister (ibid.). Affectionately, stric is striček (diminutive of uncle) (Bajec et al., 2014: 648; Snoj, 2009: 705). Etymologically, stric meant father's brother in the 16th century. Similar or the same is Church Slavic stryi, stryicь (uncle, father's brother), Croatian, Serbian strîc, Russian strój and Czech strýc in the same meaning. Proto-Slavic *strъ̏jь, *strъjьcь̏ (less common *stry̋ jь, *stryjьcъ̏) has no ultimate etymological explanation. The word could be connected with Indo-European *ph2trui̭ o- (father's), the adjective from *ph2ter- (father), which, substantivized, is preserved in Latin patruus (uncle, father's brother), which is similar to Indo-European *ph2tr̥ -ṷ i̭ o in Old Indian pitr̥ vyà (uncle, father's brother), Avestian tūiryō, Proto- German *faðurṷi̭ a- in Middle High German fetiro, fatirro, German Vetter (cousin) and Greek pátrōs (uncle, father's brother). The second option is a comparison of a Proto-Slavic word with Lithuanian strūjus (grandfather, older man), strùjus (uncle) and Old Iranian sruith (old, venerable) (Snoj, 2009: 705). In today's dialect usage, the most widely used term is stric, meaning father's or mother's brother (Škofic et al., 2011: 260). In some parts of Slovenia, the term stric can also be used in addressing older men; some geographical regions still

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preserve uj, ujec, ujčej (mother's brother), tetec (aunt's husband), barba (Furlanian uncle), zio (Italian uncle) (ibid.). Teta (aunt) is the sister of a mother or father (Bajec et al., 2014: 738; Baš et al., 2004: 629). Mala or mrzla teta (little or cold aunt) is a father's or mother's female cousin (Bajec et al., 2014: 738). Stara teta (old aunt) is a father's or mother's aunt. Another meaning is biti, ostati doma za teto (to be, stay at home like an aunt) (Bajec et al., 2014: 738). This occurred in the rural environment, where an unmarried sister would live in the house of a married brother or sister (Bajec et al., 2014: 738). The term teta could also be used to address an older, familiar woman: “Teta, koliko je ura?” (Aunt, what time is it?) (Bajec et al., 2014: 738– 739). Ethnologically, teta is also a woman who assists in the preparations for and arrangement of the bala (trousseau), mostly the bride's baptismal or confirmation godmother or the wife of someone senior. She also helped the bride before and during the wedding; she accompanied the bride to the wedding. She baked the nuptial flat cake; on the way to the wedding, she would share bread with passers- by, bring a cake to church and place it on the altar: biti, iti za teto (to be or to go for an aunt) (Bajec et al., 2014: 739; Baš et al., 2004: 630). Affectionately, teta is tetica, tetika or tetka (diminutives for aunt) (Bajec et al., 2014: 739; Škofic et al., 2011: 762). Etymologically, teta is a term from the 16th century. The same or similar is Church Slavic teta, Old Church Slavic tetъka (aunt), Croatian, Serbian téta, tȅ tka, Russian tëtja, tëtka and Czech teta (aunt). Proto-Slavic *teta̋ is primarily a child's word; it is the same as Lithuanian tetà (aunt) and similar to Swedish titta (aunt) (Škofic et al., 2011: 762). In dialect usage nowadays, for the father's or mother's sister teta is the usual term; the diminutives tetica (abbreviated to tica, teca), tetka and tetika are also in use. In our geographically limitted area, the term strina (father's brother's wife) occurs (Škofic et al., 2011: 264). Historically, there is distinction between tht father's and mother's sides of the family. Slovenian kinship terminology has not changed much; it changed formal terms to more informal ones. Nevertheless, the main difference between past and the present kinship terminology is the distinction between the terms for extended

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family. In the past there existed different terms for a mother’s brother and a mother’s sister – ujec and ujna. Ujec was the term for the mother's brother, for an uncle from the mother's side, and ujna162 for the mother's sister, an aunt from the mother's side (Bajec et al., 2014: 813; Baš et al., 2004: 586; Škofic et al., 2011: 262–263; 266–267). The term ujna could be the same as the term aunt as used to address an older, familiar woman: “Kako ste kaj, ujna?” (How are you, aunt?) (Bajec et al., 2014: 266). Neverthess, ujna is also ujec's wife (a mother's brother's wife) (Škofic et al., 2011: 266). Etymologically, the term ujec is archaic and was in use in the 16th century with the meaning mother's brother; dialectally uj had the same meaning. Similar or the same is Church Slavic ui (mother's brother), Croatian, Serbian ȕ jāk, archaic and dialectal Russian új and Czech ujec in the same meaning. Proto-Slavic *ű jьcь is derived from *ű jь (mother's brother), which developed from Indo-European *h2áṷh2i̭ o-, from which comes Old Prussian awis (mother's brother), Lithuanian avýnas in the same meaning, Old Iranian (h)áue (nephew) and Old Norse afi (grandfather). The word originally meant *'belonging to mother's father, grandfather' and is derived from Indo-European *h2aṷh2o- (mother's brother, grandfather), from which comes the Armenian haw (grandfather), Latin avus and Hittite ḫ uḫ ḫ a- in the same meaning. From similar source material also comes Gothic awō (grandmother), Bretonian eontr (mother's brother), Old High German ōheim and German Oheim in the same meaning (Snoj, 2009: 797). Variations of ujec include uj, ujček, ujčej (dialectally) (Škofic et al., 2011: 262). Etymologically, the term ujna (mother's sister) was still known in the 18th century. Similar or the same is Church Slavic ujka (aunt) and Croatian, Serbian ûjna (wife of ujec – mother's brother's wife). Slavic *ű jьna is a substantivized adjective in the female gender *ű jьnъ (from ujec – from mother's brother), which is derived from *ű jь (ujec – mother's father) as is from Proto-Slavic *stry̋ jьnъ (uncle's) substanitivized *stry̋ jьna (strina – uncle's wife) (Snoj, 2009: 797). Another difference is that, for the father's wife in the past (16th century), there existed the term strina (Baš et al., 2004: 586; Snoj, 2009: 705). This is also used

162 The term ujna is still known in the Pannonian region of Lower Carniola, in part of Slovenia's seaside and part of the Carinthian dialect region (Škofic et al., 2011: 266).

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nowadays, but rarely – dialectally (Bajec et al., 2014: 648). The same applies to Croatian, Serbian strîna, dialectal Croatian strȉ na, Old Czech stryna, similar also dialectal Russian strýnja, strýja, and Slovakian stryná. Proto-Slavic *strъjьna̋ (or *stry̋ jьna) is a substantivized adjective in the female gender *strъ̋jьnъ (or *stry̋ jьnъ) (uncle's), which is derived from *strъ̏jь (or *stry̋ jь) (uncle) (Snoj, 2009: 705). Aunt's husband used to be--and somewhere still is (dialectally)-- tetič/tetec (aunt's husband) (Bajec et al., 2014: 739; Škofic, 2011: 260). We can see that the mother’s siblings are not the same as the father’s siblings, but just in the case of generation +1. The difference is represented in Picture/Diagram 1 and 2, but the diagram is simplified because other terms also have variations, which are shown in the chapters for each term designating kin of close family (we noticed the tendency to use diminutive terms nowadays and less formal address between kin).

STRINA TETEC/TETIČ

Picture/Diagram 1: Slovenian kinship terminology in the past (approximately 16th till 18th century)

Šekli (2011: 23) said that there existed three terms for a mother's/father's brother and sister: ujec – mother's brother, stric – father's brother and teta – father's sister or/and mother's sister (depending on the area whether there is one meaning or

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both). Snoj (2009: 797) claims that the term ujna – mother's sister also existed in the 18th Century. We do not have data for kin terms for the spouse/husband of stric/ujec and teta/ujna, even though Šekli (2011: 24) notes that ujna is the wife of ujec, so she is the mother’s brother’s wife. In Central Slovenia dialects the term tetec/tetič – the husband of teta (Slovenski lingvistični atlas, 2011: 262) is also used. Ravnik (1996: 264) writes that the meaning of ujna as the wife of a mother’s brother is still preserved, especially in the dialect of some parts of Istria. Strina is the wife of a stric in Styrian dialect and in Prlekija (Škofic et al., 2011: 264).

Picture/Diagram 2: Slovenian kinship terminology in the present163

The terms ujec and ujna existed till the 18th Century (Snoj, 2009: 797). After this, we can see that the patriliny of the system become important (partly because of the law – inheritance was only on the father's side). The distinction between ujec (mother's brother) and stric (father's brother) became unnecessary. The system is bilateral. The system became a cognatic one. The main question is not why the distinction disappeared, but why it was important in the past to distinguish the kinship terms in the case of brothers and sisters on the father's and the mother's side. Why does bifurcation exist in the first

163 Dialectally some terms--ujna/ujec/strina/tetec/tetič--are preserved in some dialectal regions (Škofic et al., 2011). Nevertheless, the term stric dominates for both the father’s and mother’s brother; only in Resia is the term vuj used (Baš et al., 2004: 586).

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place? Why was matrilaterality important? Why was only the distinction between relations with the parents of ego important? And why is this no longer important in the present? We will try to explain this question in the rest of the thesis, in Chapter 7 Inheritance and 8 Marriage. Nevertheless, we have already explained that for Slovenian culture, the mother is of prime importance, because fathers tended to be absent for one reason or another. Because of this, maternal relatives became more important, while the extended family in general was more important in the past than it is today, when the nuclear family is the most important structure. One of the theories behind the disappearance of bifurcation is that life in the city during the 20th century required a different organization from that in the countryside. Therefore, there is a tendency to change people’s life and habits. In the cities it is not necessary to have many family members to help you survive. Because of this, there was less communication between siblings, which resulted in there being no need to have elaborate kinship terminology (Đukanovič 2011: 11). Ravnik (1996: 304) claims that virilocality was also no longer needed164. Complex families disappeared. It was perhaps because of this that some terms for extended family members disappeared or remained only in dialectal speech. But the important question, as already established, is why they even existed in the first place. The roles and functions of stric, teta, ujec and ujna are as follows. Strici (uncles, father’s brothers) were in many cases in patriarchal rural families the ones who remained single (Baš et al., 2004: 586). Because of the indivisibility of farms and because the farm was taken over by only one of the sons and there was no other suitable job, they would remain at home as uncles (ibid.). They did various tasks to have somewhere to stay and something to eat (ibid.). Strici (uncles) also didn’t marry for other reasons. Frequently, they were respected as a labour force, as craftsmen, artists, fiddlers and storytellers. The phrase indicating that somebody is a stric (uncle), doesn’t mean that someone was just kin, but refers to his special position in the family. Strici (uncles) who left home and did well still helped the

164 Parents could also live with their married daughter and her family, even though they had sons (Ravnik, 1996: 304).

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nephews; because of this, there is still the phrase: “Imaš strica.” (“You have a stric (uncle).”), if someone helps you (ibid.). This could also be a reason for differentiation in the past – because uncles helped the children of their brothers and their brother’s kin (brothers and sisters) to stay on the farm; they lived together, so it was necessary to distinguish between the two families. Nowadays, a father’s or mother’s brothers or sisters no longer live with their brother and his family. Ravnik (1996: 288) also claims that a single family might have several uncles. The uncle, according to Ravnik (1996: 288), was the most colorful, the most versatile personality in the family, someone who did everything, knew everything and who made many of the decisions. The uncles prospered as important family members or members of village communities, but also as superb story tellers. Uncles observed life in a different light because of their position on the outer edge of the family. They were also the preservers of village tradition and heritage (ibid.). In the social novel Strici so mi povedali (My Uncles told me), by Miško Kranjec165 from Prekmurje, a region in Eastern Slovenia, the writer tells a story about his family. The first part of the novel is a story about his pradedek (great- grandfather) Fujs, from the point of view of the writer’s mother Mankica. Mankica was the illegitimate daughter of Fujs, who was the leader of the clan and all his “falamilija” (family) lived under his roof. When Mankica is born, the clan starts to fall apart. The children (Mankica has four brothers: Ivan, Jožef, Andraž and Filip) wanted to go off on their own, but Fujs was the one distributing the property, and he didn’t allow them to do so. In the house there were also living Mankica’s cousin – Filipova Mankica and her cousins Števek, and two Markec (the writer’s uncles). When father Fujs become ill, the oldest son almost destroys the farm because he sells the land. Ivan runs away, Fujs dies and the family/clan finally falls apart. So the writer’s mother can marry his father – Kranjec, and they

165 Miško Kranjec (1908–1983) was a Slovene writer. He was also part of the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People during World War II. Subsequently, he became editor and leader of a publishing house. His works are part of social realism – the founder of social realism in the 1930s. He wrote specifically about life in Prekmurje, a region in Eastern Slovenia, and he believed in the goodness of humble people (Kos, 1980: 354–357).

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live in a little room, for which they pay rent; the kitchen and the basement are shared with others. The writer’s father was often absent because he worked in “Šlavonija” (Slavonia). The second part of the book describes the life of the writer. Because World War I has begun, many men went off to the war, including Miško’s uncles. After the war the land was divided among people, especially poor ones, a move which was accepted with approval. Miško became a teacher, but the uncles made fun of him – for them, the better profession was that of priest166 (Kranjec, 2005/1974). Teta (aunt, father’s sister) was the same as stric (uncle), often living with her brother, especially if she was unmarried. In the patriarchal rural family, one or more unmarried sisters of the householder would live on the farm. Teta (aunt) was the same as stric (uncle) in doing various tasks in return for accommodation and food (Baš et al., 2004: 629). Stanonik (1997: 125) writes about uncles and aunts who still lived at home and helped with the work in the fields. One of her brothers married and moved away, but he is still coming once a week, visiting and helping with the work. The family misses him because he used to sing them songs (ibid.). Stanonik (1997: 126) claims that her mother reminisces a lot about her other sister and brother, but they don’t have such permanent contact with the mother’s family. Teta (aunt) normally did housekeeping and agricultural work; they would sell products, they went out hawking, and they provided child care. Many children heard stories from aunts, and learned their first poems and plays from their aunts (Baš et al., 2004: 629). Miklavčič writes that, even in the 20th century, aunts educated the children (Miklavčič, 2014: 25). According to this, we can notice that the role of a teta (aunt) was to help in survival as part of the workforce (which was the same role as for the stric (uncle), even though their work was differentiated); nevertheless, both performed an educational function towards their brother’s children.

166 Kranjec’s story (2005) shows the main characteristics of family development in collective memory: from extended families, which functioned as clans, to the nuclear ones. The story also shows living conditions in the Slovenian area and the social problems with which Slovenian people were dealing (also the absence of fathers etc.).

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In the second half of the 20th century, aunts began to work, so in rural families, there began to be fewer single aunts. Nevertheless, a married aunt (the father’s or mother’s sister) mostly lived close by and she took care of the nephews and nieces when they were ill or the parents were absent167 (Baš et al., 2004: 629). Hudales, writing about Šenčur (2015: 154), says that in the 1970s families still maintained contact with kin, including aunts and uncles, but not so often anymore. The help of neighbours and friends is more common than that of kin. Relatives helped each other more before World War II – at the common rural tasks. Some of those interviewed still claim that they help each other, even though less than in the past (ibid.: 154–160). Aunts were normally also godmothers. There existed cases when the ujna/nowadays teta (mother’s sister) without children would adopt a nephew, one of her sister’s children and take care of him as her own child (substitutional kinship) (ibid.). An aunt’s place was also appreciated by children who were attending school or seeking a job in the city. Aunts were besides uncles, grandfathers and grandmothers, counted among those who were close relatives of the nuclear family. They all were connected mutually by reciprocal help. Reciprocal help was also given to nephews (ibid.: 629–630). With the equalization of kinship terms from the father’s and mother’s side and the prevailing literal terms stric (uncle, father’s or mother’s sister) / teta (aunt, father’s or mother’s sister), preservation of the meaning of older terminology has become the exception (ibid.: 630).

7 Inheritance Inheritance, theoretically forms part of the legislation that codifies the rules of behaviour in various institutions, in such contexts as marriage, descent, inheritance or political allegiance (Mair, 1992: 152). If descent is membership in the social group of either the mother or the father, and succession is the transmission of rank or office, then inheritance is transmission of property (ibid.: 29). A significant effect of descent group formation is the establishment of a

167 Here we can again notice the main role of women in education of children, the central role of woman.

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mechanism for the transmission of property from one generation to the next (Barnard, 2005: 797). Each system of transmission takes a different form because of what is being transmitted eventually between generations (Barfield, 1997: 454). In relation to the economic aspects of social life, the most important legal concept is that of property (Mair, 1992: 152–153). Inheritance is 'an authorized transaction' (Barfield, 1997: 455). Mair (1992: 153) claims that the concept of property is applicable anywhere, not just in European societies. The only danger arises from assuming that 'property' means a totality of rights which cannot be divided or must be held by one individual – a number of people may have rights over the same piece of land (ibid.). What is transferred are not just objects, but also rights in objects, or in people (Barfield, 1997: 455). Property can be ancestral (more obligations) or self-acquired; immovable (such as land, often the basic productive resource, and real property) and movable (chattels) (ibid.). In particular, immovables may have to be kept intact to maintain the resident family (ibid.). According to Vilfan (1961: 17), the juridical history of Slovenia began in the 6th century, when the ancestors of the Slovenes colonized the East Alpine country and the neighbourhood (ibid.). The ancestors of Slovenians found woodland with the remains of arable land and economic infrastructure168 from earlier populations. Because of the natural disunity of the land, varied developments in parts of today's Slovenian law occurred, as well as distinct judicial rules and dialects. Because of its diversity (Alps, Adriatic coast, Pannonian plain, Dinaric Alps), the Slovenian lands offered different products, goods and issues (ibid.). Each region had its own group of individuals, who were often all of one kinship (Godina, 2014: 187). The law of Old Slavic society is still mostly unknown (Vilfan, 1961: 23). Old Slavic society was without classes and had characteristic kin groups: rod (descent, tribe), bratstvo (brotherhood), and župa (parish) (ibid.; Maček, 2007: 20–22; Vilfan, 1961: 26, 52, 59). Descent served to connect tribes and other communities into a tribal union for purposes of defence and plunder (Godina, 2014: 184;

168 Primary slash-and-burn agriculture needed a special organization of society: cooperation among a wider number of people – groups operating the pieces of land and dividing the harvest among their members (Blaznik, 1970: 150; Godina, 2014: 183–184).

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Maček, 2007: 20–21; Vilfan, 1961: 30). The economic linkage was supposedly, although this is not proven, composed of one large family, which comprised parents, children, grandsons, and the wives of sons and grandsons, later named the rodbinska zadruga (family cooperative)169 (Blaznik, 1970: 163; Grafenauer, 1970: 247; Vilfan, 1961: 54). Normally, the rodbinska zadruga (family cooperative) can be recognized because the adult sons continue it after their marriage and having their own children (Vilfan, 1961: 54). Slovenes didn't know classic types of slavery, but patrirachal ones (slaves were war prisoners and subordinated natives). Slaves lived with housholders in the narrower living community (Godina, 2014: 185; Maček, 2007: 20; Vilfan, 1961: 30), normally without serious exploitation (Godina, 2014: 186). There existed material stratification – the stronger ones took the profits (ibid.). There was no leading sovereign, but everything was arranged in public, in veča170 (Vilfan, 1961: 24–28). This shows that primary groups participated in the exercise of central power, and because of this, they had a high degree of autonomy (Godina, 2014: 186). Although there did not exist a proper concept of inheritance, the family owning the means of production would collectively exploit the pastures and forests – in particular the family's senior members (Blaznik, 1970: 163). Relations between descent and tribes were paternal (Maček, 2007: 32). The biggest social units were kneževine (principalities) with courts, and close to them župe (parishes) – the knez (duke) made no decisions without the veča (Godina, 2014: 189–190; Maček, 2007: 42–43; Vilfan, 1961: 62–66). A well-

169 The rodbinska zadruga (family cooperative) has still not been proven to have really existed, as Vilfan (1961: 54) claims, because the proofs date from later periods. One possible proof concerns the names of vilagges, especially in Premurje (a region in eastern Slovenia), where the village names end in –ci (ibid.) This could mean that the village was named after the cooperative's senior member. Nevertheless, these names originate from the later period of feudal colonialization (ibid.). Nevertheless, Vilfan (1961: 55) claims that family cooperatives must also have existed during the Old Slavic period. 170 Veča is the Old Slavic term for the public meeting, the assembly of the members of a community. In tribal communities under feudalism, the veča had jurisdiction, most frequently judicial. It was important that a wide circle of citizens came to the veča (Baš et al., 2004: 662; Godina, 2014: 197–198; Maček, 2007: 43; Vilfan, 1961: 24–28).

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known feature of this historical period is the enthroning of the Carithian duke, which according to Godina (2014: 192) and Vilfan (1961: 57), is important because of later elements in feudalism, and it would become a constituent part of society and law in Slovenia. Dukes later on in feudalism couldn't become dukes just because of inheritance rights, but only if the people confirmed them (Godina, 2014: 192). In Old Slavic society, the basic unit was the župa (parish) – which has varied definitions through history, but it denotes a settlement and administrative territory that is cultivated or used for cattle. This territory was, as said before, often devised in accordance with geographical conditions (Vilfan, 1961: 30–32, 53). Župa is the South Slavic term for a community of people, primarily based on personal kin unions and later on territorial definitions; subsequently, appurtenance of territory became more important than origin by birth171 (Baš et al., 2004: 725;

171 Also because of the continued importance of neighbours, as mentioned in the description of the Slovenian family. The concept of the župa (parish) had passed over from the logic of association to the logic of location (Godina, 2014: 194). Makarovič (1982: 331–341; 469), writing in the 1970s, says that neighbourly ties are more important than friends. Neighbours otherwise don't visit each other without reason, but neighbours the ones who help each other in rural work and keep company among each other, they mitigate pain on the death of a family member, they rejoice at marriages, and they help each other in distress. All this is grounded on the principle: “Ti meni – jaz tebi.” (“You help me, I help you.”). Neighbours are also invited to events like marriages and baptisms. All this is expressedin the following proverb: “Dober sosed je najboljši prijatelj.” (“A good neighbour is the best friend.”). Neighbours who are also relatives are more helpful because they are neighbours (ibid.). The same help among neighbours is noted by Stanonik (1997: 126– 127). Neighbours help each other, they have regular contact, they visit each other, they support each other. The notion of sosed (neighbour) is a category which is ethically high and personally warm (ibid.). Hudales (2015: 154) claims the same, that the help of neighbours is more frequent than help from friends or kin – especially in rural work. Sosed (neighbour) is defined as a person who lives in the immediate vicinity (Baš et al., 2004: 566). With the break up of the community of descent into small families, there grew up the meaning of sosed (neighbour) and sosedstva (neighbourhoods). In the village, neighbours are often kin or have the same role and meaning as kin, or even more. Between neighbours there developed a custom of neighbourhood help, especially with tasks requiring many people. This help came with unwritten rules and was highly reciprocal (ibid.). The reciprocal ties of neighbours are strengthened through participation in annual and life-cycle customs. Female neighbours used to

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Vilfan, 1961: 53). Authority in the župa (parish) resided in the župan (mayor)172 (Baš et al., 2004: 726). The tribe comprised several parishes with a duke at its head (ibid.: 32). A parish was composed of several large families, and could multiple include hamlets or villages or just one of these (Vilfan, 1980a: 29). The relation between the parish or village and a large family wasn't fixed (Maček, 2007: 33–34; Vilfan, 1961: 54), even when after distribution of the cultivable land, the parish became (until the 11th century) a village community dependent on a landlord. With the use of undivided land, there developed simple autonomy, which continued until the end of feudal settlement (Baš et al., 2004: 726). The župa (parish) handled land – fields, pastures, woods – the land was collective property. The land was cultivated by big families, which had the right of harvest, but not the right of ownership173 (Godina, 2014: 194; Maček, 2007: 37; Vilfan, 1980a: 29). Appurtenance of the world was determined on the basis of actual use (Vilfan, 1961: 62). Besides the župa (parish), there existed dvori (courts, manors): liberal manors (a farm with a piece of land, cultivated by a householder and his family) and unliberal manors (a larger rural holding, cultivated by a housholder and serfs, which formed part of the family) – south of the river Drava, where there was individual property upon cultivated land

assist at births and take care of children (otročnice – the women who helped during the first six to eight weeks after birth) (ibid.: 396, 566). Neighbours were also often godparents. A neighbour would also help a husband's father at proposing. Even nowadays in cities, neighbours attend funerals and collect money for candles and flowers (ibid.: 566). There also existed ˝sosedsko pravo˝ (neighbour law), which regulated relations between neighbours – especially property relations, for example defining boundary signs etc. (Baš et al., 2004: 566–567). 172 Župan (mayor) is the term with which Slovenians and some other Slavic nations designate their representative. The župan (mayor) was primarily (from the 6th to the 9th century) a representative of a kin community, senior among the kin in a župa (parish). He would become representative of the territory after permanent settlement (Baš et al., 2004: 726; Godina, 2014: 195; Maček, 2007: 35; Vilfan, 1980a: 30). 173 Old Slavic society still did not observe the right of ownership (Maček, 2007: 40–41; Vilfan, 1961: 61). Property as a legal concept was still in formation (Vilfan, 1961: 224). The first object of private property was cattle (ibid.: 225). Cattle expressed the distinction between different groups or individuals (ibid.).

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(Godina, 2014: 195; Maček, 2007: 40; Vilfan, 1961: 59–61). The Old Slavic society was so differentiated, even though Slovenians were then mostly free people, living in župa (parishes) (they made some contributions to the manors, but were mostly quite egalitarian) (Godina, 2014: 196; Maček, 2007: 41; Vilfan, 1961: 61). Although the župa (parish) was subordinate to the kneževina (principality), the župa had a high degree of autonomy – it was svobodnjaška župa (a liberal parish) (Godina, 2014: 197; Maček, 2007: 35; Vilfan, 1980a: 30). The process of transforming old Slovenian society into a feudal one was gradual. It was only between the 11th and the 13th centuries that feudalism spread across the whole area that is now Slovenia, and it became the norm in the 14th century. It lasted until 1848 (Godina, 2014: 200–202; Maček, 2007: 53–56; Vilfan, 1961: 69; Vilfan, 1980: 106, 111–122). The župe (one or more villages, overseen my a mayor) of free individuals needed to be reshaped into hubne vasi (a grouping of nearby homesteads), which were made up of individuals who were not free. Slovenians were mostly laborers; an ethically and socially separate entity. A new land-owner based type of feudalism also came into play – the area of today's Slovenia was mostly divided into properties of land, owned by landowners, and was not divided into feuds. These properties were self-sustaining economic units, the purpose of which was to bring the owners wealth and income, during the period between the 13th and 15th centuries under the influence of the economy of the time (Godina, 2014: 202–203; Vilfan, 1961: 70–71). In order to come by land, the free members of the župa needed to accept a fief (land) from their lord, accepting all of their new obligations and agreeing to provide service to the lord. The župe were maintained in the changing times (Godina, 2014: 204– 205; Maček, 2007: 61–62; Vilfan, 1980a: 34). The fiefs bound their workers and families to the lord, while laborers had hube (one-family homesteads). In practice, the cultivated land was organized as collective cultivated land (ibid.).

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After feudalism (19th century), the land was divided among farmers174, the landlords held dominical land, normally this included forest complexes (Maček, 2007: 270; Vilfan, 1961: 489). In the Slovenian context, dediščina (inheritance) therefore means property which is inherited175 after death (Bajec et al., 2014: 227; Baš et al., 2004: 76). It is a basic term of hereditary law (Baš et al., 2004: 76). A person who succeeds to the property of the deceased is a dedič (heir) (ibid.). The one who takes over a proportional share together with others, is an oddelnik (joint-heir) (ibid.). A delnica (share) is an inherited field or meadow (ibid.). A hereditary share is an odvetek (ibid.). The spolovina is the necesarry share belonging to the wife after her husband's death. In some regions, the farm was inherited by the youngest son176, while the others were evicted (ibid.). The second meaning of dediščina (inheritance) is historical memory, tradition and the past; the material, social and spiritual components of culture and ways of living, which connect the present with past eras (Bajec et al., 2014: 227; Baš et al., 2004: 76). In the narrower sense, these are social, material and spiritual goods, which are mediated, transfered and left to the next generation by ancestors. The family inheritance includes a surname, a house (domestic) name, a consciousness of belonging (a family tree), respect towards family holidays, signs and symbols, property etc. (Baš et al., 2004: 76). Other terms for inheritance include dedina, dedovina, babina, očevina and patrimonij (ibid.). Očevina/dedovina is property inheritated from the father177. The property should be carefully managed according to folk belief (Baš et al.,

174 Farmers have not oriented themselves well in the new capitalist conditions; they couldn't pay their taxes and rent for the land, so they ran into debt or gave the old parts of farms to the ex- landlords (Maček, 2007: 277). Land also was subdivided into small farms (ibid.: 287–288). 175 Dedno pravo (inheritance law) is the system of laws which gover the transfer of property from the deceased to their heirs (Baš et al., 2004: 77). 176 The youngest son may be privileged because he is the one required to stay at home with the aging parents (ultimogeniture) (Barfield, 1997: 456). 177 It is property inherited from one's forefathers. Other terms include bona avita, dediščina (heritage) in the narrow sense. Inheritace serves to protect the existence of the family inheritance (Vilfan, 1961: 257).

