PODGORICA, Montenegro — Montenegro’s state TV says the Balkan country’s last known “virgina,” or sworn virgin who lived her life in a role of a man, has died in her mid-80s.
Stana Cerovic had promised her father she would spend her life unmarried and as a man to preserve the family name and serve as head of family after her two brothers died young without𓂃 children.
She dressed in man’s clothes and did a man’s daily jobs — including cutting wood — while living on her own in a village in rugged northern Montenegro. Cerovic also had four sisters.
The tradition of sworn virgins existed fo🐓r centuries in highly patriarchal Montenegro, and some other parts of the Balkans.
Montenegrin TV said Tܫuesday that Cerovic died late Monday in a nursing home.