[1] The one exception to her independence was the right to choose a marriage partner, which was a matter for the whole family.
[1] In the absence of male relatives, an unmarried woman with no son could inherit the position as head of the family from a deceased father or brother.
The right to inherit in itself applied to both the paternal aunt, paternal niece and paternal granddaughter of the deceased, who were all named as odalkvinna, but the right to inherit the position of head of the family was a right which could only be inherited by the daughter or the sister of a dead man.
[1] The ringkvinna had the specific support of the law to perform all the tasks normally performed by a head of the family, such as, the right to demand and receive fines for the slaughter of a family member.
These rights gradually disappeared after Christianization, and they are no longer mentioned in any law texts after the late 13th century.