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Bear it mind that Celt marriage wasn't necessarily about increasing the population, they weren't monogamous. It was about sharing and dividing ownership. They w
by orwin 3y ago
Bear it mind that Celt marriage wasn't necessarily about increasing the population, they weren't monogamous. It was about sharing and dividing ownership. They were merchants (mostly), women could be richer and earn more than the man they married, and one type of marriage handled that case (because the divorce was handled differently depending on who owned/earned the most). Marriage might have been about reproduction in civilization with huge gender gap, but for Celts it do seems it wasn't.
Just look at causes for divorce in Celtic law, disrespect is clearly more represented than fertility. Maybe it was due to the polygamous nature, idk.
Celt priests were druids and did not left a lot. Druidism was an oral, masculine tradition, handled birth and death, as well as medecine. They might have been involved, but we can't know, because they left no texts. The laws we found however were quite clear about administrating a marriage, and did not require the presence of a druid. I'm not sure Celt gods can represent civil aspect like greco-roman gods did (justice, city, household). At most they were fertility and healing, but like I said, marriages weren't about fertility (they even had concubinage contracts, for how children outside marriage will receive resources).
- proc0 3y agoSure, interesting. I guess it may come down to what the majority of civilizations did in regards to marriage, and maybe it's a toss up. If we limit it to the West, then its more clear that current traditions originate with monotheistic practices.
- orwin 3y agoOnly because Celtic tradition were eradicated. Early witch hunts probably ended the last remnants of our Celt heritage, and those happened after marriage was taken over by priests in the early middle age, at least in France. The non-merchand role a celt woman with money could have was teacher, arms teacher (weirdly, we have text about that, probably because it was rare enough to be written about) or healer. That last tradition probably survived longer than druidism in my area (it is also linked to being a midwife, which was a part of life that Christian priests ignored), and was the initial target of witch hunts. (Also, poisoning people, and especially rapists, would be something Celts women would have been very happy to do, considering Boudicca's reaction to her daughters' rape)