Constance as Romance and Folk Heroine in Chaucer's 'Man of Law's Tale'

Description: Constance is that rarity, a romance "heroine," who, like the more familiar hero, learns through trials and difficulties. The tale is thus perhaps one of those narratives that marks the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy in European culture. The tale is a romance but it still bears the marks of its Marchen roots, especially in the mechanism of female initiation.; The events portray a "continual representation of a dying matriarchy unable to generate new queens, which yields to the male principle."