Viking double burials and the hypothesis of the woman’s sacrificial role

Remember the news about the skeletons holding hands that turned out to be the remains of two men? When it comes to Viking paired burials, such as those in these illustrations, there is a hypothesis far removed from the silly formula of "they lived happily ever after and died on the same day". Why, do you suppose, does a woman's body end up holding hands with the body of a dead man? In fact, the story of such burials is less about the dead than about the mourners who saw them off into the afterlife. There is evidence that on the death of men of standing a female slave, servant, captive or concubine was put to death and buried in a subordinate posture beside her master. Of course, in each particular case such a claim requires the verdict of experts, and graves with beheaded people and people with bound limbs are not the same thing as a mere man and woman in one pit. Nevertheless, as regards Scandinavian necropolises, including those in the north of Rus', the embrace of the dead often points to the woman's sacrificial position and to the ritual character of her killing.