authority in marriage

In this part of the book the wives ignore their husband’s requests and begin a “war” between them. Each summer while Gunnar and Njal are at the Thing, the women send their servant to kill the other woman’s servant. This becomes a cycle that goes on until finally Njal decides he won’t accept a new servant that year before the Thing. This shows how addictive cycles are and how hard they are to stop once someone begins it. At the same time I was impressed by the amount of patience their husbands have because each time their wives kill a servant they just pay one another depending on which servant it was. These two men solve the problem in a very peaceful way both of the times while they could have gotten infuriated and attacked one another. It is also impressive how the woman disobeys the man and receives no punishment for it. I guess that represents that in that time the families weren’t ruled by either the man or the woman which makes it an equal ruling relationship. Many families are ruled in such a way in the present but there are many others in which one of the two genders has greater authority.