"To take a wyf”: Marriage, Status, and Moral Conduct in “The Merchant’s Tale”

Abstract

Chaucer’s “The Merchant’s Tale” approaches the subjects of marriage, status, and moral conduct in the style of fabliau, using humor and satire to consider some more tangible fears of the medieval period.1 Such concerns within marriage include power and dominance, age and adultery; all of which are explored in the narrative through a combination of the more elevated language of courtly romance and that of the “low-footed” fabliau.2 Due to this amalgamation of genres, the text is comprised of a particularly wide range of gender-based noun terms related to marriage, class, and conduct (for example, “cokewold,” “housbonde,” “knight,” “lady,” “shrewe,” “wyf”) to define the characters and their actions. While much scholarship has been carried out regarding gender and power dynamics in the text, as well as the moral implications of the tale within a medieval social context, such gendered language has not been considered.3 However, there has been some critique on aspects of status, predominantly concerning age within medieval marriage. Margaret Hallissy’s article “Widow-To-Be: May in Chaucer’s ‘The Merchant’s Tale’” and Stephen J. Russell’s examination on “Chaucer’s Old Men” explore the social implications for a young May marrying aged Januarie in light of social practices of the medieval period, each focusing on female and male roles respectively.4 However, no study has taken a linguistic approach when examining the narrative’s treatment of gender, nor has one considered a comparative study of gender terminology in the text. This article uses a corpus of The Canterbury Tales to examine the gender terms in “The Merchant’s Tale” to demonstrate how social concerns surrounding marital status are revealed through these words and their phraseology.