Rural women in Croatia-Slavonia in 1900

The author, based on the literature and statistical data, processes the life of women in rural areas in Croatia and Slavonia in the early 20th century. In that time most of rural women lived in small cooperatives or indvidual households. Within these communities the wife, her husband, their children and their parents must fulfill all the tasks that they had in larger cooperatives that existed in the first half of the 19th century. For a woman marriage was expected and crucial, and most were prepared for marriage in the 15th year of life. Of all marriages during 1901 even 44% of brideswere under 19, and 25.5% were between 19 and 25 years. In 1900th most rural women in Croatia and Slavonia were illiterate. Peasant women in 1900 were still living in oral culture composed of stories, poems, riddles, jokes, words of healing, the word for a curse word and prayer which taught them their place in the family and community