Castrejas Women “widows of the living”

In times gone by, the castro woman who had her husband far away, in a foreign country, dressed in black to simultaneously express the pain of an absence and the vow to keep allegiance to her distant companion.

The life of these widows and the woman, in general, dependent on an emigrant relative, did not change with the emigration of the head of the family. His mission was to preserve the property by keeping it in production.

Remittances from abroad were not intended to mobilize women from their roles in the countryside and at home. The house was totally given to her, her condition as a country woman, slave to all the work, plowing the land, taking care of the vegetable garden, herding the flock, did not change, it was her task, which should have her presence. active.

The woman did not back down from the rudest and most sordid work: she deals with the animals and the field, with the same spirit as her absent husband, and she raises the children for whom her servitude will, possibly, be the dawn that frees them from this slave life*

*In Castro Laboreiro de relance, de Luis POLANAH, Minia, 2ª Série, Braga 1979.