Portraits of Albania's "Sworn Virgins"

Albania is one of several places in the world where women sometimes took on the role of man, being accorded the legal privileges of masculinity and allowed to lead their families in return for a vow of perpetual chastity. The Albanians themselves say that this custom arose because feuding was once so violent that some clans were left with no man to lead them, but some anthropologists doubt that this was literally true. Jill Peters has shot a series of portraits of some of the last of these women.