MARRIAGES IN "PANAGJYR" (FAIRS)

Abstract

The presence of the occurrence "Anticipated marriage", also known and called "panagjyr", was witnessed by some interviewed during my expeditions in the region of Kumanovo. The word is about hasty marriages, creation of "obligatory" families from the created political, social and violent circumstances of the Macedonian power with fake emancipator terms of the youth. This phenomenon, an action and process of vital importance in the creation of young families, a social phenomenon with historical character that was born and developed in certain circumstances in the first years after the Second World War. The events and the social developments in the Albanian families of Kumanovo of that time may be treated in two perspectives: positive – preservation of the national identity and negative, denial of women's rights. The paper tries to reflect and touch the problems contained in this occurrence. Everything is based on sayings and stories of the eyewitnesses, persons that lived that period, where every social action was based in two judicial codes: Lekë Dukagjini's code and religion. The big Albanian families created and regulated some kind of stability based on them. The unplanned marriages, their organization within some days set the fate of tens of youths. Even thou such marriages changed the life of the boy and girl, the woman had bigger difficulties, object of this paper.