ABSTRACT
The Icelandic sagas of Chapter 1 argue against heroic love but not for courtly love. Not only did the Church impose lifelong monogamy on powerful men, but the First Sexual Revolution sanctified female consent. The new mating morality’s exaggerated manners and emotions never became common practice, but its norms and values undermined heroic love. Instead of violently defeating her protectors or making a commercial agreement with her father, men should court their chosen woman by using sophisticated social skills. To convince his aristocratic warriors of the immorality of raping their enemies’ women, King Hákon commissioned a Norse version of the Tristan legend, the only extant complete version from the formative period of the courtly branch. This chapter’s interpretation attests to the coevolution of mating and modernity. Courtly love promoted the main social ideals that would come to define WEIRD cultures. Kinship societies had been undergirded by interpersonal trust among relatives, but feudalism required impersonal trust among strangers. Tristram, the courtly knight, prospers because he embodies the impersonal prosociality of the new mobile, educated, and transculturally inclusive European individual. His eventual demise can be interpreted as punishment for having had multiple mates.
