Culture question

[cdybedahl]

Half the kingdom and the princess' hand in marriage as a reward for solving a problem in a fairy tale is common in the English-language world too, isn't it?

Comments

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

In a word: yes.

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Coincidentally I was thinking of posting about this today following on from my online conversation with temeres about matrilinial inheritance. I think Northern Europe at least, and I include the Anglo part of it, has a cultural memory that suitors used to marry into the female line.

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

Not up here, as far as I know. It's certainly not been the case at any point in the last thousand years.

And I'm asking for fic-related reasons, anyway...

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I'm talking longer ago than a thousand years, for instance the European customs reported by the Romans, but in any case this is just my anthropological interests coming to the fore.

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

All right. In that case the case is that we really don't know what kind of culture the people up here had at the time. We do know it evolved into the viking culture, so it's a good bet that men and women were pretty much equal.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Less common than most people think, I'd say, but definitely a cliche people would recognise :)

[dolmena.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's positively cliche'.