The key hook, the hidden power of emäntä

Three keys, three locks
The key hook is a cast brass plate with a hook at the bottom. The hook usually held three keys, each one for a specific place: the bridal chest, the chiffonier and the inner pantry. The bridal chest was the painted wooden chest a woman brought with her into marriage, filled with her dowry of linen cloths, embroidered sheets and other textiles. The chiffonier was a piece of furniture with a fold-out writing surface and small lockable drawers, where the farm kept its important papers and money. The inner pantry was the storage room for the expensive things: coffee, sugar, salt, wheat flour, the kind of goods you had invested in and rationed out over a long time.

The woman is the key of the house
If you had a key hook, you were usually what was called emäntä, meaning the woman who ran the household in Meänkieli, the language unique to the Torne Valley and one of Sweden's four official minority languages. There is a Meänkieli saying, “Vaimo oon koin auain”, which means “the woman is the key of the house”. Formal ownership of land and houses was registered in the man's name, until 1921 a married woman in Sweden was under her husband's guardianship, which meant that in the eyes of the law she could not herself own land or houses. In spite of this, it was the emäntä who in practice ran the daily economy and storage of the farm. The legal framework and the everyday influence did not match, and the key hook is a physical record of that gap.

The hook was fastened to the belt and hidden under the apron. Showing off your wealth was not appropriate, but when she walked, the keys still rattled against the brass plate and could be heard.