Objects of the Law: The Cases of Dorigen and Virginia.

Author / Editor
Johnson, Eleanor.

Title
Objects of the Law: The Cases of Dorigen and Virginia.

Published
Jenny Adams and Nancy Mason Bradbury, eds. Medieval Women and Their Objects (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017), pp. 201-28.

Description
Discusses Chaucer's thematic thread of accessibility of legal rights to women in FranT and PhyT. Dorigen, in FranT, and Virginia, in PhyT, are women trapped as objects of medieval law, or as properties whose control or outright ownership is the subject of dispute between men. Focuses on the contractual restrictions placed on women and the patriarchal lens through which women are objectified.

Alternative Title
Medieval Women and Their Objects

Chaucer Subjects
Franklin and His Tale
Physician and His Tale