Hans Jæger

Hans Henrik Jæger (2 September 1854, Drammen, Norway – 8 February 1910, Oslo) was a Norwegian writer, philosopher and anarchist political activist who was part of the Oslo (then Kristiania)-based bohemian group known as the Kristiania Bohemians. In 1886 he was prosecuted for his book Fra Kristiania-bohêmen, then convicted and sentenced to 60 days' imprisonment and a fine of 80 kr for infringement of modesty and public morals, and for blasphemy.[1] He also lost his position as a stenographer at the Parliament of Norway.[2] Jæger was defended in court by barrister Ludvig Meyer.[3][4] He and other bohemians tried to live by the nine commandments he had formulated in Fra Kristiania-bohêmen.

Portrait of Hans Jæger by Edvard Munch (1889)

The following year he was forced to flee Norway. He had been sentenced to 150 more days in prison after the Norwegian government learned that he had sent 300 copies of Fra Kristiania-bohêmen to Sweden under the pretense that it was a volume of Christmas stories.

He was a friend of Edvard Munch and was the subject of one of Munch's paintings, swiftly painted in the rented room of one of Munch's friends.

Hans Jæger maintained that sexuality should be unrestricted in relationships, arguing that the traditional values of marriage and social class encroached on personal freedom and fulfillment. Jæger asserted that the institution of marriage should be abolished and that there should be "full sexual freedom between the sexes in the same social class." [5]