Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

girls were exposed in many ways to waylaying men from higher classes, on
whom they were often existentially dependent. Apart from that, there was no
law obliging men to care for their children. Proving fatherhood also frequently
caused problems. Vilfan 26 attempts to explain the unbearable position of
mothers with illegitimate children on the basis of their position in the Church.
The more the Church pressed for the inseparability of monogamous marriage,
the more unbearable was the position of illegitimate children. As premarital
intercourse was considered immoral, mothers with illegitimate children were
subject to humiliating punishments: they were closed up in an ossuary or had
to stand beside the cross at the main church entrance. Children in particular
had to bear the consequences, and they were often given most unusual names
by the priests. The related obstacles were also evident in the performance of
professions and in education. Of particular significance was the inability to
inherit from the father.
Implications and Consequences
In compliance with the old Slavic customs, a woman has to die along with
her husband, as she is his property. She has no value in her own right, but
has the ability to bear children, which is a specific characteristic of a woman’s
body. The property therefore has a certain value, provided that it relates to the
womb within the woman’s body. But the trouble with such property is that it
is contained in an evasive body and is, accordingly, physically unattainable.
It is a property which cannot be separated and isolated. If this property is to
be enjoyed, the body must be isolated. Moreover, the body must be brought
under control, otherwise it will tend to control itself. The successful enjoyment
of property is crucially dependent on the isolation and control of the
bodies containing the property, in our case the bodies of women. The body
was controlled by using an extremely cruel system of physical punishment,
often causing death. The mind was controlled by constructing femininity and
a woman’s sexuality. The agents of control were varied and their role was often
assumed by the women themselves.
26
1961: 415.
97