No. 79. The Wife in the Ascendant.
No. 80. Violence Resisted.
One idea connected with this picture of domestic antagonism appears to have been very popular from a rather early period. There is a proverbial phrase to signify that the wife is master in the household, by which it is intimated that “she wears the breeches.” The phrase is, it must be confessed, an odd one, and is only half understood by modern explanations; but in mediæval story we learn how “she” first put in her claim to wear this particular article of dress, how it was first disputed and contested, how she was at times defeated, but how, as a general rule, the claim was enforced. There was a French poet of the thirteenth century, Hugues Piaucelles, two of whose fabliaux, or metrical tales, entitled the “Fabliau d’Estourmi,” and the “Fabliau de Sire Hains et de Dame Anieuse,” are preserved in manuscript, and have been printed in the collection of Barbazan. The second of these relates some of the adventures of a mediæval couple, whose household was not the best regulated in the world. The name of the heroine of this story, Anieuse, is simply an old form of the French word ennuyeuse, and certainly dame Anieuse was sufficiently “ennuyeuse” to her lord and husband. “Sire Hains,” her husband, was, it appears, a maker of “cottes” and mantles, and we should judge also, by the point on which the quarrel turned, that he was partial to a good dinner. Dame Anieuse was of that disagreeable temper, that whenever Sire Hains told her of some particularly nice thing which he wished her to buy for his meal, she bought instead something which she knew was disagreeable to him. If he ordered boiled meat, she invariably roasted it, and further contrived that it should be so covered with cinders and ashes that he could not eat it. This would show that people in the middle ages (except, perhaps, professional cooks) were very unapt at roasting meat. This state of things had gone on for some time, when one day Sire Hains gave orders to his wife to buy him fish for his dinner. The disobedient wife, instead of buying fish, provided nothing for his meal but a dish of spinage, telling him falsely that all the fish stank. This leads to a violent quarrel, in which, after some fierce wrangling, especially on the part of the lady, Sire Hains proposes to decide their difference in a novel manner. “Early in the morning,” he said, “I will take off my breeches and lay them down in the middle of the court, and the one who can win them shall be acknowledged to be master or mistress of the house.”
Le matinet, sans contredire,
Voudrai mes braies deschaucier,
Et enmi nostre cort couchier;
Et qui conquerre les porra,
Par bone reson mousterra
Qu’il ert sire ou dame du nostre.