Those poor, poor women. To think that a weekly bath was a huge upgrade…
Don’t worry. The women’s bathing wasn’t any more frequent. The whole thing is nasty
Self-care is ungodly
Saturday = Lördag, in Swedish, the origin of the word has the meaning of “water”, but came to mean ~" bathday".
Etymology of laugardagr:
Compound of laug (“bath”) + dagr (“day”), literally “bath day”. The former element is cognate with English lye
There’s also the fact that Norse society at the time gave women a lot more power than the societies they raided.
So you’ve got an option, a well kempt man who wears jewelry and believes that marriage is a partnership where the woman has authority in certain aspects, as well as him probably having more money and the ability to protect you. Or you can have a man who thinks bathing is a sin, dressing nicely is vanity, and your job is to pop out more babies, do manual labor, and do whatever he says.
What is the name of the chronicler and the specific text?
Attributed to John of Wallingford (wiki link). There may not be a lot of truth in it.
