Widow-to-Be: May in Chaucer's 'The Merchant's Tale'
- Author / Editor
- Hallissy, Margaret.
Widow-to-Be: May in Chaucer's 'The Merchant's Tale'
- Published
- Studies in Short Fiction 26 (1989): 295-304.
- Description
- During the Middle Ages, widowhood usually brought legal, social, and economic benefits. Although the Wife of Bath makes calculated use of these advantages, May in MerT foolishly jeopardizes her inheritance. Fertility lore indicates that she is unlikely to conceive through January, but her encounter with Damian could yield an heir and neccessitate dividing her inheritance.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Merchant and His Tale.