Marriage Constraints Quotes



At the time and for many years afterward, once a woman married in America, she lost most of the legal rights she had. She could not own property—the husband controlled it all, and she had no rights to make family decisions including the upbringing of her own children.


This was formalized in 1972 and was the law of the land. “Sack” is a difficult translation. The Albanian concept is that she is an object with no feelings or thinking ability. Women were forbidden from obtaining a divorce, and the wife's parents were obliged to return a runaway daughter to the husband or else suffer shame which could even result in a generations-long blood feud. In the 1960s Enver Hoxha led the Communist Government in a major reform movement on the rights of women. See {639128}.