Although dedicated to preserving the sacrament of marriage, the Church realized that adultery, cruelty, and heresy could make a marriage intolerable for one or both partners and that a judicial separation might then be in order. Acting in this capacity the clergy were more like marriage counselors trying to arrange amicable settlements, than judges. Few cases of separation appear in ecclesiastical courts, an indication that the Church's net was not a wide one. Take, for instance, the case of Robert Handenby and his wife, Margaret, who came to the York court in 1390. She sued for separation on the grounds of cruelty, but the court arranged that they try a reconciliation and "that [if] the aforesaid Robert shall in the future treat the same Margaret badly, and this can be proved by two legitimate witnesses, then the aforesaid Margaret may effectively secure a divorce with respect to bed and mutual servitude between herself and the same Robert." The court often required the husband to guarantee his promise of good behavior with pledges or with goods and money. But not all cases ended in reconciliation. John Colwell and his wife asked the court for a separation because they lived in daily fear of their lives and would rather live in prison than together. When a separation was allowed, the Church would arrange a division of wealth and support for children of the union.16
Individual solutions to marital incompatibility eluded Church control even when they were blatant, so that the ecclesiastical courts are not a complete guide to marital discord. Hawisa, daughter of William, the son of Alexander, grew up in Sherington as the daughter of a wellto-do peasant. Her father married her to a man from another village and endowed her with property at that time. She deserted her husband, however, and lived with Thomas de Shirford. They had an illegitimate son, Richard, and then married and had another son and two daughters. Strictly speaking, the marriage was not licit because the couple were adulterers, but they ignored the reprimand of even such a great church leader as Robert Grosseteste. Lay authorities also ignored the irregular status of the marriage and permitted her son to claim her estate as legitimate heir.'?
Although no one would argue that Margery Kempe had entirely normal views of sexuality, her autobiography does provide an intimate view of discontentment and mismatch in a marriage. She was the daughter of the mayor of Lynn and, therefore, from a well-to-do family. Her husband was of a lower status. Married at just over twenty years of age, she immediately became pregnant. Her pregnancy was difficult and she complained of being sick and having a very bad labor. These conditions appeared with the pregnancy of each of her fourteen children. Her husband was evidently a lusty man, continually seeking "fleschly comownyng" and "medelying with" her. She apparently did not enjoy his sexual advances and was tempted to have an affair with a man she loved. Gradually, however, her religious meditations led her to visions and she asked Jesus for help with her husband's sexual advances. The vision suggested that she fast on Fridays, which would give her one night off a week. Then, on Wednesday in the week of Easter, when her husband approached her, she said "Jesus, help me," and that stopped future intercourse.
Giving in to her religious enthusiasm, her husband accompanied her on a series of pilgrimages. As she explained it, they reached an agreement on chastity on "Friday in midsummer even in right hot weather as this creature [Margery] was coming from York bearing a bottle with beer in her hand and her husband a cake in his bosom." Her husband asked her if she would rather see him dead than let him "comown kendly" and "medele with" her again. She said that she would prefer to see him dead and reminded him that they had not had sexual relations for eight weeks. He claimed that it was because he was afraid of her. They stopped at a roadside cross and continued the discussion. He "clasp his wife unto him" and said "Margery grant me my desire and I will grant yours." His conditions for granting her permission to take the vow of chastity were that they should share the same bed, eat together on Friday, and she would pay all his debts. She consented; but finally they lived apart until he was old and senile and she took him in and nursed him.18
As if the difficulties betweeen husband and wife were not bad enough in-laws could create problems as well. In folklore and literature the mother-in-law dominates and oppresses her daughter-in-law. Rather typical is the Breton lay "Emare." The husband goes off to service, leaving his pregnant wife in the care of his mother. His mother finally puts Emare and the baby in a boat and sets them adrift in the sea. The motif reflects reality to the extent that the husband's mother would be the person most likely to be left living with a grown son and his family. But, as we shall see, such arrangements were distasteful to both parents and children, and the parents lived on their own as long as possible. The problem of in-laws seldom arose in court records and did not figure among homicides. Margery Kempe, for all her problems with marriage and her husband, was a kind mother-in-law. A son married a woman in Germany, but was devoted enough to his mother to bring his wife home to meet her. When the son died a month after their arrival, Margery kept her daughter-in-law and eventually traveled with her back to Germany, because she thought it inappropriate to let her travel on her 19 own.
The language of divorce and separation cases provides some insight into the roles that husband and wife were supposed to assume in marriage:
Thomas Waralynton appeared and was sworn to treat Matilda Tripes his wife with marital affection with respect to bed and table, and to furnish her with those things which are necessary in food and other materials according to his ability. And the woman was sworn to obey him as her husband....
