The burrnesha tradition is a centuries old practise in which women swear an oath of celibacy to village elders and live as men. These women are known as the burrneshat, or sworn virgins.

In rare cases, they presently exist. An example of this would be the burrnesha of Albania, women who give up their social role as women to live as men. Likewise, within Jewish culture and law ...

Patriarchal times in northern Albania gave birth to a phenomenon - the replacement of the man at the head of the household by a woman. These are masculine times, in which the woman is only tasked ...

Albanian sworn virgins (Albanian: burrnesha or virgjinesha) are women who take a vow of chastity and wear male clothing in order to live as men in the patriarchal northern Albanian society.