> From: Nils Weinander <nils_w_at_yahoo.com>
> Subject: Nandan
>
> Silly me, chiming in when the Nandan debate has almost died
> down...
>
> I was rather surprised that everybody assumes a connection
> with homosexuality for Nandan. When I first heard of Nandan,
> that he saved the clan by giving birth when the women turned
> barren, I assumed that he was a man whose wife couldn't
> have children and whose heroquest to have a child ended
> up with him learning woman mysteries and coneiving a child
> himself.
>
> That said, modern day Nandanites could of course be gay, but
> I don't think it's necessary. I think it's a valid path for
> a man with a barren wife as well.
I don't think that Nandanite are necessarily homosexual, but I do think
that their cult provides one of the clearest options for homosexual men who
wish to maintain a legal relationship with another man. Nor does their
style of cross-dressing have to be like modern cross-dressing. In Laxdaela
Saga, Gudrun manages to divorce one of her husbands by getting him to wear a
shirt with a neckline wide enough that it constitutes a woman's blouse.
Thus Nandani men may be only token cross-dressers, for example, wearing a
kilt long enough to qualify as a skirt.
Andrew E. Larsen