Incest in Iceland 1500–1900

by Dr. Már Jónsson

Margaret and Richard Beck Lectures
University of Victoria
March 23, 1998

Páll Guðmundsson Lecture
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg
March 29, 1998

Why is incest prohibited? There is no really satisfactory answer to the question, but in the context of my talk today, the most appropriate explanation is simply that the prohibition stems from the fact that the roles people play in society should not be confused. My mother should not be my sister nor should my brother be my son. My father should not be my brother-in-law nor my sister my stepdaughter. A famous French poem from the sixteenth century says:

Here lies the daughter, here lies the father,
here lies the sister, here lies the brother,
here lie husband and wife,
and yet there are only two bodies in the grave.

This is impossible to figure out, but it shows how intolerable life would be if people married within their own family. Everything is possible, of course, and most things have happened, but the options people have in society have to be limited in some way so that family relations and sociability remain uncomplicated. Whether this is the only and real reason for the prohibition of incest in every culture on earth, I will not say, but it is a sufficient explanation for those who study incest historically.

I.

Incest can be defined as sexual relations between people who should under no circumstances beget children with each other. Some kind of prohibition of incest seems to be universal among humans, but the kinds of relationship involved differ considerably between cultures, countries and centuries. Nowadays, marriage between father and daughter, mother and son, sister and brother are prohibited, but other relations may marry. The words of God to Moses in the third book of Moses (Leviticus 18:6–18) formed the basis of all discussions on the question of incest in Western Europe from the early Middle Ages until the end of the eighteenth century. I shall present the relevant verses as they are in the New International Version of 1978, as that translation is quite close to Lutherʼs 1534 version of the same passage. First comes the general injunction: No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord. Then this is specified:

7. Do not dishonour your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her.
8. Do not have sexual relations with your fatherʼs wife; that would dishonor your father.
9. Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your fatherʼs daughter or your motherʼs daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere.
10. Do not have sexual relations with your sonʼs daughter or your daughterʼs daughter; that would dishonour you.
11. Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your fatherʼs wife, born to your father; she is your sister.
12. Do not have sexual relations with your fatherʼs sister; she is your fatherʼs close relative.
13. Do not have sexual relations with your motherʼs sister, because she is your motherʼs close relative.
14. Do not dishonour your fatherʼs brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations; she is your aunt.
15. Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your sonʼs wife; do not have relations with her.
16. Do not have sexual relations with your brotherʼs wife; that would dishonour your brother.
17. Do not have sexual relations with both your wife and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her sonʼs daughter or her daughterʼs daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.
18. Do not take your wifeʼs sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living.

How many women are prohibited here? Counting sister and half-sister as one person I find fourteen: mother (v. 7), stepmother (v. 8), sister (v. 9 and 11), daughters of oneʼs son and daughter (v. 10), fatherʼs sister (v. 12) and motherʼs sister (v. 13), wife of fatherʼs brother (v. 14), daughter-in-law (v. 15), brotherʼs wife (v. 16), stepdaughter, daughters of oneʼs stepdaughter and stepson (v. 17), and wifeʼs sister (v. 18). During most of the Middle Ages the churchʼs prohibitions were more inclusive than suggested in these verses, most of the time extending to the fourth degree of consanguinity and affinity. They were, however, always based on the Levitical list, that provided the rules of calculation and extension. The most significant rule was that consanguinity, referring to blood relatives, and affinity, referring to relatives by marriage, were of equal importance. According to theologians, a manʼs sister-in-law was just as closely related to him as his consanguineous sister. This is something that we have to keep in mind in addition to our modern or post-modern ideas of what incest is.

II.

In late medieval Iceland incest was treated in accordance with the church law of 1275. Its list of absolutely prohibited degrees was based on Leviticus but also influenced by Roman law and Norwegian church law, enumerating seventeen women prohibited to a man, which also, of course, meant that seventeen men were prohibited to a woman. Incest meant exile from the country and loss of all property to the closest bishop and the Norwegian king, who could, if they wanted, decide on a more lenient treatment, and often did.

The origins of the death penalty for incest in Northern Europe, however, can be traced to the years around 1500. In Germany the influence of Roman law was decisive, but in Scandinavia a conflation of incest and heresy took place. Incest became an offence against God and incestuous people had to be executed in order to calm his anger, something that had already been done to Christian heretics for at least five centuries. Heretics were often accused of the most heinous crimes, incest and homosexuality considered among the worst. Thus, homosexual people were burnt at the stakes already in the thirteenth century, but incestuous people not until the end of the fifteenth century. By that time, in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, incest was seen as a variant of heresy and atheism. The first execution for incest in Denmark took place in 1507 and in Sweden the death penalty for incest was introduced by law in 1528. In Norway a rich and powerful man was burnt on Christmas Eve 1535 after he admitted having had a relationship with his wifeʼs sister. She, however, came under the protection of a bishop and survived.

