![]() In many traditional societies, women rarely interact with men who are not their husbands or near family members. Then as now, these traits often got a lot of attention. ![]() They had stories to tell and money to spend. Instead, Vikings were people who took a lot of pride in themselves, had a lot of confidence, paid attention to adornments, and loved sensory pleasures. Vikings may be barbaric brutes in the popular image, but archeology and the written record tell a different story. Perhaps it is no wonder then that the chronicles tell of Vikings blending with local populations by the year 840. In this manner, they laid siege to the virtue of the married women, and persuaded the daughters even of the nobles to be their concubines.” “… thanks to their habit to comb their hair every day, to bathe every Saturday, to change their garments often, and set off their persons by many such frivolous devices. As one medieval chronicler and monk, John of Wallingford complained of the Vikings: These Vikings with swagger in their steps and silver in their belts were still not welcome by the local men – even when coming in peace. They had plenty of non-violent contact with peoples from Ireland to the Middle East. The Vikings moved seamlessly between raiding and trading. The Viking Don Juan, as Described by an Annoyed English Clergyman Our purpose here is not to pretend those bad things did not happen but rather to look at the good things that also happened. This brings us to our word of caution: our ancestors' world could be a hard place where many bad people did bad things. While they were out there, they may just find a wife in a foreign land. Young men would adventure abroad to win enough money to afford escalating bride prices. Polygamy may have been one cause of the Viking explosion. However, for the most part, it was aristocratic or wealthy individuals who would do this. It was legal and acceptable in most Nordic realms for a man to have multiple wives or concubines. Runestones and saga tales tell of some women being married four or five times. Life expectancy for Vikings was not great. So couples stayed together because they chose to.Īlso, unlike other contemporary societies, Norse men and women were free to remarry as often as they cared to. Divorce was even easier in Viking societies than it is in ours. Unlike most other places, though, the bride (and not merely her father) had to consent. Like most others in their age, Viking marriages were arranged between families. This article is not intended as a sociology/anthropology study, though, so we will brush over some of these interesting topics just enough to provide context. As hard as their world was and as ruthless as they could sometimes be, they understood and valued this greatest human emotion.Įntire books have been written on marriage, family, and gender roles in the Viking Age (793-1066). In fact, Viking lore is full of love stories. It is a visceral force that carries the soul to the highest heights and lowest lows of the human experience. While cultural expressions may vary, love could never be a fabrication. It stands to reason that people everywhere and across time are more similar than different. While there are certainly some hard truths within these notions, there is also much more to the story. It was later refined by Shakespeare before being embraced by the Romantic Poets of the 18 th century. Some even say that the entire modern notion of romantic love was a whim pioneered by the French Troubadours and Andalusian court poets of the High Middle Ages. ![]() ![]() You probably have heard that in the past, most marriages were simply business arrangements between families, and only the poorest people married for love. ![]() When you hear the word ‘Vikings,' an image of hopeless romantics is probably not the first thing that springs to mind. ![]()
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