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Skriv ut sidan - Hemadotter - Translation of word
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Titel: Hemadotter - Translation of word
Skrivet av: Ingela Martenius skrivet 2012-01-14, 03:17
The exact meaning of piga and dräng is determined by where in Sweden it is used, and at what time. If we say late 1700's and southern Sweden (Skåne, Blekinge) piga does mean an unmarried girl while a girl working as a farmhand often was designated tjänstepiga - service girl (the same goes for men of course: dräng, tjänstedräng). However, move to late 1800's and middle Sweden (even as far south as Västergötland) and piga means only a girl working as a farmhand (the same goes for men, dräng).
Also, a piga in the country is a farmhand; she mostly did outside work, mainly tending the cows, goats, sheep (mucking out after them, feeding them, milking them) and when she works indoors it was always with the heaviest, dirtiest and most tedious work. It was e.g. the mistress who did the cooking, and who could use her time doing nice, clean, lighter indoor work like sewing, weaving and even embroidering. A piga could also be set to weave, but most often only for herself - she had her wages mainly in fabrics, which she had to weave herself. In a town, a piga also did rougher work. Indoor serving girls/women, who dusted and cleaned and cooked, were called jungfru, and this is perhaps more the equivalent of the English maid.
The easiest way to see if piga/dräng means a person in service or just an young unmarried person is to see if the vicar uses the words hemmadotter/hemmason on surrounding pages - if he does, then he means somone in service when he uses piga/dräng.
Hemmadotter/hemmason was something to be proud of until about the turn of the century 1800; after that the status slowly went downhill. After the mid 1800's a hemmadotter/hemmason increasingly meant someone left over, slightly stupid, very naive with little initiative, a passive person who the world passed by. Someone to be pitied by a loving sibling (who at the same time was very happy it wasn't her/him). Even very well-off farmers' children went away to serve for a few years by the end of the 1800's; it was thought of as being part of their training - to see something of the world, learn new ways of doing things, just like a journeyman craftsman. This included emigrating and being away for a few years, eventually perhaps returning and taking over the farm (some 1.3 million Swedes emigrated, 200.000 came back to stay).