"Ymaried moore for hir goodes": The Economics of Marriage in Middle English Poetry.

Author/Editor
Sweeten, David Wayne

Title
"Ymaried moore for hir goodes": The Economics of Marriage in Middle English Poetry.

Published
Ph. D. Dissertation. The Ohio State University, 2016. Open access at https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=osu1468414544&disposition=inline (accessed February 3, 2023).

Review
From Sweeten's abstract: "This dissertation explores the . . . 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. . . , 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. 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 'Emare' [and its] use of textile labor. . . ."

Date
2016

Gower Subjects
Confessio Amantis