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If She Says Yes or Is Silent: A New Interpretation of Female Marital Consent in the Settlement Period in Iceland as Revealed Through the Family Sagas

by Sandra Alvarez
December 20, 2011

If She Says Yes or Is Silent: A New Interpretation of Female Marital Consent in the Settlement Period in Iceland as Revealed Through the Family Sagas

Fortney, Jill Marie

M.A. Thesis, History, Emory University (2009)

Abstract

This thesis seeks to explain how female marital consent functioned in Saga-Age (870 ­ 1050) Iceland by examining the Family Sagas and the Law Code. It is in part a response to the work of another scholar, Jenny Jochens and her book Women in Old Norse Society. Jochens believes that female marital consent did not exist in Iceland during the Saga Age and that any mention of it in the Sagas is a Christian interpolation and does not represent historical fact. This thesis seeks to counter that argument by arguing that the authors of the Sagas, while Christian, did not have a writing program that included inserting female marital consent when there was none before.If She Says Yes or Is Silent: A New Interpretation of Female Marital Consent in the Settlement Period in Iceland as Revealed Through the Family Sagas.
 

Click here to read this thesis from Emory University 

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TagsChristianity in the Middle Ages • Daily Life in the Middle Ages • Early Middle Ages • Eleventh Century • Gender in the Middle Ages • Marriage in the Middle Ages • Medieval Iceland • Medieval Law • Medieval Literature • Medieval Social History • Medieval Women • Ninth Century • Old Norse Language • Sagas and Norse Writings • Tenth century

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