Saga - 2019, Qupperneq 117

Íslendinga um kynferði og kynheilbrigði alþýðukvenna í Reykjavík
allt frá seinustu árum nítjándu aldar. Á þessu tímabili tókust Ís -
lendingar á um sjálfsmyndir, nútíma- og þéttbýlisvæðingu, kynheil-
brigði og stéttaskiptingu. Rétt eins og annars staðar á Vestur lönd um
á átjándu og nítjándu öld var þessi barátta leidd af efristéttarmönn-
um, einna helst læknum, með líkama alþýðukvenna sem vígvöll;
það var þar, ofar öllu, sem varð að lækna kaupstaðasóttina og freyju -
fárið.118
Abstract
þorsteinn vilhjálmsson
THE TOWN DISEASE AND THE MADNESS OF FREyJA
The discourse of sexual health and venereal disease in Reykjavik 1886–1940
In the final years of the 19th century, Icelandic women started migrating in large
numbers from the countryside to the coastal towns, especially Reykjavik. This
migration was sometimes called the ‘Town Disease’ in the press. This article
argues that this ‘disease’ was essentially conceived of as sexual in nature. It was
feared that the towns, Reykjavik most of all, were hotbeds of venereal disease, as
places of contact and contagion between Iceland and the outside world, between
the purity of the agricultural Iceland of the past and the corruption of its increas-
ingly urbanised present.
The article analyses the discourse of the ‘Town Disease’ found in three kinds
of sources, which together give an unusual insight into Icelanders’ thoughts and
ideologies on sex and sexuality. These are written from the late 19th century to the
1930s. They are the Annals of the students of the Reykjavik Latin School, hand-
written, unofficial and semi-secret accounts of school life; the public and semi-
public writing of Icelandic doctors; and the pages of the new yellow press which
came into being in Reykjavik in the 1930s.
In these sources, we can see how the fear of venereal disease, especially
syphilis, was connected to the growth of Reykjavik and the sexual conduct of its
women. Venereal disease was seen as a foreign influence, brought to Iceland
mostly by foreign, sometimes by Icelandic, sailors. These functioned as the
carriers of the disease and corruption of the large mainland city to Reykjavik,
Iceland’s closest equivalent to such a place.
Icelandic women who were infected with venereal diseases were suspected
of prostitution with foreigners and loose morals. During the 1920s and the 1930s,
action was taken against the spread of these diseases with laws passed in Parlia -
ment and prophylactic measures taken by the Directorate of Health. In the streets,
kaupstaðasótt og freyjufár 115
118 Sjá t.d. Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, bls. 39–99, 158–204.