Caucasian Women’s Inner World Of Emotional Experience

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2019-47-3/22-38

Abstract

Feminine space research in North Caucasian cultures brought the author to raising a question of sexual interrelations as a cornerstone of social constructs that determine power and obedience, cooperation and mutual suppression, behavioural latitude and individual self-image. The research focuses on Adyghe (Kabardians, Cherkess, and Adygeans), inhabitants of central and western areas of the North Caucasus who are bound together with common language, history, culture, and ethnic self-identification. The methodological framework is based on Pushkareva’s method; it presupposes “considering not only gender socio-historical phenomena, but also gender-related social reality with its mutations over space and time.” Analysis of field materials shed the light to Adyghe sexual history from prehistoric to modern-day patterns. The research contributes to adjustments in comprehending commonplace gender relations and discovers cultural norms that simultaneously restrict public acts of intimacy and empower women with relatively free mentality.

References

1. Bataille, G. 1994. Iz “Slez Erosa” [From “Tears of Eros”]. In Tanatografiia Erosa: Zhorzh Batai i frantsuzskaia mysl’ serediny XX veka [Thanatography of Eros: Georges Bataille and French thought of the Mid-Twentieth Century]. St. Petersburg: Mifril.
2. Dibi, P. 2004. Etnologiia spal’ni [Bedroom Ethnology]. Moscow: Nota Bene.
3. Le Roy Ladurie, E. 2001. Montaiiu, oksitanskaia derevnia (1294–1324) [Montaillou, Village Occitan (1294–1324)]. Ekaterinburg: Izdatel’stvo Ural’skogo universiteta.
4. Pushkareva, N.L. 1989. Zhenshchiny Drevnei Rusi [Women of Ancient Russia]. Moscow: Mysl’.
5. Pushkareva, N.L. 1990. The Woman in the Ancient Russian Family (Tenth to Fifteenth Century). Soviet Anthropology and Archeology 29 (3): 57–73.
6. Pushkareva, N.L. 1991. Kakimi oni byli, srednevekovye gorozhanki? [What They Were, Medieval Townswomen?]. Srednie veka 54: 243–245.
7. Pushkareva, N.L. 1992. Liubov’ i brak na Rusi [Love and Marriage in Russia]. Nauka v Rossii 5: 88–94.
8. Pushkareva, N.L. 1995. Mezhdu «velikim grekhom» i «udovol’stvom»: intimnaia zhizn’ zhenshchiny v staroi Rusi [Between the “Great Sin” and “Contentment”: The Intimate Life of a Woman in Old Russia]. Sotsium 6: 32–39.
9. Pushkareva, N.L. 1997. Chastnaia zhizn’ russkoi zhenshchiny: nevesta, zhena, liubovnitsa (X v. – nachalo XIX v.) [Private Life of Russian Woman: Bride, Wife, Mistress (10th – Beginning of 19th Century)]. Moscow: Ladomir.
10. Pushkareva, N. 1997. Women in Russian History from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century. New York: M.E. Sharp.
11. Pushkareva, N. 1999. Women in Russian History from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century. London: Sutton Publishers.
12. Pushkareva, N.L. 2008. Seksual’nost’ v chastnoi zhizni russkoi zhenshchiny (X–XX vv.): vliianie pravoslavnogo i etakraticheskogo gendernykh poriadkov [Sexuality in the Private Life of a Russian Woman (10th–20th Centuries): The Influence of Orthodox and Etacratic Gender Orders]. Zhenshchina v rossiiskom obshchestve 2: 3–17.
13. Rubin, G. 2001. Razmyshliaia o sekse [Thinking about Sex]. In Vvedenie v gendernye issledovaniia [Introduction to Gender Studies], edited by S.V. Zherebkin, 464–534. Pt. 2. St. Petersburg: Aleteiia.
14. Saifutdinov, M., and A. Yarlykapov. 2005. Liubov’ i seks v Islame [Love and Sex in Islam]. Moscow: Ansar.
15. Tekueva, M.A. 2007. Mir intimnykh perezhivanii v traditsionnoi kul’ture adygov [The World of Intimate Experiences in The Traditional Culture of the Adygs]. Nauchnaia mysl’ Kavkaza 3: 60–69.