Njal's Saga (39-59)

Frequently, women are bothered by their husbands, because supposedly, we have little temperament and no patience at all with them. But, is it true?

“We’re not made like women, that we become furious over everything,” said Skarphedin.
(Chp. 44, pg. 75)

At first, I thought about the Vikings’ beliefs, when Skarphedin said how they were not made. Who made them and how, anyway? Until here, the saga hasn’t mentioned anything about the Vikings’ beliefs or religion. I am curios of this and hope I’ll be able to find out later on in the book.

But then, I focused on what he said, rather than where he came from. Maybe women take everything too seriously—at least in ‘Njal’s Saga’. We can see this is true, when thinking about the ‘war’ being fought between Hallgerd and Bergthora, a common hatred that later on becomes serious, when they decide to start killing other people, who are not included in the fight (their servants).

It seemed that both of them enjoyed revenge, and even enjoyed getting mad and fighting without a good reason. If these women had acted differently, and thus, contradicted Skarphedin’s theory in the first place, then the conflict wouldn’t have prolonged. Maturely, each one of them would’ve think wise to end the battle, and, therefore, not get mad just because of some vague dislike.

But, it’s Bergthora and Hallgerd we’re talking about; what about the women in general? The women throughout the world, today? Do they get mad over everything, and certainly, would they keep on struggling forever?

In the T.V, and the movies and books, it is not always that women characters show this behaviour noted by Skarphedin. Rather, some women are even more patient than the men. In reality, women don’t get mad over everything. It does depend on who the women is, to figure out what is it that gets her mad.

There are so many razes and ethnicities and beliefs today, and therefore so many different ways of thinking and acting. This might explain the fact that for what some women could be atrocious, for some others could be everyday material.

For example, a 15-year old teenager might like for guys to flirt with her, but, these flirting thing might make a 50-year old women mad and annoyed at the boys…anyway, it’s hard to find boys that actually flirt with 50-year old women. Should they do it, they surely do it for fun.

For the women to hate and what not to, she has been influenced by her own community and world. Perhaps, a women likes to eat watching T.V, while others not, just because they were educated to think of that as lazy, and disrespectful.

The changes in moods would also affect this ‘getting-mad’ thing. It happens to me. It’s not that my sister always gets me mad. Sometimes, I get mad at her with much more ease, because I might be having a bad day.

I have yet not decided whether Skarphedin was right, or not. Because, I’m sure this is Hallgerd’s and Bergthora’s case, I’m not so sure though, if it’s my case, and the case of the rest of the women.

So, Skarphedin was right, as he was referring to Bergthora, his mom, getting mad for everything. And I’m sure that she with her enemy, Hallgerd, were both very short-tempered women. So, he expressed himself wrong—he should have named his mom only, she being the only one he wanted to refer this to.

But, the again, what did Skarphedin know? Perhaps he was referring to the women living within his community, not only his mom. Though I can’t think of any more cases, maybe all the women within the period of time did behave like that. And, it is reasonable to say that time has influenced women in general to think and feel about things in a different manner. Not only time, but their past, family and own community.