Presented in the contribution are commercial journeys of the Gaberje women and the influence of those on the role of women in the family and in the village. Women from Vipavska brda were setting out on their journeys not wishing to become rich but in the necessity for survival. Because of circumstances in which they lived, their life of a peasant housewife was all but being shut between the four walls. The women played several roles: they were mothers, wives, daughters-in-law, villagers, traders, smugglers, perhaps even adventuresses, and migrants. They moved to the neighbouring towns and to the countryside and thus circulated between home and source of income for the essential necessities of life. Particularly women with small children sought a compromise and thus did not emigrate permanently; they just circulated. Thus, they were still able to carry out the role of the mother and wife and take care of inflow of money into the household.The word with which women themselves denote their commercial routes and themselves is brangerstvo or brangerca, meaning a woman who in the dealt period transported by various manners eggs, butter, seasonal vegetables, raspberries, meat, strong liquor and other products to Italian towns, sold them there or exchanged, and brought home some money or exchanged provisions and domestic necessaries, which otherwise could not be bought (macaroni, soap).The changing of political circumstances and consequently of state borders, influenced the course of commercial routes.The reasons for migration of each woman from Gaberje have multiple causes. Although roughly we can comprise them in the social economic situation, (each collocutor tells the principle reason for migrations was poverty) each woman has a story of her own and own motives. In the forefront placed Olga’s story corresponds to the stories of the rest of women from Gaberje and is valuable because Olga too was going to Trieste along the paths her mother walked.Although the journeys were undoubtedly physically straining, the women thus encountered the world not seen from their village. They saw Trieste, a large and in their eyes a rich town. The journeys of small groups of women who knew each other were everything but a commercial march in silence. The women made jokes, laughed, sang, shared advice – as well commercial as those more concerning family life.The money the brangerce earned presented their at least partial financial independence. The journeys were to them a brief absence from their children and husbands and were actually time of their own. The earned money also influenced the social development of the village, the change of the status of women, family steadiness, and traditional social patterns of marital stability. In Gaberje, the power of women within families grew as they had access to own money. Although they used it for the family, above all for the children and food, the women decided on it. The life standard of families rose, although gradually, because of their journeys as well.V prispevku so predstavljene trgovske poti Gaberk ter vpliv le-teh na vlogo ženske v družini in vasi. Ženske iz Vipavskih brd so se odpravljale na pot ne v želji po bogatenju, ampak v nuji po preživetju. Zaradi razmer, v katerih so živele, je bilo njihovo življenje kmečke gospodinje vse prej kot vpeto med štiri stene. Igrale so več vlog: bile so matere, žene, snahe, vaščanke, trgovke, tihotapke oziroma kontrabantke, mogoče celo nekoliko avanturistke in ne nazadnje migrantke oziroma selivke. Selile so se v bližnja mesta in po podeželju ter tako krožile med domom in virom zaslužka za osnovne življenjske potrebe. Predvsem ženske z majhnimi otroki so iskale srednjo pot in se tako niso trajno izselile, ampak le krožile. Tako so še vedno lahko opravljale vlogo matere in žene ter skrbele za dotok denarja v gospodinjstvo.Beseda, s katero ženske same označujejo svoje trgovske poti in sebe, je brangerstvo oziroma brangerca. To je ženska, ki je v obravnavanem obdobju na razne načine nosila jajca, maslo, sezonsko zelenjavo, maline, meso, žganje in druge pridelke v italijanska mesta, jih tam prodala ali menjala in prinesla domov nekaj denarja ali menjanih živil in gospodinjskih potrebščin, ki jih sicer ni bilo moč kupiti (testenine, milo). Na potek trgovskih poti je vplivalo spreminjanje političnih razmer in posledično državnih meja.Vzroki za selitve vsake od Gaberk so večpomenski. Čeprav jih v grobem lahko zaobjamemo z družbeno gospodarskim položajem (vsaka sogovornica pove, da je bila glavni razlog za selitve revščina), ima vsaka ženska svojo zgodbo in sebi lastne motive. V ospredje postavljena Olgina zgodba se ujema z zgodbami ostalih Gaberk in je dragocena, saj je tudi Olga sama hodila v Trst ter po ostalih poteh, ki jih je pred njo prehodila njena mati.Čeprav so bile poti nedvomno fizično naporne, so ženske tako prišle v stik s svetom, ki ni bil viden iz domače vasi. Videle so Trst, veliko, v njihovih očeh in tudi sicer bogato mesto. Poti v manjših skupinah žensk, ki so se poznale, so bile vse prej kot trgovski pohod v tišini. Ženske so se šalile, smejale, prepevale, si delile nasvete – tako trgovske kot tiste, bolj povezane z družinskim življenjem.Denar, ki so ga brangerce dobile, je predstavljal njihovo vsaj delno finančno samostojnost. Poti so jim predstavljale krajši odmik od otrok in moža ter bile pravzaprav njihov lasten čas. Zaslužen denar je vplival tudi na socialni razvoj vasi, spremembe statusa ženske, družinske trdnosti in tradicionalnih socialnih vzorcev zakonske stabilnosti. V Gaberjah je moč žensk znotraj družine narasla, saj so imele dostop do lastnega denarja. Čeprav so ga porabile za družino, predvsem za otroke in prehrano, so o tem odločale one. Življenjski standard družin se je, čeprav počasi, dvigal tudi zaradi njihovih poti