Execution for incest became the rule in Northern Europe after the Reformation, and in Iceland the so-called Stóridómur, an extensive legislation on sexual matters passed at the Althing in the summer of 1564, decided that incestuous women should be drowned and men beheaded. No burnings occurred for incest, only for witchcraft. The new law was confirmed by the Danish king. For the next one hundred or so years, the definition of incest and the prohibited degrees of marriage were highly disputed among Protestant theologians and lawyers in Europe, and there never was a clear consensus on the question of which people should be put to death for incest. This discussion, however, did not reach Iceland, nor did any doubt about the validity and justness of the Stóridómur as such.

III.

Around one hundred Icelandic cases of incest are known to have taken place in the period 1570–1800, one every second year or so. However, a simple rumour was not enough to attract the attention of judges, not even direct accusation. Priests and bailiffs were vigilant enough, but did not follow up hearsay, and there is only one case of a man in 1662, who himself requested the right to swear an oath that he had never had sexual relations with any of his wifeʼs four sisters. Having done that he was free to go and there were no interrogations in the case. Essentially, if a case of incest was to be heard before the courts a child had to be born. There were no exceptions to this in Iceland, however, in 1679 in the Faroe Islands, where the Stóridómur was valid, a brother and sister admitted having had sexual relations once, with the result that local judges decided on their execution. This would not have happened in Iceland.

When a child was born in Iceland, the first thing asked for was the name of the father. If a woman did not want to reveal his name, the immediate suspicion was that the child was conceived in an incestuous relationship. Threats were frequently used in order to make women speak, but never torture. Until they gave that piece of information, though, women could not enter a church and were admonished in public at least once a year, even fined and flogged. This was because paternity had to be ascertained without doubt if a case was to be considered as incest. On the other hand, if a man pointed out by a woman who had just had a child did not agree that he was the father, he had to prove that by swearing an oath, with five or eleven other men if there was question of incest, but with two other men if the case promised to be less serious. Thus one can say that there were strict rules of proof and that judges did abide by them.

And incest proven beyond doubt inevitably resulted in an execution, a retaliation for atrocious behaviour, and a punishment designed to scare other people from doing such things. There were no exceptions to that in Iceland in the seventeenth century, nor in Denmark and Norway. Research has shown that in the period between 1590–1736 in Iceland, around 120 children were born out of wedlock every year, approximately 10 per cent of all births. Most parents of illegitimate children, 80 per cent to be exact, were single and unrelated people. One out of eight illegitimate children was the fruit of adulterous relations—the father being married most of the time and the mother single. The remaining 6 per cent of illegitimate children, six or seven each year, had parents who were related to each other by blood or affinity. Most of them were second or third cousins, however, and such cases are not something we would call incestuous.

The most common case of incest involved a man and his wifeʼs sister. The second most common case involved a man and his stepdaughter. Together these two relations account for more than fifty of the one hundred known cases in Iceland. After that came brother and sister, father and daughter, and a man and his sisterʼs daughter. It is, of course, probable that not all instances of incest in Iceland were discovered by the authorities, but what the sources reveal is that approximately fifty Icelanders were executed for the crime of incest in the period 1570–1760, half of them men, who were beheaded, and half of them women, who were drowned. This accounts for almost half of all the executions in the country—the other capital offences were infanticide, murder, witchcraft, and serious and repeated theft.

Here are some examples:

Capital punishment for incest was not often criticized during the seventeenth century. The few quaint voices that were raised against it in Iceland or Northern Europe made no impression on the authorities, who really were convinced that if incestuous people were not executed, incestuous behaviour would take over in society, which meant that God would punish the whole country with earthquakes, flooding, bad harvests, and plagues. In the years 1683–1687, however, a legal rule was introduced in the Danish Kingdom, stating that people who had been sentenced to death could have their case sent to the king himself. He would then decide whether they should be executed or sent to prison for life, where they were put to extremely hard work. In Iceland this only had some influence from the year 1713, when a young woman had been raped by her uncle (fatherʼs brother). The king decided that the man should be sent to Copenhagen and stay in prison for the rest of his life, but the girl should move out of the district she now lived in. After this, almost all cases of incest were sent to the king in Copenhagen and people were kept in custody while they waited for his decision.

