Doug Hall noted... >When the Norsemen arrived in what was later to be called Normandy, they were >not only not Christians, they were what the 16th and 17th centuries would >have called pirates. Fathering children with one wife was hardly in their >minds. Onslow says "By Rollo himself, who no doubt had wives in every port >from the Baltic to the Seine, the matter would have been regarded as of the >most trivial importance." I doubt that we would use the word "wives" in this >regard today. The behavior of the Normans was normal for the period in which they lived. It was not in the least abnormal. It may surprise most people to learn that not monogamy, loyalty to one's wife, nor respect for women were widespread in Europe before the 17th century. Women for the most part were objects to be used as men wished. Some men married and remained loyal, but a philanderer was not regarded as an especially vile form of humanity. Despite their rigidities in many things, the Puritans were among the first to make marriage an honored institution, but interestingly, they approved of divorce and remarriage if one party to a marriage wronged the other. The prevailing practice under the Roman and Anglican Churches was to prohibit divorce for any reason. I haven't the time to quote or paraphrase from histories of the 16th and 17th centuries, but any good history of the manners, morals, and social customs of the time will open your eyes open wide in amazement at the behavior our ancestors manifested not long before many of them crossed the pond to settle in North America. I hardly recognize them as my ancestors, their values seeming to to have differed radically from our's. Kelvin Kean Elverson, Pennsylvania And always looking for the parents of Damaris Dutton, born about 1702/1705, Lyme, New London, Connecticut and died 17 January 1774 Hebron, Tolland, Connecticut.