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2004: 379). There exists a relevant proverb: “Kar dobiš po oči, varuj podnevi in ponoči!” (“What you get from your father, protect it day and night!”) (ibid.). The same term as dedovina/očetovina/očevina is patrimonij (patrimony) – father's inheritance and the rights pertaining there ot. It is hereditary land property, especially immovable property, which in the family passes from father to son (Baš et al., 2004: 406; Vilfan, 1961: 70–71, 257). Vilfan (1961: 71, 258–259) describes patriomonialna oblast (patrimonial authority) under feudalism, which is the special immovable property, which in the family normally passes from father to son; however, from 1208, if there were no male descendent, to the wife or daughter and the daughter's children. Inhertance by close kin was legalized in 1365 (ibid.). As we see, within the sibling group, inheritance may privilege one sex or individual. Giving land to the son could be connected with the fact that land is often restricted to the male sex because of the division of labor and subject of homogeneous transmission to prevent its dispersal (Barfield, 1997: 455). Under feudalism, patrimony can be the foundation of patrimonial (judicial and administrative) authority (Baš et al., 2004: 406). Babina refers to movable property in personal use, inherited by a daughter from her mother at the end of the 16th century. This property particularly pertained to cloth and jewellery. Babina in the 12th century also meant what a son inherited from his mother in the case of fixed property (Baš et al., 2004: 19; Vilfan, 1961: 258–259). It seems that, in the Slovenian context, property is handed down agnatically to children178, as Barfield (1997: 455) writes, normally to sons. Daughters also inherit effects from their mothers; this is called babina and has been practiced for centuries. Daughters would sometimes inherit part of the house or a field, but they never received an important share of the property. Some did not receive anything. Some generation were born and died without a single partitioning of the property during their lifetimes (Ravnik, 1996: 283–284). Vilfan (1961: 247) claims that widows

178 A uterine mode is when property is handed down to the children of sisters (Barfield, 1997: 455).

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and blagarice (only daughters) did have some social power, although not equal,179 – they had an active and passive law capacity and the highest social status. He adds that the property-owning capacity of women developed between the era of feudalism and the rise of the middle class (ibid.). The woman appeared in proprietary law only if the man didn’t have the same conditions (ibid.). Vilfan (1961: 248) claims that this public function of women was sometimes disrupted by male kin. In the 12th century there existed the concept that a woman (a wife or daughter) could inherit feudally after the last man. Normally the oldest son inherited180, in some cases, the oldest daughter (ibid.). There also existed the principle of divisible parts for movable property (ibid.). In Ptuj, a region of Styria, according to statute, the oldest son made the division and the youngest son did the choosing (ibid.). In some cases, the youngest son inherited (Baš et al., 2004: 76; Vilfan, 1961: 260), Vilfan (1961: 260) even claims that in Slovenian rural areas, among farmers, it was normally the youngest son who received the inheritance. We can also find this reflected in folk tradition, for example the Slovenian fairytale Kralj in njegovi trije sinovi (The Kingand his three sons), which tells of a king who is old and wonders which son should inherit the kingdom. He decides that the one who brings him the most valuable present will be the one to succeed him. The oldest son brings a diamond, the middle son a new crown, and the youngest son, his own heart, because he loves his father (Bolhar, 1965). The motif of the youngest son with the characteristics of a good human, who inherits from the father appears in many other Slovenian folk stories, for example Tekma za bajtico (the youngest of three sons inherits a cottage because he completes tasks optimally) (Brenkova, 1980: 8–15). Fixed property such as land was normally not divided (Vilfan, 1961: 260). Because of this, just one person inherited the land: sons had the first right, then daughters, and later grandchildren and other kin. If there were several children,

179 When a widow inherited something after her husband's death, she acquired rights to certain parts of the conjugal estate that had been established at marriage and that she and her kin had in fact helped to set up by endowments. Conjugal inheritance is closely linked to the dowry proper (parental transfers to daughters), since both involve the trasmission of propertty across sex lines (Barfield, 1997: 455). 180 Inheritance by the first son is called primogeniture (Barfield, 1997: 456).

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one of whom inherited the land, the others received odpravščina (redundancy) (ibid.). So, everybody inherited, but the farm remained indivisible (ibid.). The one who got the farm had to buy out the other heirs according to their hereditary shares (ibid.). Normally, the oldest son estimated the value of the farm, and the youngest son decided if he would take the farm. If he thought the price was too high, he would accept redundancy instead (ibid.). Why was it that in the Slovenian context inheritance went to the youngest? Because in this way, they could prevent too many inheritance cases and the concomitant obligation to pay redundancy (ibid.). So, if we suppose that in most cases the main heir of the land was male – the son, then a distinction between the father’s and mother’s siblings was necessary, because the brother had to pay off the sister –this could also explain the distinction for the term of mother’s brother. Further evidence of this is Vilfan’s (1961: 261) claim that, when distant siblings inherited, the property was divided into očevina and babina – očevina was inherited by kin on the father’s side and babina by kin on the mother’s side. Ravnik (1996: 285) claims that everywhere in Slovenia apart from Istria, feudal colonization introduced single-family farms181 and landlords made sure that the farms were not divided. There existed differences between the areas where farms were partitioned (Istria182 – Roman law, already divided in the 16th century, with no patrimonial authority) and where they were not (other parts of Slovenia – under German law) (ibid.; Vilfan, 1961: 260, 489). The principle of indivisibility is expressed in the following proverb: “Hiša razdeljena razpada kakor zapuščena” (“The divided house crumbles like a deserted one”) (ibid.: 260). The principle of indivisibility existed along with feudalism in most Slovenian regions (exception for Istria, the coastal part of Slovenia), right up to the 20th century (ibid.). Division was allowed only if units could be both economically strong (they built another house on the land, fields were divided in half, and pastures were in common use) (ibid.).

181 This was becuase people used to work together on the land, but feudalism did not countenance that. Shared cultivation did not disapear until the 13thcentury (Kos, 2015: 150). 182 In Istria, one piece of land could contain five or more homes with residental premises and farm buildings (Vilfan, 1961: 260).

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According to Godina (2014: 211) and Maček (2007: 87), at the end of the 13th century, the dominant form of agricultural household was the single-family farm, called a huba. A huba was a cultivable unit of rural property under feudalism (Baš et al., 2004: 173). In Slovenia huba primarily constituted approximately 6–7 hectares of cultivable land (ibid.), according to Vilfan (1961) later 12 hectares. The huba system was introduced as early as the 9th century (Baš et al., 2004: 173). The huba was shaped by landowners (ibid.). Depending to the kind of huba, it was possible to discover the juridical situation of the serfs. Over the course of time, the productive unit broke into fragments (ibid.). The land183 was the thing that connected a farmer and his family to the landlord, who sometimes decided about marriages (Godina, 2014: 207; Maček, 2007: 59). Nevertheless, the villien retained the right to his own family, and the landlord didn't have the right to kill him (Vilfan, 1961: 77). Villiens were free in the case of cultiviation of the land, but they had to pay first natural, and then monetary rent to the landlord (ibid.). The kin of a villein had right of precedendce in buying fixed property, but the villein was also responsible for the acts of his family memebers (Vilfan, 1961: 54). It was still, nevertheless, the landlord who decided whether or not the villein's descendents would inherit the right to use the land (ibid.: 257). We could say that, in the Slovenian context, we can notice rights in land being divided into rights of use and rights of administration (Mair, 1992: 156). Vilfan (1961: 226–227) connects the indivisibility of farms184 with Roman law (Istria) and German law across most of Slovenia during feudalism. In feudal law, property was redefined with each appearing form of property (ibid.: 227). In the

183 There was also a difference in the status of the person, depending on in which plan the worked: in court's one or on farm's one (more rights) (Vilfan, 1961: 77). Nevertheless, both are chained to the land (ibid.: 81). 184 Because the property of land was decided according to use and not borders, members of a huba village decided together on what to plant each year. The exceptions were few isolated and scattered farms (Godina, 2014: 208–209; Grafenauer, 1970: 229, 248). Between the 13th and the 15th centuries, the system started to change: it became a production of money – contributions were no longer in kind, but in money (profit) (Vilfan, 1980a: 149). That also meant that from the 16th century on, villeins were more exploited, but also more connected with each other – they also organized rebellions (Godina, 2014: 218–221; Maček, 2007: 197; Vilfan, 1980a: 194).

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pre-feudal period, property was still collective; in feudal times there existed king’s property and landlord’s property, and right of use of land for villeins; for uncultivated land (forest, pasture etc.), the rights were claimed in the 14th, and especially in the 15th century); for cultivated land, it was usual to have zajmi (giving land to the villein, but with the landlord retaining some property rights) (ibid.: 227–229). Besides the reasons rooted in distinct forms of colonization and legal systems in the Middle Ages, there are reasons such as the proximity of towns and the opportunities available for making additional income. Hence the difference between those areas in Slovenia where the farms were divided and those where this was not customary, originated partially in feudal times and partially in modern times (Ravnik, 1996: 285). This depended on numerous factors: the proximity of towns; whether it was in the hills or on the plains; whether the inhabitants could earn additional income and so on (Vilfan, 1961: 489). This means that, for Slovenia in the Middle Ages, some characteristics were usual: the self-annihilating consequences of the equality system where the property was divided into equal shares; the risk of property becoming so fragmented that it could no longer sustain a family; that cohabitation on an undivided property was most common where division was possible; that the system repeatedly led to impoverishment, which was offset only by high child mortality and by male celibacy; on the dominance of patrilocality, that a system that gave advantage to men but also charged them with the duty of providing their sisters with a settlement, which they more or less followed, cut both ways; on the exclusion of women from the division of goods; and on women as passing guests who identified themselves neither with the family nor with the house (Vilfan, 1961: 489; Ravnik, 1996: 285–286). Ravnik (1996: 259; 283) discovered that in a dialect of Slovenian Istra, there existed the term blagarica – a daughter (an only child or one of the daughters), who herself inherited the farm. After marriage, the husband moved to his wife’s house185. Normally, inheritance customs were dominated by the principle of

185 This is called uxorilocality or filialocality. Residence was otherwise determined by the husband (Barfield, 1997: 456).

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equality among heirs186. The sons received equal shares of the farm, and the daughters were given a suitable dowry. After marriage, the sons brought their brides to home, while the daughters went to live with their husbands after marriage. Only if there were no male progeny and the daughter was the only heir would her husband become the son-in-law (ibid.). Different sexes normally transmit rights by different means and for different types of property (Barfield, 1997: 455). As said before and as also Vilfan (1961: 258) writes, movable property was, from the Middle Ages on, inheritable according to sex: the mother’s things (jewelry, clothes) were inherited by the daughters, the father’s things, by the sons (ibid.). Blagarica, also blagonica, dotarica (Istria, Karst), now sometimes mean inheritance of all immovable and movable property (the term derives from the word blago187 (goods)); also rural inheritance, by an only daughter. In the Middle Ages the headship of a farm lay in principle in the hands of a man, but it was necessary to mitigate this principle for widows and blagarica, if they had this capacity according to their social position (Baš et al., 2004: 36; Vilfan, 1961: 225). On farms, the special position of women was relatively early manifested by independent husbandry – on single huba they were mentioned as serfs’ widows. The blagarica as possessor of a huba is not often encountered; in any case, they existed at least in the buying of farms (ibid.). Nevertheless, the family inheritance given to a daughter (Ingold, 2005: 797; Monaghan and Just, 2000: 89), can also be a dota (dowry), which will be described in Chapter 8 Marriage. There existed an inheritance from the medieval one which passed over to children both among people still alive and after the death of the person (Vilfan, 1961: 257). Or as Ingold (2005: 797) states, Dowry, which is often found in settled agricultural societies, is a payment by the family of the bride to the bride herself or to her

186 Ravnik (1996: 284) claims that true equality never existed. Some profited at the expense of others (Ravnik, 1996: 284). 187 Blago (goods) are determinated first as cattle, later as property in general. By the middle of the 19th century, when people produced and made most goods for their own use, the term blago (goods) was transferred to better quality textile materials which were purchased. Blago (goods) can also mean all goods that a producer produces and makes for sale, not for his own use; everything that is meant for buying and selling (Baš et al., 2004: 36).

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husband. In many societies it is conceived of as payment in lieu of inheritance, in recognition of the fact that a woman was, upon marriage, left her natal kin group, whereas a man remains a member of his.

Young men were dependent on older members of the kin group, which assured them the necessary funds for the bride payment (Monaghan and Just, 2000: 89). All these exchanges are as crucial to alliance as they are to descent, for they help to determine relations between as well as within kin groups (Ingold, 2005: 797). As has been established, in the past Slovenian territory (at least till the middle of 19th century) was mostly a settled agricultural society (Godina, 2014: 181, 211; Maček, 2007: 87), and different terms were needed for the mother’s family, because the bride’s family was the one who paid the dota (dowry). Nowadays, as in contemporary Europe (Barfield, 1997: 455), property in Slovenia generally goes directly to the children in a lineal fashion, within the restricted conjugal family. However, the first recipient is usually the surviving spouse, more often the widow, since she tends to be younger and to live longer (ibid.). According to the Slovenian Inheritance Act (1976; last updated on 7. 10. 2016), the property of the deceased passes automatically to his heirs. Property can be inherited by one or more persons, depending on the last will188, or according to legal inheritance (by hereditary order with the same shares: 1. spouse and children/adopted children; 2. deceased’s parents or deceased’s brothers or sisters (deceased didn’t have children) and spouse, 3. deceased’s grandmothers and grandfather – the deceased didn’t have children, parents, spouses) (ZD, 1976/2016, 10.–21. člen).

188 The last will law (where the deceased decides who gets the inheritance) is also popular nowadays; historically, it developed especially in towns, as early as the middle ages (Vilfan, 1961: 258).

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8 Marriage

Because transmission of property and eligibility for membership in a descent group are often related (Barfield, 1997: 455), it is important to describe marriage in and the marriage customs of Slovenia in the past and nowadays. According to Barfield (1997: 304), marriage is “the socially recognized bonding of a man and woman, as these terms are culturally construed, typically for the purposes of legitimate reproduction, the establishment of a nuclear family, or the creation of a new household.” Moreover, marriage exchange is “the system of reciprocal marriages that transfers spouses among kin groups or marriage classes” (ibid). Marriage also provides a child with a socially recognized father189 and a socially recognized mother (Mair, 1992: 90). Barnard (2005: 797) claims that there has been much debate concerning the definition of ‘marriage’. Leach (1955: 183) defined marriage as the institution of ‘a bundle of rights’, including legal fatherhood, legal motherhood, a monopoly on sexual access between married partners, rights to domestic services and other forms of labour, rights over property accruing to one’s spouse, rights to a joint fund of property for the benefit of the children of the marriage, and recognized relations of affinity, such as between brothers-in-law (ibid.). Different sets of these rights apply in defining marriage (ibid.). Marriage creates new social relationships and reciprocal rights between spouses, between each spouse and the kin of the other, and establishes what will be the rights and status of the children when they are born (Mair, 1992: 91). A marriage creates relationships of affinity between people who may have been strangers or even enemies before190 (ibid.: 98). Every society has recognized procedures for creating such relationships and rights, and of making it known that they have been created (ibid.). Barnard (2005: 798) explains that there are also exceptions, but “in an overwhelming majority of human societies, marriage is the mechanism which provides for the legitimation of children and defines their status

189 In most patrilineal societies, a child cannot belong to its father's lineage unless its parents have been married in the appropriate way (Mair, 1992: 90). 190 This means that lineage kin should not fight with one another, but should stand together to defend their common interests against outsiders (Mair, 1992: 98).

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in relation to the conjugal family and the wider kin groups” 191 (ibid.). In most societies, marriage may be ended by either divorce or death, though death need not always be the end of the union (ibid.). In the Slovenian context, poroka (marriage) is defined as the ceremony of making matrimonial union (Baš et al., 2004: 448). Poroka (marriage) is the rite with which a man and a woman become in front of society, publicly recognized as a husband and a wife (Bajec et al., 2014: 136).The stavba/ženitovanje (wedding) is the celebration of a marriage (ibid.: 664). Etymologically, poroka (marriage) originates from the 16th century in the meanings poročiti (marry) ‘dati v zamož’ (to marry off, to give to a husband)192, primarily ‘zaupati (v varstvo), izročiti’ (trust in the protection of, to give in to the hands of). Primarily in the 10th century poronso [porončo] ‘izročim, zaupam’ (to hand over, to entrust) developed from Proto-Slavic *porǫči̋ ti ‘izročiti, predati’ (to hand over), which is formed from the prepositional phrase *porǫcĕ̀ (poroki, prek roke – after hand, over hand), which contains Proto-Slavic *rǫka̋ , Slovenian róka (hand) (Snoj, 2009: 547). Very early the ceremony of marriage was led by the priest in the Christian world193. In the book of wedding ritual, the Church included individual pagan elements: ritual drinking of wine, holding the hands of the groom and the bride – from this originates the term poroka (marriage), as said before, as an expression

191 Because of this, marriage is distinguished from concubinage, which may serve social functions similar to that of marriage but which denies full legitimacy to the union (Barnard, 2005: 798). The term for concubinage in the Slovenian context is“koruzništvo” or “živeti na koruzi” (literally to live in the corn). This term exists because the daughter left her family without marriage, and thus without dota (dowry), and life was harder, even though Vilfan (1980b: 453) claims that the term is a neologism, because corn is a rather new crop in Slovenian agriculture. Poor people ate corn in those days. This was also called poroka na roko (marriage on the hand), because the married couple lived without land and on their own labour (Vilfan, 1961: 254). 192 Vilfan (1980b: 452) stresses that we do not have another meaning – to give a husband to a wife, so marriage is the transfer of a woman in Slovenian tradition. Still, we have the verbs oženiti se (to take for one's wife) and omožiti se (to take for one's husband) (ibid.). 193 Kos (2015) even claims that the Christian church regulated their power upon the notions of marriage and sexual relationship in the 13th century. Marriage was in his opinion a safety fuse against lust (ibid.).

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of the authority of a husband over a wife and as a sign of life union (ibid.; Vilfan, 1961: 251–253). Here, what Mair (1992: 91–92) claim is trues: although the rights that are created by a marriage are reciprocal – that is, both sides gain something – it is usual to consider this question from the point of view of the rights acquired by the husband. /…/ A woman must always be under the guardianship of some man, and when she marries her original guardian hands over some or all of his responsibility for her to her husband. /…/ The woman’s guardian gives to some man the rights over her to which a husband is entitled, whatever these may be in a given society. For these the husband makes some return, a return that should be thought of as part of a chain of mutual favour and not a purchase price.

Vilfan (1979: 365–366) furthermore claims that it is important to research marital customs according to temporal and spactial differences to reveal the wider picture. So, it is important at least to pay attention to those customs that existed before Christianity194, because these can tell as a lot about parts of history which are still important today. We will describe marriage customs precisely in Chapter 8.2 Wedding/marriage customs. On the other hand, we cannot assume that in all Slovene regions the ritual was the same (ibid.: 366). Furthermore, we need to mention that in the past different legal acts about marriage were present in Slovenia. Marriage did not exist as a juridical act before Christianity (Vilfan, 1980b: 453). Pluralism was quite high in rituals and in juridical acts (ibid.). For example, Vilfan (1979: 366) claims for the Early Middle Ages marriage that a little coin existed, which the groom gave to the bride. There were no marriages contracted by free will195, but society was patriarchal. In

194 In Slovenia, Christianity, which started in 8th century and became valued at the beginning of the 12nd century, is generally widespead. In agrarian society, Christianity was connected with almost all human activity and beliefs. This influence began to decrease with industrialization (Baš et al., 2004: 262; Vilfan 1980b: 457). 195 Vilfan (1979: 367–368) claims that the family’s interest in a marriage was most important195. In some periods of time this custom of the marriage proposal was even more important than formal law195. Formal law with last will was established no sooner than the 19th century (Žibert, 2003: 44).

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marriage customs, the use of alcohol was customary: wine, beer and brandy. The choice of alcoholic drink and food depended on the agrarian circumstances of each district (ibid.); for example, baked plums in Styria and Lower Carniola, cake in the shape of a baby in Styria, flat cake in Upper Carniola, shoulder of pork in White Carniola and millet gruel in the Karst region (Baš et al., 2004: 719). By the end of the Middle Ages, the valid forms of marriage were a church (public) marriage, performed in front of the priest, and an unchurched (secret) marriage, in most cases meaning “against the will of the parents” (Baš et al., 2004: 448; Vilfan, 1961: 253). Till the 1563 (The Council of Trent196), a valid marriage could be contracted without a priest, but it was secret; it was perceived as a sin (Baš et al., 2004: 448). Hidden weddings also happened without consent from the parents (Vilfan, 1961: 253). Vilfan (1961: 253) claims that church weddings were held after civil ones – and among people, the civil wedding was the important one. After 1563, oklici (proclamations) were prescribed and the keeping of wedding registries (Baš et al., 2004: 448). The general obligation of

Parents decided who would marry whom and how, and what would be exchanged (Miklavčič, 2013: 163). So, we can talk about exchanging a woman among two different groups of people, as Lévi-Strauss’s theory claims. Makarovič (1982: 469) claims that in the past it was important to have property for the marriage. In 1970s Strojna (Carinthia region), more important than the bride’s property were her skilled hands and the fact that the bride wanted to come to the farm. Nevertheless, the role of parents in choosing a partner for their child was still considerable, even in the first years after World War II; later, the parents’ role became less pronounced – the sons chose for themselves, according to “heart and beauty” (ibid.: 263–264). Their spouses or lovers could choose more freely, even among renters, although social differences still influenced the choice of a partner (ibid.: 264). Also mothers with illegitimate children married other men, while virginity became less important (ibid.: 265). Because nowadays we inherit from both sides of the family and we can also rely on help from both sides of the family (even a widow), perhaps the separation of the mother’s relatives is not as important anymore. Today, the mother’s and father’s brothers/sisters occupy the same position and represent the same function, but historically this was not so. 196 The Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563 in Trento and Bologna, in northern Italy, was one of the Roman Catholic Church's most important ecumenical councils. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation (Jackson, 1914: 12, 1–3).

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the church marriage and the invalidity of other forms prevailed in the 1st part of the 17th century, when the legal perspective of marriage became the responsibility of the Church (ibid.). The Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II proclaimed marriage as a “civil contract” under the control of provincial courts with the Marriage patent in 1783 (ibid.). From the 19th century up to World War I, there existed mostly church weddings (ibid.). Marriage in the church with a mass or just a ceremony with a speech by the priest has survived till today (ibid.). After World War II, civil marriage in a registry office became a precondition for church marriage. The validity of the marriage is confirmed by having witnesses to the marriage197. About types of families, we should also warn, as Ravnik (1996: 80) found in her analysis of family and kinship in the villages of Slovenian Istria, that the farmland there was divided up, which means that more extended families existed, composed of families from multiple generations. Much depended on economic and juridical conditions – how the farms were divided especially in the areas of feudal colonialism (Vilfan, 1961: 489). Vilfan (1961: 54) talks about rodbinska zadruga – a family already cooperating in the Old Slavic era, where relatives lived in a shared household198 with their wives, as a means of defending family interests, even though we lack sufficient proof that this cooperation really existed in the area of Slovenia. Vilfan (1954) even claims that a household community, whether we call it a zadruga or something else – is not a specifically Slovene grouping and that in this respect Slovenes attained family individualism. It was, especially in the Middle Ages, rare for the property to be divided after the death of the father, and the brothers remained the same family in regions other than Istria (those under German influence). Such fraternal community was very common in

197 The poročna priča (witness of the marriage) is a person who is present at the wedding and who signs and confirms the validity of the marriage. The bride has her own and the groom his own witness (Baš et al., 2004: 447). 198 The names of the villages in Prekmurje end with –ci, which could be proof of a cooperation according to Vilfan (1961: 54), because they originated from personal names, which meant the village that cooperated was named after the senior member. Ravnik (1996: 286) makes the same claim for Slovenian Istria – the rows of houses and neighbourhoods composed of relatives are usually known by their names (for example Rosiči, Banice, Jakci etc.). The villages are named by the plural form of the most common surname (ibid.).

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Italy (ibid.). Old Slavonic society was a tribal society with characteristic kinship groups: clans (rodovi), brotherhoods (bratstva) and parishes (župe) (Godina, 2014: 184). Later on, there is proof that feudal colonialization was purposely established only on family farms (ibid.). Černič (1988: 543–544) claims that it is not true that in the past all families were extended families. Families were diverse, and many of them were nuclear families. Žibert (2003) claims that, for example in Carniola in the 19th and 20thcenturies, many nuclear families existed. Vilfan (1980b: 448) claims that small nuclear families were, even in the past, part of larger families, or their embryo. And what about today? Today marriage in Slovenia is consensual; both a bride and a groom must agree to marry (Vilfan, 1979; 366). As Barfield (1997: 305) claims, marriage in modern society is a relationship between individuals; nevertheless, someone – usually the bride’s father – ‘gives the woman away’. Parental consent is required for modern individuals to marry if they are below a certain age. As Barfield (1997: 305–306) claims, “Although it is possible in the modern world to maintain a marriage without acknowledging ‘one’s in-laws’, most people seem to be under some pressure to maintain this sort of relationship.” In the section below, we will summarize how marriages became prescribed historically – we will talk about exogamy and endogamy in the Slovenian region.

8.1 Exogamy/Endogamy There are always rules prohibiting certain persons as sexual partners and as marriage partners (Mair, 1992: 84). These are the rules of incest and exogamy (ibid.). Incest199 refers to sexual congress as such; exogamy to marriage, a relationship which cannot be created merely by sexual congress, and which

199 The relationships within which sexual congress is everywhere considered incestuous are those of parent to child and of brother to sister (Mair, 1992: 84). But the persons between whom sexual relations are sinful by this definition differ in distinct societies (ibid.). They may include people not very closely related biologically, while others as close as first cousin may not only be permitted as mates, but may be regarded as the most appropriate one (ibid.). Mair (1992: 85) asks herself why incest is always prohibited within the nuclear family, and the answer is because the family is the institution within which the cultural tradition of a society is handed on to the new generation/becuase of socialization (ibid.).

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includes, in addition to sexual congress, a number of reciprocal rights and duties (ibid.). As we have established in the theoretical part, Lévi-Strauss (1969) sees the prohibition of marriage within the family as the essential criterion for cultural life because it is the beginning of reciprocal exchange between descent groups – which is the basis of social structure (ibid.). Exogamy so means 'marrying out', normally the basis of incest – a sexual act between individuals prohibited from engaging in such acts because of their relationship (Barnard, 2005: 799–800). The relationship may be specified according to affinity or active kinship, as well as consanguinity (ibid.: 800). However, exogamy is not just about who is prohibited from marrying, but also about who is allowed to marry (Mair, 1992: 86–87). Exogamy is only one side of the marital coin. The other side is endogamy, because 'societies', 'tribes' and 'traditional communities' the world over are largely endogamous (Barnard, 2005: 799–800); marriage frequently takes place even with smaller units than these, even in the Slovenian context. Major reasons for societal, tribal or community endogamy may include geographical proximity and familiarity200. Vilfan (1979: 367) explained the notions of exogamy and endogamy in Slovenia. Before the Early Middle Ages, they were important when defining kinship and marriage rules in most families. Vilfan (1980b: 459) claims, citing evidence from the 8th century, that it was not permissible for kin, underage people and couples with too great an age difference to marry. The oldest known forms of marriage are kup neveste (purchase of a bride) and ugrabitev neveste (kidnapping of the bride) (Baš et al., 2004: 448). Vilfan (1961: 250) describes Old Slavic society, where in his words, a wife is the property of her husband201 – kup neveste (purchase of a bride) was a contractual form of marriage – the contract was made by representatives, senior members of the bride's and groom's families (ibid.). It was normal for this to happen between the members of one clan, endogamically

200 The reasons for marrying a close relative may be more subtle: perhaps including preservation of the kin group or kin line itself (Barnard, 2005: 800). 201 Vilfan (1980b: 455) also claims that women had their own power; they were not slaves of their men – there is an asumption that they participated in the siege of Constantinople in 626. Nevertheless, they were still subordinate to their husbands or to the senior male in the husband's family and also to the main housewife (ibid.: 465).

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(ibid.: 251). The groom's family paid quite a high purchase price for a bride (ibid.: 250); the bride received nothing from her primary community, except for objects of personal use (marriage was an opportunity for the groom and other kin to give her these objects)202. In fact, we could call this bridewealth/brideprice, which is a marriage payment, the transfer of symbolically important wealth as part of marriage, where property (animate or inanimate objects) passes from the groom's kin not to the bride, but to one or more of the bride's kin as compensation for her. This may be accompanied or replaced by labour (Barfield, 1997: 45; Eriksen, 2001: 135). It is not sale by market principles; instead, bridewealth can serve to cement a union, legitimate offspring, redistribute or consolidate wealth and otherwise validate changes in the social identities, rights and duties of the various persons involved (Barfield, 1997: 45). The groom's father is likely to be the main giver and the bride's father the main reciever (but other kis of either gender or of different generations may also be direct or indirect givers or takers – ibid.). The other type of marriage in Old Slavic society was ugrabitev neveste (abduction of the bride). We don't have proof that it really existed, but folk songs do mention it (Vilfan, 1961: 250). Nevertheless, there does exists proof of bride abduction from 16th-century Carniola (ibid.: 251). Abduction had a special meaning. When the parents arranged a marriage for their daughter, but she was in love with another man, that person would kidnap her with help from his friends and then marry her203 (ibid.). This was not a deed of sale, but consent between a qoung woman and a young man (Vilfan, 1980b: 448). Later (from the Middle Ages on), when defining marriage, territory became important (Vilfan, 1979: 367). This importance was influencedby the nobility204 and the Church (ibid.: 251). The extension of exogamy depends on the stage of kinship, family structure (big or small) and on the size of the community. In the Early Middle Ages, the endogamy group was defined as a large village or a parish

202 Collecting gifts is a custom that has survived till today, and it is normally held at midnight on the wedding night, when the virgin wreath is symbolically taken down (Vilfan, 1961: 254). 203 As we see, love in this case would be the reason for marriage. 204 According to Vilfan (1980b: 456), among there nobility there also existed polygamy – they had more than one wife.

