Marriage and the blood feud in 'heroic' Europe.

The article focuses on marriage and the blood feud in heroic Europe. A stock dilemma found in the heroic literature of early medieval Europe was that of an innocent victim caught between conflicting loyalties. Thus, a wife enmeshed in a struggle or feud between her own family and that of her husband present an especially dramatic and popular example of such a dilemma. By looking at the role of women in the heroic society, it has been observed that the frequent occurrence of such tragic situations in the literature was not simply fortuitous. Rather the women frequently were placed, or chose to place themselves, in a situation which carried a strong likelihood of such a tragedy coming to pass. One of the prominent roles of a woman was, through her marriage that of acting as feud-healer or alliance-binder. This use of marriage either to heal an open blood feud or to create an alliance so as to prevent future feuds was an obvious and sensible policy. But, since the ironic ends of marriage frequently were unrealized, at least in the literature of the day, women became almost sacrificial victims to good but vain intentions. The composition of blood feuds by non-violent means is a major criterion in measuring the transition from a primitive to a more sophisticated society.