Why it is so difficult to evaluate the influence of women on Viking Essay

Why it is so difficult to evaluate the influence of women on Viking society - Essay Example The saga writers of the 13th century belonged to an oral tradition, which embraced written culture like the Holy Bible. It is characteristic of Scandinavian or Norse societies, that they had never had any hierarchical form of governing. But Viking societies now had a king, who served as a ruler, and men were the dominant group in the society and the family. All these social aspects were then highlighted in epics and romance. As a result, saga writing became a political act in gender relations under this situation. The ideological view of the binary opposition formed a kind of "stereoscopic" view on women as depicted in the sagas, paying special attention to gender roles and the contexts of these performances. First, when one looks at women's representation in one of the oldest forms of Icelandic literature, the 'Gylfaginning' saga, most of the gods are represented as warriors, and are thus heroic images. This depicts the social role of males as being the 'external' heroes and proves their dominance both in the society and in their own family. Goddesses such as Frigg and Freyji usually represented marriage, motherhood, fertility, love, household management and domestic art2. Frigg and Freyji are the highest goddesses from the sir and Vanir races. In addition to their divine images, they are always seen as role models for the moral code for Viking women. Oral literature or written sagas were the major entertainment for Vikings, so the sagas worked as 'social education', developing the stereotype and the binary ideology in the Viking society. With this change and suppression of the past, there still were "strong women" in oral sagas in the Viking age. But nevertheless women we re constrained from playing the role of remembering and preserving the connection with the past, and evoking it in a way that minimizes its potential disruption of, or threat to, the present symbolic order3. Additionally, because of changes in political, social and religious culture, Viking women have lost their power in the public sphere. That's why women in sagas have always been the subordinate group under the authority of the male in the family. As in the Laxdoela Saga, the father was the one who decided about Gudrd's first marriage to Thorvald, a man she did not love4. This fact shows that women were under male's authority and seldom appeared in public. They were powerful in their limited private surrounding, taking care of their household and family, but still faced the binary opposition that influenced their society and the role and power of Viking women. Ultimately, it has blurred or flattened the influence of female Vikings on Viking society. To understand the social and historical function of sagas in Old Norse society, it is necessary to see, how women were represented in early legislation, together with their life's depictions in archaeological documents. In the medieval Scandinavian culture and from my study of the sagas, Viking women were always signified and related to the household and to nurturing their family and children. We can see this from one of the oldest sagas in Northman Literature, the Saga

Nature and culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Nature and culture - Essay Example Considering the various sociological perspectives that can be taken with regard to nature and culture, two stand out from amongst the others. These are the structural functionalist perspective and the conflict perspective both of which consider nature and culture in very different lights. To better understand how they differ and the distinctions made by them with regard to nature and culture it would be useful to examine them individually. First, structural functionalism is founded on the idea that society is composed of structures that are supposed to perform a certain function. In essence, both nature and culture are social structures but culture is more of a social construct than nature (McClelland, 2000). For instance, if a culture is connected deeply to the principles of monogamy it is entirely possible that the cultural elements of the society would lead to the government outlawing polygamy. On the other hand, some cultures may permit polygamy or even polyandry and thus the socially constructed laws in that country may give individuals the permission to create families in that manner. However, the functionalist perspective would suggest that the role of the family unit in both cultures could be more or less the same and the role is not solely dependent on the way in which the family is formed. Therefore, the role of culture in the functionalist perspective would be understood by examining the function performed by culture for a given society. The role of nature becomes something which deals with the individual and the skin bound individual may not be included in the debate on the functions of culture for society. However, the nature of the individual may function quite importantly for a person who interacts with society and thus his/her own nature may cause her to seek out groups which form a sub-culture in the larger culture. On the other hand, the conflict