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(Vilfan, 1979: 367). The borders of endogamous areas coincided with parish borders and historical borders long after these ceased to exist. The phrase “Ni treba hoditi skozi gozd po fratje” meant that it was not necessary to go through the forest to seek a bride. So, girls from their own village had a higher value. Stramljič (2007: 256) claims, like Vilfan (1979: 367) that the endogamy group in the Early Middle Ages was limited to a large village or a parish. Makarovič (1982: 268) claims the same for the period after World War II. There was a principle: “Nevesto moraš iskat’ v dureh” (“You should seek a bride near to home)”, so grooms sought brides in their own village or in neighbouring ones (ibid.). If a bride or groom came from another village, there is still nowadays, especially in villages, some šranga (obstacle) – also the girls to the boy, who seeks a bride in another village (ibid.: 272). The custom of “šranga” will be described later in Chapter 8.2 Wedding/marriage customs. Another example of geographical and social endogamy is illustrated in the first Slovenian comedy Županova Micka (Micka, the Mayor’s Daughter) from the 18th century by Anton Tomaž Linhart205 (1992/1789), where a noble206 bon vivant

205 Anton Tomaž Linhart (1756–1795) was a Carniolan playwright and historian, best known as the author of the first comedy and theatrical play in Slovene, Županova Micka (Micka, the Mayor's Daughter). He is also considered as the father of Slovene historiography. He was the most visible representative of the Slovenian enlightment (Kos, 1980: 71–74). 206 Nobles also made the decisions about marriages among the children of their serfs until 1237, when this was dismissed (Vilfan, 1961: 252). They decided who should marry whom and chose a groom and bride (Vilfan, 1961: 252; Vilfan, 1979: 367–368). When the serfs belonged to two different nobles, the wife stayed under the authority of her noble, but the children were under the authority of the husband’s noble (Vilfan, 1980b: 467). Serfs and free people could also marry without losing status (ibid.: 467–468). Evidence shows that parents of families (especially fathers, for brides also mothers, and for children without parents, the wider kin group) used to make these decisions more than nobles (Vilfan, 1961: 252; Vilfan, 1979: 367–368). Before, in Old Slavic times, such decisions were made by the clan group (Vilfan, 1961: 252). Nevertheless, before 1237 and long after, parents chose who would marry their children (ibid.). When parents decided about brides, this was called “dajati v zamož” (“giving to the groom”) (ibid.). Many parents also gave children to the ecclesiastical profession, so they couldn't marry (Mihelič, 2012: 38). Nobles normally just agreed or not with a marriage (Vilfan, 1980b: 469).

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wants to trifle with the village mayor’s innocent daughter, although he is engaged to a young widow. The widow herself opens the girl’s eyes, and in the end the nobleman is unmasked and disgraced, and the mayor’s daughter marries an honest young villager. Linhart (1992/1789) sets the play in an authentic rural environment of the 18th century. Here endogamy is clearly illustrated: a girl marries a young man from the same village, not a nobleman with a foreign, German name (Tulpenheim207). Furthermore, the rural origin has positive connotations and is connected with characteristics of honesty, as representing a better choice. In this way, Linhart (1789/1992) with his critical perception, touches upon both social and national concerns. The proverbs “Boljša domača gruda kot na tujem zlata ruda.” (“Better land at home than gold abroad”); “Bolje je malo lastnega kakor mnogo tujega.” (“Better to have a little of your own, than a lot of someone else’s.”), “Nihče ne ljubi domovine, ker je velika, temveč ker je njegova.” (“Nobody loves their homeland because it's great, but because it's theirs.”), and “Lepše je z mladim praprot žet kot s starim cekine štet” (“Better to harvest ferns with a young man, than to count gold ducats with an old one”) have the same connotation. In Linhart’s play Ta veseli dan ali Matiček se ženi (The Merry Day or The Marriage of Matiček) (1992/1789) the idea is the same: conflict between a morally corrupt nobility and an oppressed lower class ends with victory for the ordinary people’s common sense. The play is set in a castle in Carniola in the 18th century. Matiček, the gardener, wants to marry Nežka, a maid. Baron Naletel likes Nežka. Nežka tells this to his wife. After many tricks, in the end Nežka gets a dowry and can marry Matiček. Both plays, Županova Micka (Micka, the Mayor’s Daughter) and Ta veseli dan ali Matiček se ženi (The Merry Day or The Marriage of Matiček), declare their Slovenehood and democracy in

Kos (2015: 120) claims that the poorest people normally married in Middle Age because of poverty. Also the authorities restricted marriages, especially among the poor. In the play Ta veseli dan ali Matiček se ženi (The Merry Day or The Marriage of Matiček), mentioned previously, at the end of the story Nežka, dekla (a maid) gets dota (dowry) from her feudal lord – Baron Naletel. Žibert (2003: 6) notes that marriages in the 17th and 18th Century in Carniola were free in comparison with other parts of the country. 207 His name literally means “a home of tulips”; he initially introduces himself to Micka with the invented name Schönheim (“a beautiful home”) (Linhart, 1789/1992).

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dramatic form and support the Slovenian people in their struggle against feudalism208. The same is seen in Sket’s209 historical novel Miklova Zala (2002/1884). This story, set in present-day Slovenia, is one of the well-known myths/folktales. Miklova Zala is a story from 15th-century Carinthia about beautiful Zala. She grows up without father, just a mother. Their neighbour Srajnik, who has the biggest and best farm in the village, gives them assistance. Long ago Srajnik promised Zala’s father that he would marry his son Mirko to Zala (as we said before, fathers decided about marriage – with such a marriage, they are converting strangers or neighbours into kin). Zala’s romance with the vigorous Mirko is disrupted by a foreign neighbour (a Jewess), the seductive Almira, who decides to snare her competition: Zala is consequently caught by the Ottoman army and because of her beauty taken to Istanbul as a war trophy for the Sultan. After seven years in Turkish captivity, she manages to escape with the help of her uncle. In the interim, Mirko forgets Zala and is preparing to marry Almira. His father meanwhile has passed away. Zala returns, and the wedding between Mirko and Almira is cancelled. Zala personifies the ideal-typical Slovenian, constructed with exclusively positive physical and characteristic features (Sadar, 2014: 113). She is beautiful, which is also the meaning of her name. She is not only beautiful in appearance, but also in character: she is introduced as a “humble girl who lived only for her home and her mother” (Sket, 2007/1884: 19). She is also honest, loyal and Christian, a nationally conscious Slovene – she successfully refuses the Sultan’s attempts at acculturation by forcing her to accept Islam as her religion. For example, she prays in her native Slovene. The Turks are presented as “furious”, “angry”, “bloodthristy”, “fierce”, “inhuman” and “murderous” (Sket, 2007/1884). The story about Zala plays a“constitutive part in the process of the construction of the nation, in which ‘Turks’ became a central enemy and resistance against them the primary source from which Slovenian national identity was drawn” (Kalčić,

208 Otherwise, marriage between nobles from different nations was possible. Vilfan (1980b: 462) writes about marriage between Slovenian and German nobles from the year 900. 209 Jakob Sket (1852–1912) is a Slovenian writer, educator and editor (Kos, 1980: 212).

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2007: 255). The Slovenian self is, as seen, emphasised in relation to the diametrically, binary opposite figure of the Other – the Turk. As the southernmost part of the Habsburg Monarchy, Slovenia held the role of buffer zone between the Ottoman-occupied Balkan areas and the rest of the monarchical territory (Sadar, 2014: 112, 114). Along with the Muslim Other in the story, is the Jewish Other. Zala is betrayed to the Turks by her Jewish neighbour. The myth about Zala therefore posits Slovenian as a “we” social group against “others,” thus socially constructing Slovenian identity. Endogamy was also common among social classes. For example, in Carniola there existed in the 18th and 19th centuries a range of families who rented flats: peasant, bourgeois and tradesmen’s families. Marriages were held in each group: so a peasant married a peasant’s daughter and so on. Later on, we also find endogamy in professional groups. In cities, families were normally nuclear, with two generations (parents and children). Nevertheless, extended families also existed, with grandparents or older aunts and uncles. In almost half the families there lived apprentices, maids, assistants and servants, who formed part of the family. In peasant families lived younger aunts and uncles, grandparents, dekle (maids) and hlapci (farmworkers) (Žibert, 2003: 48). In the literary tradition, this is noticeable not just in Županova Micka (Micka, the Mayor’s Daughter), but also in the stories from Samorastniki (The Self-Sown) by Prežihov Voranc/Lovro Kuhar210 (2000/1937) from the 20thcentury. This is a story about a rural family from the part of Slovenia called Carinthia. The Karničnik family is well situated; the oldest son Ožbej is the one who will inherit the property. But he falls in love with a maid, the beautiful Meta. The father of Ožbej won’t allow Ožbej to marry her. Meta and Ožbej have 9 children, but they never mary – because of social difference (social endogamy). Love is perceived as something irrational; for marriage, social wealth and reputation are more important. Marriage is an act of social exchange, not a love affair. Hudales (1992: 80) writes that marriages happened for rational reasons and not love in the 18th century. Kos (2015: 85–86) claims that love as an emotional thing did not begin to be perceived positively before the 19th century. Although feelings played a more

210 For more about the author, compare pp. 95.

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important role from 18th century on, the arranged character of marriage was usual up to World War II (ibid.). We also have several proverbs addressing this notion: “Ljubezen jemlje pamet tistim, ki jo imajo” (“Love consumes the wisdom of those who have it”); “Za bolezni so zdravila, za ljubezen pa jih ni” (“For sickness there is medicine, for love there is none”); “Dolga ljubezen, gotova bolezen” (“Long love, certain sickness”); “Ljubezen je sreča brez miru” (“Love is happiness without peace”); “Ko potrka revščina na vrata, odide ljubezen skozi okno” (“When poverty knocks on the door, love departs from the window”); “Ljubezen ne modruje; če modruje, ni več ljubezen” (“Love does not need to explain itself; if it does, it is not love”); “Ljubezen je slepa, a po poroki spregleda” (“Love is blind, but sees after marriage”); “Ljubezen nima oči” (“Love has no eyes”), “Zaljubljenci imajo tudi pozimi pomlad” (“Lovers enjoy springtime even in winter”), and “Kdor sne ljubezen pred zakonom, mu je za zakon nič ali le malo ostane” (“Those who use up their love beforehand, have little or none when wed.”). Kos (2015: 488) says that love and marriage in Slovenia between the Middle Ages and the Bourgeois Period shine a light on the lives of people through their actions and thoughts, by drawing on archival material, as well as private and official records of religious and secular institutions that regulated the flow of marriages, families and morals. He discovers that in the Slovenian territory, relations between sexes were more reciprocal and affectionate than implied by official records. From his analysis of economic and legal indicators of women’s power in family and marriage through legal disputes, it became clear that women held considerable social power. This means that it was important to differentiate between the father’s and the mother’s close kin (ibid.). Economic wealth is therefore more important, especially before creating a family, having a child: “Najprej štalca – potem pa kravca” (“First build the barn, then buy the cow”). Marriage is not “a love thing”: “Ženi se z ušesi, ne z očmi!” (“Choose a wife with your ears, not your eyes”), “Ženi se tam, kjer boš imel klobuk obesity kam” (“Marry where there's always bread and board!”). A wedding

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established an economic group where the male and female shared the work211 (Godina, 2014: 295). Following the 19th century, this notion changed. So we can also find such proverbs as these: “Ljubezen zadušena še ni pogašena” (“Smothered love is not yet extinguished.”); “Zaljubezen ni nobena pot predolga” (“For love, no path is too long.”); “Oči iščejo, kar je srcu všeč” (“The eye seeks what pleases the heart.”); “Ljubezen je trpljenje, življenje brez ljubezni pekel” (“Love is suffering, but without it life is hell.”). Love later becomes one of the reasons for getting married. Žibert (2003: 6) writes about the Carniolan family in the 20th century: “Even in the 20th century, brides and grooms were not marrying each other because of love. Property and reputation were important, especially for parents. The wedding should maintain property and reputation, or even increase them” (ibid.). Nevertheless, even with the kidnapped bride in Old Slavic society (Vilfan, 1979: 367), we see that love was sometimes the reason for marriage. There also exist examples where even though a kind of endogamy was prescribed, in reality people also acted acording to their practices. For example, the main theme of the novel Cvetje v jeseni (Blossom in the fall) (2003/1917) by Ivan Tavčar (a 19th- century writer) is love. The story goes like this: An elderly lawyer Janez falls in love with younger, rural Meta. They both deny it. When Janez tells Meta that he wants to marry her, she passes away from a heart attack. Late love which cannot be fulfilled is described thus: “She came late, as happens with the blossom in the late fall. She bore no fruit as the blossom in the fall cannot. If you’re willing to listen, I shall reveal it all” (Ivan Tavčar, 2003/1917). Love could have been a reason for marriage had Meta not died, despite the difference in age and social class. Meta is a cheerful, young woman with a beautiful heart, capable of pure

211 However, the family was also the place which assured the survival of every member of the family. Dom (home) meant a group of people living and working together, sharing survival – and it comprised kin and not relatives. There existed a high level of solidarity between the members of a household (Godina, 2014: 296–297).

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love – she is the metaphor for the simple, rural Slovenian girl. Nevertheless, we still notice an idealisation of the rural population, representing Slovenians212. Another story where love wins is one from the 19th-century Sosedov sin (Neighbour's son) by Josip Jurčič. The story is about a girl Franica and a young man Štefan, who fall in love, but becuase Franica's parents are rich, her father chooses for her a more suitable husband – Peter. On the day of the marriage Franica escapes. When they find her, she is seriously ill. The father then gives the hand of his daughter to the neighbour's son Štefan. They marry and have their own child (Jurčič, 1996/1868). We can find many similar stories, one of which is by Milena Miklavčič (2013: 164) about a wedding in the village of Žiri. There the groom no longer wanted to marry the bride and let her know about that shortly before the wedding. He subsequently took another girl and this girl paid the entire cost of the wedding to the ex-girlfriend (ibid.). Vilfan (1961: 251) claims that sometimes, when a young woman wanted to marry someone other than her parents' choice, this other young man would kindnap her and then marry her. Sometimes they did the same when they did not want to pay for a svatovanje (a wedding celebration) (ibid.). According to Vilfan, as explained before, kidnapping was the tradition in prehistorical times; its meaning was always to make possible a wedding that went against the principle of endogamy (1961: 251). Ravnik (1996) writes about endogamy and exogamy in Istria, where villages were also exogamic and not just endogamic. She discovered that the ties between families, settlements and villages were reinforced by chain weddings, double weddings and exchanges of brides and grooms213. Chain weddings and the

212 The story about Janez and Meta is also well-known today; the famous movie (1973) and also the first Slovenian musical (2014) were inspired by that novel. 213 Marriages between cousins were to be avoided, even if a number of marriages between first cousins nevertheless took place. Marriages between two brothers of one family and two sisters of another were not uncommon. Two families established a double bond through an exchange where a brother and sister from one family would marry a sister and brother from another. Throughout the generations, this network became so dense that it is no surprise that even first cousins married one another (Ravnik, 1996: 298).

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movement of brides between the villages preserved the balance between the exogamy of the settlements formed by relatives and the endogamy of the region. A network of relatives grew up between the settlements where brides could no longer remain at home because they were too closely related. Furthermore, it was not uncommon for two or more married sisters or an aunt and a niece to live in the same village or even in the same house. In such cases the original family ties became combined with the in-law relationships (Ravnik, 1996: 298). Another reason that villages became exogamic was that when young men went for away to seek work, they brought brides back from more distant places. The arrival of a bride from a distant village might represent the start of marriages between other young men from that village with the newcomer’s sisters, cousins or aunts. Marriages between young men and women from villages that lay far apart became more frequent after they began to find employment or to move elsewhere (ibid.: 298–299). The proverb “Če imaš nekoga rad, ti je ljubša še mačka iz njegove vasi” (“You know you are really in love with a woman when you love even the cat from her village”) illustrates this. Villages related through marriages celebrated holidays and held festivities together. In so doing, they reaffirmed their sense of community belonging, restored old ties and established new ones. The inhabitants of neighbouring villages were at same time close or distant relatives as well as godparents. They visited, helped out with each other’s work etc. The ties between them were extremely strong. It was impossible to discover which people were relatives, friends or residents of the same village. The villages that intermarried were also the villages which gave help to one another (Ravnik, 1996: 299).

8.2 Wedding/Marriage customs Because of the meaning of the matrimonial union, wedding ceremony was usually festive, and from early times connected with many ženitovanjske šege (wedding customs) (Baš et al., 2004: 448). Marriage customs played a special role in and influenced the validity of marriage. In the countryside nowadays, one can still find the custom of the šranga (obstacle) and ženitovanje (wedding feast) (Baš et al., 2004: 448), which will be described later.

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Before the wedding, vasovanje (nocturnal visits) happened, later snubljenje (proposing), then zaroka (engagement), followed by dekliščina/fantovščina (farewell to the single state), and then the wedding day (Baš et al., 2004: 719).

8.2.1 Vasovanje (Nocturnal visits)

Vasovanje was a custom up to World War II, according to which the young men would visit their young women at night (Baš et al., 2004: 661). It is connected with the singing of young men in villages, with calling young women from windows, mostly at night, on defined days in the week214, and with visits to the young woman's room. This could be done only by young men who had already been called up to the army, and they were not supposed to do it too often, as one Slovenian proverb indicates: “Kdor veliko vasuje pred zakonom, vasuje tudi v zakonu” (Those who court much before marriage, also court afterwards.). Young men from other villages were not welcome. If they came anyway, the local youth punished them, with various forms of ridicule: they would remove a ladder from beneath a window, or even beat them up. In this case we can talk about local endogamy (Baš et al., 2004: 661), as previously described. Stramljič (2007: 256) adds that boys and girls would meet each other during village labour. Holidays and visits by relatives also represented opportunities for young people to meet other single young people and to arrange marriages. Each village had its own holiday with special food and a dance held in the square in front of the church, or in some other suitable place in the village. This was their main chance to meet other young people, a part from during various farm tasks (haymaking, harvest etc.) (Ravnik, 1996: 297–299; Makarovič, 1982: 260; Miklavčič, 2013: 163). This dancing scene is also described in the first Slovenian ballad, Povodni mož (The Water Man), written in the spring of 1826 by the greatest Slovenian Romantic poet, France Prešeren. The poem tells the story of Urška, a flirty girl who, because of her snobbish and arrogant behaviour (which in the Slovenian

214 This varies from place to place, but nowhere was it allowed on Fridays, or during Advent and Lent (Baš et al., 2004: 661).

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cultural context is understood negatively) ends up in the hands of a handsome man who happens to be a demonic being – a vodyanoy/water man215. Urška has the habit of flirting with and then rejecting any man; on this particular occasion, she has disdained to even dance with anyone at all. Urška is taken to the Ljubljanica River, and nobody ever sees Urška again. We could say she become the water man’s wife. The poem was based on a story from Valvasor’s The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola, about a dance at Old Square in Ljubljana in July 1547. Here is the section of Prešeren’s poem (2008/1826) that describes the dance216:

One afternoon, Sunday, the Old Market Square: The trumpets and fiddles and zithers all played, From all of Ljubljana, lo, every fair maid Lightheartedly danced in the linden-tree’s shade; Among them queen Urska the beautiful reigned: For long she to join in the dancing disdained.

Though many invite, she rejects every one, She snubs their entreaties and proud is her glance, With new-found excuses refusing to dance; The sun is now setting, the shadows advance, Already the seventh hour fully has passed When Urska decides to start dancing at last.

But when she in search of a partner looks around A youth by a small yellow table she spies; No stalwart his equal is there ‘neath the skies, To dance with him ev’ry girl highly would prize. – Fair Urska, desiring a catch with her hook, Directs on him, as though enamoured, a look.

215 The Water Man is a recurring character in Slavic myth and lore. He is a kind of river spirit who is often malevolent, declared responsible by townsfolk for any drowning in the local area. 216 The English translation is by Henry Cooper and seven others (2008) from Prešeren's collection called Izbrane pesmi/Selected Poems.

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Sometimes neighbours and godfathers helped to arrange meetings between young people (Baš et al., 2004: 661; Makarovič, 1982: 263).

8.2.2 Snubljenje (Proposing) Snubljenje (proposing) (also dialectally pogirvanje, vergovanje, ogledi, vogledi, v prosce iti, verbe, vjergbe, ujerbanje, v svate iti) is an act when the young man or someone else (a father, an uncle, a godfather or a friend) in his name asks for a young woman's's hand in marriage (Baš et al., 2004: 559). The custom of snubljenje (proposal of marriage) was important here because of the negotiations between the two families (two fathers). The groom would bring along his father and godfather (Miklavčič, 2013: 168). Kos (2015: 159) claims that it was not just fathers, but also other kin, friends and neighbours – the whole social group of the bride who decided about the marriage. The bride herself also had a part in the decision (ibid.). Because of the negotiations between the two families, the dota (dowry) and the bala (trousseau) were important to sort out among the mother’s family (Vilfan, 1979: 367–368). It was usual for the father to determine in his will who was to get what, how much was to be paid to the daughters or sons who left the family home, and to make provision for his widow. If there was no will, the brothers would reach an agreement among themselves. Especially in Slovene Istria, some of them divided up the land and lived separately, while some of them remained together. When a property had undergone too many divisions, several brothers were forced to share an overcrowded house and a meager patch of land. To carry on dividing the land became impossible. Brothers had to remain together, willingly or not. Cohabitation represented a means of economic survival. It helped to achieve economic power (Ravnik, 1996: 283). In other regions, the land was indivisible, as explained in Chapter 7 Inheritance. The same went for widows or widowers – they married again, especially if they had children, to survive (Žibert, 2003: 18). The further away and the poorer a village was, the harder it was to survive on small, fragmented farms. As a result, people delayed the partitioning of the land and stayed together. This also means a family such as this comprised two or more nuclei of the brothers and unmarried

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siblings and the parents. In some places in Istria, even married cousins would still cohabit. Despite the division and separate dwellings, the members of these large groups of relatives lived in a situation of close interaction with one another. The relatives and descendants on the male side always lived near to each other. This led to the development of rows of houses and neighbourhoods composed of relatives (Ravnik, 1996: 283–286). The principle of indivisibility of farm/property is known in Slovenian legal history. It was preserved up to the 20th century on Slovenian territory (Vilfan, 1961: 260). The proverb “Hiša razdeljena razpada kakor zapuščena.” (“A divided house falls like an abandoned one.”) shows the importance of cohabitation in Slovenian territory. The Snubljenje (marriage proposal) started with a proposal, followed by the likof if both sides agreed on marriage (Kovačič, 1996). Likof (wetting a bargain) was the ceremony of engagement, when they drank a distilled drink once the engagement was agreed (Baš et al., 2004: 285). During the likof, the groom, his father and uncle bargained for the bride’s dota (dowry) and bala (trousseau), which had to be paid by the bride’s father (Kovačič, 1996). Here is an example from the 20th century from the neighbourhood of Kranj (Carniola): Once, in the end of the winter, I also made a proposal based on the custom. One evening when we were all together, I told Minka’s father we were getting married. I asked him for permission. He laughed and agreed. He wanted to know how much I wanted for dota (dowry). I said, “Nothing, you tell me, how much I need.” He told me he would give me 50,000 dinars and a bala (trousseau). For the bala (trousseau) Minka would get to say what she wanted. I added that we had enough corn, so instead of corn, he could give me linen sacks, because we have the worst ones217 (Kozina, 1998; cited by Žibert, 2003: 14).

If the groom first met the bride’s parents, they had lunch; to serve a sausage meant ‘yes’ for the groom, and to serve coffee or sour milk meant ‘no’. Sometimes during the likof the groom had to buy the bride or give an advance (an

217 The translation was done by the author of this thesis.

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object or money) to her parents in exchange for her. Before the wedding, the bride and her mother went to visit the groom’s farm. The members of the village would normally give gifts to the bride before the wedding. Makarovič (1982: 266) claims that after World War II, grooms would usually go alone to the snubljenje(marriage proposal), but they still talked about dota (dowry). It was normal to negotiate a dota among peasants, not renters. Women never received it (ibid.: 267–268).

8.2.2.1 Dota (Dowry) and bala (trousseau) The size of a farm, personal working ability and the dowry were all factors when considering marriage218 (Stramljič, 2007: 257). The daughters were given a bridal trousseau and a dowry219. Dota (dowry) depended on the size of a farm – a

218 If the family of the bride was rich, the bride had more power: “Nevesta bogata je rada rogata” (“A wealthy bride is a sneering bride”). 219 The dowry includes presents made to the bride herself, or to the newly married pair, by the bride's kin, with the intention of providing the couple with an economic basis for a life together, for the benefit of the new conjugal household. It is a form of property dispersal downward to related families (Barfield, 1997: 129). Dowry is a compensation paid to the groom's family because they will support the bride. On the other hand, dowry is an advance on the inheritance (Eriksen, 2001: 135). Normally, these forms of marriage transaction occur primarily in Eurasian societies, where there is substantial private property, such as land, money and marketable herds (Barfield, 1997: 129). Primarily, they were practiced by elite (propertied) classes, with other forms practiced by lower classes (ibid.). There also exists a form of indirect dowry; there are generally two forms of indirect dowry. In one, the groom's family gives goods to the bride's family, which she then brings into the marriage. In the other, the groom's family gives goods to the bride's family, which in turn gives them or an equivalent (more or less) to the bride to take into her marriage. Indirect dowry is a flexible form, since a society can institute it by adding some bridewealth to an existing dowry, or some dowry to existing bridewealth (ibid.) Dowry serves the interest of the bride-giving family in two ways (ibid.). First, it ensures that their daughter brings resources into the marriage. This is a form of insurance for her future, and it also means that she does not go into the marriage empty-handed (ibid.). Second, the family can use their wealth to “buy” the kind of son-in-law they want. In peasant Europe, this seems to have meant primarily men of equivalent social status. Dowry was often a means of bartering a family's wealth for a connection to a higher-status groom (ibid.: 129–130). In societies practicing dowry or indirect dowry, a family is tied to its daughter's husband and her conjugal family through property. The choice of a son-in-law is important for the well-being of the

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big farm gave a groom money and a cow, a small farm gave the groom some money and a few goats (Kovačič, 1996; Miklavčič, 2013: 169; Vilfan, 1961: 255). Dota (dowry) is a material contribution of the bride’s family to the new family – normally dota is given to the groom or his father. Each family gave some money for better support of the daughter, especially in the case where a marriage ended in death (Kovačič, 1996; Miklavčič, 2013: 169; Vilfan, 1961: 255). Dota (dowry) also came with an obligation to help the family which gave the dota (dowry) (Žibert, 2003: 14; Miklavčič, 2014: 33). Kos (2015: 89) claims that with dota, the bride’s family assured it would give their woman to another family with all gifts as bala. Dota (dowry) was in some cases meant to be paid out to other sisters who had left the family (Miklavčič, 2013: 196). How much the bride’s family would give, was still decided at the snubljenje, in the 1st half of the 19th century (Baš et al., 2004: 97). The dota (dowry) was normally paid after the wedding, sometimes at the ženitovanjski gostiji (wedding feast) in front of all the guests. Before this, they also made a ženitno pogodbo (wedding contract) (ibid.). If the wife died, the dota (dowry) was inherited by the children or the wife’s siblings (ibid.). Vilfan (1961: 256) writes about two systems after marriage: the first one worked according to rule “kar je moje, je tvoje” (“what is mine, is yours”); and in the second one, the husband normally assured the wife the same amount as the dota (dowry) (ibid). This amount was divided into two parts: the zaženilo and the jutrna (husband’s present to his wife on the morning after their wedding day) (Baš et al., 2004: 197, Vilfan, 1961: 256). By zaženilo, the wife, after her husband’s death, had the right of užitek (usufruct); later, the property belonged to the husband’s heirs. In contrast, jutrna belonged to the wife (ibid.). Jutrna was known in the Karst area before feudal times (the groom gave an animal: an ox, sheep or cow). Jutrna was initially given to mark the fact that the bride was a virgin, but later was given without this fact (ibid.). The groom or his brother gave the bride an ox, cow or sheep. The bride grabbed the animal by the horns and gave it to one of her kin. We can say that the two clans thus sealed the contract.

family, not just the daughter. This can account for the fact that the value on virginity is disproportionately found among societies with these practices (ibid.: 130).

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Normally, movable property belonging to the wife (bala – trousseau), and dota (dowry) were destined to be economical. Because of this, one finds the following proverbs: “Dota je zmota, a revščina ostane” (“A dowry is a mistake, poverty remains”) and “Dota gre svojo pot, a baba v kot” (“A dowry goes its way, and the woman to the corner”) (ibid.: 257). Bala (trousseau) was property that the bride brought into the marriage, designed for her use and for the household. Bala was composed of bedclothes (bed-linen and sheets), towels, furniture220, a chest from a corn merchant, a cow, a cock, symbolically also a loaf of bread, and some clothes for the bride, all placed in the basket or chest. A peasant bride was also given corn (Baš et al., 2004: 20; Kovačič, 1996; Ravnik, 1996: 284; Miklavčič, 2013: 168; Žibert, 2003: 14). Young women used to spend a long time preparing their bala (trousseau). On the bedclothes and clothes, brides embroidered their name and maiden name (Žibert, 2003: 14). The brides were also the ones to bring the bala (trousseau) in the jerbas (basket) to the groom’s home (Baš et al., 2004: 20). Sometimes the groom, senior family members or musicians brought it by carriage the day before, or on the day of the wedding, or after it to the groom’s home (especially in the Alpine region, right up to the 1st part of the 19th century) (ibid.). Normally, the bride’s family gave the trousseau to the daughter. Sometimes some brothers had to borrow the means to pay off all their sisters and provide them with a trousseau when they married (Ravnik, 1996: 284). Sometimes the debt was so great that even the next generations, the sons and grandsons, were still repaying it221 (Ravnik, 1996: 284). Furthermore, in Carniola a young married

220 Furnishings were given if the bride's family was rich (Baš et al., 2004: 20; Žibert, 2003: 14). Furniture normally included a matrimonial bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers, cradle and spinning wheel. The bed-linen was of higher quality if the bride's family was rich. Miklavčič (2014: 22) describes a trousseau including a low wardrobe with a blue sheet of glass. 221 Maybe because of this there exists the proverb “Bratje in sestre se imajo daleč narazen najraje” (“Brothers and sisters are happiest when far apart”).

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couple was often supposed to take care of the wife’s younger sisters by giving them dota222 (dowry). Hudales (2015: 47) describes one day before a wedding in Šenčur on 14. 8. 1962, where we can note the custom of the lažna nevesta (false bride): Wedding rituals: one day before the wedding they came for the trousseau that stood in front of the bride’s house, so that people could admire it. There were also chickens and a pig among the trousseau. They then took it to the groom’s house. On the day of the wedding, the groom and the wedding party would come for the bride to her house. The door would be locked. The groom would call out for it to be opened. Those who were in the house would throw a bride made of hay out of the door. The wedding party would say that she is not the right one and is too old. Only after this would the bride come out of the house with her bridesmaids. Then they would attend the wedding in a church. The peasant wedding would start in the evening. At midnight the bride’s wreath would be taken from her head. There would be a woman singing. The bride and groom would change clothes multiple times during the wedding. The wedding party would go on all night, the whole of the next day, and the night after that. (Hudales, 2015: 47).

