“Waterloo of the Old Ways”: Women’s Rights

The title of this essay is a proud comment made by a character in Ismail Kadare’s novel The Wedding. The character is a writer who is commenting on the efforts of the Albanian government to eliminate the tradition of under-age betrothals, that is, arranged marriages for girls. The works of Kadare, a prolific Albanian writer born in 1936, highlight many of the social and political problems of women in various epochs in the Balkans and, by extension, in other traditional societies. It is the purpose of this analysis to explore Kadare’s representation of women in terms of three categories: traditional marriage, war, and Islamic social practices. Reference will also be made to several other relevant phenomena such as diplomatic marriages, inces, and linguistic and cultural survival.