Batista în contextul comunicării juvenile
The Handkerchief in the Context of Juvenile Communication

Summary/Abstract: The paper proposes an ethnological reading of the handkerchief, as symbolic object, frequently used by young people in the premarital and marital behavior and communication. Within the eastern Romanians’ tradition, the handkerchief is an always present accessory of the festive vestments of unmarried young ladies and a compulsorily gift they offer to young men. In the young ladies’ relations to the communities, the handkerchief represents their identity, thus coming to cumulate the roles of a flag. Most functions and meanings it had were related to the winter customs, with an obvious premarital specificity, and to the wedding scenario. These situations exemplify the capacity of traditional culture to create symbols of a great operatory capacity and articulating them in all structures, in order to make them more functional and cooperative.

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