A bride and a groom also received gifts from the wedding guests (Vilfan, 1961: 254–255). Kos (2015: 88) sees giving things or money to brides as an assurance from the grooms and grooms’ fathers that they will really marry the bride. In the 20th century, before the wedding a groom and a bride also wrote a ženitovanjsko pismo (marriage letter) saying who would get what (Miklavčič, 2013: 167). We no longer have dota and bala in marriage rituals anymore; however, some rural areas still have “šranganje”, dekliščina and fantovščina. These have become

222 Or, sometimes a young married couple had to take care of the bride’s younger brother (Žibert, 2003: 14). So, we can assume it to have been important to distinguish between the ego’s father’s and mother’s family.

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more and more popular in cities, with some tests for the groom/bride and with a lot of drinking.

8.2.3 Zaroka (Engagement) The zaroka (engagement) is the time when the bride and groom await the wedding and they finally arrange everything about the dota (dowry) (Baš et al., 2004: 700). It is a prenuptial rite, where the young man and woman promise each other that they will marry. When the engagement happens, there is a lot of food. One old custom is that they wet the hand of the engaged couple with the wine. The young man gives an engagement ring to the young woman (ibid.). Kos (2015) claims that an engagement is in fact a business arrangement between families about who will bring something to the marriage and how they will take care of their property, even though an engagement also has symbolic connotations.

8.2.4 Dekliščina/fantovščina (Farewell to the single state) The day before the wedding, the bride has a dekliščina (hen party) and the groom a fantovščina (bachelor party). The dekliščina marks the prenuptial depature of the bride from the single state (Baš et al., 2004: 77). Before the wedding, the young woman prepares a social gathering with a feast; in the past, unmarried female friends were invited; nowadays married female friends may be included (ibid., Kovačič, 1996). In the past, they would prepare the dress, chat, knead the bread, etc. (Kovačič, 1996). A fantovščina is the same social meeting accompanied by a feast, but for the groom. Similarly, in the past unmarried male friends were invited, but now also married ones (ibid.: 126–127). At the fantovščina, the groom used to drink and chop wood with other single fellows; some grooms carried a cross through the village (Kovačič, 1996).

8.2.5 Poroka (Wedding) The poročni dan (wedding day) was the day chosen for the marriage according to the custom of the region or place, nowadays on the official day of the registry office. At the beginning of the 20th century, most marriages were held during carnival time (February) on Sundays (Styria, Prekmurje – the region of Eastern Slovenia), on precarnival Monday or Sundays (Carinthia), on carnival Monday or

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Wednesday (Upper Carniola), on Monday (Lower Carniola), on Tuesday (White Carniola), on Wednesday or Saturday (Istria), and on Monday or Wednesday (Gorizia). It was prohibited to marry during Lent or Advent. For these and other reasons, it was unsuitable to marry on some days depending on the region; for example, on Tuesday, Thursday or Friday in the city of Ormož etc. (Baš et al., 2004: 447; Vilfan, 1979; Žibert, 2003: 7). We assume this carnival time represented the change from winter to spring, symbolically from an unmarried to a married status. Spring also symbolises fertility – the fertility of a home and a family. Nowadays, marriages can take place all year, normally on Saturdays, but also Wednesdays. Smaller villages were normally exogamic, as previously established, so we should also describe the custom of “šranganje” which was held on the wedding day before the marriage. At the village entrance village, boys would erect a “šranga” (an obstacle) (Baš et al., 2004: 613; Vilfan, 1979: 367). Then the negotiation began. The groom had to pass a range of tests (he had to complete various agricultural tasks and answer some questions) in order to get the bride. The groom also had to pay a price for the bride. This custom had its ritual part – “the rite of passage”. The groom and bride are entering a different period of their lives. On the other hand, “šranganje” is also a symbol of exchange – the price the groom has to pay to get a bride from another group (Vilfan, 1979: 367). “Šranganje” is the passage of a bride from one juridical group to another; it is expression of a certain endogamic orientation of marriage (ibid, 1961: 251). This ritual was normally held if the young man was from another village (Baš et al., 2004: 613). “Šranganje” is therefore a custom that shows us that the endogamy was important between Slovenian villages. Custom prohibiting “vasovanje” (nocturnal visits to one’s sweetheart) in another village show the same thing223 (Vilfan, 1961: 251; Kos, 2015: 150).

223 Because of endogamy and property rights, marriage between kin also existed – as chain weddings, multiple cross brother-sisters marriages (Kos, 2015: 150; 161), as we described before (see Ravnik, 1996). Endogamy was from župa (clan community) till village community the most characteristic of Slovenian territory (Kos, 2015: 148).

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When the groom paid for a bride in the process of šranganje, other young men drank to his health, the health of the bride and that of the wedding guests. If the groom did not want to pay, they would set on fire rubbish, feathers or cloth, so that everything would be smoky and smelly, which was an embarrassment for the bride and groom (Baš et al., 2004: 613). Šranganje persists till today, especially in rural areas (ibid.). In Fran Žižek's dramatization, written in 1946, of Sket's Miklova Zala (2007/1884), described earlier, there are some folklore elements, which describing the wedding customs of Carinthia. The story begins with “štehvanje” – an old folk game, known in Carithia, where unmarried youths, riding an unsaddled horse, had to break a wooden barrel with an iron stake. At the end of the game they got a conqueror's crown. After game a dance was organized. The young men invited the young women, who wore national costumes, to dance. In the novel Miklova Zala, Mirko is the winner of the štehvanje – he gets a crown from Zala and they want go together to a dance, called a rej, but in the end Almira dances with Mirko and Zala with Davorin, their hlapec (farm worker) (Žižek, 2007/1946: 117–120). In the continuation of the story many elements of the wedding are described: a wedding march, “rjušnica” – the godmother gives the sheets to the newly-wedded pair; throwing small coins to people224; and “šranganje” – a barrier is erected across the road, and the groom has to solve three riddles and pay to get his bride. The marriage ceremony was normally lively with a lot of relatives (Miklavčič, 2014: 13). It was called ženitovanje with the dialectal variations ženitba, ženitev, ženitnina, svatba, svatovščina, gostüvanje, pir, pirovanje, or ohcet (wedding feast). Ženitovanje is a celebration because of the marriage (Baš et al., 2004: 719). Ženitovanjske šege (wedding customs) are ceremonial acts and events, characteristic of the passage from the single state to married status (ibid.). They are characteristic and stable in certain regions and among different social groups. The variety of wedding customs, connected with folk beliefs and juridical aspects,

224 Baš et al. (2004: 447) name this poročna pudlja. This is a sum of money, small coins, which the groom throws after the wedding among the children, a practice lasting till the 19th century. This has survived till today in Carinthia, where a bride and a groom still scatter money among the children and beggars (ibid.).

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speaks of the importance of marriage (ibid.). This fact also confirms the cooperation of the wider community in the wedding ritual (kinfolk, friends andneighbours) – they also (ibid.: 719, 75) bring gifts for the married couple. The juridical meaning of wedding customs has been reduced from the beginning of modern times after a legal or church wedding, but wedding customs are perceived as an expression of solemnity and celebration (ibid.: 719). It was normalfor the ženitovanje (wedding feast) to include a ženitovanjska jed (wedding dish). There was an order in which the food was served. The bride had to try every dish first (ibid.). The head of the family made a speech before every dish. Between serving the dishes, everybody sang toasts, danced and so on (ibid.). Some women ate ceremonial dishes, which until the 1st half of the 20th century were still obligatory on the table, for example millet gruel in the Karst region (ibid.). There also existed the dish which the wedding guests knew indicated the end of the wedding feast, for example ženitovanjska pogača (wedding flat cake) (ibid.). There was also the ženitovanjsko pismo (wedding letter), the funny letter which the youth sent and read to the groom (ibid.: 720). Ženitovanjsko šemljenje (wedding masking) was also common in rural places, in some regions till today. Costumed revelers come as uninvited guests; they dance in the yard and on the floor where the members of the family are being served. They also enter the house, where they are offered a wedding animal (ibid.). A wedding signified the beginning of a new era for the whole family: a bride and groom began to live in a new relationship; this meant a new relation for their parents and kin (Ravnik, 1996: 287; Žibert, 2003: 6). As has been established, the interests of the parents were decisive in weddings (Žibert, 2003: 13). The unmarried brothers and sisters were given different options for the future. The boys were supposed to marry in order of age and to remain at home. If the family was poor, the property small, and the older brothers all married, then a boy could stay at home as an uncle, or he could enter another house as a son-in-law. The reasons for not marrying were many: unrequited love, disappointment by an unfaithful girl, disease, or simple disinclination or inability to marry at all because of the situation at home (Ravnik, 1996: 287–288). Neither was marriage always easy: “Zakonska zveza je z medom namazan križ; med se poliže, a križ ostane.”

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(Marriage is a honey-coated cross; the honey is eaten, but the cross remains), “Dobri zakoni rastejo na tistem drevesu, ki se mu potrpežljivost pravi” (A good marriage grows on a tree called patience). With the marriage of brothers, new mistresses were brought into the house, the daughters-in-law. They provided a new female work force. The daughter of the family became redundant. The girls married into other households. The exceptions were the only child daughters, about which we wrote before. Even less common, unmarried aunts would also remain at home (Ravnik, 1996: 288). After the wedding day, came the poročna noč (wedding night). This was the first night after the wedding, which the young couple spend together – in the past, patriarchally, also the beginning of their sexual life. The wife had to be a virgin; the husband had to deflower her. With this act, the matrimonial union became valid225 (ibid.: 446). This is important, because as Mair (1992: 83) claims: Every human society has rules covering sex relations and the procreation of children, but these are by no means everywhere the same, just as the rules which place a child in a particular descent group differ from one society to another.

225 This is typical of patrilineal societies, where it is expected that a woman will be a virgin when entering marriage, and also a young husband takes his bride to the homestead or village of his father (patrilocal, virilocal marriage) (Mair, 1992: 97). Sex relations themselves, however, must have social authorization, and this is often conferred by a ceremony of initiation which marks the entry upon adult life, as marriage in that case is (ibid.: 83).

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9 Conclusions

9.1 Changes in the Slovenian system of kinship terminology in the past and in the present, and the connection between Slovenian language, culture and kinship – the debate and findings

The first hypothesis of this master’s thesis was to answer the question of whether the structure of Slovenian kinship has changed, or if the changes in the Slovenian system of kinship terminology, according to historical, cultural, social and topographical contexts226 and the relations between them, happened over time. Or as Barnard (2005: 796) claims: “The type of descent group organization, /…/ affects other aspects of social structure, such as relationship terminologies” (ibid.). We discovered that this hypothesis is true. We tried to consider Lévi-Strauss’s (1963: 35–36) analogous method, with which anthropologists can analytically break down the kinship terms of any given system into their components. In each system, relationships are expressed, and each term of the system carries a connotation (positive or negative) regarding several relationships: generation, collaterality, sex relative age, affinity, etc. Here we can also discover the most general structural laws. The system achieved through a procedure is more complex and more difficult to interpret than the empirical data227, also, relationships not only exist at the vocabulary level, but also at the level of attitudes (ibid.: 35–36). The system of attitudes constitutes a dynamic integration of the system of terminology (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 38–39). Furthermore, we

226 Because in anthropology, kinship is not seen as a set of immutable biogenetic facts, but as a system of cultural knowledge through which social practices are realized (Barnard, 2005: 784; Sahlins, 2012: ix, 2; Wilson, 2016: 575), the change of a kinship system is connected with the change of cultural, social, historical and topographical context. Nevertheless, kinship studies are not just an anthropological object. There is a significant point of conjucture between anthropology and other disciplines, most notably with sociology, history, and demographics (Franklin, n. d.: 6). We could also add: with juridical studies, ethnology, ethnography and literature as resources, for cosmology. 227 The result is more abstract than the principle; if there is a system, it is not concrete, but conceptual (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 36).

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should also consider the relation between the terms (ibid.: 50), which we tried to do in our thesis by connecting terms between each other and other aspects of people’s lives (marriage customs, inheritance). Kinship terms changed through the time. The structure of Slovenian kinship has also changed. According to our analysis, the main change in terminology occurred in the terms for external family. We can notice the loss of some terms and uniformity with others. The main difference between past and present kinship terminology is the distinction between the terms for external family – for a mother’s brother and a mother’s sister – ujec and ujna – and for a father’s brother and a sister – stric and teta. The second difference occurred in the connotation of terms, because in the past the terms had strictly formal connotations, and children once used onikanje as a form of address– “the use of a verb in the masculine third person plural to address a respected person” (Reindl, 2007: 155; Bajec et al., 2014: 1081). After the 19th century vikanje (formal address) came into use (Reindl, 2007: 151; Toporišič, 2010: 389–390). Presently, the terms used are denomitives – as ati, očka (daddy) or mami, mamica (mummy) – or even the parents’ and other kin’s names, and the form of address is informal (thouing) as is the relationship, which tends not to be respectful and hierarchical, but emotional, friendly. Because it is so, we want to discover the main reasons behind this change and what this change means from an anthropological perspective. The changes are especially interesting, because as Lévi-Strauss (1963: 328) argues, the ultimate purpose of anthropology is: »not so much to discover the unique characteristics of the societies that we study, as it is to discover in what way these societies differ from one another. As in linguistics, it is the discontinuities which constitute the true subject matter of anthropology« (ibid.).

The first change, the loss of the terms ujec (mother’s brother) and ujna (mother’s sister) happened because those terms were no longer needed228, they did

228 The topographical context is seen in the difference of kinship terms geographically and it is connected with the historical repartition of Slovenia in regions under different authority and law.

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not have a proper function anymore. As Sapir (1995: 39) claims, words are valuable as long as they are symbols of reference. Or as Lévi-Strauss (1963: 30) stresses, kinship terms are elements of meaning, and they have a meaning as long they are integrated in the social system (ibid.). And kinship is one of the most important units of social structure. We discovered the same as Goody (1983), namely that the anthropological studies of a change of kinship are normally based on an analysis of rural, peasant societies, which were historically prevalent in the Slovenian area (Godina, 2014; Maček, 2007; Vilfan, 1961), and tied to broad theses patterns of historical change. In a historical context, in European societies, kinship relations were generally considered to be those derived through, or modeled on, marriage and procreation, and comprising those through which inheritance and descent are reckoned (Franklin and Strathern, n. d.: 5). Historically, in Slovenia, inheritance was part of a patrilineal family, as we described in Chapter 7 Inheritance. The youngest son normally inherited property from the father (Vilfan, 1961) and had to give odpravščina (redundancy) (Vilfan, 1961: 260) (for more see chapters 7 Inheritance and 8 Marriage) to the others. Or as Baš et al. (2004: 565) claim: “as long as the patriarchal inheritance principle was valid, different terms for the kin after the father and after the mother were used”. Nowadays, as in contemporary Europe (Barfield, 1997: 455), Slovenian property generally goes directly to the children in a lineal fashion, within the restricted conjugal family. According to the Slovenian Inheritance Act (1976; last updated on 7. 10. 2016), the property of the deceased passes over automatically to their heirs. Property could be inherited by one or more persons, depending on the last will or according to legal inheritance (by hereditary order with the same parts: 1. spouse and children/adopted children; 2. deceased’s parents or deceased’s brothers or sisters (deceased didn’t have children) and spouse, 3. deceased’s

Here we should ask ourselves, why topograpchically in some dialects some terms are still percieved, for example the term ujna is still known in Pannonic, part of Lower Carniola, part of Slovenia's seaside and part of the Carinthia dialectical region (Škofic et al., 2011: 266). Here we propose further reaserch in the field with interviews to discover what is the function of preserving the form of those usages.

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grandmothers and grandfather – the deceased didn’t have children, parents, spouses – ZD, 1976/2016, 10.–21. člen). The second main reason for the terminological change is also that marriage customs changed. Nowadays, daughters don’t get dota229 (dowry) or bala (trousseau) from her side of the family anymore. A marriage is an act of free will between two individuals. Here we should open two questions: first, what was the reason for inheritance rules and marriage customs changing; and second, why did the relation between kin (what kinship in fact is, as Lévi-Strauss claims; relations between terms are always important), change from ultra-formal to more or less completely informal? We suppose that this is connected with the change of the system: because the economy changed, the way of life (culture) had changed and also values in the cultural context had changed. After World War II, when families were more or less nuclear230, and also when the political, juridical and economical systems changed, the notion of family changed. Nowadays values are becoming more and more a part of neoliberal, consumer capitalism. The change in the ideology of family started as early as the end of the 19th century. We discovered that before the 19th century, family was more or less a survival unit – also because of this part of the family constituent mostly the father’s brothers, sisters, grandfathers, grandmothers and also maids and farmworkers. The importance of the mother’s231 part of the family depended on

229 Till World War II the woman also got dota (dowry) – motionless property from her family, which was normally inherited by their children (especially daughters) (Kovačič, 1996; Miklavčič, 2013: 169; Vilfan, 1961: 255). Vilfan (1980: 450) also claims that in special cases a mother or a grandmother could have her own property, which pass over from her to her heirs. There are proof from 11th century, that especially widows used the property or together with a husband or freely (ibid.: 463). 230 Bifocation was no longer important, so the differentiation of the mother’s or father’s brothers, sisters was also not important any more. 231 As we already stressed, in this case the central figure of a mother in the past and in the present is also significantfor Slovenian culture, which we show in chapter 6.2 Mati (Mother). The figure of mother is steadier than the figure of father in the Slovenian collective consciousness, because the mother was in the past often the one who took care of the household, the survival of family and the socialization of children, because of the (functionally) absent father. An authoritative, but good

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remoteness, but also on circumstances, as already explained, since fathers in Slovenian culture were often absent because of wars, illness or temporarily absent because of work (from Valvasor’s writing in 17th century on) – so in those cases the mother’s family helped take care of the children and other household duties. Besides the obligation of going to school in the 19th century, children were working (helping on farms, working in factories, etc.), because they had to survive (Puhar, 1982: 310). Moreover, not working meant being morally in sin. In rural areas in the 19th century, intelectual work was still not comprehend as 'work'. 'To work' meant a hands-on job (ibid.: 311). Normally, children who worked were illiterate. Child work was something normal and self-evident (ibid.: 286–287, 300), as was the strict, authoritative education. From the 19th century on, schools also had a big influence on the education of children, on their personal development (ibid.: 368). Especially from the second part of the 19th century, schools and other institutions became important; it is not just the home that educates (ibid.: 398). At the turn of the century the discourse also turned – in the beginning of the 20th century, the discourse called for a different type of education, without physical punishment (Puhar, 1982: 403)232. In socialism233, childhood and children were comprehended differently than before. From the perspective of socialism, the ideal family type was one built on love, but with the equality of women and men – not just politically, but also economically (Tomšič, 1956: 8–18). Women and men should think about their child and about their responsibility toward the child when they were thinking about getting married (ibid.). The parents’ roles towards their children were

father and husband is a man, who is also a good householder, which did not happen oftenbecause of the typical circumstances of the time (Slovenians were mostly rural people, often very poor residents, also because of the dependence of Slovenian territory). Slovenian culture was historically connected with the land, which was of greatimportance to surviving. 232 In the beginning of the 20th century, also in literature (in prose, poetry, or fine arts), childhood became more popular as the leading motive and to show the problems of childhood (Puhar, 1982: 424). 233 In socialism, people were moving from rural farms to urban cities (Tomšič, 1959: 20). Here is a description of one of the most important changes in the social context: from a rural to an urban context, which started because of the 19th century industrialization.

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divided equally (Baš et al., 2004: 379). A child in socialism was someone who should be materially and educationally sustained. Parents held material and moral responsibility for the child. Society also held some of that responsibility. A child should receive care and individual love (Tomšič, 1956: 17–18). For a family, the emotional connectedness of its members was necessary (Tomšič, 1959: 33). Also, the functions of rural and urban families were narrowing (ibid.: 21). In the education of a child, institutions such as maternity hospitals, health services, schools and school kitchens, kindergartens, playgrounds, youth homes, educational, social and health institutions were becoming more important. Also the planning of a housing development scheme should consider children and their needs (Tomšič, 1954: 21; Tomšič, 1959: 33). Institutions were there for enriching the social system children’s education (Tomšič, 1959: 33). Our analysis showed that nowadays, both fathers and mothers tend to play the role of friend to the child234. In a dominant capitalist ideology of permissive education, the product is a narcissistic individual who does not produce, but spends (Godina, 1990; Lasch, 1979; Vodopivec Kolar, 2010; Žižek, 1987). Children are the project of the family, the work of children is, in comparison to the past, criminalized. Children are not ‘little grown-ups’ as they were in the past. Their needs are of central importance. They are seen as unable to take care of themselves. Kinship is seen as a connection between people, based on emotional investment (children are a family’s emotional capital – Keržan, 2009: 255). This connotation of a child as a someone who is central for a family, which has to provide them everything – this child-centric view and society is established in capitalism. It is important what Lasch (1979: 154) claims; in the early phase of industrialization, production was socialized by taking productive activity out of

234 Children and childhood have long been studied in anthropology and have been central to the overall development of the discipline, as well as to more specialized areas such as socialization, kinship, language and gender. Anthropological studies of children examine the place of the children in society, cultural concepts of children, child development and socialization in a cultural context, and child welfare and survival (Barfield, 1997: 58). Children are part of social and economical systems, even as they experience the processes of biological and psychological development and cultural education (ibid.).

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the home. Modern bureaucracies, experts and consumer capitalism have, in combination over the last hundred years and so, gradutelly taken over the authority and resources necessary for the 'work of reproduction'. The advertising industry, mass media, and health and welfare services, as well as other agencies of mass tuition, took over many of the socialising functions of the home and brought the ones that remained under the direction of modern science and technlogies (ibid.: 169). Now society achieves "the socialization of reproduction" (ibid.: 154– 155). The family lost its reproductive function, becuase 'the family could no longer provide for its own needs'. While parents still seem to manage their families, they do so under the watchful eyes of doctors, psychiatrists, educators and other "experts" (ibid.: 169). Questions involved in the 'work of reproduction', such as how to have a child, when, how to bring it up, what it should learn and when, where it will be cared for, etc., have all become subject to bureaucratization and the cult of experites, according to Lasch (1979: 164). Parents are the new consumers of 'professional' advice (ibid.). Only interpersonal relationships and friendship remain in within the family. He also adds that a marriage is invaded by advisers on "the joy of sex" and the proper mix of "love and orgasm" (ibid.). Margaret Mead (1928, 1930), who was pioneer of ethnography of children, had already shown that the comparison of education of children in different societies and United States is connected with cultural environment differences. She recognized that children are not passive subjects, but they “live in a world of their own ... based upon different premises from those of adult life” (Mead, 1930: 81). She found out that the culture of the United States was child-centred (Mead, 1928, 1930). But ‘Western’ societies are not the only ones that anthropologists have researched. For example, in 1954 (Whiting, 1963), a group of social scientist from Harvard, Yale and Cornell universities explored cross-culturally the relation between different patterns of child rearing and subsequent differences in personality. The research countries were Kenya, India, Taira, Mexico, Phillippines and the U. S. A. The research proved that cultural context was relevant to the inquiry (ibid.).

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In 1946, Ruth Benedict (2005: 254) discovered in her book The chrysanthemum and the sword that in Japan there also existed a special kind of child-centred family and child care. In Japan, there existed a great shallow U-curve with maximum freedom and indulgence allowed to babies and to the old. Restrictions are slowly increased after babyhood till one’s own way reaches a low just before and after marriage. The Japanese increase of restraints upon a man and woman during their most active producing periods (when they enter formal institutions) by no means indicates that these restrains cover their whole lives. Childhood and old age were ‘free areas’ (ibid.: 254–255). The Japanese were truly permissive to their children – Japanese parents needed children, not only for emotional satisfaction, but because they had failed in life if they had not carried on the family line (ibid.: 255–256). When children went to school, the first three grades were co-educational. The teacher, either a man or a woman, was gentle with the children and was one of them (ibid.: 272). When the children were six, this gradually changed and a series of restrains were introduced (ibid.: 273). The rules were particularistic and situational and many of them concerned what was called ‘etiquette’ (ibid.). They required subordinating one’s own will to the ever- increasing duties to neighbours, family and to the country (ibid.). In comparison to the Japanese care analysis, in ‘Western’ societies another type of child ‘freedom’ is present, which does not end when a child enters formal institutions. As Erikson (1963: 137) claims, child-care practices are always embodied in a cultural and economic synthesis. Family structure, the meaning of children, reproductive strategies, and parenting styles differ widely between rural agricultural societies and urban industrial societies (Le Vine et al., 1988). The smaller families in low-fertility, low-child-mortality industrial societies stress psychological reciprocity and the nurturing of a child’s psychological development, while the larger families of high-fertility, high-child-mortality agricultural communities inculcate obedience and affiliation (ibid.). Economic and demographic conditions also shape parental goals, influence adult preference regarding family and the decisions adults make about investing resources (ibid.).

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Nowadays the Slovenian context is westernized. Part of this westernization is that children are regarded in ways that require massive intervention by adults (Barfield, 1997: 59). Families in Slovenia are also child-centred. In the Slovenian context, even in schools so-called permissive education is known, were the child is the central subject (cv. Šebart Kovač, 2002). Children stay the center of families even when they are grown-up. Research in Mladina 2010 showed that Slovene children leave home around the age of thirty-five in many cases. ‘Leaving home’ means moving to the top floor or the building next door, which means that a mother is still around to wash, iron, help the child etc. (Mazzini, 2011). The phenomenon of the extended cohabitation of parents and grown-up children puts Slovenia in one of the ‘leading’ countries in this regard (in second place) (Klanjšek and Lavrič, 2011: 347; Kuhar, 2012: 365–366). This happened especially in the post-socialist period; families became the core offerer of material and non-material sources (Kuhar, 2012: 368). After the second world war, it became normal for children to move out after marriage, which means emancipation and self-expression (ibid.:367). Adulthood means leading your own household, independent deciding about your own finances, consumption, free time etc. It also means a change in the relation between the child and parents (Klanjšek and Lavrič, 2011: 347). However, in Slovenia this is not obligatory any more since the 1960s, especially from the 80s on. Statistically, approximately 50 % move away from their parents after marriage (Kuhar, 2012: 367–368). Permissive socialization is one of the reasons why young people are less functional grown-ups, they have a lack of the essential competencies of living alone; they are searching for comfort, which parents are providing for them from an early age (Godina, 2009: 8). Young people also don’t think that having their own household means being grown-up; instead, it is important to be economically independent of one’s parents and to have children (Naterer, 2011a: 570–571). Most important is to be economically independent, then to be the owner of an apartment or house, and then to create one’s own family with children (Naterer, 2011b: 583–584). * * *

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The second hypothesis of our thesis was that language is important for understanding culture. We try to discover how language can express a culture through an analysis of Slovenian kinship terminology. Our question was, what the analysis of Slovenian kinship system can tell us about Slovenian culture. Historically235, from an anthropological perspective, the Slovenian kinship system belongs, according to Lévi-Strauss’s classification (1963: 77–78), to the Indo-European system, where marriage rules are part of a circular system – either resulting directly from explicit rules or indirectly from the fact that choosing a partner is left to probability. As Vilfan (1954, 1956, 1961, 1979), Kos (2015), Ravnik (1996), Godina (2014), Maček (2004) etc. explained, social and national, village endogamy was important. Exchanging women was a certain type of communication between groups, as Lévi-Strauss (1961) claimed. Marriage customs could also be seen in this way – it was important to separate the mother’s family in order to define which part of family gives what for giving away a woman. This type of communication/exchanging women was therefore connected with the other aspects of people’s lives (for example property and reputation). In the past, social organization had numerous social units with a complex structure (extended family type). It was based on a unilateral reckoning of relations, as a patrilineal descent system, which later passed over to a bilateral/cognatic kinship system, defined by a dual tracing of descent through both the mother’s and father’s side – the tracing of ties is equally stressed (Franklin and Strathern, n. d.: 11, 16). In the past, in the Slovenian context, there was a differentiation of the father’s and mother’s side, but not equally stressed in function – so, Slovenia was different from another European countries (cf. Franklin and Strathern, n. d.: 16). Nowadays, the Slovene kinship system is subjective and has only a few terms. We can accurately describe our relationship to our father, mother, son, daughter, grandmother, grandfather, brother, and sister, but the description of an aunt or as uncle is slightly vague. When it comes to more

235 In the European context, a significant conjuncture between anthropology and social history has resulted in a large body of research investigating changing family formations over time, often through the use of genealogical records (Laslett and Wall, 1972).

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distant relationships, we do not have any terms at our disposal. The Slovene kinship system today is an egocentric system. We already discussed that one part of kinship terminology dwindled through history. The question is, what can those changes in kinship terminology tell us about Slovenian culture, whether the language influences the speakers’ view of the world (Blount, 1995: vii), and whether the terms, that do not have function and meaning, disappear (Sapir, 1995; Lévi-Strauss, 1963). Changes in Slovene kinship terminology tell us that Slovenian culture has become more and more ‘Western’, consumer-based. In the culture of consumer- based Western societies, people keep company with people with the same interest (Lasch, 1979: 180). The family is in decline (ibid.: 154). In consumption culture, kinship and family are not important or central anymore (ibid.). What is important, are interests (ibid.). It seems that informality is connected with consumption. We could claim that in the Slovene past, the survival unit was constructed from the extended family, with stress on the father’s side – but this was important especially for people who lived in the household (whether they were kinship members or not). In the Slovenian context, it was specially important that relations are also built according to residence and household composition (Finch, 1989). Reciprocal ties of mutual support and obligations were important, often domestically-related activities through which recognised definitions of closeness and distance were established (ibid.). In our analysis of endogamy/exogamy in the Slovenian past (Vilfan, 1961), we stress that territory is an important Slovenian principle for defining closeness/distance from the early Middle Ages on. For Slovenian culture especially, reciprocal relations, according to close locality (sometimes because of this, neighbours are more important than members of the extended family who live far away) were important as well as cooperation between members of the community. We found out that relationships and relatedness were very important. This fact is notable in the importance of the neighborhood in Slovenian culture and also in contemporary survival strategies among Slovenians. Like Ravnik (1996: 294) claims, in principal, relatives always tended to help one another.

