Scandinavia and the World
Scandinavia and the World
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Baby Daddy


Something that was deeply offensive to most of the cultures the Vikings encountered was that Vikings didn't worry too much about fidelity, even the women could shag around, and their husbands happily accepted the children as their own even if they knew they weren't the father.

The reason was quite simple. Keeping a child alive was difficult back then so any child that survived was a miracle, and people wanted big families, so if your wife had a child it was your right as the husband to keep it. The other loser could mob around with one child less to his name.


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1st September 2017
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7 years ago #9675662        
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As a profession medieval historian, I'm afraid I have to call nonsense on this. Old Norse society was deeply concerned with identifying the proper paternity of children, and having sex with a woman who was not your wife was a crime. The right to prosecute this crime belonged to either her husband or, if unmarried, her father and other male relatives. It's true that the Norse did not distinguish between premarital and extramarital sex (so fornication and adultery were essentially the same offense), but it's clear that illicit sex by a woman was a crime. Far from celebrating the survival of every child, Norse society was concerned to make sure that too many children were not being produced because it was recognized that not all children could be supported (given the climate and generally poor food resources). Infanticide of unwanted children was pretty widespread.

If you want to know more about this, take a look at Jenny Jochens' Women in Old Norse Society, especially the sections on marriage and paternity.


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Finn123

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7 years ago #9675311        
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So in other words... the vikings were cuckolds?

No wonder about modern Sweden then ^)

Jk, despite what this comic would tell you, vikings weren't actually cucks, unlike many but not all modern swedes.


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Finn123

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7 years ago #9676396        
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@Scanian_dreng
Nationalism is about your people and national identity based on ethnicity and culture and usually the will to preserve those things. Doesn't require pride to the actions of your country, or its governing body.

Socialists often have a problem with one thing about that, the fact that nationalists want to preserve their national identity, culture and ethnicity. This doesn't go well with their plans to open all borders and get rid of national identities via mass immigration into European nations, so they conflate the terms nationalism and patriotism (patriotism means love/pride towards your country without concerning preserving national identity like nationalism does) and claim that nationalism is somehow a more evul one of those, and offer patriotism as an acceptable way to love your country. Then they claim to be patriotic themselves while supporting things that are detrimental to the country, like mass immigration from third world shitholes.


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7 years ago #9675480        
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I wrote a lengthy post about this some time ago, that Scandinavia has in many respects historically been very liberal and progressive compared to most of the rest of the world.
We where forced to by our physical surroundings.

In a climate as harsh and unforgiving as Scandinavia was back then, every single life was precious for the collective to survive.
Disputes where settled by collective decision by the tribes, punishment meted out in fines, the death penalty or blood feuds almost unheard of.
The social cohesion of the tribe and the larger community was always paramount for survival.

There's a reason George RR Martin depicts the northerners in Games of Thrones like he does - honest, trustworthy, pragmatic - those are common historical northern traits he's describing.
Even if we didn't have White Walkers and undead roaming the land, winter is always coming every year and if you don't have your food stores and house in order when it does you will die.

People down south could waste precious resources on pointless fights amongst themselves - in the north we've always had to pull together to survive.


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7 years ago #9675921        
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Who else thinks that baby was Finland?


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7 years ago #9675373        
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Sounds like a great way to look at things. What a pity this attitude didn't proliferate.


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Finn123

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7 years ago #9675693        
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@atreju
A lot of scandinavian left wing liberals like to spread misinformation about how progressive and liberal and tolerant vikings supposedly were, probably because of the lack of evil christianity at the time. Soon we'll probably hear about gay pride marches in ancient Götaland a thousand years ago.


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v0ider

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7 years ago #9675345        
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so they were cucks even a thousand years ago


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7 years ago #9675810        
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Something that needs remembered: Adoption isn't a new thing, and if you had the chance to adopt a strong and capable individual into your household, it was often a boon for the house as a whole in most societies. Many times adopted sons were considered equal to blood sons, societies that opposed bastards often traced it back to complex political issues, or even inheritance laws. In fact in rome and even early roman Christianity sometimes there seems to be a general rule that it's only bad if a child is born from the union, since that generally complicated legal issues. This is part of the reason why you often saw so many married individual who embraced same sex lovers-marriage was for legal inheritance while your sexuality was more for either pleasure or love.

This naturally evolved over the centuries into the more complex mess we have these days, but back then it was a different beast entirely that changed with each society. Placing absolute reliance on blood was a much more recent thing, since even societies that did place a major thing on it often were ok with talent grabbing whenever they had the chance. That said, even in societies with less than caring things about marriage fidelity, I wouldn't hold my hopes up for the life of an incompetent child born from another man. Generally you would only embrace and adopt capable people-so if you lack both that and blood relation, then unless your biodad and father are good friends I wouldn't hold much hope for first dibs at dinner.


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7 years ago #9675710        
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So..
Scandinavians were cuckolds?
Well, that explains it why they act like that todays.

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