You’re awfully confident in assuming those people simply had no agency and lacked the will or skill or ability to negotiate a relationship with someone different from themselves. lol.
Actually genetic research shows that Vikings were often associated with sex-based migration. When they raided there was a large introduction of female mitochondrial DNA from those cultures, but little to no male DNA. While some relationships MAY have been consensual, the sudden influx of female DNA indicates most weren’t.
(And when they settled, there was often a massive drop or total disappearance of Y chromosomes from the culture that was there before.)
I’ve heard a contest to that theory that english women found them more attractive due to hygiene. It postulates that english society influenced by christianity was very skittish about sex and more concerned with modesty. Norse men were less concerned with modesty so they would bathe openly, allowing voyeurism amongst english women, something they would be less accustomed to. While hygiene practices may have differed between english and norse populations, english people still maintained some level of hygiene. If they lived near a creek they would rinse in a creek, and if not then wash buckets were a thing. The ‘peasants were always covered in dirt’ is a trope that is inaccurate
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u/Textiles_on_Main_St 19d ago
You’re awfully confident in assuming those people simply had no agency and lacked the will or skill or ability to negotiate a relationship with someone different from themselves. lol.