Women of the Teutonic Nations

by Hermann Schoenfeld

Upon the status of women among the Teutonic tribes the study of philology sheds some light. From it we learn that the Gothic quind, woman (in general), and queue, married woman, signifies the child-bearing one, from the verb quinan, gignere; or wip (Saxon wif, Old Norse vif), indicating the root of wib, motion, the mobile being; though frouwa, frau (Old Norse, freyja), means originally "joyous, mild, gracious," and is used to signify "illustrious ladies" down to the thirteenth century.

The female child was allowed to live only by grace of the father. If this right of the father over the life of his female child appears barbarous, we must understand that the valuation of life in primitive times is always very low. Not only among the early Teutons, but also among the early Romans and Slavs, a custom prevailed by which the children might kill their old or incurably sick parents, because of the conception that life is valuable only so long as physical vigor dwells in the body. Believing this, it is easy to conclude that when vigor departed death was a blessing, the bestowal of which parents could legitimately expect from their children.

The daughter was bought from the father for marriage purposes for a value, and, without recourse, she was placed in the absolute possession of the buyer, who might be an entire stranger to her. Friendship, favor, or material advantage might induce the buyer to transfer his wife to whomsoever he chose. Nothing was left to her but resignation, and, obeying a stern necessity, she followed her husband and taskmaster to death, "not to sweeten his after-life, but to continue her dreary service."

The Norse sources are full of tragic examples of immolation. When the bright sun god Baldur, the wisest, most eloquent, and mildest of all the Ases, is finally slain, at the instigation of the evil god Loki, by a twig of mistletoe in the hands of the blind god Hodur, his wife, the goddess Nanna, is burned with him. Likewise, the Valkyrie Brunhild, in the Old Norse version of the Siegfried legend, kills herself so that she may be burned with her beloved Sigurd. Hakon Jarl, the last great partisan of paganism in Scandinavia, woos in his old age beautiful Gunhild, but she is unwilling to expose her blooming youth to the risk of being burned with her aged husband.

The toil and trouble of life rested upon woman's weak shoulders; the menial work at home and in the field was her lot. The man roved in war or on the hunting ground, and while at home was an impassive onlooker of her labors. He gave himself up to the enjoyment of his barbarous pleasures of drinking mead, lying idly on the skins of the wild beasts killed by his rude weapons, or gambling with such desperateness as sometimes to impel him, when all else was lost, to stake wife and children, nay, his own person, on the result of chance. Freedom and absolute liberty of life was the manly ideal, since according to the word of Cæsar "trained and accustomed from childhood to no business or discipline (outside of war and hunt, to be sure,) they do nothing at all against their own will."

A highly important occupation of the ancient Teutonic woman was the brewing of beer from barley and other grain. Thus, the Edda relates that King Alrek of Hordaland decides the question which of his two wives he is to discard, in order to terminate their eternal altercations in his household, by the superior skill of one of them in brewing beer. Also the making and the care of wine, which the Teutons learned to know and appreciate from the Romans, belonged to the sphere of woman, for women not infrequently served as cupbearers to the men in their halls. It is, however, true that the Suevi, at least, forbade the importation of wine within their realm, because they believed that men by its use became effeminate and unfit for heavy labors.

Even though we assume the menial labors of the household to have been done by slaves, yet we learn that royal women took an active part in washing. The pernicious strife between Brunhild and Gudrun breaks out in the business of veil washing. (In the old Norse version.)

In its beginnings Teutonic family life was undoubtedly hard; it was, however, destined to emerge from its early barbarity and one-sidedness into a strong, sound, and healthy moral relation between the sexes. Only thus could have been produced a race now dominant throughout the world, and always capable, by this development, of the best and highest progress in political advancement.

When first the light of history is shed by the two great historians, Cæsar and Tacitus, upon the Teutonic family eastward of the Rhine and northward of the Danube, woman has already conquered and appropriated to herself many traits of Freya and Frigg, the divine mothers of the Teutons. Something holy and providential is perceived and acknowledged in woman's nature: she has already become priestess and prophetess and a political power in the state.

Of the sacrificing and prophesying priestesses of the Cimbri, the first Teutons who knocked powerfully at the gates of Italy, we shall speak later. When, in B. C. 58, Cæsar offered battle daily to Ariovistus, the Suevian king who had broken into Gaul and installed himself there, the latter, though a fierce and heroic warrior, did not accept it. Cæsar learned from Teutonic prisoners that the prophetesses, in consequence of lots and divinations, forbade the king, if he hoped for victory, to engage in battle with the Romans before the new moon. The battle was, however, forced by Cæsar and it ended with the total rout of the Teutons. Cæsar's envoy, Procillus, who had been held in chains by Ariovistus according to the barbarian fashion, escaped from his captors and related to Cæsar his terrible experiences in the camp of the king. It had been a vital question whether Procillus should be burned at the stake or kept for a future occasion, and this was thrice determined in his favor by the lots cast in his presence by the wise women. Here, as elsewhere, women interpreted the decree of fate. Tacitus mentions Albruna (called Aliruna by Grimm) as an ancient prophetess venerated by the Germans during the expeditions of Drusus and Tiberius in the interior of Germania.