The institution that had the greatest influence on this development was the faculty of theology at the University in Copenhagen. The professors were asked for their opinion in specific cases and tried to assess them in the light of Leviticus. Their principle was that the law of God could not be changed, but they accepted the point of view that exceptions could be made if there were extenuating circumstances; for instance in 1693 when the theologians asked the king to spare the life of a Norwegian girl who had had a child with her auntʼs husband, since she was so young and had not known how serious an offence this was. He, however, should most certainly be beheaded. If a woman had been raped, there was a good chance that her punishment could be changed into lifelong imprisonment. She was less guilty, but not innocent. Exceptions were made if the women were daughters or stepdaughters of the man who raped them. Such cases were considered to be so serious that nothing could be done; even the women had to die. As the years went by, the theologians recommended leniency in most cases of incest, and the king always agreed. By 1730, executions for incest had become an exception and imprisonment for life the rule—although, for many, this may have been worse than death. The conditions were terrible and of the eighteen Icelandic prisoners who came to Copenhagen prisons in 1756, only four were alive one year later.

It is hard to see why on earth people did not avoid doing things that would lead to their deaths. Maybe they did not care or maybe they simply did not know. The list of the seventeen persons prohibited under penalty of death was read in churches once in a while, but that did not work. In court, it was common that people claimed that they knew that their acts were illegal but that they had not been aware of the harsh punishment. Afterwards they would repent and despair, and there are several examples of that before executions. Who wouldnʼt? The effect of harsh punishments on other people, however, was close to zero, and it seems that incest is something that cannot be influenced by punishment: the number of cases did not diminish after the introduction of the Stóridómur, neither did it go up when the death penalty was abolished.

The last execution for incest in Iceland took place in 1763, when a man and his stepdaughter were executed for incest and infanticide. The last execution only for incest was nine years before that, when an eighty-year-old man was beheaded and a forty-year-old woman drowned. She had some years earlier had a child with his son, which indeed made her the old manʼs daughter-in-law, hence the execution. In Denmark a man was executed in 1790 for having a relationship with his daughter, but rather because he had raped her and killed the child. At this point lifelong confinement and hard work was the most common punishment for incest, but over the next decades the verdicts became less and less severe. By the middle of the nineteenth century most incestuous people were only put in prison for a few years, and then released. Incest had stopped being a crime against God and was now only considered to be a disruption of orderly relations in society.

The question had by then been raised by theologians, lawyers, and philosophers as to whether Leviticus should be abandoned as the basis for deciding which marriages were to be prohibited. So many thorny questions had to be solved that the text increasingly was regarded as useless for arriving at practical decisions. At the end of the eighteenth century the exegesis of Leviticus was abandoned as a basis for the definition of incest and prohibited degrees of marriage. Instead, it came to be considered as a scholarly exercise without relevance to the enactment of civil laws. Besides that, the influence of theological discourse on public affairs had declined and the secular construction of incest, which had its origins in speculations about natural law in the early seventeenth century, took over. This meant a more narrow definition of incest and in a royal letter in the year 1800, only seven women related by blood were counted (sister, mother, both grandmothers, daughter, and both granddaughterʼs) and four related by affinity (stepmother, stepdaughter, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law). No mention is made of sisters-in-law, which suggests that incest was gradually becoming what it currently is thought to be: the sexual intercourse of mother and son, father and daughter, and brother and sister. As a next step the death penalty for incest was abolished, in Norway in 1842, Denmark in 1866 and in Iceland four years later.

IV.

Most documents on incest were produced by judges and administrators, and they have to be read from a different point of view if they are to tell something about the people involved and their community. When that is done it seems clear that the popular Icelandic definition of incest was less extensive than in the laws and the often aberrant discussions and definitions of theologians and lawyers. The prohibition of incest is not built into human consciousness. Avoidance of incest is nothing that comes naturally to all people. Incest does happen in every society, whether we use the local definition or the Western definition just mentioned: father and daughter, mother and son, brother and sister. On the other hand, although authorities in the past were busy eradicating incestuous behaviour and considered it very dangerous, it was extremely rare. Very few people engage in this and most people never even give it a thought. This was so in Iceland too. Therefore, what the Danish anthropologist Kirsten Hastrup has written, that incest was quite common in Iceland and more common than in other countries because it was a primitive and savage nation, is not correct. She talks about the conspicuousness of incestuous relations and the lack of shame, and claims that to engage in incest, and to accept it socially, is to deny the foundations of culture and society, which means that the Icelandersʼ negligent observation of rules and taboos are a leap back into nature, as it were.

