"To take a wyf": Marriage, Status, and Moral Conduct in "The Merchant's Tale."
- Author / Editor
- Hanna, Natalie.
"To take a wyf": Marriage, Status, and Moral Conduct in "The Merchant's Tale."
- Published
- Historical Reflections / Reflexions historiques 42.1 (2016): 61-74.
- Description
- Tabulates and analyzes the "gender-based" nouns used of the marital couple in MerT, compared with uses elsewhere in CT, focusing on uses of "wyf" and "housbonde" (61 versus 4 uses in MerT), and on the locution of "taking" a wife. Such usages connect January of MerT with Walter of ClT, and while neither tale challenges stereotypical roles overtly, MerT raises "profound social concerns" through its "terming" of marital status.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Merchant and His Tale
Clerk and His Tale
Language and Word Studies