The ethical and communicative aspect of the traditional female subculture of Ossetians

The article examines the ethical and communicative features of the traditional female subculture of Ossetians from the standpoint of the interests of ethnology, based on the analysis of mythological and written ethnographic sources and in a historical and retrospective resource. This research is a continuation and development of the author’s earlier concept of the dual nature of the prestigious status of women in traditional Ossetian society and its direct dependence on the specific context of communication. This study presents (as far as possible within the framework of one article) data indicating that the ethical and communicative programs of female behavior and male behavior were formed under the influence of different stages of the ethnic history of the people. In the public space of the ethnosocium, women became objects of honor and reverence, they were included in the semantic field of “chivalrous” stereotypes generated by the military-hierarchical order of the Alans. At the same time, the meanings and symbols of the female subculture at the level of the internal family “order”, projected by the historical realities of the Highland patriarchy in the post-Alanian period, clearly fix the status priority of men. The author comes to the conclusion that the ethical and cultural understanding of biological sex is an important component of the intangible ethno-cultural heritage, reflecting the peculiarities of the historical and, consequently, life path traversed by the people. Studying an ethnic group from the point of view of its “typical” subject – “real” men and women and objectively formed values in this regard can highlight many aspects of ethnic culture and the mental makeup of the ethnic group and the prospects for its further development in a multinational and multi-confessional environment.