Странкиње - „Српске снахе“ у 19. и почетком 20. века
Foreign women - „SerbForeign Women - „Serbian Daughters-in-Law“ in the 19th and Early 20th Centuriesian daughters-in-law“ in the 19th and early 20th centuries

Summary/Abstract: Due to poor social mobility, in the 19th and early 20th century, in Serbia matrimonial bonds were as a rule forged with persons from the immediate milieu. In Serbian rural society establishing matrimonial bonds with persons of a different language, culture and religion was considered socially unacceptable. The few foreign ladies who had come to Serbia having married Serbs were primarily the wives of young men who had studied abroad. They would be socially accepted when they demonstrated a desire and readiness to adapt to the new milieu, adopting its language, habits and customs. Serbian society was disinterested in their potential role as vectors of ideas and of the way of life typical of their original communities and regarded all such attempts with suspicion. Apart from that, the number of foreign ladies who lived in Serbia was too small for them to be actually able to exert any significant influence on social life. Only few of them had consciously opted to work to bring two cultures closer together and familiarized with one another. Although the small circle of the educated public emphasized the importance of such work, Serbian society was still not able to grasp the importance of mediation between different cultures, and thereby not able to make use of the links that foreign women in Serbia were maintaining with their original communities either.

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