“We are the soft tissue of Molotschna”

The expression We are the soft tissue of Molotschna turns a conversation about bodies into an argument about the women’s place in their colony. Soft tissue is described as protective, resilient, and capable of restoration, but also as something that decomposes sooner than the harder structures it supports. When Ona Friesen applies the image to the women of Molotschna Colony, the metaphor holds care and vulnerability together: the women sustain the community, even as its rules leave them exposed to harm and loss.

From the Black Sea to the colony

The discussion begins with Salome Friesen comparing the calm surface of Molotschna Colony to that of the Black Sea. Ona Friesen asks what soft tissue means, and Agata Friesen explains it as the skin, flesh, and connective material that protects harder structures such as bones. Mariche Loewen restates the distinction: soft tissue shelters what is rigid, has a kind of resilience, and nevertheless decomposes more quickly in the end. The analogy is not a simple equation of softness with weakness. Its central contrast is that what looks less durable can still protect and preserve what seems stronger.

August Epp adds that soft tissue is often defined by what it is not, while Mariche Loewen interrupts to stress its restorative qualities. These competing descriptions leave the image productively unsettled. Softness signifies dependence on other structures, but also flexibility and the capacity to repair. Its vulnerability is real; so is its work. When Ona Friesen asks whether the end means death, the conversation shifts from anatomy toward the question of what survives loss. Greta Loewen counters that physical death does not end life, widening the metaphor beyond the body’s material limits.

Two images of the women’s place

Ona Friesen draws the analogy directly: if the colony is a body, its women are its soft tissue. Salome Friesen offers a second version of the image, making the colony the Black Sea and the women its mysterious depths. The shift from body to sea changes the emphasis. In the body metaphor, the women protect and connect structures; in the sea metaphor, their significance lies in an interior that remains difficult for others to understand.

The conversation does not settle into a shared, uncomplicated account of women’s importance. Mariche Loewen gives Salome Friesen’s appeal to mystery a sarcastic challenge, mocking the idea that the women themselves are mysterious. Her response resists turning the women into an idealized symbol. The metaphor matters precisely because it is contested: the women can be essential to the colony without being granted authority over how the colony is organized, and describing them as mysterious may obscure their ordinary, concrete realities.

Vulnerability made concrete

Ona Friesen’s pregnancy gives the metaphor an immediate physical and social context. During the women’s meeting, she keeps an empty feed pail beside her because of nausea. Colony members have hurriedly considered marrying her to Julius Penner, but Ona Friesen rejects the proposal, believing that he deserves better and that marriage to her would taint him because she is not a virgin. The elders deem her beyond redemption and incapable of reasoning. They also plan for her unborn child, conceived through the assaults in the colony, to be raised by another family. The contrast is stark: the community depends on women’s bodies and care, while its authorities claim the power to define a pregnant woman’s worth and decide what will happen to her child.

The discussion’s language of protection and restoration therefore meets conditions that make protection urgently necessary. The metaphor does not claim that the women are safe because they sustain the colony. Rather, it exposes the distance between their importance to communal life and the treatment they receive within it. The soft tissue is not merely a decorative image of belonging; it draws attention to the people who bear consequences while decisions are made over them.

Solidarity, education, and the limits of the collective

The image also takes on force through the women’s relationships with one another. When Salome Friesen grieves about leaving her son Aaron behind temporarily, Agata Friesen puts an arm around her shoulders and frames that separation as a reason for mothers to build a better colony. Mejal Loewen, often at odds with Salome Friesen, crosses the table to embrace her. Their recurring movement from conflict to mutual support makes the metaphor social as well as bodily: resilience is not an individual trait alone, but something the women can provide one another in a crisis.

Their concern extends to boys whose place in the planned departure is uncertain. Salome Friesen asks why boys aged thirteen and fourteen cannot leave with the women when younger boys may go with them and fifteen-year-olds have joined the men. She fears the consequences if the accused men return and target the remaining boys. August Epp answers that adolescents of this age can cause harm, but are still children who can be taught. He compares them to yearlings—powerful, awkward, and inexperienced—and argues for direction, firm love, and patience. The comparison extends the metaphor’s concern with growth and restoration: vulnerability does not make change impossible, and education may help a community repair harmful patterns.

The limits of collective protection remain visible in the preparations to leave. Greta Loewen asks whether Cornelius and his wheelchair are ready; Melvin answers that Cornelius will stay because his mother belongs to the Do Nothing group and he has no choice. The young women are dismayed, and Agata Friesen hopes that Cornelius and his mother may yet change their minds. The moment prevents the soft-tissue image from resolving into a claim that everyone can be carried safely by collective resolve. Solidarity is a source of strength, but decisions and dependencies leave some people outside the departing group. Across the discussion, the expression holds together what the women contribute, what they endure, and what care and teaching might still make possible.