Chaucer and His Times

by Grace E. Hadow

But he was far too shrewd and honest an observer of life to persuade himself that all women were angels, or to allow reverence to degenerate into sentimentality. His attitude towards marriage is characteristic. Reference has already been made to his acceptance of the comic convention of the shrewish wife, and certainly both the Host and the Merchant have but few illusions left concerning wives. The virago whom the Host has married cannot as much as go to say her prayers without finding some cause of quarrel:—

And if that any neighebour of myne
Wol nat in chirche to my wyf enclyne,[92]
Or be so hardy to hir to trespace,
Whan she comth hoom, she rampeth in my face
And cryeth, “false coward, wreek[93] thy wyf!”

The Merchant’s wife would “overmatch the devil himself” were he foolish enough to wed her. In the Lenvoy to the Clerkes Tale Chaucer warns modern husbands to look for no patient Griseldas among their wives, and gives much satiric advice to “archewyves” to stand no nonsense from their husbands. In the Lenvoy a Bukton he warns his friend of “the sorwe and wo that is in mariage”:—

I wol nat seyn how that it is the cheyne[94]
Of Sathanas, on which he gnaweth ever,
But I dar seyn, were he out of his peyne,
As by his wille, he wolde be bounne never.

A fair proportion of the Canterbury Tales deal with the tricks by which a faithless wife imposes on her too credulous husband, and the bitterest of all the words which Chaucer utters on the subject are those which preface the Marchantes Tale of January and May, when with biting sarcasm he rebukes Theophrastus for daring to say that a good servant is of more value than a wife, and goes on to discuss at length the happiness of wedded life:—

How mighte a man han any adversitee
That hath a wyf? certes I can nat seye.
The blisse which that is bitwixe hem tweye
Ther may no tonge telle, or herte thinke.
If he be poore, she helpeth him to swinke;[95]
She kepeth his good, and wasteth never a deel;
Al that her housbonde lust,[96] hir lyketh weel;[97]

before relating the shame which a young wife brings upon her doting old husband. The Shipmann protests with brutal frankness that wives cost more than they are worth, and tells a tale to prove it. From all this we might imagine Chaucer a cross-grained misogynist, but a glance for one moment at the other side of the picture corrects this impression. He is as ready to say what will amuse his contemporaries as Shakespeare is to tickle the ears of the groundlings in his generation, but, like Shakespeare, he is too just to see anything from only one point of view. There certainly are women who abuse their husbands, and Chaucer’s inferiority to Shakespeare is marked by the fact that he finds the situation amusing; and there are also shrews and termagants who make their husbands’ lives a burden in other ways. But pecking is not confined to hens. Chaucer realises that for woman marriage is even more of a lottery than for man, since she is necessarily so much at her husband’s mercy:—

Lo, how a woman doth amis,
To love him that unknowen is!
For, by Crist, lo! thus it fareth;
“Hit is not al gold that glareth.”[98]
For, al-so brouke I wel myn heed,[99]
Ther may be under goodliheed
Kevered many a shrewd vyce;
Therefore be no wight so nyce
To take a love only for chere,
For speche, or for frendly manere;
For this shal every woman finde
That som man, of his pure kinde,[100]
Wol shewen outward the faireste,
Til he have caught that what him leste;
And thanne wol he causes finde,
And swere how that she is unkinde,
Or fals, or prevy, or double was.
(Hous of Fame, Bk. I, ll. 269-85.)

Husband-hunting is a sport which has roused the laughter of men from time immemorial; Chaucer is one of the few who has ever portrayed that fierce shrinking from the thought of matrimony which is no less common among women. Emily longing to be free to roam in the forest and “noght to been a wyf,” and Constance trembling at the thought of the strange man into whose hands she is being committed, are as true to life as the Wife of Bath with her husbands five at the Church door. And this poet, who sees so clearly the dangers and evils of matrimony, has left us one of the most perfect pictures of married life at its best. Dorigen and Averagus understand how to remain lovers all their lives:—

Heer may men seen an humble wys accord;
Thus hath she take hir servant and hir lord,
Servant in love, and lord in mariage;
Then was he bothe in lordship and servage;
Servage? nay, but in lordshipe above
Sith he hath bothe his lady and his love;
His lady, certes, and his wyf also,
The whiche that lawe of love acordeth to.
(Frankeleyns Tale, ll. 63-70.)