Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Page 128

126 Alison Finlay
further appropriation of male roles, pursues the feud with Kjartan to the point
of instigating his death.
Chaucer’s Merchant’s Tale bleakly articulates the powerlessness of women in
medieval marriage and its commercial foundations, rehearsing the traditional
male-oriented debates about marriage and satirizing the self-regarding transports
of the elderly bridegroom. His young bride’s disgust is only hinted at in the line,
‘But God woot what that May thoughte in hir herte.’29 Her thoughts are, in fact,
clear enough from the context of the tale; but Chaucer’s emphasis on her muteness
underlines the refusal of the system to allow any weight to her opinion. This
degree of authorial comment is not available within the conventions of saga style.
However, the theme of a father’s consultation of his daughter in the arrangement
of her marriage can be used to similar effect, to foreground her emotions — as in
Bjarnar saga — or, paradoxically, to emphasize the limitations of the freedom
apparently being allowed to her. It is impossible now to say whether the theme
originated for this purpose. It seems to me unlikely that its function was didactic.
If it were, it could be argued that the frequent handing back from daughter to
father of the right to decide was intended to underwrite the established parental
right rather than to urge the necessity of consulting the prospective bride.
Laxdœlasagastands out among the sagas in its concern for women’s sensibility,
with its unique range of subtly articulated female characters. But these are not
merely ‘strong’ women, but women whose only channel for their strength is
through adopting roles identified in one way or another as masculine. The saga’s
preoccupation with autonomy in marriage is not only the natural consequence
of its interest in women, whose arena within medieval narrative was almost
exclusively domestic; we have already seen how the author forcibly introduced
the subject of marriage into the stories of women (Unnr and Þorgerðr) who are
presented elsewhere as strong characters by other means. Ratlier, marriage — and
especially the arrangement of marriages — offered the chance to focus on the
interface between male and female rights. Women acknowledged as intelligent
and characterful are offered only the most contingent powers; Guðrún, as a
widow, has the right to choose her husband, a right dearly bought by being forced
into marriage at the age of fifteen with a rich but paltry older man; the man of
her choice thrusts her back into her domestic responsibilities; her father and
brothers press her into marrying his lesser cousin. That the saga’s strong women
break out into parodies of masculine behaviour is not straightforwardly applauded
by the saga author; his attitude is rather that, like Auðr, they were forced to do
what they did.
29 The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson (Oxford, 1988), 161 (1. 1851).