The wife's duty to obey, and the husband's right to ensure that she did, was a cornerstone of the ideal marriage. One woman asked for a separation on the grounds that her husband had twice attacked her with a knife and inflicted wounds and a broken arm. The husband maintained that he had been reasonable and honest and had acted solely for the purpose of "reducing her from errors." The court agreed.20
The husband's responsibility to correct his wife was legally ensured. At the Chalgrave manor court the jurors "presented that Margery Himgeleys is a malefactor of the corn of others and henceforth her husband will punish her."21 Law upheld the husband's commanding role over his wife, for the punishment meted out to a wife for killing her husband was that for treason rather than felony. She would be burned at the stake for killing her lord and master.
The exalted position of the husband, however, carried responsibilities with it as well. He had to be a good provider, within the limits of his wealth, and to treat his wife with affection. He must also be her defender. For instance, a woman on Wakefield manor asked damages from a man because he beat her. He did not deny the charge but said that he did so because she insulted his wife. Another man killed to defend his wife. Philip le Miller of Killyngworth broke into the house of Adam Rose at Navesby, raped his wife and abducted her to a field. Adam came to the rescue and killed Philip with a pitchfork. Robert Mannyng concluded his advice to men on how to treat a wife with the observation that there was no greater solace under heaven than having a loving wife.22
That marital discord occurred among the English peasantry is not disputable, but its extent cannot be known. In official records, both lay and ecclesiastical, marital problems play a surprisingly small role even compared to the sixteenth century. It is entirely possible that a wife or husband took a hard knock from a spouse from time to time, and that the neighbors would not complain as long as the situation was not routine. That the male was given a dominant role over his wife in law, and over women in general through office holding, does not automatically imply that he used his additional powers arbitrarily or viciously. Nor can we argue that marriages were short and perhaps brutish affairs terminated within ten years by the death of one partner. A person in his or her early twenties could expect to live twenty-five more years. Thus, while we might expect to see few fiftieth wedding anniversaries, the twentieth wedding anniversaries would be common. With that many years of potential commitment and with the importance of maintaining a smoothly functioning economic unit, it behoved the couple to get along w
ith each other.
As is true of traditional peasant societies, a primary expectation of medieval peasants was that marriage would produce children who could eventually contribute to the household economy and, if the parents were fortunate, take care of them in their old age. Medieval peasants, as noted in the discussion of birth control, had at least an accurate folk knowledge about the process of conception and possibly contraception as well. Indeed, a repeated theme in popular verse was the dilemma of Mary:
Mary was obviously a perplexing case, as was the rest of the Holy Family:
In a society with vertical and horizontal kinship systems, the Holy Family appeared to have a circular one.
The more bawdy popular literature' made the male's role quite clear, as in the poem about chapmen "who be light of foot and foul of ways":
But some confusion about conception remained, for one folk belief was that if a woman had twins, she must have a lover in addition to her husband. 26
Following conception of the child, the father had a small role, for childbirth was a women's ritual. Men were excluded from the birth chamber, and hence it is that the medical treatises and encyclopedias dealing with gynecology contain no actual descriptions of the birthing process. At most they mention breach births and cesarean sections.27
Folkloric sources are virtually the only ones with information on childbirth. They illustrate the taboo on having a man present and the anxiety of both sexes at breaking it. In the Leesome Brand the father offers to help with the birth, saying that he will bind his eyes, but the elevenyear-old prospective mother sends him off for water and bemoans the absence of a midwife when she gives birth in the forest. Normally a midwife would be present, as may be seen in various illustrations of the birthing chamber following birth.28 The position of the woman during birth is moot. Sixteenth-century manuals suggest the use of a special chair (birthing stool) in difficult births to put the woman in an upright position. Two ballads, "The Cruel Mother" and "Fair Janet," suggest a more primitive method used for births in the woods when there was not an attendant midwife. In "The Cruel Mother," the mother-to-be went out to the woods and leaned with her back against a tree. In some versions she put her foot to a tree or to a stone. In "Fair Janet" she directs her lover as follows:
It may well be that the birthing tree or a semicrouched position was used in medieval England even when the delivery did not take place in the wilderness. A medieval English treatise depicts a woman in labor pulling on a cord fixed to a beam above the bed. 29
The first book directed at an audience of women appeared in England in the early fifteenth century. It is possible that it was written by a woman and certain that it was written for women because it preserves the secrecy of the ritual of childbirth, declaring that a man should only look at the book if he must aid in a birth. It describes a natural birth as one in which the child comes out, head first, in twenty pangs or within those twenty. It also gives detailed and, on the whole, practical instructions on procedures for difficult childbirth and recommends the proper herbs, baths, and so on for a variety of gynecological problems.3
Childbirth was a risk for women, particularly if the mother was ill or the child lay in the wrong position. A forty-year-old woman appeared in the coroners' rolls because she died some time after her son was born. The neighbors told the coroner that she had had a difficult labor but had lived to be churched. She remained debilitated and died shortly thereafter. Because of the difficulties of labor and birth a number of folk customs grew up around childbirth to aid the woman. Childbirth, people thought, could be aided by opening chests, doors, or windows, unlocking chests, or shooting an arrow, all symbols of opening the womb. But in spite of the risks of childbirth, most women appeared to survive it, for the wills indicate that the overwhelming majority of men were survived by wives, usually their first.31
Following a birth, the Church honored the Old Testament rule that a woman was impure for six weeks and prohibited her from attending church. The churching of a woman was the final ritual of childbirth allowing the woman back into society. As Mary became increasingly central to religious ceremonial, the Feast of the Purification of Mary, or Candlemas, in early February became a major celebration and one particularly associated with married women.
