Saga - 1986, Qupperneq 78

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GUNNAR KARLSSON
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Summary
The author discusses three recent articles dealing with the position of women in
early Iceland. Two are by Ólafia Einarsdóttir, „Staða kvenna á þjóðveldisöld"
(The Position of Women during the Commonwealth Period, 1984) and „Om
húsfreyja—myndighed i det gamle Island" (On the Authority of the Housewife in
Early Iceland, 1985); the third is by Nanna Damsholt, „The Role of Icelandic
Women in the Sagas and the Production of Homespun Cloth“ (1984). In the
opinion of the present author these articles are a return to an outmoded theory
concerning the rights of women in early Iceland.
Following the introduction the author discusses briefly the basis for a compari-
son of the position of Icelandic women in the middle ages; viz., with what can one
make such a comparison? The present article does not however compare the
position of medieval Icelandic women with that of their counterparts elsewhere in
Europe. At the same time, the English author Eileen Power is cited as showing
that the role of European women, at least those living in towns, was greater than
Ólafla Einarsdóttir is prepared to acknowledge.
The way in which Ólafía Einarsdóttir and Nanna Damsholt use sources to
demonstrate the existence of „strong" women in early Iceland is criticised: for
example the romanticised tales of the Sagas, the author maintains, are used
uncritically.
The author also feels that Ólafía concentrates disproportionately on the position
of married women. Many women never had the chance to marry, and even those
who did marry had little say over whom they married, and their right to end a bad
marriage was negligible.
The author feels that Ólafía exaggerates the legal rights of women. It is not
correct, as she maintains, that bigamy was illegal. The punishment for offences
against women, rape for example, varied according to the social status of the
women in question, and not least whether she had a husband or a son who
considered the offence to be to him.