Det går an
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Related e |
Featured: |
Det går an (It is acceptable) is a novel by Carl Jonas Love Almqvist. The story is of a woman who lives with a man without being married to him.
Plot
During a steamboat trip between Stockholm and Lidköping, a sergeant named Albert falls in love with the glazier's daughter Sara Videbeck.
But Sara insists that they live in an egalitarian marriage without a formal marriage ceremony and without shared property. Sara asks at the end of the book: Går allt detta an, Albert? (Is all this acceptable, Albert?) The answer is: Det går an (It is acceptable).
The novel is primarily an attack on life-long marriage as an institution and the inability of women to become financially independent. The book's social tendency aroused lively debate and "det-går-an literature" became a concept. One consequence however was that Almqvist was forced out of his post as rector at the New Elementary School, Stockholm.