Women as partners – gender balance and cooperation in household and society

This chapter investigates the concepts of gendered work and gendered space in the Viking Age and Norse period (c. AD 750–1300). These two concepts, which are often used to reconstruct gender roles of the past, will be critically examined in the light of subsistence farming households in Scandinavia and Iceland. It is argued that scholars have placed too much reliance on idealised gender roles, often derived from written sources, ethnology, and studies of ‘traditional’ farming practices, without proper consideration of the limited choice open to subsistence farmers available in terms of daily tasks. Practical needs for survival, rather than...