Scandinavian Marriages during the Vikings Times - Viking Romance and Love
Viking Life
Even though Vikings are well known for their courage and spirit of invading new land, when it came to love they were very caring and sometimes even shy about it.

Viking marriages were similar to the rest of Europe in the aspect that they were mostly forced. A marriage made because of love was almost unheard of - meaning that a Viking would marry a woman who was strong and could take care of children properly - and definitely not for love.

When a Viking was to marry, the celebration was held most of the time outside, but alas it also happened inside in front of their gods. God statues had to be placed specially during Friday which was the Frigg Day - the day devoted to Frig who was the goddess of marriage.

The fear shown by Vikings to their gods was enormous - to such degree that they feared doing anything wrong at all during their wedding as it would constitute the couple's doom. If the bride was to trip in her way to the feast, their marriage was certainly going to be a failure.

When the actual ceremony took place, among many other rituals, they exchanged swords in which the male Viking gave his sword to her wife who would pass it on to their first born son when he reached a certain age. The bride, on the other side, would pass the groom another sword which represented the whole family and he had to take care of it like he took care of his own family.

When all the formal celebrations were completed, everyone headed inside the keep for a feast. This is when if the bride tripped, so would their marriage. Subsequently, the groom was specially careful about taking care of his new wife.

This changed completely after the introduction of Christianity to Norway and Sweden, but alas; even Christianity was influenced by some Viking practices as it can still be seen today.