Celtic women, Irish history, medieval era

Celtic Women in Ancient Ireland, Part III

In this post Christian author Mark Fisher continues his look at Celtic women in ancient Ireland with Part III. (Click here for Part I, Part II or Part IV.)

Women’s Early Rights

We’ve seen how the ancient Celts gave women certain inheritance and property rights, how some early Celtic women led their people, and how marriage laws gave women some rights. Women were also able to abandon their husbands after the first year of marriage if she wasn’t satisfied with her spouse. So a Celtic woman in ancient Ireland had more rights and privileges than their counterparts in Rome or Greece. But until Patrick brought the Christian idea of equality between the sexes, it was still a man’s world. It’s a truly Christian idea that every person is considered equal to every other.

Celtic Woman

Women Had a High Honor Price

When we look at slavery, we must temper our ideas about how many rights women had in early Ireland. Slavery was such a part of early Irish life that a basic unit of currency was the cumal, or woman slave, equal to six heifers. On the other hand, Peter Beresford Ellis tells us: “A girl under the age of seven years of any social class in the Irish system had the same honour price as a cleric.”

Note that “honor price” in ancient Ireland was a measure of a person’s worth. If someone was killed, the restitution paid by the offending clan might be the dead person’s honor price, offered in cattle or slaves.

Children Were Often Raised by Foster Parents

Raising children was a woman’s primary task. But here we stumble on a custom that seems foreign to us. Under the Irish system, they would send out their children, even babies, to foster parents until their teenage years. To whom would the children go? To close relatives. Or to non-relatives with whom the clan wanted to cement alliances. The foster parents loved and cared for these children as though they were their own. During the fosterage, the children would visit their real parents. When the time came to return to their birth parents, the foster father would send them home with parting gifts. In this way, alliances were formed and families created friendships across clans. This might also have served to unify Irish culture.

Polygamy

Polygamy was probably prevalent in ancient Ireland. Because of the multi-tiered Celtic marriage arrangement we saw in my previous post, men could claim more than one “wife”. When Christianity came along, it discouraged this practice. Celtic tradition said a man could “marry” a woman under one form of marriage, but then bring home a second wife. The first wife then became the chief spouse and for three days, was legally entitled to beat the newcomer. After that, she had extra help with the field work.

More Moral Than the Romans?

Celtic women apparently had more freedom to choose who their men were, as noted by this paragraph from The Celts by Peter Beresford Ellis:

“The Romans seemed preoccupied with the ‘liberated’ attitude of the early Celts. Dio Cassius comments on the fact that the empress Julia Augusta criticized what she saw as a lack of morals in the way Celtic women were free to choose their husbands and lovers and did so openly without subterfuge. The object of her criticism was the wife of a north British chieftain name Argentocoxos. The encounter took place early in the third century AD. According to Dio Cassius, the wife of Argentocoxos turned to the empress and replied with dignity, ‘We Celtic women obey the demands of Nature in a more moral way than the women of Rome. We consort openly with the best men but you, of Rome, allow yourselves to be debauched in secret by the vilest.’ It is not recorded how the empress reacted.”

Touché, empress.

Sources for this post were St. Patrick of Ireland, by Philip Freeman, and The Celts, by Peter Beresford Ellis.

Next week we’ll conclude our look at Celtic women with Part IV.

Mark is the author of The Bonfires of Beltane, a novel of Christian historical fiction set in ancient, Celtic Ireland at the time of St. Patrick. To learn more about his book, follow the link above.

July 24, 2016/by Mark E. Fisher

Celtic women, Irish history, medieval era

Celtic Women in Ancient Ireland, Part II

In this post, Christian author Mark Fisher continues his look at the role of Celtic women in ancient Ireland, looking at marriage and women’s rights in a man’s world. (Click here for Part I or Part III.)

Last time we looked at the case for women living a more egalitarian existence in Celtic society than in the Roman and Greek worlds. Women could own and inherit property. Celtic legends tell us of strong women leaders, such as Macha Mong Ruadh, who supposedly founded Emain Macha, which for generations became the seat of the kings of Ulster. Until Christianity banned the practice, they even fought alongside men.

Celtic Women, Equal or Not?

A Celtic Marriage Ceremony

But again, the evidence for women’s equality in ancient Celtic society is mixed. Says Philip Freeman: “Irish law texts tell us that women were classed along with children, slaves, and insane persons as having no independent legal rights.” As in many ancient cultures a woman’s legal status was tied to whatever man had authority over them: husband, father, brother, etc… Freeman again: “Modesty, virtue, and steady, hard work were the marks of a proper wife. Sexual promiscuity and dabbling in witchcraft were the qualities a man should beware of when shopping for a mate.”

The attitudes of most ancient societies toward women can be summarized in this Roman law: “Women, even if they are full grown, shall always have a legal guardian because of their foolish minds.”

Celtic Marriage

Under Celtic laws, nine types of “marriages” were recognized in a hierarchy from highest to lowest, as follows:

Both man and woman contributed property such as land or cattle. The woman here was a “wife of joint authority”.
Marriage between a man of means and a woman with little or no property.
A man with little or no property married a woman of means.
A man spent the night occasionally with a woman, in her home with her family’s consent.
Of her own volition, but without her father’s consent, a woman eloped with a man.
A woman allowed herself to be abducted from her father’s home, but reluctantly, and without her family’s consent.
A man visited a woman in her father’s home secretly, without her father’s consent.
A man had a mentally incompetent wife. But here the laws strongly protected the woman from being exploited.
An act of rape. In this case the man was assessed a heavy fine, plus was responsible for the full cost of raising any child that resulted from the union.

