Noiva do Cordeiro

With Jair Bolsonaro currently leading Brazil, another misogynist man whose motto in life seems to be hatred, it seems almost unreal that in this country there exists a community that is one of the most beautiful examples of what women and men are capable of and, perhaps most importantly, where women rule.  

Noiva do Cordeiro is in every aspect the opposite of what Brazils new President stands for. There is no violence and no church. No hierarchies, no privileges. The central figure of the village is a modest old lady: matriarch Delina.  

In her village, fights are not brought to court but solved in long discussions. Everybody earns the same. For small and bigger investments everybody helps with what they can. Homosexual love is as accepted as heterosexual love. Kids are looked after in turns, the older and the sick are taken care of. In the huge community house in the centre of the village, food is cooked for everybody several times a day. They smoke, dance and celebrate! .

And - very different from the rest of the country - power lies in women´s hands.  

The origin of this female rule lies in the village´s history. Towards the end of the 1950’s, a strict evangelical priest married the then 16-year-old Delina and established a rigid system: no music, no contraception, only long hair and clothes, several daily hours of praying and a womans word always less valid than a man’s.

  In the beginning of the 90s the women finally rebelled and broke with the autocrat. They turned away from a male dominated regime. They banned religion, wanted to live compassionately, without a priest, in a community without prohibition.  

Trying to classify the community structure of Noiva do Cordeiro, one would probably call them matriarchal, socialist and grass-roots democratic. But people in Noiva don´t need terms or theories. Their principle is - and that may sound as utopian as beautiful - love. Everything else follows.