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There existed a co-dependence between the division of the work and the size of the family. Small families were rare. Even families that had been divided assisted each other with work and carried out large tasks together. Complex families lived as large working communities. When the work demanded additional workers, related villagers helped. Family and neighborly relations were interwoven. In more sizeable villages, the structure of relationships becomes less clear. The neighbors and villagers are close or distant relatives, or they have the same roles and meaning as relatives (Baš et al., 2004: 566; Ravnik, 1996: 294). Baš et al. (2004: 565) claim that family relationships always depend on the size of the family, its kin and generation structure. Godina (2014: 317–319) adds that the kinship network acts differently as a household, becuase kinship groups tend to be interconnected and helpful, so a kinship network produces more in order to have a reserve for members who do not have enough (a redistribution of harvest, property). Kinship members form a compact network of cooperation relations, which are also economic relations (ibid.). Baš et al. (2004: 565) also claim that nowadays kins help each other, also in an urban enviroment – in education, employment, social and economic status. However, as we already stressed, proverbs such as »Žlahta – raztrgana plahta« (»Family – a torn canvas”) also existed. Such proverbs show that kinship was not always perceived positively. If we try to precisely define which groups have been positively marked (in the past and especially in the present), we can make the distinction between groups according to closeness and importance. The first group are kin, which compose rodbina (family). Then follow those who live in the same household (in the past also farmhands and maidservants). In third place, according to importance, were neighbours, friends, and people from the village/local endogamy group. And the last ones were kin who live far away – the further they were, the less people could count of them. Ravnik (1996: 160–180) claims, that in some families, kin from other another villages also helped each other; however, this was an exception. Sahlins (1972: 180–200) proved that in the domestic mode of production, a degree of social distance affects the kind of reciprocity (generalized, balanced or symmetrical and negative reciprocity). Since kinship is the major way in which

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societies are organized, nonkin/strangers are viewed negatively. A general model of reciprocity recognizes that the closeness of a kin tie will vary according to the type of kinship system. In so far as kinship also determines residence, kinship closeness may also translate into spatial closeness (ibid.), a concept that can be seen in Slovenia as an idea of basic importance when neighbours are in question. Generalized reciprocity (putatively altruistic generalizations, the obligation to reciprocate) is normally found within the household-kinship group, but also within a spatial community (for example village). Balanced reciprocity (direct exchange of customary equivalents without delay) is found within a spatial community in special occasion (ibid.: 193–195). It is also important that the kind of reciprocity reflects the moral nature of the social relationship; hence, morality is not universal but dependent on social distance (ibid.). Moreover, reciprocity after Sahlins is also seen in a new way, as Gregory (2005: 924) claims; as kinship distance increases, it is not that positive reciprocity gradually becomes negative but rather that one form of positive (or negative) reciprocity is transformed into another form of positive (or negative) reciprocity. Evans-Pritchard (1940) stresses the same logic in his segmentary lineages, where close kin stand together against more distant kin. Very distant kin will automatically put their conflict to the side and unite against non-kin/those (ibid.), who are not of a close group, whether kin or not. Also in Slovenian case the general practice is the same. Furthermore, Sahlins (1971) claims that one of the functions of this logic is to regulate inheritance and property rights, which we also discovered for the Slovenian past. Today, this has also changed in Slovenia. People see the relations in a different way because of a change of system – kinship is not so important anymore, it is the interersts, upon which the survival units, groups are formed. Important groups also consist of friends, neighbours, coworkers. Or as Musil and Lavrič (2011: 398) claim, for Slovenians the most important values are health, true friendship, nuclear family, free time, career, freedom of thinking and acting (and not extended family, which is no longer important). Also because of this, for example, we can call a close friend sestra (sister). Non-kin terms are transforming into kin ones.

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Nowadays, anthropologists speak more of relatives rather than of kin (Wilson, 2016: 573), of relationships rather than of kinship. Relative and relatedness came to be the preferred terms of cultural analysis for the emerging forms of kinship (ibid.). The kinds of relatedness in the past and in the present that we can also describe in a Slovenian context are described as, according to Franklin and Strathern (n. d.: 16), kinship, including kin acquired through birth, kin acquired through marriage, kin chosen through ceremonial kinship institutions, kin ties that are developed through other forms of solidary and exhange, share residence, friendship networks, mutual support, patronage, allliance, and co-operation. As Franklin (n. d.: 6) states: In addition to ties through procreation, ties through marriage and patterns of inheritance, the study of kinship within anthropology also concerns a wide range of so called 'fictive' kinship practices. On the one hand there are types of honorary, spiritual or ceremonial kinship /.../ as well as practices of fostering and adoption. On the other hand, there are numerous practices related to friendship and support networks, in which the establishment of reciprocal ties and obligations creates a kinship network of sorts. These ties may imitate or complement consanguineal relationships.

The second finding we can connect with contemporary Slovenian culture, is not just that Slovenian culture becomes ‘Western’, consumption culture (because the values and ways of living are nearing to the ideology, demanded of that system), but that postsocialism introduced a special type of retradicionalization. We can notice, for example, the fact that informality prevailed in the terms. Postsocialism is the new phase of globalization (Kalb, 2007). As such, postsocialism is defined with two groups of factors: first, postsocialist countries are taking over the positions of colonies of the new type (Godina, 2014: 11) and secondly, with every specific environment, which historically created social processes for concrete societies, we see a definite way of influencing the colonial fate in concrete social, political, historical and cultural realities of various postsocialist realities (Godina, 2014: 11–12).

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In Slovene postsocialism, domestic logic is especially important. Because the formal sphere does not function effectively, the importance of the informal sphere increases (domestic, household sector), where there is a notable historically shaped path-dependancy of the domestic world (Godina, 2014). Sahlins (1999: 118) claimed that the domestic mode of production is one of the forms of European rural society. When we talk about the domestic mode of production in Slovenia, we talk about household economy, which is practiced as a survival unit (Godina, 2014: 256, 260). We showed that not only in the present, where the interests groups are more important than extended family, but also in the past, who lived together in one household as survival unit was important. In persistence of this logic we can see retraditionalization. The meaning of one’s own group of survival prolongs this logic: “the household as a survival unit is important”236, no matter what bases it is built on (on kinship or working help or of networks of interests etc.). Nowadays, kinship terminology, therefore, genuinely reflects cultural characteristics already in the use of the term družina, the root of which druž- means friend, companion, fellow passenger (Bajec et al., 2014: 302–303). Rodbina (family by descent) in the Slovene language more or less doesn’t exist anymore, the term družina took the place of rodbina. We showed that in the Slovenian context, especially in the past, who shared a household was important. The social cooperative network was constituted from the household and village (Godina, 2014: 311). Therefore, the territory or locality were also important, and are connected with endogamy in the Slovenian past, which we can still perceive today in the customs of “šranganje”, especially in villages, and also in Slovenians’ negative perceptions of “others” (nonkin/strangers). Because of this local neighbour relations are also important (historical circumstances/reasons are described in chapter 7 Inheritance). Also Baš et al. (2004: 565) claim that until the middle of the 20th century, family, kinship and neighbours were important – this was the most important social frame of an individual. For Slovenians, the border

236 Godina (2014: 267) claims that survival is still important or even very important for Slovenians nowadays. If the capitalist state does not provide survival for people, they invent other practices to survive; traditional types of reciprocity are one of them.

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of when somebody is “ours” and the other is not as important. In Slovenia neighbourhood and territory and positiong yourself in relation to the others are important 237for determining who you are. The goals of your own group are the most import, and the interests of other groups or wider social groups do not matter (Godina, 2014: 313). Social equality, egalitarianism and redistribution among groups are preferable. However, it is not preferable that a member of our unit is someone who is not from the same origin (national, social position itd.). Endogamy of social class and nation origin is, therefore, still present. In postsocialism, it is, therefore, important that in domestic logic we define “we” group and that we define it symbolically. It seems that the groups of kin and nonkin (in the past household) transformed themself into a group of kin, which became the survival unit of the nuclear family. But then, the retraditionalization activates another logic, namely the domestic one: you always have to be part of “we” group, nevertheless, it is built from interests (as for example in the case of managers, who survive because of interpersonal connections and information, informality, not because of the capacities). Households in Slovenia provide also with the help of kin, living in another household, or friends, if it is necessary, but in the crisis, for example, food is not shared with extended family anymore (Godina, 2014: 317–318). “We” group has been the primary unit in the past and also in the present, because the network of cooperative relationships is at the same time one’s economical relationships. To conclude: in the case of Slovenia, changes in social system can create changes in culture and also in kinship terminology – a language analysis can show us these changes and their meaning and language are important for understanding the Slovene cultural world.

237 We should no forget to mention, that in chapter 6.2 Mati (Mother) (see page 123), Žižek (1987: 153–155) also proved, according to an analysis of the Slovenian's attachment to the mother figure, why Slovenians are dependent on someone Other – of the wish of the Other, the Subject is dependent on the inclination of the Other. This is also one of the Slovenian cultural characteristics.

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9.2 The limitations of this master thesis

The first limitation is that we did not analyse all kinship terms precisely. Analysing the kinship terms and especially the relationships between them is important for discovering the logic of social structure (Lévi-Strauss, 1963). We were not able to do such an analysis. Many problems remained open. For example, we should analyse the terms for extended family, for cousins etc., and kinship terms for kins in-law, who become part of the family (affines), but they seem to have special terms, which are not connected with the origin of the terms of descent, for example tašča (mother-in-law). Further research should also study the new relationships we mentioned in the present, such as calling a sister a friend and how to name them. Here in Slovenia we have a situation that can be compared to the situation of when reproduction technologies are part of reality and are tranforming new relations between persons (cf. Strathern, 1992). In the case of Slovenia Keržan (2008) also discovered this when he claimed that different types of mother exist. The second limitation of this master thesis is that we didn’t analyse ethnological and literal resources more deeply. What we present is only a brief analysis of the most important facts, which show us the change of kinship terminology and the reasons behind it, which we also wanted to enlighten from an anthropological point of view. The proposal for further research is to do analysis is of ethnological resources and of literal resources, because literature can show us how people see the world (behind writing is logics, connected with their cosmology238). The third limitation of our thesis is that we couldn’t expose all the points of view, which influence the change of kinship terminology. For example, we

238 Literary sources function to reveal how Slovenians see the world. They represent the cosmology of Slovenians. Poyatos (1988: 3–50) sees literary anthropology as the study of people and their cultural manifestation through their national literatures. Literature is therefore, without doubt, the richest source of documentation of human life-styles. It is the most advanced form of our projection in time and space and of communicating with contemporary and future generations. So, literary anthropology could mean “the analysis and understanding of literary texts in a broad, cultural perspective” (Poyatos, 1988: 335).

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couldn’t consider religious influence precisely, even if our analysis shows that there is only an indirect influence of religion on kinship terminology. The terminology, which is active to this day, is still Proto-Slavic, which was always relatively stable, and the Catholic doctrine accommodated to it. We have already shown this in chapter 8 Marriage in marriage customs. Because a religion is, according to Geertz, »a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by ormulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic« (Geertz, 1966), it is sure that the Catholic religion in the Slovene past had an influence on cosmology. Further research of this problem is suggested. Furthermore, we recommend fieldwork to see how kinship is perceived nowadays, whether this perception is connected to historical facts, where archaic kinship terms are dialectically still in use, and why these terms were preserved through time (what is their function). Interviews on one’s conception of kinship could also be carried out in individual dialectal areas. Nevertheless, fieldwork with interviews would also provide a lot of information on how people see the world and perceive it, which we should also connect with our analysis of Slovenian culture becoming ‘westernized’ and about the strategies in postsocialism that preserve the continuation of the traditional logic nowadays.

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Priloga 1: Obširen povzetek magistrske naloge v slovenščini

Pričujoča magistrska naloga je razdeljena na dva dela: teoretičen in empiričen del. V teoretičnem delu smo skušali opredeliti, kaj so kultura, jezik in sorodstvo ter kakšna je povezava med njimi. Empirični del naloge pa zajema analizo slovenskega sorodstvenega izrazja s ciljem ugotoviti, ali se je struktura slovenskega sorodstva skozi čas spremenila. Če se je, nas zanima, zakaj je temu tako. Pri tej analizi upoštevamo zgodovinski, kulturni, socialni in topografski kontekst ter odnose med njimi. Na koncu smo povzeli glavne ugotovitve in skušali orisati povezavo slovenske sorodstvene terminologije z nekaterimi značilnostmi slovenske kulture. Glavni namen naloge je namreč odgovoriti na vprašanje, ali lahko iz antropološke analize sorodstvenih izrazov sklepamo na nekatere značilnosti slovenske kulture.

I Teoretični del

1 Kultura V prvem poglavju naloge (str. 1–17) smo opredelili, kaj je kultura. Ko socialni in kulturni antropologi govorijo o kulturi, ne govorijo o omiki ali totaliteti intelektualnih oziroma umetniških dosežkov družbe, temveč govorijo o kulturi kot različnih načinih življenja239 (Ingold, 2005: 329). Vprašanji, ki se ju v zvezi s kulturo sprašujemo, sta: kako in zakaj se človeška bitja razlikujejo v svojih oblikah življenja? (ibid.). Prvi, ki je definiral kulturo v znanstvenem, antropološkem smislu, je bil Edward Tylor (1994/1871: 1): »Kultura ali civilizacija /…/ je tista kompleksna celota, ki vključuje vednost, prepričanja, umetnost, moralo, pravo, običaje in vse druge sposobnosti in navade, ki jih človek pridobi kot član skupine.« Pomembno je, da Tylor (1994/1871) poudari, da je kultura naučena, kompleksna in kumulativna celota, ki se prenaša iz generacije v generacijo (Barfield, 1997: 98; Deutscher, 2010: 9; Godina, 1998: 84, Monaghan in Just, 2000: 35). Vendar pa Tylor ne

239 Klasična socialna in kulturna antropologija je bila mnogokrat opredeljena kot študij 'drugih kultur', torej neevropskih kultur v nasprotju s t. i. 'zahodnimi' družbami.

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preseže evolucionizma240, saj njegova definicija kulture izvira iz nemške predstave o kultivaciji v pomenu civilizacije (Godina, 1998: 84; Ingold, 2005: 329; Kroeber in Kluckhohn, 1952: 9). Prvi, ki je podal neevolucionistično definicijo kulture, je bil Franz Boas (1911), ki je znan kot oče sodobne ameriške kulturne antropologije in kulturnega relativizma241 (Monaghan in Just, 2000: 36). Čeprav obstajajo razlike med kulturami, obstajajo med njimi tudi podobnosti. Kultura se torej nanaša tako na podobnosti kot na sistematične razlike med ljudmi (Eriksen, 2001: 3; Monaghan in Just, 2000: 40). Ta trditev je ideja Boasovih učencev, ki so tvorili šolo ‘kultura in osebnost’ (Barfield, 1997): Edward Sapir, Alfred Kroeber, Robert Lowie, Margaret Mead in Ruth Benedict. Sapirjevo (2002: 50–55) razumevanje kulture je drugačno od razumevanja takratnih ameriških kulturnih antropologov, saj temelji na radikalni kritiki reifikacije kulture (Godina, 1996: 145). Kulture po mnenju Sapirja (2002) ne moremo videti, ker ni običajno vedenje posameznikov, temveč je abstrakcija konceptov,

240 Evolucionizem je predvideval superiorne in inferiorne odnose med rasami, družbami in kulturami (v telesnih oblikah, mentalnih sposobnostih, moralnem razvoju ipd.) (Barfield, 1997: 99). Evolucija ima status naravnega zakona, je objektivna, univerzalna, fazna, unilinearna, nesprejemenljiva zakonitost (Godina, 1998). 241 V kulturnem relativizmu so prepričanja in prakse dane družbe vrednotene samo z vrednotami in stališči te družbe (Ingold, 2005: 329). Kulturni relativizem je teorija, a hkrati metodološko pravilo: družbe ali kulture so kvalitativno različne, vsaka s svojo notranjo logiko, a vrednotene kot enakovredne (Eriksen, 2007: 7). Kultura je povezana z zgodovinsko izkušnjo ljudi (Ingold, 2005: 329; Monaghan in Just, 2000: 49). Za Boasa (1911) tako obstaja več kultur. Kultura ni ena sama, bolj ali manj razvita, kot v Tylerjevem razumevanju kulture (1994/1871). Po Boasu obstajajo kulture, ki niso produkti civilizacije, temveč so posledica kompleksnih lokalnih zgodovinskih vzrokov (Barfield, 1997: 99; Ingold, 2005: 329; Eriksen, 2001: 14). Monaghan in Just (2000: 48) opozorjata, da moramo biti pri kulturnem relativizmu pazljivi, da ne zapademo v kulturni determinizem. Platenkamp (2007: 97) se na primer sprašuje, ali lahko govorimo o 'globalnih vrednotah' in zaključi, da ne, ker otroci niso socializirani na isti način, niti nimajo istega sistema vrednot. Vsaka družba običajno moralno presoja drugo s stališča lastne družbe (ibid.). Platenkamp (2007: 101– 104) predlaga razumevanje in spoštovanje tudi t. i. 'nezahodnih' vrednot ter oblikovanje skupne osnove med različnimi kulturami in vrednotami družb (ibid.: 103). Obenem pa moramo govoriti tudi o vzorcu kultur, ki je enak vsem družbam, ne glede na razlike (Eriksen, 2001: 8).

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osnovanih na podlagi izkušenj in vedenja ljudi (Sapir, 2002: 50–55). Kultura je po njegovem mnenju koncept, ne realnost (ibid.). Sapir je bil pomemben tudi zato, ker sta z Whorfom pokazala, da je jezikovni pomen vedno kulturno ustvarjen (Moore, 2009: 118). Kasneje je pojem kulture prešel iz analiziranja vzorcev obnašanja k strukturam simbolnega pomena, ki so za obnašanjem (Ingold, 2005: 329). Kultura je postala definirana kot nasprotje vedenja (ibid.). Iz tega so se razvile različne šole antropologije, na primer kognitivna antropologija, ekološka antropologija, fenomenološki pristop itd. (ibid.). Pri definiranju kulture je bilo dolgo v ospredju razmerje med naravo in kulturo ('nature vs. nurture' – Godina, 1990: 77–115; Monaghan in Just, 2000: 48), ki ga Lévi-Strauss (1975: xxxix) opredeli kot umetno kreacijo kulture. Narava je namreč sistem arbitrarnih znakov, ki temeljijo na družbeno ustvarjenem pomenu (ibid.). Danes nekateri antropologi, predvsem evropski socialni antropologi, pojem kulture celo zavračajo. Tak primer je Kuper (1999). Po njegovem mnenju je kultura lahko v ideologiji multikulturalizma podlaga, s pomočjo katere se opravičuje rasizem ali celo apartheid, kot se je to zgodilo v Južni Afriki. Kulturo se v sodobni antropologiji še vedno razume na različne načine, pri čemer se uporablja vrsta klasifikacij in definicij. Skupno jim je, da kultura loči človeka od živali zaradi abstraktnega mišljenja (Duranti, 1997: 25; Foster, 2005: 366; Ingold, 2005: 333–334; Premack in Premack, 2005: 350–363). Enako je splošno sprejeto, da je kultura naučena in akumulirana iz generacije v generacijo (Deutscher, 2010: 9; Monaghan in Just, 2000: 34–35). Kultura ni homogena (zaprta ali statična ali izolirana) (Barfield, 1997: 100–101; Kottak, 1994: 39–44), obstaja znotraj zgodovine in je subjekt človeškega delovanja (Monaghan in Just, 2000: 46). Je kompleksa, prilagodljiva, integrirana, simbolna in deljena (Ingold, 2005: 333; Kottak, 1994: 39–44). Kultura je tudi določen način življenja, sistem simbolnih pomenov (Foster, 2005: 375; Ingold, 2005: 329). V širšem smislu je univerzalno deljena med človeško populacijo, v ožjem pa je nekaj, kar ljudi določene kulture razlikuje od drugih kultur (Eriksen, 2001: 44). Kultura je »celota dedno izročenih izrazov življenja v samozavedajoči se človeški skupnosti«

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(Josselin de Jong, 1945/6: 1) in ni »materialen fenomen: ne sestavljajo je stvari, ljudje, vedenja ali čustva. Prej je organizacija teh stvari. Je oblika, ki jo imajo ljudje v glavi, je njihov model dojemanja, povezovanja in interpretiranja« (Goodenough, 1964: 36–40). Ingold (2005: 329) poudari tudi, da končne definicije kulture ni. Koncept kulture je izrazito abstrakten. Po njegovem mnenju bi bilo morda celo bolje govoriti, da »ljudje živijo kulturno, kot pa da živimo v kulturah« (ibid.: 330).

2 Jezik Prenos kulture se po mnenju antropologov dogaja preko jezika, hkrati pa je jezik kulturna sestavina (Deutscher, 2010: 9; Južnič, 1983: 151), saj ljudje svoje ideje izražajo simbolno preko jezika (Monaghan in Just, 2000: 35; Sapir, 1921: 9), kakor pišemo v poglavju 2 Jezik (str. 17–26). Jezik je simbolen, ker je povezan s človeškimi idejami, čustvi, dejanji in stvarmi (Sapir, 1921: 7). Jezik je najpogostejša oblika komunikacije med človeškimi bitji (Barfield, 1997: 275; Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 37). Najpogosteje ga dojemamo kot človeški sistem enot zvoka – fonemov, sestavljenih v besede, kombiniranih skozi slovnična pravila (sintakso), da skupaj oblikujejo način komunikacije v pisanju in govorjenju (Barnard in Spencer, 2005: 490). Jezik je najmanj dvoje: je sistem znakov in je konkretizacija človeške zmožnosti govorjenja (ibid.). Jeziki se med seboj razlikujejo v zvoku, semantiki in slovnici (Barfield, 1997: 275). Vsi ljudje imamo preddispozicijo za učenje jezika in izražanja abstraktnih misli, kar je edinstveno za človeško vrsto in kar nas loči od živali (ibid.). Zaradi jezika postanemo družbena bitja (Mead, 1934). Jezik pa je tudi dvojen sistem arbitrarnih vokalnih simbolov, kot je izpostavil že švicarski filozof in jezikoslovec Ferdinand de Saussure (1916/1959). Je sistem fonemov in sistem pomena – semantike; pomenski elementi jezika (morfemi) so sestavljeni iz brezpomenskih elementov (fonemov) (Barfield, 1997: 276; Južnič, 1983: 47; Shaul in Furbee, 1998: 8). Jezik je prav tako arbitraren, saj je razmerje med obliko in pomenom vedno dogovorjeno (Barfield, 1997: 276; de Saussure, 1959: 65–66). Znak je koncept, ki ima zvočno podobo. Vsak jezikovni znak je arbitrarno in kulturno specifično razmerje med označevalcem (fonemom) in označencem (idejo znaka) (de Saussure, 1959: 67–70).

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Za Edwarda Sapirja (1921: 10–12) so elementi jezika v bistvu simboli, ki so kot vstopnice, da lahko skupina sploh dostopa do izkušenj. Zato je jezik tudi družben: za vsakim poslušalcem in govorcem je namreč družbena skupina (ibid.), za razvoj jezika pa je potrebna socializacija v določeni družbeni skupini (ibid.: 2). Nasprotno je Chomsky (1986: 6) trdil, da je jezik abstrakten sistem, ki ga lahko preučujemo v izolaciji od njegovega družbenega ali kulturnega konteksta. Chomsky (1986: 3) je ta abstraktni sistem poimenoval univerzalna slovnica, kjer sta oblika in pomen determinirana s posebno komponento v človeški misli, ki je skupna vsem ljudem (ibid.). Vsi posedujemo abstrakten sistem nezavednega znanja našega jezika – osnove jezika so kodirane v naših genskih preddispozicijah in le z nekaj variacijami univerzalno enake (ibid.: 8–9). Spet drugi avtorji, na primer Hymes (1995), sledeči tradiciji Boasa, Sapirja, Whorfa in Bloomfielda, pa trdijo, da mora biti jezik zmeraj raziskovan v družbenem in kulturnem kontekstu. Ko govorimo o jeziku, moramo razločevati tudi med pojmi govor (langage), jezik (langue) in govorjenje (parole). Govor je potencialna zmožnost, dana vsem ljudem kot članom človeške vrste (Južnič, 1983: 50); je človeška aktivnost, ki variira med družbenimi skupinami; je zgodovinska dediščina skupine, produkt dolgoročne družbene rabe (Sapir, 1921: 2). Jezik je konkretizacija govora v specifični obliki – je zgodovinska, družbena in kulturna variacija govora, obstaja zgolj v skupnosti (de Saussure, 1959: 13–14; Južnič, 1983: 50–51). Govorjenje pa je individualno, konkretno dejanje jezika – posamezno govorno dejanje (ibid.).

3 Pomembnost jezika za razumevanje kulture V zgodovini lingvistične antropologije242 je glavno vprašanje od Boasa do strukturalizma in celo postmodernizma, kako naj bi jezik vplival na kulturo, s čimer se ukvarja naše poglavje 3 Pomembnost jezika za razumevanje kulture (str. 26–55). Jezik in kultura sta namreč povezana s predpostavko, da lahko dostopamo do kulture s pomočjo raziskovanja jezika (Blount, 1995: vii). Znana je Sapir-

242 Korenine področja raziskovanja lingivstične antropologije izhajajo iz razsvetljenske filozofije 18. stoletja, iz pisanja Johanna Gottfrieda Herderja in filozofije nemškega zgodovinskega idealizma 19. stoletja ter iz pisanja Wilhelma von Humboldta, ki je povezoval jezik s človeško mislijo in zgodovino (Blount, 1995: 2; Hoijer, 1995: 114).

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Whorfova hipoteza: jezik vpliva na to, kako govorci vidijo svoj svet (ibid.). Z učenjem jezika se učimo sveta določene skupine (Moanghan in Just, 2000: 49). Franz Boas je bil prvi, ki je začel moderno dobo jezikovnih in kulturnih raziskovanj in s tem razvoj kulturne antropologije v Severni Ameriki. Trdil je, da sta jezik in kultura povezana (Boas, 1995: 14–15). Kot je zavrnil koncept primitivnih kultur, je zavrnil tudi koncept primitivnega jezika; za jezikovno analizo je potrebno preučiti zgodovino jezikov, kontakt ljudi, govorečih nek jezik, z drugimi skupinami ljudi, vzroke, ki vodijo v jezikovno diferenciacijo in integracijo (ibid.: 16). Jezikovne kategorije so zmeraj nezavedne, človeška zavest in misel pa sta odvisni od jezika (ibid: 20–21). Direktna povezava med jezikom in kulturo ne obstaja, vendar na obliko jezika vpliva kultura in jezik na kulturo z nezavednimi procesi misli (ibid.: 23–25). Jezik jasno reflektira poglede in običaje ljudi (ibid: 28). Brez jezika ni mogoča analiza kulture (ibid.: 19). Tudi Bronislaw Malinowski (1923: 299–301), ki je bil pomemben v oblikovanju britanske socialne antropologije in lingvističnega pragmatizma, je prišel do podobnega zaključka, čeprav je njegova definicija jezika bolj 'pragmatična' in zavrača povezavo med jezikom in mislijo, saj je zanj jezik način družbene akcije in ne refleksije misli (ibid.: 313). Kljub vsemu pa je tudi zanj jezik osnovni del kulture (ibid.). Da razumemo sporočilo v posameznem jeziku, moramo biti pozorni na situacijski kontekst – vedno moramo zato pri prevajanju paziti na to, da ne prevajamo dobesedno, ampak da zajamemo pomen besed, skladen s konkretnim kulturnim kontekstom, iz katere prihaja (ibid.). Za razumevanje pomena je pomembno razumeti tako jezik kot kulturo (ibid.: 301–305). Študent Boasa, Edward Sapir (1995: 43), je trdil, da sta govor in jezik bistvena za vsako človeško skupino. Kot trdi Hoijer (1995: 114), je jezik za Sapirja »vodnik k družbeni realnosti«. Jezik in družba sta sicer ločeni entiteti, a imata skupno bazo, nezaveden vzorec, ki se manifestira v kulturi, v nezavednem vzorčenju kulture (Sapir, 1995: 39). Zvoki, besede, slovnične oblike, sintaktične strukture so veljavne le, dokler se družba strinja z njimi kot simboli reference (ibid.: 34). Jezik je torej 'popoln' sistem referenc in pomenov, ki da kulturi možnost produkcije, ne glede na to, ali je izrazno sredstvo jezik (ibid.: 45). Jezik zajame širše skupno razumevanje, ki sestavlja kulturo (ibid.: 46). Jezik se nanaša

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tako na izkušnjo kot na kontekst (ibid.: 47). Jezik je za kulturo pomemben v svoji definiciji, izrazu in transmisiji (ibid., 1921: 230). Kulturo lahko odkrijemo z analizo jezika (ibid., 1929: 209–210). Kultura pomeni, kar družba dela in misli, jezik pa zadeva vprašanje, kako misli (ibid., 1921: 228). Benjamin Whorf (1995) je v svojem terenskem delu dokazal Sapirjevo trditev na podlagi analize jezika in kulture Hopijev, kjer so slovnični vzorci povezani z načinom, kako govorci kategorizirajo in vidijo svet ter sev njem obnašajo (Whorf, 1995: 64). Sapirjevo in Whorfovo zanimanje za odnos med jezikovnimi vzorci in kulturnimi izrazi vedenja je bilo imenovano Sapir-Whorfova hipoteza (Blount, 1995: 5). V drugi polovici 20. stoletja je bila omenjena hipoteza aplicirana na različne nove načine, predvsem v dveh smereh – v etnoznanosti (na primer analiza sorodstvene terminologije) in v strukturalni antropologiji (Lévi-Strauss243 (1963) je lingvistiko in njene metode uporabil za študij družbenega vedenja – jezik je konceptualni model za druge vidike kulture) (ibid.: 104). Sapir-Whorfova hipoteza je bila mnogokrat kritizirana zaradi determinizma – jezik determinira način pogleda na svet (ibid.). Tisti, ki zavračajo takšen pogled na jezik in kulturo, se imenujejo 'nativisti', med njimi Chomsky z že omenjeno univerzalno slovnico (Deutscher, 2010: 19). Po drugi strani pa še zmeraj obstajajo raziskovalci (Lévi- Strauss, Leach, Berlin, Kay, Lucy itd.), ki podpirajo idejo, da so kulturne razlike reflektirane v jeziku in da materni jezik vpliva na to, kako mislimo in kako dojemamo svet (ibid.: 7). Danes se povezava jezik – kultura omenja v bolj ali manj treh kategorijah: semiotični, strukturalni in funkcionalni (Lucy, 1997). Še zmeraj pa ni dosežen konsenz o tem, ali obstaja povezava med jezikom in kulturo (Deutscher, 2010). V nadaljevanju poglavja navajamo različne perspektive in raziskave, sami pa poudarimo, da ne želimo biti deterministični glede povezave jezik – kultura, temveč se strinjamo, da je jezik simbolna reprezentacija, ki je pomembna za določeno kulturo, vendar ju ne moremo preučevati izolirano, temveč le z drugimi segmenti družbenega življenja.

