Windows

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The Fleeing Lover , genre painting by A. Buzzi

The windowing is now almost meaningless become kind of courtship , the historically mostly in the southern German region (including the present-day Austria was common). The man secretly paid his respects to his beloved at night by climbing to the relevant window with the help of a ladder .

Origin and variants

The tradition has its origins in walking the streets , in which young men in front of the window of the "loved one" uttered rehearsed, standardized sayings which were answered with traditional counter-speech and conveyed a positive or negative attitude to the request. Historically, the young woman's room was never allowed to go out into the street or window, if only because the daughters of a family usually shared a bedroom. The actual intrusion into the bedroom was sometimes seen as "careless entry" and was punished by a court. Although the establishment of sexual relations between already known but unmarried people was also sometimes referred to as "window".

This was useful and even tolerated as needed because of the strict village customs and parental prohibitions that often prevailed in the past , which forbade lovers of in-depth conversations and even more intimate mutual activities during the day and in public. Since nowadays young, unmarried people can show themselves in public without prejudice and often no longer live with their parents, windowing is seldom done in the present and then more for fun.

Other local names are:

The window is a special variant of a coming night , i. H. the custom that a lover had to get into the chamber of his loved one by overcoming the most dangerous routes possible in order to prove his love for her. Other names for this are: Bettelnacht ( Bohemia ), Frejot ( Lausitz ), Hengertnacht (Graubünden, Switzerland), Rehearsal Night (Egerland) and Pumperlesnacht ( Bavaria ).

Legal aspects

In more northern regions, windows can now be counted as trespassing : The Frankfurt am Main district court ruled that windows in Hesse are not regarded as a cultural heritage , but simply as trespassing.

Discussion about the window competition at the University of Passau 2015

In 2015 a canceled window competition at the sports festival at the University of Passau caused outrage . The equal opportunities officer objected to the exclusion of women from participation, saying that it was never about the custom of windowing itself.

“I did not agree with the modalities. The Window King was announced as a university event to which no women were allowed. And that collides with the mission statement of the university. I then called the organizers to find a solution together. And in my opinion we have agreed that women are also allowed to window. So it was about opening up the offer "

- Claudia Krell

After her criticism, a shit storm broke out over her. The sports student Niko Schilling, who organized the competition, criticized the decision of the equal opportunities commissioner: “If I change the rules and put men on the balcony and women climb the ladder, it has nothing to do with tradition.” The CSU politicians Ilse Aigner and Horst Seehofer also criticized the university's decision. The Passau criminal lawyer Holm Putzke said that the equal opportunities officer “acted outside of her area of ​​responsibility” and “did a disservice to the legitimate concerns of equality and status” and that the reaction on social media was “predictable”. At the same time he publicly warned against “ genderism ”. To outside observers, the event appeared at least as a provincial curiosity. Birgit Kelle , journalist and chairwoman of the Frau 2000plus association , assessed the buckling “with every breath of gender” to the effect that the organizers “might just be missing the ass in leather pants”.

University President Burkhard Freitag stated that the equal opportunities officer had “acted correctly and competently” because she was “responsible for implementing the gender equality concept”. The student representatives of the university also stood behind the actions of the commissioners and condemned the hostility, which in some cases was defamatory. She pointed out that there had never been a ban on the part of the university and spoke out in favor of objectifying the debate.

Folklorist Simone Eggers assessed that, especially in social media, "the complexity of the issues" was not grasped by very few, and that the debate there was "characterized by hateful sexisms". The concept of equality between people "does not seem to be part of valid knowledge in public discourse today, but there is consensus on the talk of 'tradition'". The custom of windowing is by no means "unchangeable practice", but a cultural-scientific analysis played no role in the debate.

Similar competitions

A similar competition takes place in Tux (Tyrol) in Tyrol , with women and children taking part in the window.

See also

Web links

Commons : Kiltgang  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: fensterln  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Climbing minstrels . Die Prese, July 11, 2016
  2. ↑ Stefan Breit: "Carelessness" and rural society. Premarital Sex in the Early Modern Era. De Gruyter, 2015, pp. 90–92.
  3. ↑ Petra Schier: Row boys, mail marriages, slut walks. In: The witch jury
  4. ^ Judgment of the AG Frankfurt a. M. 33 C 2982 / 99-67 of November 30, 1999
  5. ↑ Equality in Passau: Sports students are not allowed to window. In: Spiegel Online . May 19, 2015, accessed June 9, 2018 .
  6. ↑ a b Are windows sexist? In: sueddeutsche.de. May 20, 2015, accessed May 26, 2018 .
  7. ↑ "Women are also allowed to window" . DIE ZEIT No. 22/2015
  8. ↑ http://www.nordbayern.de/region/gender-wahnsinn-passauer-studenten-durfen-nicht-fensterln-1.4395138
  9. ↑ Anja Damm: Equality compulsory in the Gaudi competition: Students despair of the gender craze: No “window king” at the University of Passau. In: Focus Online . May 19, 2015, accessed October 14, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Tina Sprung: University of Passau "forbids" windows - women "degraded to objects". In: pnp.de. May 18, 2015, accessed January 12, 2017 .
  11. ↑ http://www.nordbayern.de/region/gender-wahnsinn-passauer-studenten-durfen-nicht-fensterln-1.4395138
  12. ↑ Hans Kratzer: How can this madness happen? , Süddeutsche Zeitung of May 22, 2015
  13. ↑ Fensterl-Gate in Passau
  14. ↑ Hans Kratzer: How can this madness happen? , Süddeutsche Zeitung of May 22, 2015
  15. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stuve-unipassau.de
  16. ↑ Simone Eggers: 'Folk Culture' in the Late Modern World - 'The Bavarian' as an ethno-cultural dispositive . Austrian Journal of History, Vol 27, 2016/2, pp. 135 ff