The social taboo against relationships with U.S. servicemen stationed in Iceland

The social taboo against relationships with U.S. servicemen stationed in Iceland is a powerful social judgment rather than a stated legal prohibition. It casts Icelandic women’s relationships with American servicemen as a source of shame, shaping private choices and public reputations across generations. Through Kristín and Steve, and through an older serviceman’s memories of Tobba, the novel shows how that stigma can turn intimacy into a test of belonging and leave a relationship unfinished.

Wartime Roots and Public Judgment

The taboo is traced to the Second World War, when Icelandic women welcomed the first foreign soldiers to arrive on the island. The reasons described are varied: some women saw the troops as a route to a brighter future or a new life overseas; others were attracted to their uniforms and foreign manners, familiar from films, or to the cigarettes, nylons, and good times associated with their presence. The book presents these encounters as part of the history behind later public condemnation, not as evidence that every woman had the same motives.

Over time, involvement with American servicemen became a mark of shame. Women who slept with soldiers were branded with degrading labels, and Kristín feels that this harsh attitude has changed little. The social rule therefore works through reputation and collective judgment: the possibility of being seen as one of those women is enough to shape what Kristín believes she can bear.

Kristín and Steve

Kristín’s relationship with Steve makes the taboo an intimate obstacle. Steve, an American working at the base press office and liaising with Icelandic government ministries, first met her in an official capacity. They began dating and became close enough for him to invite her to the officers’ mess on their third date, followed by a drink at his apartment.

At his apartment, Steve was considerate, but Kristín’s confidence abruptly gave way to panic at the prospect of going to bed with an American on the base. The stigma surrounding Icelandic women and GIs had become part of how she understood the encounter. When she tried to explain her reaction, Steve was hurt that she seemed to regard him through that prejudice. She left; they saw less of each other, and the relationship gradually petered out in a silent withdrawal. After six months without speaking, neither had definitively ended it. The taboo thus acts not only through public insult but through the mistrust and distance it brings into a private relationship.

Tobba and the Serviceman’s Account

An older serviceman’s memory of Tobba offers a generational echo. Her full name was Thorgerdur Kristmundsdóttir, but he knew her as Tobba. She was married, lived in a nearby village, and worked at the store on the base, where the two met. She taught him Icelandic and awakened his interest in the country; he recalls becoming captivated by Iceland as well as by her. Although she would not leave her husband, whispers that she was involved with an American serviceman began, and he describes such gossip as devastating to an Icelandic woman’s reputation.

After Tobba died, the serviceman did not know where else to go. He continued applying to remain in Iceland every three years until he received special dispensation and the applications stopped. He travelled around the country in summer and sometimes guided servicemen to historical sites and familiar attractions, including Gullfoss, Geysir, and Thingvellir. His account does not say that the relationship became a public affair; instead, it makes the whispers themselves consequential, while showing how his attachment to Tobba helped bind him to Iceland.

Social Boundary and Narrative Significance

The two stories reveal the taboo’s uneven burden. Kristín and Tobba are the Icelandic women exposed to public judgment, while Steve and the older serviceman are American men whose relationships with Icelandic women form the other side of that boundary. In Steve’s case, the stigma enters the couple’s private life through Kristín’s fear and his sense of being misjudged; in Tobba’s, rumor threatens her standing even though she remains married. The recurring pattern links one woman’s sudden retreat from intimacy with another woman’s exposure to whispers, showing how a social rule can operate without any formal authority enforcing it.