[Status - Brehon] (late post - this week's post) Women in Early Irish Society (I'm finishing the references tomorrow)

    Women's role in Early Irish society is unique in the amount of power some women had, as well as how some were portrayed in Mythology. I must put emphasis on the word some there, as only few women who had powerful roles, or were treated differently from women in the rest of society. In this post, I will examine the status of women in Ireland and how it differs greatly from the rest of Europe at the time, but also differs very little. 

Taken From: thejuicyreport.com

    Irish culture was supposedly "Matriarchal" prior to Romanization, where it became a patriarchy. This is heavily debated and has compelling evidence to support it, but also to undermine it. I recommend reading this Wikipedia article (Ancient Celtic Women, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Celtic_women#cite_note-13) to learn more about this, since it is well laid out. Examples in mythology, such as Queen Mebh, a legendary, powerful queen who had a lot of control over the lands of her kingdom, show that perhaps women in Ireland had more political power than those elsewhere in Europe. The power of Goddesses on Earth and in the Otherworld is also an indicator. A lot of people say that Irish clans and kingship was in fact matrilineal; however, this is also heavily debated, as most latter mythology shows obvious patrilineality. Again, refer to the previous Wikipedia article to gain some insight, but remember that anyone can edit it, and since it covers a controversial topic, its reliability is to be questioned.

    Divorce laws in Ireland allowed divorce at will with very little legal ramification, as seen in the Cain Lanamna and talked about at length in the last post. This indicates that divorce was in fact common and accepted in Irish culture, even well past Romanization and the Norman invasion. An interesting note from an ambiguous source I found is that "Liberal divorce laws seem to have allowed aristocratic men and women to change their spouses in the pursuit of power" (http://womeninhistory.scoilnet.ie/content/unit1/gaelic.html). Like I said in the previous post, the Cain Lanamna is mostly directed at nobility since it mentions people having a lot of property and land. However, what I didn't consider is that divorce allowed people to rise in power, since marriage had such an important role in social status, especially with dowries. 

    The aforementioned Wikipedia article  states (under the 'Social Position' subheading) that Strabo, a Greek geographer from the 1st Century AD, wrote "Men and women dance together, holding each other's hands," when talking about Celtic relations. It is vague where he observed this, and in what social class this was happening, but it does show that there was less obsessive chastity and restraint in Celtic culture relative to Roman culture.

    In Mythology, the ideal qualities of a woman differed from those of a man. In the Acallam Na Senorach (Tales of the Elders of Ireland), Fionn's three daughters are described as the ideal Irish women. First of all they were the daughters of Fionn, who was a High King and respected warrior. This status was undoubtedly a positive attribute. The text elaborates on their qualities: 

"The virtues of these women were comparable to the qualities of those men, for they surpassed the women of Ireland in needlework and in embroidery, and in all of Ireland there were not three women more beautiful than they."

From this, we see that Ireland is no different from Europe at this time in that they valued beauty and skill in attributes that were considered women were meant to occupy themselves with. We continue to see similarities with the rest of Europe's cultures as Fionn says: 

"do not sleep with any men but the men whom I and the Fiana of Ireland shall give you."

So, unsurprisingly, chastity is an important virtue for a Waman, but what is more meaningful in this example, is that the text immediately moved to talking about sex after a superficial description of the daughters. Whereas men get long descriptions of their combat skills, leadership, and deeds, the women are objectifies only shortly after they are briefly described. This is because their story is a plot device to build resentment amongst the audience against a certain clan that kills these three daughters. I call this story a plot device because it only lasts half a page in the Acallam Na Senorach. The story itself only serves to build resentment, and elaborates on nothing else. 

    This trope is common throughout Irish mythology. Deirdre of the Sorrows is another example. She is sequestered in the woods by her husband because it was prophesied that she would "bring sorrow to Ireland." Later we find out that this is because she was "too beautiful," so she would inevitably cause a war for her hand in marriage. Karl Jung termed this archetype as the mueller candida, meaning the "light woman" or "white woman," which is commonly thought of as the "fair maiden" nowadays. In mythology, this archetype is often depicted as innocent, chaste, beautiful, and is always sought after by men in some way or another. The mueller candida also often represents the fertility her kingdom's land.

    Interestingly, the story of Cailleach Bhearra (the Hag of Bhearra) is about a hag who is also a goddess that represents fertility of corn land. Peter O' Connor writes about her in Beyond the Mist: "[...] in one story she put to death a succession of male reapers who failed to match her prowess with a sickle."

    However, what is unique about the story of Deirdre of the Sorrows is how much the story tries to elaborate on her depth as a person and reveal how much she hates the objectification forced upon her by her surrounding culture. She escapes where she is being sequestered at the beginning of the story and walks into a village where she encounters other men for the first time in her life. She forces three male warriors she encounters at the village to run away with her and help her escape those keeping her sequestered by revealing the prophecy that she will be the cause of great sorrow in Ireland. The men oblige and are forced to wander Ireland and Scotland, never finding a place to settle because no one wants to welcome Deirdre because they all somehow know of her prophecy. Fast-forward in the story, she ends up back with the husband who was keeping her captive and commits suicide. 

    The story is feminist in the sense that it's about a woman who is liberated from her husband who is imposing restrictions on her, the objectification from her surroundings, and the excessive focus on chastity (which is almost the same as promoting the opposite of chastity). When she returns to that same husband, she hates her situation so much that she commits suicide. However, the story is also about the unavoidability of fate. Most people say this about Deirdre of the Sorrows because her prophecy inevitably comes true, despite everyone's best efforts to avoid it. When juxtaposed with the rest of the story, this seems to imply that it is impossible for a woman to escape her fate: no matter how hard she or the people helping her try, she will inevitably end up with a controlling husband who she hates and become subject to objectification from the men around her.

    In the Acallam Na Senorach, Cailte is a female figure who is an exception to the typical archetypes women have in Irish Myth. She is a strong warrior who, throughout the text, is never objectified. She interacts amongst powerful men as an equal, and if gender was not specified through pronouns in the text, it would be difficult to determine whether or not she was actually a woman.