These definitions of “marriage” are quite loose, to say the least, encompassing nearly every type of relationship between a man and woman. Yet they do serve to protect a woman’s rights to any property she brings to what we would consider a traditional marriage. They also protect her if she becomes mentally incompetent. And they do require a man who rapes a woman to pay reparations and child support. In a world ruled by men, where the druids and the clan were the only law, these protections were, at least, something.

One Year Trial Marriages

One interesting custom is the woman’s right to abandon a marriage after the first year. At the end of one year of marriage, if a woman found her mate had abused her, did not make love to her enough, or she otherwise found she’s incompatible with her husband, she can leave the man and annul the marriage. So you Celtic guys, be on your best behavior with your new bride. Or she’ll return to papa.

Sources for this post were St. Patrick of Ireland, by Philip Freeman, and The Celts, by Peter Beresford Ellis.

We’ll continue our look at the role of women in Celtic society next week, with Part III.

Mark is the author of The Bonfires of Beltane, a novel of Christian historical fiction set in ancient, Celtic Ireland at the time of St. Patrick. To learn more about his book, follow the link above.

July 17, 2016/by Mark E. Fisher

Celtic women, Irish history, medieval era

Celtic Women in Ancient Ireland, Part I

In this post, Christian author Mark Fisher examines the role of Celtic women in ancient Ireland—Part I. What roles did they play? What were their lives like?

A Celtic Woman Warrior

Celtic Women—Emancipated or Not?

Opinions differ widely on this subject. The ancient legends are full of strong, Celtic women who were the equal of men, women who fought in battle and led their clans. There’s no doubt that in early Ireland women enjoyed a degree of equality with rights and freedoms unseen in the rest of the Roman and Greek worlds. On the other hand, the historical evidence strongly suggests that early Ireland was like much of the rest of the ancient world—a woman’s life was difficult. It was still a man’s world.

Beware the Celtic Woman Warrior!

Let’s look at the case for a different attitude toward women among the Irish Celts.

What we know comes mostly from the Roman and Greek writers who were often biased. But it’s interesting to read what they say about Celtic women. Ammianus Marcellinus says: “A whole troop of foreigners would not be able to withstand a single Celt if he called his wife to his assistance. The wife is even more formidable. She is usually very strong, and has blue eyes; in rage her neck veins swell, she gnashes her teeth, and brandishes her snow-white robust arms. She begins to strike blows mingled with kicks, as if they were so many missiles sent from the string of a catapult.”

He paints a picture of fearsome lassies, indeed. Diodorus Siculus also adds this, “The women of the Celts are nearly as tall as the men and they rival them also in courage.”

The Story of Macha Mong Ruadh

The Irish chronicles tell us about Macha Mong Ruadh, a famous female ruler. Though a number of characters with her name appear in both legend and history, we’ll concern ourselves only with the historical figure. For seven years she ruled in 377 BC as “Queen of Ireland”. Her father, Aedh Ruadha, was the previous king and ruled with his cousins Dithorba and Cimbaeth. But after Aedh drowned, an electoral college composed of three generations of the royal family elected Macha as queen. In his book, The Celts, Peter Beresford Ellis tells us: “Dithorba and Cimbaeth disagreed with the decision and wanted to keep the kingship to themselves. Macha promptly raised an army and defeated Dithorba, taking his five sons as hostages. She made them and the prisoners of war build the ramparts of her new fortress of Emain Macha. She came to terms with Cimbaeth and, it is recorded, married him.”

Navan Fort, Site of Ancient Emain Macha

So not only was Macha’s rule powerful, she founded Emain Macha, which for generations was the seat of the kings of Ulster. Whether or not she and her father were truly queen and king of all Ireland, though, is up to debate. It’s questioned whether there was ever a true monarch ruling all of Ireland before the ninth century or even later.

Celtic Women’s Legal Rights

The later Brehon laws of Wales tell us something about Celtic women’s legal positions and how high in Celtic society women could rise. They talk about women as “war leaders”, “hostage rulers”, “female lords”, and “the chieftaness of a district in her own right”.

Julius Caesar, whose writings on the Celts were often biased, does agree with other sources when he says that when a woman marries she brings a dowry of equal worth. “A joint account is kept of the whole amount, and the profits which it earns are put aside; and when either dies, the survivor receives both shares together with accumulated profits.” This tells us that Celtic women could inherit and own property, rights which Roman or Greek women had yet to attain.

Sources for this post were St. Patrick of Ireland, by Philip Freeman, and The Celts, by Peter Beresford Ellis.

Next time, we’ll continue our look at the role of women in Celtic society with Part II.

Mark is the author of The Bonfires of Beltane, a novel of Christian historical fiction set in ancient, Celtic Ireland at the time of St. Patrick. To learn more about his book, follow the link above.

July 10, 2016/by Mark E. Fisher

Archive for category: Celtic women