243 Lévi-Strauss (1963) je trdil, da je jezik na eni strani produkt kulture, torej izraža kulturo; po drugi strani pa je del kulture in pogoj za kulturo.

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4 Sorodstvo in sistemi sorodstva Sorodstvo je ena izmed tem, ki so bile ves čas temeljne za antropološko prakso in teorijo (Parkin in Stone, 2004: ix), prav tako pa za pričujočo nalogo, kjer v poglavju 4 Sorodstvo in sistemi sorodstva (str. 55–74) orišemo pojem sorodstva v antropološki teoriji. Do zadnjih desetletij 20. stoletja je bilo sorodstvo dojeto kot jedro britanske socialne antropologije (Carsten, b. d.). Antropološko raziskovanje sorodstva je bilo tradicionalno razdeljeno v tri področja: strukturo skupine, zavezništvo in sorodnike (ibid.: 783). Sorodstvo je bilo tema obravnave mnogih raziskovalcev: Malinowskega, Radcliffe-Browna, Kroeberja, Murdocka, Fortesa, Evansa-Pritcharda, Lévi- Straussa (Carsten, b. d.; Parkin in Stone, 2004). Za sorodstvo je značilno, da označuje mejo med nečloveškim in človeškim redom (Barnard, 2005: 784). Sorodstvo je bilo dolgo dojeto kot nekaj logično različnega od drugih vidikov družbe (ibid.). Prva, ki sta raziskovala sorodstvo kot del socialne strukture, sta bila Morgan in Radcliff-Brown, nadalje raziskovalci interpretativnih in strukturalnih pogledov (ibid.). V zgodovini antropologije se je pojavila tudi debata o odnosu med kulturo in sorodstvom, kar je pripeljalo celo do zavrnitve obstoja sorodstva s strani Schneiderja v 70. letih 20. stoletja (Barnard, 2005; Parkin in Stone, 2004). Sorodstvo Schneider namreč dojema predvsem kot kulturo ali kot poseben človeški diskurz družbenih odnosov in ne kot naravo (Barnard, 2005; Sahlins, 2012). Wilson (2016: 571) trdi, da je pred tem sorodstvo predstavljalo ključ za razumevanje delovanja in evolucije človeške kulture. Kasneje, v 20. stoletju, je bilo sorodstvo bistven del etnografskih raziskav o socialni strukturi in kulturnih praksah (ibid.). Ideja sorodstva se razlikuje medkulturno. V t. i. 'zahodnih' družbah je sorodstvo konceptualizirano predvsem kot biološko – skozi porod, kri, posvojitev itd., in socialno: socializacija, nega, vzgoja otrok (Barnard, 2005: 788). V drugih kulturah je lahko dojeto drugače (ibid.). Sorodstvo je torej eden od kompleksnejših delov kulture (Barnard in Good, 1984: 2), obenem pa je tudi del kulture in ne biologije (Sahlins, 2013). Vse človeške skupnosti imajo sorodstveno terminologijo, set

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izrazov, ki se nanašajo na sorodnike (Barnard in Good, 1984: 2). Sorodstvo pa v vseh kulturah ni enako pomembno (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 48). V nekaterih kulturah sorodstvo predstavlja aktiven princip, ki regulira večino socialnih odnosov, v drugih kulturah pa je ta funkcija skoraj odsotna ali obširno reducirana (ibid.). Antropologi so primarno dojemali sorodstvo kot sistem socialnih odnosov med ljudmi (Barnard in Good, 1984: 9). Obstaja več perspektiv obravnave sorodstva (Barnard in Spencer, 2005: 469). Zgodnji raziskovalci sorodstva so sorodstvo obravnavali še precej evolucionistično – povezovali so tipe sorodstva z razvojno stopnjo družbe/kulture, na primer Morgan (1870), ki predstavlja začetek znanstvene analize sorodstvenih sistemov v antropologiji (Gaillard, 2004: 13; Godina, 1998: 50; Trautmann, 1988). Čeprav so bile Morganove evolucionistične ugotovitve kasneje skupaj z idejo o prvotni promiskuiteti zavrnjene, se nekateri raziskovalci strinjajo, da lahko raziskovanje sorodstvenih terminologij nudi informacije o zgodovini skupin, ki uporabljajo določene terminologije (povezava terminologije in socialne strukture) (Barnard in Good, 1984: 10). Kroeber (1929) je na primer zavrnil Morganovo (1870) delitev na klasifikatorno in deskriptivno tipologijo sorodstva. Radcliff-Brown (1952) je na primer trdil, da odnosni izrazi reflektirajo družbena dejstva. Sorodstvo je zanj kompleksen set norm, uporab, vzorcev vedenj med sorodniki (Radcliff-Brown, 1952: 10). Sorodstveni sistem je del socialne strukture, dejanski družbeni odnosi osebe do osebe, njihove interakcije, vedenja (ibid.: 13). Radcliff-Brown (1952: 4) je trdil tudi, da je sorodstvo utemeljeno na izvoru – predvsem socialnem. Isto je s poroko, ki je družben dogovor, s katerim je otroku dan legitimni položaj v družbi, pogojen s starševstvom v družbenem smislu. Po drugi strani pa na primer Lévi-Strauss (1963, 1969) ne dojema sorodstva kot osnovanega na povezavah izvora med starši in otroci, ampak kot zavezniške odnose, ki so ustvarjeni predvsem s poroko. Sorodstvo je zanj razvrščanje oseb – razvrščanje oseb s pravili poročanja. Poroka je struktura izmenjave, izhajajoča iz prepovedi incesta (ibid.). Za Lévi-Straussa (1963: 47–48) je sorodstveni sistem »jezik, vendar ne univerzalni jezik, temveč družba preferira druge načine izražanja in delovanja.« Jezikoslovec oskrbi antropologa z etimologijami, ki mu dovolijo osnovati določena razmerja med sorodstvenimi termini, ki niso takoj

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očitni. Antropolog lahko na drugi strani opozori na jezikovne običaje, predpise in prepovedi, da pomaga jezikoslovcu razumeti vztrajanje določenih značilnosti jezika ali nestabilnost terminov ali skupin terminov (ibid.: 32). Za Lévi-Straussa so termini kot fonemi elementi pomena, pomen pa imajo le, če so integrirani v sistem. Kot fonemi so tudi sorodstveni sistemi grajeni v misli nezavedno (ibid.). Vsaka podrobnost terminologije in vsako posamezno poročno pravilo je povezano s posameznim običajem kot posledica ali preživetje. Zato se srečamo s kaosom diskontinuitete, diahrona analiza mora torej upoštevati tudi sinhrono (ibid.: 35). Vsak termin je treba analizirati in vsak nosi v sebi pozitivno ali negativno konotacijo glede na naslednje odnose: generacijo, sorodnost, relativno starost spola, afiniteto itd. (ibid.: 35–36). S takšno analizo lahko odkrijemo najsplošnejša strukturna pravila (ibid.). Lévi-Strauss (1963: 36) opozori, da ni dovolj analizirati terminologije na besedni ravni, temveč je potrebno ob terminološkem sistemu analizirati tudi sistem vedenj (ibid.: 37). Pri vedenjih je potrebno razločevati med difuznimi, nekristaliziranimi in neinstitucionaliziranimi vedenji ter stiliziranimi, predpisanimi in sankcioniranimi vedenji s tabuji in privilegiji, izraženimi skozi fiksne rituale (ibid.: 38–39). Sistem vedenj je sestavljen iz dinamične integracije sistema terminologije (ibid.). Zato moramo preučevati tudi odnose med termini (npr. opozicije brat – sestra, mož – žena, oče – sin, materin brat – sestrin sin) (ibid.: 42). Vsak odnos moramo obravnavati znotraj sistema, medtem ko mora biti sistem dojet kot celota (ibid.: 46). Struktura je enota sorodstva, najosnovnejša oblika sorodstva, ki obstaja (ibid.). Tri globoke strukture sorodstva so torej krvno sorodstvo, odnosi med zakonci in odnosi izvora (med starši in otrokom). Te mikro ravni služijo temu, da odkrijemo najsplošnejša strukturna pravila (ibid.: 46–47). Zmeraj so pomembni odnosi med termini (ibid.: 46). Opozicije pa so pomembne za organizacijo elementarnih poročnih sistemov: incest in eksogamija sta univerzalna, ker sta videti naravna, obenem pa kulturna, saj ima vsaka kultura posebna pravila kompleksnih sistemov, ki prepovedujejo poroke med določenimi sorodniki, hkrati pa zapovedujejo poroke z določenimi skupinami (Lévi-Strauss, 1969). Dobimo dve skupini: skupino, ki daje ženske, in tisto, ki jih jemlje (ibid.). Leach (1976: 66) imenuje to sistem družbene klasifikacije.

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Strukturalistični in funkcionalistični pristopi so se torej osredinjali na to, kako so družbene skupine tvorjene, kako so posamezniki povezani en z drugim glede na sorodstvo in kakšne pravice ter obveznosti imajo glede na svoj status. Kulturni, interpretivni antropologi (npr. Geertz, 1973) pa so se osredotočili na simbolne vidike sorodstva. Kulturni pristop se je razvili okoli leta 1900 in bil oživljen ponovno v 70. letih 20. stoletja (Parkin, 1997). V poglavju nadalje predstavimo tudi sodobne teorije sorodstva. Sorodstvo je predvsem socialno sorodstvo (Barnard, 2005). Sorodstvo tako ostaja še zmeraj tema raziskovanja v antropologiji, posebej v sodobnosti, ko se raziskovanje sorodstva povezuje z raziskovanjem študij spolov, osebnosti, telesa, rituala, reproduktivnih tehnologij, feminizma itd. (Parkin, 1997: ix–x). Danes antropologi govorijo bolj o odnosih, o sorodnosti kot o sorodstvu, kar se razume kot pluralistično pojmovanje sorodstva (Wilson, 2016: 573–576).

II Analiza slovenske sorodstvene terminologije

5 Metodologija V naši magistrski nalogi smo želeli opisati slovenski sistem sorodstvene terminologije, da bi ugotovili njegove značilnosti in spremembe, hkrati pa tudi, kaj lahko iz tega sklepamo o slovenski kulturi. Naša metoda, natančneje opisana v poglavju 5 Metodologija (str. 74–77), je bila predvsem strukturalna antropološka analiza, kjer smo ugotavljali pomen elementov glede na odnose med njimi (Lévi- Strauss, 1963, 1969; Leach, 1978). Takšni odnosi ustvarjajo sisteme oziroma sete odnosov, organizacija takih sistemov pa je njihova struktura (ibid.). Kultura je pomembna, ker spremeni strukturo pomena (ibid.). Ob kulturnih smo bili pozorni tudi na družbene, zgodovinske in topografske dejavnike. V vsakem poglavju, v katerem smo obravanavali določen sorodstven izraz, smo podali definicijo sorodstvenega termina in njegove spremembe skozi čas. Analizirali smo tudi značilen status in vlogo za vsakega sorodnika. Vsi člani družbe imajo namreč določene pravice in obveznosti do drugih članov in različnih situacij (Eriksen, 2001: 93). Redko imata dva posameznika točno enake pravice in obveznosti. V tem oziru lahko govorimo o razlikah v statusu (ibid.). Status lahko

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definiramo kot družbeno definiran vidik osebe, ki opredeljuje družbene odnose in vključuje določene pravice ter obveznosti v odnosu do drugih (ibid.: 49). Družbeno osebo sestavlja vsota različnih statusov, vsak status pa je povezan tudi z družbenimi pričakovanji (ibid.: 50). Vloga je dinamični vidik statusa, je pričakovano vedenje osebe, je, kar nekdo dejansko počne (ibid.). V nalogi smo analizirali tudi dedovanje in poročne običaje, ki naj bi nam pomagali razumeti, kako so bile in kako so tvorjene sorodstvene skupine. Kot ilustrativne primere smo uporabili zgodovinske, etnološke in literarne vire.

6 Slovenska sorodstvena terminologija Danes je v rabi pojem družina, ki je etimološko sestavljen iz korena druž- v pomenu »prijatelji, tovariši, sopotniki, najbližji ljudje« (Snoj, 2009: 127). V Slovarju slovenskega knjižnega jezika je družina opisana kot »zakonski par z otroki ali brez njih; eden od zakoncev in otroci; skupina ljudi, ki jih vežejo sorodstvene vezi; rodbina; skupina ljudi, ki jih druži organizirano skupno delo; služabniki, služničad; druščina, družba« (Bajec idr., 2014: 302–303). V Slovenskem lingvističnem atlasu pa je družina opisana kot zakonski par z otroki ali brez njih; kot tisti, ki živijo v isti hiši in celo kot strici in tete, ki ostajajo v isti hiši, ki živijo v istem gospodinjstvu (Škofic idr., 2011: 239). Izpostavili smo, da je bil v preteklosti v rabi pojem rodbina v pomenu izvora oziroma plemena. Rodbina je sestavljena iz korena rod-, ki pomeni »skupino ljudi, ki jih vežejo sorodstvene vezi, katerih izvor izhaja iz istega prednika; stopnja sorodstva; zastarelo družina – zgodovinska skupnost ljudi v družinsko- plemenski družbi, ki so krvni sorodniki« (Bajec idr., 2014: 453). Vidimo torej, da je koncept rodbine osnovan na izvoru in prednikih, koncept družine pa zadeva skupnost, ki deli isto gospodinjstvo (Vilfan, 1961: 248–250). Zanimivo je, da danes prevladuje termin družina, ki je nekoč pomenil skupnost ljudi, ki niso t. i. 'krvni' sorodniki, a živijo v istem gospodinjstvu (v fevdalizmu so bili dodatni člani gospodinjstva nujni, ker so predstavljali dodatno delovno silo – kot dekla in hlapec – Vilfan, 1961: 248–250; Ravnik, 1996: 35; Stramljič, 2007: 252). Sorodniki/sorodstvo/sorodstvena skupina so »člani družine, ki živijo v ločenih gospodinjstvih« (Ravnik, 1996: 37), so ljudje »v razmerju do človeka, iz katerega izhajajo ali s katerim imajo skupnega prednika« (Bajec idr., 2014: 577).

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Sorodstveno izrazje, ki je trenutno v rabi, je: oče, mati, starši, sin, hči, otrok, stari oče/dedek, stara mati/babica, stari starši, vnuk, vnukinja, brat, polbrat, sestra, polsestra, teta, stric, bratranec, sestrična, nečak, nečakinja, tast, tašča, zet, snaha, svak, svakinja, očim, mačeha, pastorek, mož, žena, vdovec, praoče, prababica, pravnuk, pravnukinja. Obstajajo narečne inačice, ki so opredeljene v nalogi v vsakem poglavju. V pretekli rabi pa posebej izstopata izraza ujec in ujna, ki označujeta materinega brata in sestro. V nalogi smo v podpoglavjih opisali elemente slovenske sorodstvene strukture, njihovo definicijo, dialektološke variacije, zgodovinsko rabo in spremembo statusov in vlog skozi čas za naslednje sorodstvene izraze: 6.1 Oče (str. 86–101), 6.2 Mati (str. 101–125), 6.3 Otrok (str. 125–147), 6.3.1 Sin (str. 147–151), 6.3.2 Hči/hčerka (str. 151–159), 6.4 Brat in sestra (str. 159–165), 6.5 Stari starši – stari oče/dedek in stara mati/babica (str. 165–172) in 6.6 Stric, teta, ujec, ujna (str. 172–181). Glavne ugotovitve posameznih podpoglavij so bile: vloga očeta (podpoglavje 6.1 Oče; str. 86–101) je se spremenila skozi čas od starešine v dobi rodov in rodbinskih skupnosti (Vilfan, 1961: 49–55; 247–248) preko očeta avtoritete v času do 20. stoletja (Miklavčič, 2014: 187; Puhar, 1982: 103; Stramljič, 2007: 259) do očeta, katerega sodobna vloga je vse bolj neformalna. Ugotovili smo, da je oče v slovenskem sorodstvu manj upoštevan in manj pomemben kot mati, čeprav je oče tisti, po katerem se podeduje posest, zaradi česar je bila očetova stran družine pomembnejša od materine (Baš idr., 2004: 565). Zgodovinsko je bil dober oče predvsem tisti, ki je bil strog in avtoritativen, vendar dober, pošten, skrben, izkušen, deloven in pameten, bil je tudi dober gospodar in dober mož, ki je preživljal družino in prenašal znanje na otroke, predvsem na svoje sine (Puhar, 1982: 104–109). Podatki pa kažejo, da vse družine niso imele takšnih očetov. Velikokrat je v slovenski zgodovini – že od Valvasorja (1984/1689) dalje – opaziti (funkcionalno) odsotnega očeta. Očetje so bili odsotni zaradi vojn, bolezni ali delovnih migracij (Baš idr., 2004: 379; Ravnik, 1996: 287). Vloga očeta je bila zmeraj definirana glede na njegov družbeni odnos do otroka: oče je bil glava družine, družino je oskrboval, izobraževal, sprejemal odločitve,

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tudi za otroke. Oče je bil avtoriteta, odnosi v družini pa hierarhični (Puhar, 1982: 103). Po drugi strani pa je odnos oče – sin determiniran z odsotnostjo očeta (oče ne izpolnjuje svoje pričakovane družbene vloge). Naša analiza je pokazala, da so bili v praksi uveljavljeni trije tipi slovenskega očeta: oče, ki je avtoriteta, ampak ni dober do otrok (zlorabe, nasilje, alkoholizem, nesposoben gospodar); oče, ki je odsoten; in oče, ki je dober oče ter dober gospodar. V socializmu se diskuz spremeni: oče, mati in družba so enakovredno osebno in moralno odgovorni za otroka (Tomšič, 1956: 8–18). V vzgoji otrok se priporoča ista vloga očeta in matere (Baš idr., 2004: 379), čeprav viri iz socializma iz ruralnih okolij pričajo o tem, da so očetje tudi v 70., 80. letih 20. stoletja ostajali avtoriteta in vir znanja. Kljub vsemu pa so otroci uživali več svobode kot prej (Makarovič, 1982: 46, 461–462; Miklavčič, 2014: 187–188). Razmerje med starši in otroci ni bilo več tako strogo (ibid.). Danes se socialna vloga očeta ne ločuje več toliko od vloge matere (Keržan, 2008: 244). Prehod iz formalnosti v neformalnost je opaziti pri analizi izrazov za očeta in form naslavljanja. Nekoč se je namreč spoštovanje do očeta kazalo v uporabi strogo formalne oblike onikanja. V govoru s spoštovano osebo, v tem primeru z očetom, se je uporabljala oseba množine moškega spola (Reindl, 2007: 155; Bajec idr., 2014: 1081). Nato se je v 19. stoletju, ponekod še v 20. stoletju uporabljalo vikanje (polformalna oblika), danes pa je v uporabi neformalno tikanje. Sami sorodstveni izrazi so se spremenili iz formalnih (oče, ata, tata) v neformalne, obarvane pozitivno, čustveno zaznamovano (očka, oči, atek, ati, tati, ime očeta ipd.) do negativno zaznamovanih (foter, ta stari). Izpostavili smo, da je za slovensko družino pomembna tudi njena ekonomska funkcija, saj je družina v slovenskem kontekstu preživetvena enota, kar smo potrdili glede na ugotovitve o vlogi očeta v slovenski družini. Ali kot zapiše Eriksen (2001: 93, 95): sorodstvo je ena najpomembnejših družbenih institucij, ne samo zaradi reprodukcije družbe in transmisije kulturnih vrednot in znanj med generacijami, temveč je pomembna tudi v politiki in v organizaciji dnevnega življenja. Družinski člani pa združujejo moči tudi v ekonomskih investicijah.

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Vloga očeta smo opredelili kot socialno244 (Barnard, 2005: 789), saj je oče v slovenski kulturi predvsem pater oziroma socialni oče in ne genitor oziroma biološki oče, ne glede na to, da v slovenski percepciji sicer obstaja in je v splošni veljavi koncept iste krvi in istih genov. Vendar smo na podlagi primerov, kjer vlogo biološkega očeta zavzame očim ali materin brat ali stari oče, ugotovili, da je v družbi vloga očeta pomembna predvsem zaradi njegove družbene vloge. Mati (podpoglavje 6.2 Mati, str. 101–125) je centralna v odnosu do otroka. V staroslovanski družbi je bila mati žena brez javnih pravic (Vilfan, 1979: 363). Če je ženska postala vdova, je bila velikokrat odvisna od pomoči in podpore očetove družine (ibid., 1979: 363). Že od staroslovanske družbe je bila mati pomembna delovna sila – kakšna, je bilo odvisno od družbenega statusa družine (Puhar, 1982: 101; Vilfan, 1961: 250). Mati je prevzemala tudi druge vloge, sploh če so moški odšli delat v tujino (Puhar, 1982: 417). Baš s sodelavci (2004: 312) trdi, da so ženske v ruralnih družinah opravljale gospodinjska in agrikulturna dela, revne so služile dnino ter se včasih niso mogle dovolj posvečati otrokom, čeprav je bila kulturno najpomembnejša vloga ženske biti mati. Kasneje so pomanjkanje časa občutile tudi ženske delavskega razreda. Otroci so tako veliko časa preživljali na ulicah. V meščanskih družinah je bila mati gospodinja (za nekatera dela je imela celo pomoč) in skrbela je za otroke (ibid.). V slovenski kozmologiji je idealna mati dobra, skrbna, draga, ljuba, dobra gospodinja, dobra mati, za otroke skrbi požrtvovalno, je močna, poštena, srčna (Bajec idr., 2014: 767; Vas’čeva, 1905: 1). Njena vloga je pojmovana izrazito pozitivno. Njene lastnosti so kasneje prenesene tudi na vlogo hčere, od katere se pričakuje podobno. Puharjeva (1982: 19) ugotavlja, da se v slovenski zavesti pojavlja mit idealiziranega nesebičnega žrtvovanja matere za svojo družino in otroke. Ženska brez otrok je bila na primer imenovana jalovka in je bila nespoštovana (ibid.: 217). Ženska je bila tudi žena. Idealne značilnosti žene so bile, da je podrejena možu, ubogljiva, lojalna, prijazna, nežna, pozorna, potrpežljiva, nedolžna, pametna in

244 Socialno/družbeno starševstvo je definirano kot kulturno prepoznan odnos, ki vključuje eno ali več vlog: vzgojo in socializacijo, obligacijo varstva in pravice tistega, ki varuje. Socialno/družbeno starševstvo lahko ali ne sovpada z biološkim starševstvom (Barnard, 2005: 789).

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privlačna (Miklavčič, 2014: 10–11; Puhar, 1982: 108–112; Stanonik, 1997). Tudi v odnosu do žene je bil mož avtoriteta (Makarovič, 1982: 458–459; Miklavčič, 2014: 13–15), čeprav se od socializma in ideologije ekonomske, družbene in politične enakopravnosti (Tomšič, 1956: 9) ta konotacija izgublja. Prav tako pa smo že omenili, da je zaradi odsotnosti slovenskih očetov mati prevzemala tudi skrb za materialno preskrbo družine (Puhar, 1982: 148). Mati je torej po naših ugotovitvah skrbela za gospodinjstvo, socializacijo in vzgojo otrok, hkrati pa je delala in bila finančna, materialna podpora družini. Lah (2014: 70) celo trdi, da je bil lik matere v slovenski kolektivni zavesti stabilnejši od vloge očeta. Mati pa je bila otrokom predstavljena tudi kot personifikacija države, izvora in jezika (Vas’čeva, 1905: 1), saj se je prava, častna in idealna mati kazala kot mati naroda, torej kot mati, ki je otroke učila o pomembnosti naroda in jezika (Jensterle-Doležan, 2009: 149–153). Od dobre matere se je pričakovalo, da vzgoji močne, samozavestne, nežne, delovne sinove in pametne, neodvisne, spodobne hčere (ibid.: 1–2). Matere so bile tudi tiste, ki so ukazovale otrokom, jih vzgajale in jih tudi kaznovale, če je bilo potrebno (Puhar, 1982: 147). Žižek (1987: 36, 39) v zvezi z likom slovenske matere izpostavil tudi, da je mati nosilka Ideal-Ega in da je v njenem najvišjem žrtvovanju narcistično uživanje, saj ta vloga da materi imaginarno identiteto. Biti izkoriščana, biti žrtev svoje lastne družine je njen simptom. Zato ljubi simptom bolj kot sebe, saj ji zagotavlja identiteto. Njen edini strah je, da družina ne bi sprejela njene žrtve. Drugi pol matere pa je (funkcionalno) odsoten mož, ki ga ženska potrebuje, da lahko živi svojo pozicijo žrtvujoče se matere in žene (ibid.: 39–41). Puharjeva (1982: 29) s tem v zvezi trdi, da je materinstvo v slovenskem kontekstu videno kot enodimenzionalno, enostransko in ne kot odnos med materjo in otrokom. Danes je center slovenske družine otrok. Odnos do matere je spremenjen enako kot pri očetu. Mame se tika in naziva z neformalnimi izrazi ali celo imenom. Če se je v zgodovini uporabljal sorodstveni izraz mati, se danes uporabljajo izrazi čustveno zaznamovani izrazi mami, mamica, mamca, mamka ipd. ali celo negativno zaznamovani (mati, ta stara), kjer izraz mati pridobi drugačno (nenevtralno, negativno) konotacijo kot nekoč.

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Kot vloga očeta je tudi vloga matere v skladu z Barnardovo (2005: 790) definicijo socialna. Ta se lahko ali pa ne sklada z biološko vlogo. V sodobnosti namreč obstajajo reproduktivne tehnologije in če so sorodstveni sistemi ter družinske strukture zamišljeni kot družbeni dogovori, ki so osnovani ali se dobesedno razvijajo iz procesov biološke reprodukcije, postaja z novo reprodukcijskimi tehnologijami sorodstvo razkropljeno, biološke vezi pa se ne prenesejo zmeraj v družbene vezi (Strathern, 1992: 3, 71). Danes imajo lahko otroci več mater (Barnard, 2005: 792). Po ugotovitvah Keržana (2007: 256) obstaja 7 tipov različnih možnih mater. Obenem je danes v Sloveniji družina čustvena skupnost, projekt posameznika (Keržan, 2008: 255–256). Kljub temu pa se tradicionalna vloga matere, ne glede na to, ali je otroka rodila ali je nadomestna, socialna itd. mati, ohranja. Mati je skrbna, žrtvujoča se za svojega otroka. Mazzini (2011) piše, da so očetje še zmeraj odsotni, produkt tega so sinovi, ki niso zmožni preživeti sami, ter hčere, ki postanejo enake kot svoje matere. Mazzini (ibid.) trdi tudi, da Slovenci zaradi takšne socializacije ne mislijo s svojo glavo, da so dobri podložni delavci in pisarniški uslužbenci. Žižek (1987: 154) trdi, da tovrstna socializacija pri otroku izoblikuje materinski Ideal-jaza, kar pomeni, da takšnega otroka ne vodi moralna dolžnost, temveč strah. Če je Super- Ego pogojen s kaprico Drugega, ne ponotranjimo univerzalnega zakona, kar pomeni, da Super-Ego, kot v slovenskem primeru, zmeraj želi ustreči želji Drugega (ibid.: 153–155). Mazzini (2011) ugotavlja, da zaradi tovrstne socializacije otroci ostajajo tudi dolgo doma, sinovi pa najdejo žene podobne materam. Keržan (2008: 244) trdi, da je danes razlika v vlogi očeta in matere samo v njuni osebnosti, saj sta vlogi enaki, družbena funkcija ista, le razlike biološkega in družbenega spola se še zmeraj ohranjajo. Izkušnja otroštva (podpoglavje 6.3 Otrok, str. 125–147) je odvisna od družbene in profesionalne skupine, v kateri je otrok rojen, ter vrste družine, v kateri živi (Čeč, 2012: 10). Načini preživljanja otrok so odvisni od kulturnega okolja in okolja prebivališča, ki določi odnos med otrokom in njegovimi potrebami, od specifičnih okoliščin družine in gospodinjstva, od ekonomske situacije gospodinjstva, individualnih konfliktov in priložnosti – torej od splošnih

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političnih, mentalnih, družbenih, pravnih, okoljskih in ekonomskih okoliščin (ibid.). V staroslovanski družbi so bili otroci podrejeni glavi družine. V nekaterih slovanskih jezikih obstaja podobnost med izrazoma hlapec in otrok, ki nakazuje na nekoč podrejen položaj obeh v okviru hierarhičnih odnosov družine (Vilfan, 1961: 248; Puhar, 1982: 106–107). V staroslovanski družbi je bilo otroštvo zaključeno s spolno zrelostjo in posebej pri deklicah s poroko (Baš idr., 2004: 396). Kasneje se ob prevladujoči paradigmi katolištva245, ki je zagovarjala strogo vzgojo otrok, v slovenski zgodovini v 16. stoletju pojavlja tudi protestantizem, ki je bil kasneje s strani katolištva zatrt. Otroci imajo v tekstih protestantov osrednjo in pozitivno vlogo, saj želijo protestanti svojo idejo predati predvsem novim generacijam. Starši bi naj skrbeli za otroke, a otroci naj se vedejo pravilno (Paulič, 2012: 42, 50–51). Puhar (1982: 17) trdi, da so bili otroci v 19. stoletju na dnu družbene lestvice, čeprav so predstavljali tretjino populacije. Položaj otroka je bil odvisen od ekonomskega statusa družine, v kateri so je bil otrok rojen (Čeč, 2012: 10). Otroci so v 19. stoletju večinoma morali delati na kmetijah, v rudnikih ipd. (ibid.: 17– 18). Delo otrok je bilo stalnica od stareslovanske družbe do začetka 20. stoletja, ne glede na to, ali so otroci živeli v ruralnih ali urbanih področjih in ne glede na to, kateremu stanu so pripadali (vajeništva so bila mnogokrat dojeta kot šolanje – Puhar, 1982: 298–306). Ob koncu 19. stoletja je za otroke postalo obvezno šolanje, vsaj za nekaj let. Kljub uvedbi obveznega šolanja so otroci še zmeraj delali, kasneje pa so postopoma vedno bolj redno hodili v šolo (ibid.: 286–287). Otroci so še v 19. stoletju delali od 6 do 10 ur, nekateri celo 16 ur na dan, mnogo jih je živelo v slabih razmerah z visoko stopnjo smrtnosti (Vilfan, 1961: 495; Puhar, 1982: 228). Otroško delo je bilo dojeto kot normalno (Puhar, 1982: 286–

245 Pokristjanjevanje je se na Slovenskem začelo v 8. stoletju in uveljavilo na začetju 2. tisočletja (Baš idr., 2004: 262). Krščanstvo je bilo prevladujoča paradigma do 19. stoletja (Puhar, 1982). V agrarni družbi je obvladovalo in bilo povezano skoraj z vsem človeškim delovanjem ter verovanji. Vzporedno z uveljavljanem industrijske družbe in njenih vrednot je vpliv krščanstva padal (Baš idr., 2004: 262). Poudariti moramo, da je krščanstvo v zgodovini dostikrat temeljilo na poganskih običajih (glej poglavje 8 Poroka, str. 194–223).

