MARRIAGE AND SEXUAL POLITICSWhen the time had come for Snorri Sturluson to marry, his mother had spent the
inheritance he should rightfully have had after his father’s death. Thus Snorri, at the age
of eighteen, was without property but of high social standing. His brother Þórður and
his foster brother Sæmundur Jónsson proposed on his behalf to Herdís Bersadóttir,
daughter of Bersi the rich and of Þórður’s mistress, Hróðny Þórðardóttir. Snorri had two
children with Herdís but the marriage was not a happy one. The couple separated but
Snorri continued to control Bersi’s property.
Snorri also had a few concubines and with them another three children that we know
of. One of Snorri’s concubines was Guðrún Hreinsdóttir. She took care of his household
at Reykholt. They had several children, but only the daughter, Ingibjörg, survived to
adulthood. Guðrún was the daughter of Snælaug Högnadóttir and the stepdaughter of
Þórður Böðvarsson, who in fact gave his part of Lundamannagoðorð to Snorri, and in the
same year even the important farm Reykholt. Thus the relationship with the concubine
brought Snorri even more power and wealth than before (see Auður Magnúsdóttir 2001 :
68 ). Snorri used his children ruthlessly in order to ensure his political and economic
situation. His three daughters were married to some of the leading chieftains in the
country, and consequently Snorri established important alliances with the Haukdælir,
Ásbirningar and Vatnsfirðingar. Through his own relationship to Hallveig Ormsdóttir,
the daughter of Ormur Jónsson from Oddi, and by far the richest woman in Iceland, he
strengthened his connection with the family of Oddaverjar. It was after having arranged
all these marriages that Snorri bragged about his good alliances in the outdoor bath in
Reykholt. What Snorri was striving for was to establish strong, horizontal relations
between his own social network and the leaders of other social networks, as strong as his
own. And, as his friends admitted, his efforts were promising.
However, marriage as a political instrument wasn’t always an effective way of
creating strong alliances. In contrast to what has been stated about marriage alliances
in contemporary Denmark, the relations between fathers and sons-in-law wasn’t particu-
larly secure in Iceland. Whereas in Denmark sons-in-law proved to be loyal supporters
of their fathers-in-law, and sons not, the circumstances in Iceland were the opposite
(Hermanson 2000 : 174 – 5 ). A possible explanation is that in Iceland one could suppose
that sons and fathers had the same or similar ambitions, and strived for the benefit of
their own nearest family, the sons-in-law could, as leaders of other alliances, have
ambitions which in many cases weren’t parallel with those of the father-in-law. A
marriage was arranged between two socially and economically equal individuals, and if
the new son-in-law had his own political goals and alternative networks, he had the
possibility of standing on his own feet, or even opposing his father-in-law. In Snorri’s
case this meant that he couldn’t even be sure of support from two of his most powerful
sons-in-law, Gissur Þorvaldsson and Kolbeinn ungi. Thus Kolbeinn as a son-in-law of
Snorri, but blood-related to Sturla, chose to support the latter when Sturla and Snorri
came into conflict.
Alliances established through marriage were indeed a bond of dependence, but if the
interests of the two families came into collision, each of them had the possibility of
acting independently. It wasn’t even certain that the two families had the same network
as a basis of power. This is one of the explanations of the frailty of the system. Strong,
horizontal ties could result in difficult conflicts between the leaders of the two networks,
–– chapter 4 : Women and sexual politics––