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The Economics of Marriage in Middle English Poetry Dissertation “Ymaried moore for hir goodes”: The Economics of Marriage in Middle English Poetry Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By David Wayne Sweeten, M.A. Graduate Program in English The Ohio State University 2016 Dissertation Committee: Ethan Knapp, Advisor Richard Firth Green Karen Winstead Copyright by David Wayne Sweeten 2016 Abstract In her larger discussion of marital authority, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath advises those other wives who will listen to “[w]ynne whoso may, for al is for to selle” (3.413-414). This phrase, and the Wife of Bath’s Prologue at large, treats the dynamics of marriage in economic terms that the Wife of Bath can modify in order to attain authority over her husbands. This dissertation explores the larger trend of Middle English texts rendering marriage in economic terms and metaphor to determine what such treatment indicates about the shifting social relations of marriage in late medieval England. Previous scholarship has emphasized the role of antimercantilism in the period, pointing to a larger concern of the impact a market economy based on wages and exchange rather than social obligation would have on the social hierarchies of the period. This dissertation pushes back on this perspective, contending that the rising prevalence of market exchanges in every day life gives rise to the use of economic language and metaphor to better understand changing social relations. The Introduction establishes the historical basis of marriage in this period as well as the development of medieval economic thought in a burgeoning market economy. Chapter 1 focuses on two major Middle English texts, Geoffrey Chaucer’s the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and William Langland’s The Vision of Piers the Plowman, to consider how female figures taking part in the medieval marital market appropriate economic thought to dictate the parameters of their own exchange, the process of each commenting on the contradictory nature of the medieval marriage. ii Chapter 2 considers the role of avarice in John Gower’s Confessio Amantis and the anonymous Middle English poem Wynnere and Wastoure to plot how marriage is treated like local economies, where hoarding through avaricious desire harms all participants in the economy. Chapter 3 unpacks the function of widowhood in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, ultimately contending that Crisyede’s plight demonstrates the socioeconomic vulnerabilities of unfixed marital statuses in late medieval England. Finally, Chapter 4 looks at the function of labor in marriage as both a demonstration of marital identity and methodology for agency within marriage, focusing on the Middle English Breton Lay Emaré’s use of textile labor. This dissertation contends that rather than feeding instability economic language and metaphor comprise a new method for understanding those shifting social obligations. The shift into an exchange economy does not supplant social obligations but instead forms new methods of understanding and properly performing exchange in the interest of interpersonal relationships. iii Dedicated to my mother, Charlene Armstrong, who spent her life telling me: Don’t Dream it, Be it. iv Acknowledgments First, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Ethan Knapp, for his continuous support throughout this project. His always cogent advice, helpful suggestions, and intellectual prodding pushed me to produce better and deeper work at each stage in the process. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Richard Firth Green and Dr. Karen Winstead for their aid both on and off this project, in and out of the classroom. Without the assistance of my committee I would not have been able to develop my project into the form that lies below. I likewise owe my wife, Regina Bouley Sweeten, and daughter, Lily Jean Bouley Sweeten, a great debt towards the completion of this project. My wife has unerringly supported me throughout my graduate career, and I can imagine no one who has been more patient or who is happier to see the project, and my worries therof, completed. My daughter has been instrumental in putting my work in context with life’s expectations and ensuring a healthy sense of humility, as toddlers are wont to do. My family has been my strength from the start, and with Regina and Lily I can say I am strong indeed. My work has also benefited significantly from the support of my peers. Dr. Erin Wagner and Dr. Andrew Richmond have been the shining examples of those always one step ahead, always willing to offer advice, and always patiently lending an ear to the grief of a dissertating junior colleague. Jonathon Holmes has also provided a regular source of v pedagogical discussion, suggestions for improvements on my chapters, and verbal détente that made this process much more manageable. I have been privileged to have an excellent crop of peers at OSU, and I can only hope to have provided a small help in return, whether it be a word of support, sharing of syllabi, or the occasional cup of coffee from the Denney 547 private stash. vi Vitae 2007………………………………………………...B.A. English/History, Summa Cum Laude, Sam Houston State University 2011………………………………………………..M.A. English, Purdue University 2016……………….…………………………….....Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of English, Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: English Area of Specialty: Late Medieval Literature, Gender Theory, Medieval Economic Thought vii Table of Contents Abstract................................................................................................................................ii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iv Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………v Vita………………………………………………………………………………………..vi Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Spending her Bele Chose: the Economics of the Marital Market…………....27 Chapter 2: Marital Avarice………………………………………………………………81 Chapter 3: The Economic Agency of Widowhood……………………………………..132 Chapter 4: Marital Labor……………………………………………………………….180 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...208 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………212 viii Introduction The prologue of Thomas Hoccleve’s Regiment of Princes follows a Boethian dialectic structure, the narrator confronted by an old man who offers advice for coping with his dire straits. Over the course of the prologue, the old man’s advice shifts from embracing poverty to actually writing to Prince Henry in order to request more reasonable remuneration for the narrator’s labor. In the middle of this shift, however, is a just over 200-line discussion of marriage, opening with the old man’s question: “Seye on the soothe, I preye thee hertily, / What was thy cause why thow took a wyf?”1 Up to this point, the matter of Hoccleve’s married state has not come up, and the nature of the old man’s advice, extolling the virtuous aspects of poverty, have centered exclusively on Hoccleve’s personal mental, spiritual, or emotional state rather than how his conditions would affect Hoccleve’s spouse. The old man goes on to question Hoccleve on the reasons for his marrying, outlining the proper reasons to marry and engage in sexual intercourse within marriage, and to provide exempla for the necessity of maintaining a true marriage and marital identity. Only after this extended discussion of marriage does the old man finally advise Hoccleve to modify his economic state instead of accepting it, suggesting that the state of marriage carries economic connotations. Even the old man, in his Boethian function, recognizes that Hoccleve’s role as husband denotes certain 1 Thomas Hoccleve, The Regiment of Princes (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Pub., 1999), II.1555-1556. 1 economic responsibilities, feeding into a larger trend in Middle English literature of associating the state of marriage with the economic realities of a household. Similar representation of marriage through economic metaphor is present in several other Middle English texts. While perhaps most famously in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, The Shipman’s Tale, and the Lady Mede sections of The Vision of Piers the Plowman, this representation also takes place in John Capgrave’s Life of St. Katherine, Emaré, and Havelok the Dane. These Middle English texts discuss matters of the sexual obligation in economic terms, issues of labor and trade as modified through one’s marital status, and even the potential exchangeability of commodified marital goods. This trend begs an overriding question: why is marriage often dealt with through a representational scheme of economic metaphor? As an institution which is defined both by the bonds it forms between individuals and the sociopolitical alliances it brokers between families, governing institutions, and business ventures, the stakes of marriage in late medieval England are difficult to overstate. These dynamics are brought into greater relief in the urban setting of London, where specific economic, legal, and political conditions both promote and control aspects of medieval marriage.2 Given the fact that marriage touches upon so many currents of society it is striking that Middle English literature so often chooses to turn to economic language in its representations of marriage. The representation of marriage through economic language and metaphor demonstrates a normalization of market transactions in everyday life. More importantly, however, this
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