Schartauansk kvinnofromhet i tjugonde seklet : En religionsetnologisk studie

Sammanfattning: This dissertation analyzes how a Christian belief affects and is expressed in thedaily lives of laywomen. Material exists, which covers the theological and priest'sperspectives and gives insight into the teachings of Schartauanism. No researchabout the laypeople was to be found. To find information about laywomen I gathered biographical material. Most important are 46 in-depth interviews with womenin the county of Bohuslän from three age groups, women born between the years1895 och 1968 from varying environments but from the same small businessclass. The interviews were followed by reciprocal ethnography.Since Schartauans display an ideologically based silence about their belief, myinsider perspective as being brought up a Schartauan, was a necessary tool for mystudy. Anthropologist Victor Turner's symbol theory, especially the balance between "structure" and "communitas", was useful in analyzing and describing thepattern of expression of a belief and to reveal the difference between the perspective of the layperson from that of the theologian.To categorize the empirical material I used three models: Mother, CommunityMother and Faithful Servant. Community Mother is a concept created by EllenKey (1849-1926) to convey her radical ideas of a general motherliness. TheSchartauan belief is transmitted in daily life, first and foremost by the mother,demonstrating rather than explaining her belief, but also by the faithful servant,the teacher and the priest. My study reveals that the mother is the deciding factorin the survival of the Schartauan tradition.This investigation demonstrates that in spite of their strict religious observance,their belief gives these women, paradoxically, freedom and a complicated form ofemancipation. At the intersection between "structure" and "communitas" theSchartauan woman realizes her identity as an emancipated, redressed Christian,with an unchangeable core of a pious, individual-centered belief.