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[-] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 1 points 1 month ago

There’s probably a shit ton of nazis in Valhalla. Vikings didn’t have any sort of morality about human rights, they went by might makes right. If you died in glorious battle, no matter the cause, you’re going to Valhalla.

While that is true to an extent, women had more rights and freedoms in Viking culture. While it wasn't close today's standards. It was far exceeded what other cultures were doing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings

However, written sources portray free Viking women as having independence and rights. Viking women generally appear to have had more freedom than women elsewhere, as illustrated in the Icelandic Grágás and the Norwegian Frostating laws and Gulating laws.

Norse laws assert the housewife's authority over the 'indoor household'. She had the important roles of managing the farm's resources, conducting business, as well as child-rearing, although some of this would be shared with her husband.

After the age of 20, an unmarried woman, referred to as maer and mey, reached legal majority and had the right to decide her place of residence and was regarded as her own person before the law....A married woman could divorce her husband and remarry.

A woman had the right to inherit part of her husband's property upon his death, and widows enjoyed the same independent status as unmarried women. The paternal aunt, paternal niece and paternal granddaughter, referred to as odalkvinna, all had the right to inherit property from a deceased man. A woman with no husband, sons or male relatives could inherit not only property but also the position as head of the family when her father or brother died. Such a woman was referred to as Baugrygr, and she exercised all the rights afforded to the head of a family clan, until she married, by which her rights were transferred to her new husband.

Viking culture also had social mobility, some political rights to the lower classes, and had the Things (local assemblies).

In daily life, there were many intermediate positions in the overall social structure and it appears that there was some social mobility between them. These details are unclear, but titles and positions like hauldr, thegn, and landmand, show mobility between the karls and the jarls.

Other social structures included the communities of félag in both the civil and the military spheres, to which its members (called félagi) were obliged. A félag could be centred around certain trades, a common ownership of a sea vessel or a military obligation under a specific leader. Members of the latter were referred to as drenge, one of the words for warrior. There were also official communities within towns and villages, the overall defence, religion, the legal system and the Things.

this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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