By Lisa E Kirkwood
It’s March, a time when nature awakens from its winter slumber and spring is in the air. Ice and snow melt, weather is warmer, days get longer, especially after the Spring Equinox, there’s more sunlight, and tree buds are turning into leaves and flowers. A time of renewal, revival, hope, and love.
March is Women’s History Month, and this year I’d like to highlight some national heritage aspects and customs from my native country, Romania. The first season of the year debuts with the widely adopted observance of Valentine’s Day, one of the first foreign holidays to be integrated into our culture, shortly after the fall of communism in 1989.
Along with Valentine’s Day on February 14, each year, Romanians also observe the Dragobete, an age-old, traditional Romanian holiday celebrated on February 24, now revived and repurposed together with the newer one. An ancient character from national folklore, Dragobete is considered a guardian of love and wedding. The day of February 24 is particularly known as “the day when the birds are betrothed”.
Both events are meant to show men’s appreciation and care for their dear women of all ages, during the months of February and March and beyond, throughout the year. Those who take part in Dragobete customs are supposed to be protected from illness, especially fevers, for the rest of the year.
If the weather allows, girls and boys go to pick snowdrops or other early spring flowers from the woods for the person they are courting. When they return home, the traditions mention that boys run after girls to kiss them. If the girl likes the boy, she lets him kiss her. There is a saying in Romania about this: “Dragobete kisses the girls”.
March 1st marks another cherished Romanian tradition, ongoing for thousands of years, called Marţisor, (pronounced [mərt͡siˈʃor], translation “little March”), originating from the Roman celebration of the New Year on 1 March. Marţisor is usually a small object made from two intertwined red and white strings with a hanging tassel, often with a pebble, coin, or jewelry attached, that is gifted between friends and relatives.
This is practiced in Romania and Moldova, and very similar to Martenitsa tradition in Bulgaria, Martinka in North Macedonia and customs of other populations from Southeastern Europe, such as Albanians, Turks from the Ohrid region, Greeks from Northern Greece, the isles of Rhodes, Dodecanese and Karpathos, the Gagauz people, and the diaspora of these populations.
The tokens exchange, marking the end of winter and spring’s arrival, symbolizes life, purity, and good fortune; men gift them to women, who wear them for health and prosperity, often tying the string to a blossoming tree at the end of the month. This ancient custom signifies nature’s rebirth and the union of masculine (white) and feminine (red) forces, as symbols of life.
In the past, before the 19th century, other colors like black and blue were used for the cords, and the material could have been wool, linen, or cotton. Nowadays, a mărțișoris made from silk strings, almost exclusively red and white. Originally tied around the wrist or put on like a necklace, modern tradition involves wearing this symbolic talisman on the chest like a brooch or a lapel pin, during the first part of the month, starting from March 1st.
The object was worn primarily by children and women, less so by men, and rarely by old people. Different regions had a different time frame for how long it should be kept. Some older traditions say that it should be worn from the first new moon of March until the next significant holiday for the local community, which could be anywhere between March 9 and May 1, or until the first tree flowers blossom, depending on the area.
These ornaments (plural mărțișoare) are often shaped to resemble various images such as four-leaf clover, ladybug, flower, etc. Over time, they have become increasingly elaborate, diverse, and bigger than the original ones, and packaging for them has evolved accordingly.
March 1st was associated with signs of season change in the natural world: the blooming of snowdrop flowers, considered the first messengers of spring, the return of migratory birds such as swallows and white storks, the flowering of fruit trees (apple tree, cherry tree), the early blossoming of roses, or with the next significant holiday in the calendar. Mărțișor is inscribed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
On March 8, the world observes International Women’s Day, focusing on social issues such as the fight for equality and liberation along with women’s rights movement, as well as gender parity, reproductive and civic rights, and prevention of abuse against women and children.
In the beginning of the 20th century, this event grew from women’s labor movements in North America and Europe, with early marches for fair wages and working conditions, and became a global day for all women, not specific to any particular country, with large gatherings since 1911. The date of March 8 was chosen following the International Conference of Working Women held in 1910.
The United Nations officially recognized International Women’s Day in 1977, and each year there’s a different theme with social, political, and economic implications for empowerment, equal rights, and a feminist future for women and girls. Not only March 8, every day is a good time to acknowledge progress, highlight ongoing inequalities, and take further action for the betterment of humanity in general.
Romania celebrates Women’s Day in grand style. Mothers, grandmothers, sisters, neighbors, wives, girlfriends, and female relatives, friends, or teachers receive lots of gifts of significance from their closest circle, family members, colleagues, and collaborators. Gifts include spring flowers (snowdrops, crocus, lily of the valley, tulips, freesias, hyacinths, and roses), jewelry items, perfumes, candies, appreciation cards, and love notes.
In Romania, March 8 is also considered Mother’s Day, a modern tradition particularly emphasized during the communist period, and focused on recognizing women’s contributions, impact, and role in society, in the workplace, in business, and in the community. Despite its many flaws, the communist system strongly advocated for and even enforced women’s promotion, leadership, and empowerment.
This was rather easy to implement on the basis of already existing Romanian national culture, history, and traditions that encouraged women’s self-sufficiency, decision-making, education, and gender affirmation to various degrees, even during past centuries, when most of the world was mired in absolute patriarchy.
Spring gifting in Romania is a highly lucrative business, amounting to many millions spent on various items, from chocolate and cards to flowers and pricy presents. As early as mid-January, despite cold weather, hundreds of vendors gather in markets and public places of towns and cities to sell gifts, souvenirs, and, of course, lots of mărțișoare.
Fun fact: in the past two decades, a new trend has emerged. Due to the four observances, St. Valentine’s Day, Dragobete, Marţisor, and March 8, when only women receive gifts, men argued that this custom wasn’t quite fair and started to claim a day of their own. Thus, March 9th became, unofficially, Men’s Day in Romania.
On this day, men who have been particularly generous and kind to women during the four holidays, are being recognized and receive some symbolic gifts as tokens of appreciation from the women they have made gifts to.
These items are not nearly as many and as expensive, but they’re a small measure of fairness, albeit far from gender parity. In the end, mutual gift exchanges between men and women draw people closer, enhance community spirit, bring Yin and Yang in harmony, and contribute to more balanced and better relationships, in the family, at work, and throughout the world.