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287, 300). Lastnosti, ki so se pozitivno vrednotile pri otrocih, so bile dobrota, ubogljivost in delovnost (Bajec idr., 2014: 1120; Puhar, 1982: 286). Otroci so bili za neubogljivost običajno kaznovani (tudi fizično), kar je bilo dojeto kot normalno, obenem pa so družine imele veliko otrok in večina otroka je bila siromašna (Puhar, 1982: 117–253). Šola in druge institucije so postale za vzgojo otrok pomembne od konca 18. stoletja naprej (Puhar, 1982: 368–377). Na začetku 20. stoletja se ideologija vzgoje spremeni. Priporočljiva je drugačna vzgoja, brez fizične kazni (ibid.: 403). V socializmu je prevladala drugačna oblika socializacije. Otrok je bil dojet kot tisti, ki ga je treba varovati in mu omogočati ekonomski ter vzgojni razvoj, starši pa imajo do njega materialno in moralno odgovornost, izkazovati mu morajo ljubezen in skrb. Institucije se prevzemale soodgovornost za otroka in njegovo vzgojo, saj je otrok viden kot prihodnost celotne družbe (Tomšič, 1956: 17–33). Glede na etnološke raziskave, ki smo jih preučili za namene magistrske naloge, smo ugotovili, da so predvsem v ruralnih predelih otroci tudi v socializmu še delali od zgodnjih let naprej – na kmetijah so pomagali pri delu in pridobivali tovrstna znanja od očeta in matere (Makarovič, 1982: 461–462; Miklavčič, 2014), Danes je v slovenski družbi odnos starši – otrok neformalen, poudarjena je čustvena vez (Puhar, 1982: 19). Otroke se velikokrat poimenuje s čustveno zaznamovanimi izrazi, na primer otrokec, otroček, otročič, včasih tudi z negativno zaznamovanimi: otroče, otročad, froc. Družina je orientirana na potrebe otrok (ibid.: 22), v permisivno socializacijo (Godina, 2009: 8). Otroci danes dom zapuščajo celo pri 35. letih, kar Slovenijo statistično uvršča v sam vrh tovrstnih praks v Evropski uniji (Klanjšek in Lavrič, 2011: 347; Kuhar, 2012: 365–366; Mazzini, 2011). Glavni razlogi za to so ekonomski in strukturalni: vse več mladih ljudi dela nima ali delo opravlja prekarno, prav tako si mladi zaradi okoliščin ne morejo kupiti lastnega stanovanja (Klanjšek in Lavrič, 2011: 348–364; Kuhar, 2012: 368–369). Eden izmed vzrokov pa je vsekakor tudi to, da jim življenje s starši predstavlja ugodje (Kuhar, 2012: 373). Vzrok je torej tudi t. i. permisivna socializacija (Godina, 2009: 8). Kar smo ugotovili za otroke, velja tako za sinove kot hčere. Vseeno pa obstajajo razlike glede na spol otroka, ki zadevajo socializacijo otrok različnih spolov v

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različnih obdobjih. Sinovi (podpoglavje 6.3.1 Sin, str. 147–151) so bili v staroslovanski družbi tisti, ki so nadaljevali družinsko skupnost, ko so odrasli in ko so se poročili ter dobili svoje otroke (Vilfan, 1961: 54). Kasneje, posebej v 19. stoletju, so bili sinovi bolj zaželjeni kot hčere, ker so bili nadaljevalci potomstva, dediči, bili so nosilci družinskega imena (Puhar, 1982: 219). Očetje so sinovom predajali znanje, jih učili in jim bili formalno tudi vzor, kakšni bi naj sinovi bili (Baš idr., 2004: 312; Puhar, 1982: 115). Vzgoja sinov je bila strožja, saj naj bi bili sinovi po naravi bolj divji od deklet – nežnost, šibkost v vzgoji sinov nista bili zaželjeni (Puhar, 1982: 135). Hčere (podpoglavje 6.3.2 Hči/hčerka, str. 151–159) so bile cenjene predvsem kot tiste, ki so jih starši poročili in s tem dosegli kooperacijo med dvema družinama (funkcija oddajanja hčera – Lévi-Strauss, 1969: 52; Vilfan, 1961: 248– 250). Dedovale so večinoma materine stvari, do leta 1208 so lahko podedovale celo fevd in zemljo, če ni bilo v družini potomcev moškega spola (ibid.: 258– 259). Glavne značilnosti deklet so bile, da naj bi bile nedolžne, nežne, človeške, podredljive (Puhar, 1982: 106; 115), kljub temu pa niso smele pokazati preveč čustev. Tudi njih so vzgajali na strog način (Mihelič, 2012: 34; Puhar, 1982: 160). V primeru bolezni so skrbele za starše, velikokrat pa tudi za druge mlajše otroke (Miklavčič, 2014: 25; Puhar, 1982: 223), torej so prevzemale materino vlogo v družini. Danes so hčerke v slovenski družini formalno v enaki poziciji kot sinovi (Cankar, Žakelj in Ivanuš Grmek, 2012: 76), vsekakor pa razlike obstajajo, saj socializacija predvideva tudi spolne norme, posebne vloge in vrednote ter obnašanje glede na spol246 (Moore, 2003: 823). Cankar, Žekelj in Ivanuš Grmek

246 Spol ni biološka danost, temveč družbeni in kulturni konstrukt. Spolne razlike in spolni odnosi so kulturno in zgodovinsko variabilni (Moore, 2005: 813–814). Biološki in družbeni spol sta družbeno konstruirana, različne kulture dajo telesu in praksam utelešenja različne pomene. V mnogih kulturah spol sploh ne obstaja ali pa obstajata več kot dva spola. Spol je torej razumljen kot kulturno specifičen diskurz, ki daje pomen telesnih delom v razmerju do psihičnih procesov in substanc (ibid.: 816–819). Prepoznavanje obstoja mnogovrstnih modelov in diskurzov ter raziskovanje, kako modeli in diskurzi sovpadajo v določenih kontekstih, je po Moorovi (2005:

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(2012: 76) trdijo, da otroci vzamejo za svoje široko razširjene stereotipe v razvoju lastne podobe in se trudijo, da se vedejo, čutijo in prevzemajo vloge glede na njih. Raziskava The Stereotypes in Pupil’s Self Esteem (Stereotipi v učenčevem samospoštovanju) (2012) je pokazala razlike v izbiranju športov, kulturnih in gospodinjskih aktivnostih, pomembno pa je poudariti, da današnji fantje več ne skrivajo senzibilnosti (Cankar, Žakelj in Ivanuš Grmek, 2012: 79–80). Otroci so danes sodobni produkt ideologije potrošniškega kapitalizma, družbe zabave in rekreacije, čeprav so obenem tudi aktivni subjekti (ibid.). V odnosu brat – sestra (poglavje 6.4 Brat in sestra, 159–165) smo v mnogih primerih odkrili zgodovinsko pomembno stalnico sestrinega prevzema vloge matere (Puhar, 1982: 316–317). Hkrati pa med viri zasledimo tudi odgovornost bratov do sester, posebej ob smrti očeta, včasih pa celo incestoidno naklonjenost med brati in sestrami (Mihelič, 2012: 36–37). Danes so med brati in sestrami pričakovani predvsem čustvena podpora in odnosi pomoči (predvsem ob nujnih primerih) in druženja ob posebnih, točno določenih priložnostih (Mlakar, 2015: 6). Odnos brat – sestra so predvsem v preteklosti določala pravila dedovanja in poročni običaji, prav tako pa sama sorodstvena izraza izražata konotacijo nekoga, ki je blizu, ki je del skupnosti (in ni nujno dejanski brat ali sestra, ampak gre lahko za poimenovanje med prijatelji, ki so si blizu po mišljenju ali usodi; bratje in sestre se imenujejo tudi člani samostanskega reda, ki niso duhovniki ipd. – Bajec idr.: 15; 503). Vloge in statusi starih staršev (poglavje 6.5 Stari starši, str. 165–172) so v svoji funkciji podobni vlogam in statusom očetov in mater, le da gre za starejšo generacijo, do katere je bilo posebej nekoč izkazovano izredno spoštovanje zaradi modrosti, na primer z onikanjem. Že v 19. stoletju so stari starši varovali otroke (Puhar, 1982: 32). Stari oče je imel pomembno vlogo starešine v staroslovanski družbi, bil je zelo cenjen glede na svoj status (Vilfan, 1979: 363). Kasneje je imel pomembno vlogo gospodarja ali gospodarjevega očeta predvsem v patriarhalnih ruralnih družinah

824) nova smernica v analizi spola znotraj antropologije. Upoštevane morajo biti tudi ekonomske, politične in družbeno-ideološke sile, ki spreminjajo koncept spola (ibid.: 825).

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(Baš idr., 2004: 76). Stari oče je odločal, komu zapustiti kmetijo, razdeljeval je delo in odločal o aktivnih zadevah na kmetiji. Pomembno besedo je imel tudi pri vzgoji otrok. Večinoma so imeli otroci več stika z očetovim očetom kot z materinim, ker so živeli skupaj. Odnos z materinim očetom je bil odvisen od oddaljenosti in od odnosov med materino in očetovo družino (ibid.). Stari oče je imel zaradi povedanega vrednost, moč in ugled (Žorč, 2006: 24). Stara mati je imela v patriarhalni ruralni družini pomembno vlogo kot gospodinja in gospodarjeva žena. Pomagala je pri delu po svojih močeh in skrbela, pazila na vnuke. Otrokom je pripovedovala pravljice, jim pela pesmi, jih učila prvih iger; dejansko jih je učila kulture in vrednot (Pečjak, 2007: 88). Podobno kot pri starem očetu so vnuki imeli največ stika z očetovo materjo. Odnos z materino materjo je bil odvisen od že prej omenjene oddaljenosti med družinama ter odnosov med materino in očetovo družino (Baš idr., 2004: 76). V obdobju med 19. in 20. stoletjem vloga starih staršev slabi. Vendar pa danes spet raste, saj stari starši pomagajo pri varstvu svojih vnukov in vnukinj, družinam svojih otrok pa pomagajo tudi finančno (Mlakar, 2015: 4; Pečjak, 2007: 88). 62 % slovenskih starih staršev varuje svoje vnuke vsak dan ali zelo pogosto (Mlakar, 2015: 4). Pomembna je čustvena vez med starimi starši in vnuki/vnukinjami (ibid.), ki je celo močenjša kot s starši (Mandić, 2001: 13–15). Starim mamam se zaupa bolj, ker se z otroki ukvarjajo več (ibid.: 3). Med starimi starši in vnuki/vnukinjami se vzpostavlja medgeneracijsko sodelovanje, ki bogati oba pola (Mlakar, 2015: 7–8). V podpoglavju 6.5 Stari starši smo kot v prejšnjih analizirali same sorodstvene izraze in opazili premik iz izrednega spoštovanja k bolj neformalnih vezem, tikanju in neformalnim izrazom (pomanjševalnicam). V poglavju o očetovih in materinih bratih in sestrah (podpoglavje 6.6 Stric, teta, ujec, ujna, str. 172–181) smo ugotovili predvsem pomembno ločevanje med materino in očetovo stranjo družine, ki se izraža tudi v samih sorodstvenih izrazih – stric, teta, ujec, ujna. Ugotovili smo, da je bilo razlikovanje med materino in očetovo družino pomembno predvsem zaradi dedovanja in poročnih običajev, pa tudi zaradi teritorialnosti, saj so nekoč očetovi neporočeni brati in sestre živeli v istem gospodinjstvu z družino (Ravnik, 1996: 288). Bili so dodatna delovna sila, dostikrat pa so tudi pomagali pri vzgoji otrok, jim pripovedovali zgodbe in

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podobno (Baš idr., 2004: 629; Stanonik, 1997: 125). Obstajajo tudi primeri, ko je materina sestra – ujna vzela sestrinega otroka za svojega (nadomestno materinstvo) (Baš idr., 2004: 629–630).

7 Dedovanje Kot smo omenili že v prejšnjem poglavju, je opis dedovanja pomemben predvsem, ker pojasni razlike v sorodstveni terminologiji. Dedovanje (poglavje 7 Dedovanje, str. 181–194) je teoretično del legalnih pravil, ki so pravila vedenja v različnih institucijah (Mair, 1992: 152). Dedovanje je pomembno, ker predstavlja mehanizem transmisije lastnine iz ene generacije v drugo (Barnard, 2005: 797). Vsak sistem transmisije zavzema drugačno obliko tega, kar je dejansko preneseno iz ene generacije v drugo (Barfield, 1997: 454). Dedovanje je 'avtorizirana transakcija' (ibid.: 455). Koncept lastnine obstaja povsod, ne le v evropskih družbah (Mair, 1992: 153), in ni nujno, da 'lastnina' pomeni totaliteto pravic, ki ne more biti deljena (ibid.). Včasih ima več ljudi pravico npr. do istega dela zemlje (ibid.). Kar se predaja, niso le stvari, so tudi pravice in ljudje (Barfield, 1997: 455). Lastnina je lahko podedovana ali pridobljena, premična ali nepremična (ibid.). Nepremična lastnina ima funkcijo ohranjanja bivališča družine (ibid.). Slovenska pravna zgodovina se je začela v 6. stoletju, ko so predniki kolonizirali vzhodno alpsko pokrajino in njeno sosesko (Vilfan, 1961: 17). Ker je bila Slovenija naravno neenotna zaradi površja, so se njeni deli razvijali različno, z različnimi pravnimi pravili kot tudi z različnimi dialekti (ibid.). Tovrstni tip naselitve je v družbenem smislu izoblikoval natančno definirane skupine, ki so živele na prostorsko jasno opredeljenem območju. Med seboj so se ločevale z območji neposeljenega sveta. Skupine so bile sestavljene iz posameznikov, ki so bili pogosto v sorodu (Godina, 2014: 187). Pravo staroslovanske družbe je še danes bolj ali manj neznano (Vilfan, 1961: 23). Staroslovanska družba je bila brezrazredna, rodovno-plemenska (Godina, 2014: 184; Maček, 2007: 20–22; Vilfan, 1961: 26, 52, 59). Zanjo so značilne sorodstvene skupine: rod, bratstvo in župa (ibid.). Te so se povezovale v plemenske zveze zaradi obrambe in plenjenja (Godina, 2014: 184; Maček, 2007: 20–21; Vilfan, 1961: 30). Ekonomske povezave so bile predvidoma, čeprav nedokazano, sestavljene iz velike družine, imenovane rodbinska zadruga, ki je

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vsebovala starše, otroke, vnuke, žene sinov in vnukov (Blaznik, 1970: 163; Grafenauer, 1970: 247; Vilfan, 1961: 54). Slovani niso poznali klasičnih oblik suženjstva, temveč le patriarhalno. Sužnji so živeli v gospodinjstvu brez večjega izkoriščanja (Godina, 2014: 185; Maček, 2007: 20; Vilfan, 1961: 30). Staroslovanska družba tudi ni poznala enega voditelja, temveč so se javne stvari urejale v večah247 (Vilfan, 1961: 24–28). Primarne skupine so imele osrednjo moč z visoko stopnjo avtonomije (Godina, 2014: 186). Lastnina v pravem pomenu besede v staroslovanskih družbah še ni obstajala; 'lastnik' je bil tisti, ki je lastnino uporabljal (Blaznik, 1970: 163). Večina slovenske družbe v dobi pred prevlado zemljiških gospostev je bila organizirana v župe (Vilfan, 1961: 30). Čeprav je župa morda prvotno pomenila rodovno enoto oziroma osebne sorodniške zveze in morda ne gre iskati splošne opredelitve (Vilfan, 1980a: 11), je njen pomen v staroslovenski družbi izražal ozemlje (Vilfan, 1961: 30). Ozemeljska župa je bila tista, ki jo v okvirih danih naravnih meja obdelujejo člani skupnosti ali pa jo uporabljajo za pašo svoje živine (Vilfan, 1961: 30, 53, 61). Bila je skupnost prebivalstva geografske enote (Vilfan, 1980a: 29). Uporaba zemlje je zagotavljala določeno avtonomijo, čeprav je bila zemlja kolektivna last. Razmerje med župo, vasjo in razširjeno družino pa ni bilo fiksno – pomemben je bil teritorij, dejanska uporaba zemlje. Lastnina nad zemljo se je v staroslovenski družbi določana z njeno uporabo (Baš idr., 2004: 726; Godina, 2014: 194; Maček, 2007: 33–34; Vilfan, 1961: 54). Proces pretvorbe staroslovenske družbe v fevdalno je bil postopen. Fevdalizem se je na celotno slovensko ozemlje razširili šele med 11. in 13. stoletjem ter ustalil do 14. stoletja. Trajal je do leta 1848 (Godina, 2014: 200–202; Maček, 2007: 53– 56; Vilfan, 1961: 69; Vilfan, 1980: 106, 111–122). Župe svobodnih posameznikov je bilo potrebno pretvoriti v hubne vasi, ki so jih tvorili nesvobodni posamezniki. Slovenci so bili večinoma podložniki, tlačani; etnično in družbeno ločena entiteta. Uveljavi se tudi poseben zemljiškogospostveni tip fevdalizma – slovensko ozemlje je bilo večinoma razdeljeno v zemljiška gospodstva v lasti zemljiškega

247 Veča je staroslovanski izraz za zbor ali skupščino, na kateri so se sestajali pripradniki širše ali ožje skupnosti. Na večah so odločali o skupnih zadevah in najbrž tudi o sporih (Vilfan, 1961: 27– 28).

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gospoda in ne v fevde. Zemljiška gospostva so bile samooskrbne gospodarske enote, katerih namen je bil kasneje v času od 13. do 15. stoletja s vplivom blagovno-denarnega gospodarstva prinašati koristi oziroma dohodke (Godina, 2014: 202–203; Vilfan, 1961: 70–71). Svobodni člani župe so do ozemlja prišli tako, da so sprejeli zemljo od zemljiškega gospoda po hubnem sistemu z vsemi obveznostmi in vključitvijo v podložniško razmerje. Župe so se tako ohranile v spremenjenih razmerah (Godina, 2014: 204–205; Maček, 2007: 61–62; Vilfan, 1980a: 34). Zemlja je vezala obdelovalca in njegovo družino na zemljiškega gospoda, podložniki pa so imeli hube – enodružinske kmetije. Obdelovalna zemlja je bila v praksi organizirana kot kolektivna obdelovalna zemlja (ibid.). Zemljiški gospod je pogosto odločal o porokah tlačanov, bil pa je tudi ta, ki je odločil, ali bodo potomci tlačana dobili pravico do uporabe zemlje (Vilfan, 1961: 257). Po koncu fevdalizma (v 19. stoletju) so zemljiška gospostva nehala obstajati. Zemlja zemljiških gospostev je bila po logiki zemljiškoodveznega dolga razdeljena kmetom248, nekdanji zemljiški gospodje pa so dobili dominikalno zemljo, ki ni bila razdeljena na kmete, in obširne gozdne komplekse (Godina, 2014: 230; Maček, 2007: 270; Vilfan, 1961: 489). V slovenskem kontekstu je dediščina lastnina, podedovana po umrlem (Bajec idr., 2014: 227; Baš idr., 2004: 76). Dedič je tisti, ki podeduje lastnino; oddelnik tisti, ki podeduje enakovreden del z drugimi; delnica je podedovano polje ali travnik in spolovina del, ki pripada ženi po moževi smrti (Baš idr., 2004: 76). Izraz dediščina pomeni sicer tudi zgodovinski spomin, izročilo, preteklost; gmotne, družbene ter duhovne sestavine kulture in načinov življenja, ki vsakokratno sedanjost povezujejo s prejšnjimi obdobji (Bajec idr., 2014: 227; Baš idr., 2004: 76). Drugi izrazi za dediščino so dedina, dedovina, očevina, patrimonij v pomenu, kar dobiš po očetu (običajno nepremično lastnino) (ibid.). Sem spadajo tudi pravice, ki izhajajo iz dedovanja. Dedovanje je večinoma potekalo v smeri oče– sin (Baš idr., 2004: 406; Vilfan, 1961: 70–71, 257). Vilfan (1961: 71, 258–259)

248 Kmetje so se morali dostikrat zaradi odplačevanja dolga zadolžiti ali pa so prepuščali nekdanjim gospodom stare dele kmetij. Prihajalo je tudi do drobljenja zemlje (Godina, 2014; 232; Maček, 2007: 277).

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opisuje fevdalno patrimonialno oblast, kjer običajno podeduje sin, od leta 1208 so lahko podedovali tudi žena ali hčer in otroci hčere. Dedovanje bližnjih sorodnikov je bilo uzakonjeno leta 1365 (ibid.). Dedovanje je nekoč privilegiralo en spol ali enega posameznika (sina) (Baš idr., 2004: 406). Dajanje zemlje sinu bi lahko bilo povezano z delitvijo dela in prepričitvijo razdelitve lastnine/zemlje (Barfield, 1997: 455). Obstajala je tudi babina – premična lastnina v osebni rabi, ki so jo na koncu 16. stoletja večinoma podedovale hčere po materi (ibid.). Babina je v 12. stoletju pomenila tudi tisto, kar so sinovi podedovali po materah v primerih fiksnega premoženja (Baš idr., 2004: 19; Vilfan, 1961: 258–259). Hčere so včasih lahko podedovale del hiše ali zemlje, vendar niso nikoli dobile pomembnega dela lastnine (Ravnik, 1996: 283– 284). Vilfan (1961: 247) trdi, da so imele del družbene moči, čeprav ne enake, vdove in blagarice – edine hčere (Ravnik, 1996: 259; 283). V nekaterih primerih so podedovali najstarejši sinovi, tudi najstarejše hčere (Vilfan, 1961: 248), v večini primerov najmlajši sinovi (Baš idr., 2004: 76; Vilfan, 1961: 260). Zemlja se običajno ni delila – zaradi tega je samo ena oseba podedovala zemljo. Prvo pravico so imeli sinovi (prvi najmlajši sin), drugo hčere in nato vnuki ter drugi sorodniki (ibid.). Drugi otroci so dobili odpravščino – so torej tudi dedovali, le zemlja/enodružinske kmetije so ostale nedeljene (ibid.). Načeloma se je najmlajši sin odločil, če bo zemljo prevzel ali bo rajši vzel odpravščino (ibid.). Najmlajši sin je dedoval tudi zato, da so se izognili premnogim primerom dedovanja (ibid.). Kmetije so bile, kakor piše Ravnik (1996: 285), deljene v Istri, kjer je rimsko pravo imelo večji vpliv kot nemško in ni obstajala patrimonialna oblast. Drugje se niso delile, saj bi s tem oslabili tudi samo posest (ibid.). Vsekakor je bilo to, ali se kmetija deli, poleg omenjenega odvisno tudi od: bližine mesta, ali je bila kmetija na hribu ali v dolini, ali bi lahko prebivalci zaslužili tudi na drug način, ne samo z delom na kmetiji (Vilfan, 1961: 489). Ne smemo pozabiti, da je del dediščine družine, ki gre hčeri, tudi dota (Ingold, 2005: 797; Monaghan in Just, 2000: 89), kar je podrobneje opisano tudi v poglavju 8 Poroka (str. 194–223). V staroslovanski družbi so bili mladi moški odvisni od starejših tudi za plačilo nevestini družini (Monaghan in Just, 2000: 89). Vse te menjave so bistvene za zakonsko zvezo, prav tako pa tudi za izvorno

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skupino, saj so pomagale determinirati odnose med in v sorodstvenih skupinah (Ingold, 2005: 797). Danes v Sloveniji kot v ostali Evropi premoženje podedujejo otroci po obeh linijah sorodstva. Prvi dedič je preživeli zakonec, potem otroci. Dedovanje je odvisno tudi od oporoke, kjer lahko lastnik določi, komu želi zapustiti lastnino (za več glej: Zakon o dedovanju – ZD, 1976/2016, 10.–21. člen).

8 Poroka Ker sta prenos lastnine in izbira članstva v izvorni skupini povezana (Barfield, 1997: 455), je pomembno opisati tudi poročne običaje (poglavje 8 Poroka, str. 194–223). Poroka je “socialno prepoznana veza med moškim in žensko, ki je kulturno konstruirana, običajno zaradi legitimne reprodukcije, ustanovitve nuklearne družine ali ustanovitve novega gospodinjstva” (Barfield, 1997: 304). Poročna menjava je “sistem recipročnih porok, ki menjujejo ženske med sorodstvenimi skupinami ali poročnimi razredi” (Mair, 1992: 90). Poroka omogoči otroku družbeno prepoznanega očeta in družbeno prepoznano mater (ibid.). Obstaja kar nekaj različnih definicij poroke (Barnard, 2005: 797). Leach (1955: 183) je na primer poroko opredelil kot institucijo 'skupka pravic', ki vključujejo legalno očetovstvo, legalno materinstvo, monopol seksualnega dostopa med poročenimi partnerji, pravice domačega servisa in drugih oblik dela, pravice do lastnine zakonca, pravice skupnega fonda lastnine za korist otrok in prepoznane odnose afinitete (ibid.). Različni seti teh pravic so v uporabi, ko definiramo poroko (ibid.). Poroka ustvari nove družbene odnose in vzpostavi recipročne pravice med zakonci, med njimi in njihovimi sorodniki ter pravice in status otrok, ko so ti rojeni (Mair, 1992: 91). Poroka ustvari odnose afinitete med ljudmi, ki so bili prej tujci ali celo sovražniki (ibid.: 98). Vsaka družba ima svoje procese za kreiranje takšnih odnosov in pravic (ibid.). V večini družb je poroka končana ali z ločitvijo ali s smrtjo, čeprav smrt nujno ne konča zveze (Barnard, 2005: 798). Poroka je v slovenskem kontekstu definirana kot obred ustanavljanja zakonske zveze (Baš idr., 2004: 448). Poroka je obred, s katerim postaneta moški in ženska pred družbo javno priznana kot mož in žena (Bajec idr., 2014: 136). Svatba/ženitovanje pa je praznovanje poroke (ibid.: 664).