Hastrup does not realise that the historical sources we have exaggerate extreme cases like incest because peopleʼs lives were at stake. Authorities really thought that incest broke the law of nature and that it had to be punished severely. The severe punishment shows that they were serious in the condemnation of incest. They found it atrocious and in the introduction to Stóridómur the necessity of a harsh punishment is justified because of the terrible deeds that so often happen: sakir þeirra óhæfu og fordæðuskapar sem svo margan hendir oft og ósjaldan. In a verdict from 1737 there is talk of such horrible incest between father and daughter. The same attitude reigned in Europe, and a direct consequence of such ideas was the thought that monsters and other beasts were born if people committed incest. There was, for instance, disagreement in England in the sixteenth century about whether intercourse between the Devil and witches led to the birth of unnatural children, but nobody disputed the fact that adultery and incest were the most common causes of the birth of monsters, that is deformed children. Thus, in the year 1600 a booklet was published in London with the title A most strange and true discourse of the wonderful judgement of God. Of a monstrous, Deformed Infant, begotten by incestuous copulation, between the brothers son and the sisters daughter, being both unmarried persons. The fear was real, it seems, and the story is supposedly true that at some point in the eighteenth century an English man went to a masquerade and made love to his disguised daughter, but died of horror at the discovery.

But what about Iceland? It may be surmised that nineteenth century folktales in some sense show the attitude of common people, but by that time the threat of execution had disappeared. Common to these stories is a deep sympathy with brothers and sisters who had children together. The folktales also imply that sisters and brothers who had a child were in the bloom of life and therefore close to being innocent. In one story, God saw to it that a tree grew on the grave of a brother and sister who were supposed to have been executed in the Vestman Islands in the early seventeenth century, although they denied the accusation of incest. Another story tells of a servant-girl who became pregnant and walked out of the house one night. A man went after her and found her by a brook, where she held a newborn child. She said that if she killed the child she would save two lives, her own and her brotherʼs, since he was the father. The man proposed marriage and promised by that to save them all. The girl accepted and they lived happily ever after. This does not, however, mean that people accepted this kind of behaviour and no folktale on brother-sister incest lets them live together after the birth of a child. They have to part. This is less radical than what was going on in learned literature in Europe, where brothers and sisters even lived together and had many children, as in a novel by Casanova published in 1786.

In the real world, most brothers and sisters who committed incest were quite young, just around twenty years old or even younger, both of them willing, maybe just fulfilling some curiosity. Guðný Eiríksdóttir, for instance, was twenty-two years old and her brother Árni six years older when they had a child in 1822. She said: We are both to blame, but he added: Both, yes, but my fault is greater. There are, of course, examples of very different cases, and Sigríður Björnsdóttir seems to have been used by her brothers, for she had a first child with Guðmundur in 1796 and with Þorvarður a year later. Two years after that she was bedridden with leprosy and could not be moved to court, or as an official wrote: she is rotting alive and the nails are falling off her fingers.

Sexual relations between father and daughter, stepfather and stepdaughter, were something entirely different. Menʼs desire for their daughters is common in myth and literature everywhere in the world. In most cases the daughter is raped when she rejects her father. This was so in Icelandic folktales and adventures too. For instance, one story goes that just before she died, the mother of Helga Karlsdóttir warned her that her father would attack her, which he did. She tricked him and went so far away that he never found her. This was so also in most actual cases of father-daughter and stepfather-stepdaughter relationships, although not all. In some of them, however, there was consent; for instance Þuríður Einarsdóttir, close to forty year old, had a child with her father in 1761, and said in court: I was not forced to this sin, but persuaded by my evil nature and also by my father. I did not do it, however, out of fear of him.

The kinds of incest that the authorities prosecuted with great fervour, and which also were most common, for instance a man and his wifeʼs sister or his brotherʼs wife, were never treated in folktales. That indicates, I think, that the attitude of ordinary people was quite different from the attitude evidenced in the definitions of the law. The problem is that the folktales were written down after the changes in the definition of incest that I have described, so it is, of course, possible that they reflect a lack of memory and historical consciousness; people were only concerned with whatever was prohibited in their own time. My sentiment, though, is that the difference between popular conceptions of incest and legal definitions can be traced further back. Common people thought of incest as the sexual relationship between sister and brother, mother and son, father and daughter, stepfather and stepdaughter, stepmother and stepdaughter. They did not accept the wider official definitions, and thus provided a more rational definition of incest, quite similar, in fact, to the one accepted nowadays in most countries.

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