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Sam izraz poroka etimološko izhaja iz 16. stoletja v pomenu poročiti, 'dati v zamož', primarno 'zaupati (v varstvo), izročiti' (Snoj, 2009: 547). Čeprav je poročni obred od zgodnjega srednjega veka naprej vodil duhovnik, je že samo krščanstvo zajemalo poganske elemente: ritualno pitje vina, držanje rok ženina in neveste ipd. (Vilfan, 1961: 251–253). Vilfan (1979: 365–366) opozori, da je pomembno raziskovati poročne običaje skozi čas in prostor, da bi lahko pridobili širšo sliko o poročnih običajih in njihovih funkcijah. Potrebno je biti pozoren na običaje pred krščanstvom, obenem pa običaji niso isti za vse regije (ibid.: 366). V preteklosti so v Sloveniji obstajali tudi različni pravni zakoni, ki so urejali poroko. Poroka pred krščanstvom pravno ni obstajala (Vilfan, 1980b: 453). Obstajal je velik pluralizem v običajih in pravnih aktih (ibid.). Poroke niso bile svobodne, družba je bila patriarhalna (ibid.). Na koncu srednjega veka sta bili na Slovenskem veljavni obliki poroke cerkvena (javna) in necerkvena (skrivna poroka), ki je bila običajno »proti volji staršev« (Baš idr., 2004: 448; Vilfan, 1961: 253). Do leta 1563 je bila veljavna tudi poroka brez duhovnika. Ker je bila skrivna, je bila dojeta kot greh (Baš idr., 2004: 448). Cerkvene poroke so zmeraj sledile civilni (Vilfan, 1961: 253). Cerkvene poroke so prevladovale do 19. stoletja, celo začetka 20. stoletja (Baš idr., 2004: 448). Zelo pogoste so tudi danes, ko je veljavna tudi samo civilna poroka, podpisana s strani prič ženina in neveste (ibid.). Danes je poroka v Sloveniji konsenzualna, oba – ženin in nevesta – se strinjata o njej (Vilfan, 1979: 366). Pomembno je, kot opozori Barnard (1997: 305–306), da čeprav je danes odločitev o poroki svobodna, so posamezniki še vedno velikokrat pod pritiski družine in njenih pričakovanj. Načini sklepanja porok so bili v preteklosti odvisni tudi od načinov delitve zemlje. Nekoč je na primer v Istri obstajalo veliko razširjenih družin, sestavljenih iz več družin ali generacij generacij (Ravnik, 1996: 80). Černič (1988: 543–544) in Žibert (2003) na Kranjskem opažata veliko nuklearnih družin. Tukaj so predvsem pomembna pravila eksogamije in endogamije (podpoglavje 8.1 Eksogamija/Endogamija, str. 199–210). Eksogamija zajema pravila, ki prepovedujejo določene ljudi kot poročne partnerje. Incest prepoveduje določene ljudi kot seksualne partnerje (Mair, 1992:

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84). Lévi-Strauss (1963) vidi prepoved poroke v družini kot bistven kriterij kulturnega življenja, saj je to začetek recipročne menjave med dvema izvornima skupinama, kar je osnova socialne strukture. Eksogamija pomeni »poročati se ven« in je običajno osnovana na incestu (Barnard, 2005: 799–800). Eksogamija pa ni samo prepoved, temveč tudi zapoved, kdo je za poroko dovoljen (Mair, 1992: 86–87). Eksogamija je ena stran kovanca, druga je endogamija, saj so 'družbe', 'plemena' in 'tradicionalne skupnosti' po vsem svetu široko endogamne znotraj določenih socialno-kulturnih skupin –zakonske zveze se sklepajo znotraj določene skupine (Barnard, 2005: 799–800). Tudi v Sloveniji so se poroke dogajale v majhnih enotah. V Sloveniji so bila poročna pravila pred srednjim vekom določena v družinah in znotraj sorodstva (Vilfan, 1979: 367). Najstarejši poznani obliki poroke sta bili kup neveste in ugrabitev neveste (Baš idr., 2004: 448). Žena je v staroslovanski družbi 'lastnina' moža, tudi kup neveste je pogodba. Pogodbo skleneta starešini iz ženinove in nevestine strani (Vilfan, 1961: 250). Normalno je bilo, da so se kupi neveste dogajali znotraj enega klana, torej endogamno (ibid.: 251). Ženin je plačal za nevesto odkupnino (ibid.: 250), nevesta pa je od svoje primarne skupnosti dobila zgolj predmete za osebno rabo (ibid.). Ugrabitev neveste249 je imela poseben pomen, saj je moški s pomočjo prijateljev ugrabil žensko, ki so jo želeli poročiti z drugim ženinom. Včasih so ugrabitev izvedli zgolj navidezno, da so se izognili stroškom svatovanja (ibid.). Od srednjega veka dalje je postalo pomembno ozemlje (Vilfan, 1979: 367). Pomembna je bil vpliv plemištva in cerkve (ibid.: 251). Razmah eksogamije je bil odvisen od tipa sorodstva, družinske strukture in obširnosti skupnosti. Endogamija je bila običajno določena s širšo vasjo ali župo (Vilfan, 1979: 367). Dekleta iz iste vasi so imela višjo vrednost (ibid.). Makarovičeva (1982: 268) opaža ta princip celo po drugi svetovni vojni na Koroškem. Ob geografski endogamiji pa smo v pričujoči nalogi s pomočjo literarnih primerov razložili tudi socialno, nacionalno, statusno/razredno endogamijo, ki je mnogokrat na Slovenskem prisotna še danes. Tudi poroke iz ljubezni so bile dolgo kriminalizirane, predvsem niso bile dojete

249 Za ugrabitev neveste ni dokazov, da je zares obstajala, obstaja dokaz ugrabitve neveste na Kranjskem iz 16. stoletja (Vilfan, 1961: 250–251).

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pozitivno do 19. stoletja. Pomembnejša razloga za poroka sta bila socialna blaginja in ugled (Kos, 2015: 85–86). Zakonsko zvezo so nekoč praznovali z ženitovanjskimi šegami (podpoglavje 8.2 Poročni običaji, str. 210–223). Poročni običaji so imeli v poroki pomembno vlogo in so vplivali na veljavnost poroke (Baš idr., 2004: 448). Običajno je kronološko zaporedje pred poroko zajemalo: vasovanje, nato je sledilo snubljenje, kasneje zaroka, zatem dekliščina/fantovščina in na koncu poročni dan (ibid.: 719). Vasovanje (podpoglavje 8.2.1 Vasovanje, str. 210–212) je bil običaj, ki je bil v navadi do druge svetovne vojne. Fantje so praviloma zvečer obiskovali dekleta, jim peli podoknice, jih klicali pod oknom ali jih na skrivaj obiskovali v njihovih kamrah. Nezaželjeni so bili vasovalci iz drugih vasi (endogamija) (Baš idr., 2004: 661). Mladi so se sicer srečevali in spoznavali, ko so opravljali skupna vaška dela, tudi počitnice in prazniki so predstavljali možnost spoznavanj ob obiskih sorodnikov. Vsaka vas je imela tudi svoj praznik z hrano in plesom, prirejenim na trgu pred cerkvijo (Makarovič, 1982: 260; Miklavčič, 2013: 163; Ravnik, 1996: 297–299; Stramljič, 2007: 256). Tudi sosedi in botri so pomagali organizirati spoznavanja (Baš idr., 2004: 661; Makarovič, 1982: 263). Snubljenje (podpoglavje 8.2.2 Snubljenje, str. 212–214) je dejanje, s katerim fant ali njegovi sorodniki (oče, stric, boter, tudi prijatelj) zaprosijo za dekletovo roko (Baš idr., 2004: 559). Snubljenje je bilo pomembno zaradi pogajanja med dvema družinama, običajno dvema očetoma. Kos (2015: 159) trdi, da ni bil samo oče tisti, ki je odločal o poroki, temveč so o poroki dekleta odločali tudi drugi sorodniki, prijatelji in sosedi. Zaradi pogajanj med dvema družinama sta bili pomembni dota in bala, ki sta ločevali ženinovo in nevestino družino (Vilfan, 1979: 367–368). Snubljenje se je začelo snubitvijo. Če sta se obe strani strinjali za poroko, so naredili likof (Kovačič, 1996) – obred zaroke, kjer so pili žgane pijače, ženin in njegov oče ali stric pa sta barantala za nevestino doto in balo, ki jo je plačala nevestina stran družine (običajno oče ali brat) (Baš idr., 2004: 285; Kovačič, 1996). Dota (podpoglavje 8.2.2.1 Dota in bala, str. 214–218) je bila eden izmed dejavnikov (ob velikosti kmetije in delovni zmožnosti) odločanja o poroki (Stramljič, 2007: 257). Doto je nevestina družina dala hčerki in njeni novi družini

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– običajno se je dota dala ženinu ali njegovemu očetu. Odvisna je bila od velikosti kmetije. Večinoma je zajemala denar, kravo ali par koz (Kovačič, 1996; Miklavčič, 2013: 169; Vilfan, 1961: 255). Dota je služila za boljše preživetje hčere, posebej če bi se zakon končal zaradi smrti (Kovačič, 1996; Miklavčič, 2013: 169; Vilfan, 1961: 255). Bila je tudi obligacija pomagati družini, ki je doto dala (Žibert, 2003: 14; Miklavčič, 2014: 33). Dota je obenem pomenila tudi del, s katerim je brat izplačal ostale sestre, ki so zapustili družino v primeru dedovanja le enega (Miklavčič, 2013: 196). Dota je bila običajno plačana po poroki, včasih na ženitovanjski gostiji pred vsemi gosti (Baš idr., 2004: 97). Pred tem so pogosto naredili tudi ženitno pogodbo (ibid.). Če je žena umrla, so doto podedovali njeni otroci ali njeni sorodniki250 (ibid.). Bala (podpoglavje 8.2.2.1 Dota in bala, str. 214–218) je bila po drugi strani premična lastnina, ki jo je nevesta prinesla v zakon. Bila je namenjena njeni uporabi in uporabi v gospodinjstvu. Sestavljena je bila iz posteljnine, brisač, pohištva, skrinje za koruzo, živali (krave, petelina), simbolično tudi štruce kruha in oblačil za nevesto. Odvisna je bila od statusa družine (Baš idr., 2004: 20; Kovačič, 1996; Ravnik, 1996: 284; Miklavčič, 2013: 168; Žibert, 2003: 14). Dekleta so balo pripravljala sama veliko časa. V posteljnino in oblačila so tudi vezle svoje dekliško in poročno ime ter priimek (Žibert, 2003: 14). Neveste so bale odnesle same na nov dom, predvsem v alpskem svetu je do prve polovice 19. stoletja balo odnesel na dom ženin dan prek poroko, na dan poroke ali po njej (Baš idr., 2004: 20). Ženin in nevesta sta darila prejela tudi od ženitovanjskih gostov (Vilfan, 1961: 254–255). Zaroka (podpoglavje 8.2.3 Zaroka, str. 218) je bila čas, ko sta si ženin in nevesta obljubila, da se bosta poročila, in sta čakala na poroko ter se predhodno že dogovorila o doti (Baš idr., 2004: 700). Fant je dal dekletu poročni prstan (ibid.), kar se je ohranilo do danes. Kos (2015) zapiše, da je zaroka v bistvu 'poslovni'

250 Vilfan (1961: 256) piše o dveh sistemih pred poroko: prvo pravilo je bilo, »kar je moje, je tvoje«, in drugo: mož je ženi priskrbel enako vsoto, kot je znašala dota. Ta vsota je bila razdeljena v zaženilo in jutrno. Z zaženilom je imela žena po moževi smrti pravico do užitka, kasneje pa je lastnina pripadla moževim dedičem. Jutrno je žena dobila takoj zaradi svoje nedolžnosti, kasneje tudi kar tako. Ženin ali njegov brat sta nevesti dala kravo, ovco ali vola (Baš idr., 2004: 197; Vilfan, 1961: 256).

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dogovor med dvema družinama, ki bosta obe prinesli nekaj v zakon, kljub temu da ima zaroka tudi simbolni pomen. Dekliščina in fantovščina (podpoglavje 8.2.4 Dekliščina/fantovščina, str. 218– 219) sta predporočni slovesi od samskega stanu tako neveste kot ženina (Baš idr., 2004: 77). Nevesta pripravi socialno druženje s pojedino, v preteklosti so bile povabljene neporočene ženske prijateljice, danes stan ni več pomemben. Dekleta so v preteklosti pripravljala obleko, klepetala in mesila kruh (ibid.). Prav tako je socialno srečanje fantovščina. V preteklosti so bili povabljeni neporočeni prijatelji ženina, danes stan ni pomemben. Fantje so nekoč pili alkohol, cepili drva, nekateri ženini so nosili križ čez vas (ibid.). Tako dekliščina kot fantovščina sta se v obliki zabave in druženja ohranili do danes. Poročni dan (podpoglavje 8.2.5 Poroka, str. 219) je dan, določen za poroko glede na običaj regije, danes glede na uradne dni matičnega urada. Na začetku 20. stoletja se je največ porok odvijalo za pustni čas (simbolično prehod iz zime v pomlad, iz samskega v poročen status), na katere dni je bilo odvisno od regije (Baš idr., 2004: 447; Vilfan, 1979; Žibert, 2003: 7). Danes se poroke odvijajo kadarkoli, običajno ob sredah in sobotah. Kot smo že povedali, so bile majhne vasi eksogamne, zato moramo opisati običaj 'šranganja', ki je še danes prisoten v tradicionalnejših porokah na vaseh. Običaj 'šranganja' se je zgodil na poročni dan malo pred poroko. Na vhodu v vas so fantje postavili 'šrango' (Baš idr., 2004: 613; Vilfan, 1979: 367). Potem se je začelo pogajanje – ženin je moral opraviti različne teste, narediti različna agrarna dela, odgovoriti na različna vprašanja, da bi prišel do neveste. Za nevesto je moral plačati tudi ceno. Ostali fantje so pili na njegovo zdravje, zdravje neveste in ženitovanjskih gostov. Če ženin ni želel plačati fantom, so zakurili smeti in oblačila, da se je kadilo in smrdelo, kar je predstavljalo sramoto za ženina in nevesto (ibid.). 'Šranganje' tako simbolično predstavlja prehod v različno obdobje življenja, hkrati pa je simbol menjave – je prehod neveste iz ene pravne skupine v drugo in je izraz določene endogamne orientacije zakona (Vilfan, 1961: 251; Vilfan, 1979: 367). Tudi prej opisano vasovanje kaže na prevlado endogamije (Vilfan, 1961: 251; Kos, 2015: 150).

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Poročno praznovanje – ženitovanje je bilo živo z veliko sorodnikov (Baš idr., 2004: 719; Miklavčič, 2014: 13). Ženitovanjske šege so ceremonialna dejanja in dogajanja, značilna za prehod iz samskega v poročen status (ibid.). Skupaj s prepričanji ljudi in pravnimi vidiki nam ženitovanjske šege povedo dosti o pomembnosti poroke (ibid.). To dejstvo potrjuje prav tako kooperacija širše skupnosti v poročnem ritualu (sorodstva, prijateljev, sosedov) (Baš idr., 2004: 75, 719). Ženitovanjske šege so sestavljali ženitovanjska jed, ženitovanjsko pismo, ženitovanjsko šemljenje itd. (Baš idr., 2004: 719–720). Poroka tako označuje prehod v novo obdobje, je začetek nove dobe za celotno družino: nevesta in ženin začneta novo razmerje, vključujoč njune otroke in sorodnike (Ravnik, 1996: 287; Žibert, 2003: 6). Poročna noč je na primer v preteklosti predstavljala tudi začetek spolnega življenja (Baš idr., 2004: 446).

Zaključek Zaključno poglavje 9 Zaključek (str. 223–241) je sestavljeno iz podpoglavja 9.1 Spremembe v slovenskem sistemu sorodstvene terminologije v preteklosti in sedanjosti ter povezava med slovenskim jezikom, kulturo in sorodstvom – debata in ugotovitve (str. 223–239) in podpoglavja 9.2 Omejitve magistrske naloge (str. 239–241). V prvem podpoglavju smo želeli odgovoriti na vprašanje, ali se je struktura slovenskega sorodstva spremenila oziroma ali se je spremenil slovenski sistem sorodstvene terminologije glede na zgodovinski, kulturni, družbeni in topografski kontekst. Ugotovili smo, da naša hipoteza drži. Skušali smo upoštevati Lévi-Straussovo (1963: 35–36) analogno metodo, s katero lahko antropologi analitično razdelijo sorodstvene izraze v njihove komponente. V vsakem sistemu so izraženi odnosi in vsak sorodstveni izraz sistema nosi konotacije (pozitivne ali negativne) glede na nekaj odnosov: generacijo, daljno sorodstvo, spol, starost, afiniteto itd. Zavedati se moramo, da odnosi niso izraženi zgolj na besedni ravni in zato moramo upoštevati tudi vedenja (ibid.: 35–36). Sistem vedenj namreč sestavlja dinamično integracijo sistema terminologije (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 38–39). Prav tako moramo upoštevati odnose med sorodstvenim izrazjem (ibid.: 50), kar smo v nalogi skušali narediti s povezavo sorodstvenih izrazov med sabo in z drugimi aspekti življenja ljudi (poročnih običajih, dedovanja).

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Naša analiza je pokazala, da so se sorodstveni izrazi spremenili skozi čas. Struktura slovenskega sorodstva se je spremenila. Glavna sprememba se je zgodila v terminologiji za razširjeno družino. Opazimo lahko dvoje: najprej izgubo nekaterih sorodstvenih izrazov in tudi uniformiranost z drugimi. Glavna razlika med sorodstveno terminologijo v preteklosti in sedanjosti je razlika v izrazih za širše sorodstvo – za materinega brata in materino sestro (ujec, ujna) in očetovega brata in sestro (stric, teta), ki se poenoti v strica in teto ne glede na stran družine. Druga razlika se je dogodila v konotaciji izrazov, saj so imeli v preteklosti sorodstveni izrazi strogo formalno konotacijo, povezano z odnosi spoštovanja in avtoritete (otroci so starše, stare starše celo onikali, ne le vikali – Reindl, 2007: 155; Bajec idr., 2014: 1081). Danes pa so sorodstveni izrazi zaznamovani (negativno ali pozitivno), otroci na primer starše poimenujejo s pomanjševalnicami ati, očka, mami, mamica ipd.. Otroci svoje starše poimenujejo celo z imeni, oblika nanašanja pa je neformalna (tikanje). Takršen je tudi odnos, ki je čustven, prijateljski in ne formalen, spoštujoč ali hierarhičen. Želeli smo ugotoviti tudi, zakaj je prišlo do teh dveh razlik, saj je osnovni namen antropologije ugotoviti diskontinuitete (Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 328). Prva sprememba v sorodstvenih izrazih za materino in očetovo sestro ter brata se je zgodila, ker izrazi ujec, ujna niso bili več potrebni – niso imeli več posebne funkcije. Kot pravi Sapir (1995: 39): besede so veljavne le, dokler so simbol reference. Oziroma kot zapiše Lévi-Strauss (1963: 30), sorodstveni termini so elementi pomena, ki imajo pomen, dokler so integrirani v družbeni sistem. Zgodovinsko se je sprememba zgodila, ker je bilo nekoč dedovanje del patrilinealne družine (glej poglavje 7 Dedovanje, str. 181–194). Najmlajši sin je v večini primerov podedoval lastnino po očetu (Vilfan, 1961). Ali kot trdi Baš s sodelavci (2004: 565): dokler je bil patriarhalen princip dedovanja veljaven, tako dolgo so se uporabljali različni izrazi za očetovo in materino sorodstvo. Danes potomci dedujejo po obeh straneh (ZD, 1976/2016, 10.–12. člen). Drugi razlog za spremembo v terminologiji je tudi sprememba v poročnih običajih, kjer dota in bala nista več pomembni in se več ne dajeta (tukaj je bila kot skupina pomembna materina stran družine, za več glej poglavje 8 Poroka, str. 194–223), saj je poroka danes dejanje proste izbire med dvema posameznikoma.

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Pri vsem tem moramo odpreti dve vprašanji, in sicer: prvič, kaj je razlog, da so se pravila dedovanja in poročni običaji spremenili; in drugič, zakaj so se odnosi med sorodniki spremenili iz skrajno formalnih v povsem neformalne? Predvidevamo, da je temu tako zaradi spremembe socialnega, kulturnega in ekonomskega sistema: ker se je spremenila ekonomija, se je spremenil tudi način življenja ljudi (kultura) in s tem so se spremenile vrednote znotraj kulturnega konteksta. Po 2. svetovni vojni, ko je družina postajala bolj ali manj nuklearna in ko se je politični, pravni in ekonomski sistem spremenil, se je spremenilo tudi pojmovanje družine. Danes postajajo vrednote v slovenski kulturi vedno bolj neoliberalne in potrošniške. Sprememba v ideologiji družine se je začela že ob koncu 19. stoletja. Do konca 19. stoletja je bila družina preživitvena enota, zato so v njej živeli tudi očetovi bratje, sestre, stari starši, dekleta, hlapci. Pomembnost materine družine je bila odvisna od oddaljenosti in od funkcioniranja prvotne družine: torej, ali je oče v družini izpolnjeval svojo primarno funkcijo biti dober gospodar in s tem dober mož ter oče ali ne. Sicer je bila mati odvisna od sebe (glej Žižek, 1987) in od svoje izvorne družine. Otroci so ne glede na obligacijo šolanja v 19. stoletju delali za preživetje (Puhar, 1982: 310). Ne delati je takrat pomenilo grešiti, otroško delo je bilo nekaj normalnega in vsakdanjega. Normalna je bila tudi strožja, celo fizična vzgoja otrok (ibid.: 286–287; 300). Z drugo polovico 19. stoletja pa prihajajo vse bolj do izraza institucije. Na prehodu v 20. stoletje se spremeni tudi diskurz vzgoje – zahtevano je izobraževanje brez fizične kazni (Puhar, 1982: 403). Tudi v socializmu so otroštvo in otroci dojeti drugače – družina je zgrajena iz ljubezni, mož in žena sta enakopravna (ne le politično, temveč tudi ekonomsko) in odgovorna za otroke v materialnem in izobrazbenem smislu, otroci bi naj dobili oskrbo in individualno ljubezen (Baš idr., 2004: 379; Tomšič, 1956: 8–33). Pomembne so bile tudi družbene institucije (vrtci, šola, bolnice itd.), ki so soodgovorne za vzgojo in skrb za otroke (ibid.). Danes se je pojmovanje vzgoje obrnilo v kapitalistično ideologijo permisivne vzgoje, kjer mati in oče igrata predvsem vlogo prijatelja otroku (Godina, 1990; Lasch, 1979; Vodopivec Kolar, 2010). Otroci so projekti družine, njihovo delo je

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kriminalizirano, najpomembnejše so njihove pravice in potrebe. Sorodstvo je videno kot povezava med ljudmi, osnovana na čustvenem vložku (otroci so čustven kapital družin) (Keržan, 2009: 255). Naša kultura v tem smislu postaja vedno bolj otrokocentrična. Pomembno je, kar trdi Lasch (1979: 150–170), da je v prvotni fazi industrializacije socializacija prejemala produktivno aktivnost iz doma. Moderne birokracije, strokovnjaki in potrošniški kapitalizem so v zadnjih sto letih postopoma prevzeli avtoriteto in vire nad 'delom reprodukcije'. Reklamna industrija, množični mediji, zdravstvene storitve, socialne službe in druge institucije masovnega nadzorstva so prevzele mnoge socializacijske funkcije doma (ibid.: 169). Družba je dosegla 'socializacijo reprodukcije' (ibid.: 154–155). Družina je izgubila svojo reproduktivno funkcijo, saj družina več ne zmore sama zadostno zagotavljati vsega za izpolnjevanje lastnih potreb. Starši potrebujejo nasvete 'strokovnjakov' (zdravnikov, psihiatrov itd.), da sploh lahko vzgajajo otroke. Smernice obstajajo za vsa področja: kdaj imeti otroke, kako jih vzgojiti, kaj jih učiti in kdaj, kako skrbeti zanje ipd. (Lasch, 1979: 164). Starši so tako novi potrošniki 'strokovnih' nasvetov, znotraj družine ostajajo zgolj medosebni odnosi in prijateljstvo (ibid.). V antropologiji se je z otrokocentričnimi družbami ukvarjala že Margaret Mead (1928, 1930) v svoji primerjavi ameriške z drugimi kulturami. Leta 1954 je bila opravljena tudi raziskava 6 kultur, kjer so medkulturno preučevali razlike v vzgojni vzorcih (Whiting, 1963). Tudi na Japonskem obstaja posebna oblika otrokocentrizma, ki pa traja samo do šestega leta, ko otrok vstopi v formalno institucijo in se mora podrediti ter naučiti opravljanja obveznosti glede na sosede, družino in državo (Benedict, 1946/2005: 254–273). V primerjavi z japonsko družbo se ta tip otrokocentrične socializacije v t. i. 'zahodnih' družbah ne konča v otroštvu, ampak traja v neskončnost. Podobno zasledimo v Sloveniji, kjer na to nakazujejo različne raziskave, kjer otroci ostajajo doma tudi do 35. leta in zanje ter njihove otroke še zmeraj skrbijo starši, ob družini pa tudi šola zavzema permisivno doktrino itd. (Klanjšek in Lavrič, 2011: 347; Kuhar, 2012: 365–366; Mazzini, 2011; Šebart Kovač, 2002). Seveda za ostajanje doma obstajajo tudi ekonomski, strukturni vzroki (na primer prekarna

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dela mladih, ki so prav tako posledica kapitalizma, in nezmožnost ekonomske osamosvojitve). Lahko bi rekli torej, da ekonomske in tudi demografske razmere vplivajo na določen tip družine, sorodstva in socializacije (Eriksen, 1963: 137). * * * Drugo vprašanje naše naloge je bilo, ali je jezik pomemben za razumevanje kulture. Želeli smo ugotoviti, kako jezik izraža kulturo glede na analizo slovenske sorodstvene terminologije. Naše vprašanje je bilo, kaj nam lahko analiza slovenskega sistema sorodstvene terminologije pove o slovenski kulturi. Zgodovinsko slovenski sorodstveni sistem pripada glede na Lévi-Straussovo klasifikacijo (1963: 77–78) v indoevropski sistem, kjer so poročna pravila del krožnega sistema. To smo v nalogi v poglavju 8 Poroka tudi dokazali, posebej z analizo eksogamije in endogamije ter poročnih običajev – ženske se menjavajo, kar je pomembno za druge vidike življenja: lastnino, ugled ipd. Socialna organizacija je imela v preteklosti številne družbene enote s kompleksno strukturo (tip razširjene družine). Iz patrilinealnega sistema je prešla v bilateralnega, kjer se sorodstvo šteje po obeh straneh. Danes je sorodstvo subjektivno in z zgolj osnovnimi termini za ožjo družino. Terminologija je skozi zgodovina izginjala. Povedali smo že, da so spremembe v terminologiji povezane z zahodno, potrošniško logiko, kjer so pomembnejše interesne skupine od sorodstva. Danes lahko na primer zelo dobro prijateljico naslavljamo s sorodstvenim izrazom sestra. V preteklosti je bila preživetvena enota sorodstvena (predvsem poudarjena je bila očetova stran), a obenem je gospodinjstvo vključevalo nesorodnike – pomembni so torej bili ljudje, živeči v gospodinjstvu. Odnosi sodelovanja so torej grejeni na oddaljenosti in zgradbi gospodinjstva (Finch, 1989). Lahko bi rekli, da so za slovensko kulturo pomembni recipročni odnosi glede na bližino (zato smo skozi analizo odkrili tudi, da so bili včasih in še sedaj sosedi, prijatelji pomembnejši kot sorodniki, ki živijo daleč). Pomembni so predvsem zaradi preživetvene funkcije (soodvisnost zaradi delitve dela in velikosti družine). Ti odnosi so odnosi sodelovanja, hkrati pa tudi ekonomski odnosi (Godina, 2014: 317–319). Nekoč so bili znotraj gospodinjstva, sestavljenega iz družinskih in nedružinskih članov, pomembnejši ožji družinski člani (vključujoč stare starše, očetove brate in

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sestre, ki so tudi skrbeli za otroke). Če torej razdelimo skupine glede na pomembnost, so prvi tisti, ki sestavljajo rodbino. Drugi so tisti, ki živijo znotraj istega gospodinjstva in sestavljajo družino. Nato so pomembni tisti, ki bivajo v isti vasi, lokalni endogamni skupini (sosedje, prijatelji). Zadnji pa so sorodniki, ki živijo daleč stran. Ali kot je dokazal že Sahlins (1972: 180–200); domačijski produkcijski način s stopnjo socialne oddaljenosti vpliva na način recipročnosti. Evans-Pritchard (1940) poudari isto logiko s segmentarnimi nasprotji – bližji sorodniki stopijo skupaj proti oddaljenim. Kot že povedano, je danes bolj v ospredju podobnost, ki ni nujno povezana s sorodstveno skupino (Wilson, 2016: 573), saj skupine zajemajo sorodnike po rojstvu, po poroki, glede na druge oblike solidarnosti in menjave, glede na deljeno bivališče, prijateljske mreže, medsebojno podporo in sodelovanje (Franklin in Strathern, b. d.: 16). Če v tem pogledu analiziramo spremembe med preteklostjo in sedanjostjo, opazimo ne glede na to, kako je prvotna skupina zgrajena (na podlagi logike dela ali interesov), ohranjanje preživetvene funkcije, kar pomeni kontinuiteto dojemanja ožje skupine. Gre torej za prevlado domačijske logike tudi v postsocializmu skozi retradicionalizacijo zaradi nedelovanja formalnih struktur (Godina, 2014). Logika je torej: gospodinjstvo je pomembno kot preživetvena enota, kar nam kaže že izginotje izraza rodbina (izvor) in prevlada termina družina, katerega koren druž- pomeni »prijatelji, najbližji ljudje, sopotniki, tovariši« (Snoj, 2009: 127). Pomembno je biti del »mi« skupine, definirati simbolno »mi« skupino, ki je, kot smo dejali, dojeta kot enota preživetja, kar se kaže prav tako v endogamiji družbenega razreda in nacionalne pripadnosti, ki je v Sloveniji prisotna še zmeraj v veliki meri. Hkrati pa »mi« skupina ni zgolj sorodstvena, ampak se oblikuje glede na podobnost – skupne interese. Skozi analizo slovenske sorodstvene terminologije smo tako ugotovili, da so spremembe družbenega sistema povezane s spremembami v kulturi in tudi v uporabi sorodstvenih izrazov – jezik se nam torej kaže kot pomemben vhod v razumevanje kulture. Vsekakor pa bi bilo v nadaljnje potrebno precizno analizirati vse sorodstvene izraze, tudi tiste, ki jih v svojo analizo nismo mogli zajeti (posebej izraze za svaštvo in razširjeno družino). Vprašati bi se morali tudi, kako poimenovati in

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opredeliti odnose, ki se pojavljajo v novih družbenih razmerah, npr. ki nastajajo s pomočjo novih reprodukcijskih tehnologij (glej Strathern, 1992). Potrebna je obširna in globlja analiza vseh etnoloških in literarnih virov, ki nam predstavljajo podatke o načinu življenja, hkrati pa njihova analiza razkrije kozmologijo slovenske kulture. Pozorni bi morali biti tudi na druge dejavnike, ki vplivajo na spremembo sorodstvene terminologije (na primer podrobnejša analiza religije). Predlagamo tudi terensko delo z intervjuji, s katerim bi pridobili percepcije raziskovancev, ki izražajo preteklost in sedanjost ter povezavo med njima (kontinuitete in diskontinuitete logik prebivalstva), hkrati pa bi pojasnile, zakaj se določeni sicer izumrli izrazi še pojavljajo in ohranjajo v slovenskih narečjih ter kakšno funkcijo imajo. Vse skupaj pa bi lahko povezali tudi z našo predpostavko, da se slovenska kultura želi vrednotno približati t. i. 'zahodni', čeprav se v praksi ohranjajo ali celo ponovno vzpostavljajo tradicionalne strategije in vzorci (retradicionalizacija).

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