Medieval records to not indicate that women were continually pregnant, nor do the folkloric sources contain laments on having too many pregnancies as they did in France. Some hints of problems come from Margery Kempe, who complained in her autobiography of her frequent and difficult pregnancies (fourteen children). Her experiences may have influenced her views of sexuality and her decision to take a vow of chastity. The cumulative number of children for married women aged twenty to forty-four for 1550-1599 was 6.53 but it is difficult to know if this figure is also representative of earlier centuries.32
Other than producing children, married life mostly meant hard work in the woman's space of the home and the man's space of the field. But there was time for conviviality and games. As we have seen, some of these activities were divided by age cohort and, often, by sex as well. Archery contests and bull baitings were pastimes for adult males; and a tightrope walker who was balancing on a rope tied between two trees was described as being a man over forty. Only adult males participated in organized wrestling matches, and men of the village had football games as well. Thomas Sharp of Easton, for instance, was playing football with the other men on a Sunday in January 1367 when he accidentally fell on the knife of one of the other players.33
In addition to physically active games, men in villages played games of cards and dice. Sumptuary legislation in the early fifteenth century tried to prohibit handball, football, dice, "coytes," stone throwing, skittles, and so on. Furthermore, there was to be no betting on football, cock fighting, and on the occasion of marriages.34 Manorial courts tried to enforce the legislation. At Carshalton in 1446 Thomas Buxale and Robert Mordema were fined 12d. each for playing handball. Buxale did not desist and, along with eight other men, was fined at another meeting of the court. In 1447 eleven men were fined for playing ball. At Broughton three men were fined for play alepenypricke when they should have been performing their week-work for their lord.35
Accidents related to pastimes involving relaxation or play were rare, but men and women appear to have been equally at risk. Among men these accounted for 3.8 percent of their accidents, and among women, 4.4 percent. Needless to say, many of the pastimes and games were harmless and do not appear in the coroners' inquests.
Not all leisure activities kept the sexes separate. A number of private and village functions required the husband and wife to participate as couples. Gild membership and gild feasts, for instance, always involved husband and wife as well as their adult children. Religious festivals were times for the couple to relax together as a social unit. And there were the many dinners exchanged with neighbors. Medieval marriage partners did not live in that harsh world of separate social spheres that Stone has ascribed to plebs of sixteenth-century England and Shorter has shown for eighteenth-century France.36
In analyzing peasants' marriages, as we have, from the viewpoints of economic interdependence of the couple, legal prescriptions on marriage (both ecclesiastical and lay), folk theories, and actual practice, the modern descriptions of marriage in traditional society appear to be distortions. The majority of marriages do not fit Shorter's dismal picture of the "Bad Old Days" in which wives were dispensable or, at best, servants to their husbands. Hufton's work on eighteenth-century France dispels the notion that the wife's economic contribution to the household was considered unimportant. The coroners' inquests show medieval husband and wife sitting down at the table to eat together, and while the wife put the food on the table, she was not acting as a servant and did not stand behind her husband while he ate.37 Husband and wife walked side by side in fifteenth-century England, as Margery Kempe and her husband did while discussing their irreconcilable differences. Nor is marriage among the plebs as devoid of companionship as Stone de
scribes it. The separate spheres of work in home and field and the sexspecific games did not exclude couples from a range of mutual leisure activities. A married couple was not simply an economic unit in the eyes of society, but also a social and convivial one. One cannot measure the amount of affection between spouses from medieval evidence except that court cases show an absence of malice and a strong tendency to provide and support a wife's interests. Wills indicate a high degree of trust and even affection.
The patriarchal model of marital relationship is also not entirely applicable. To be sure, the law made it treasonous for a wife to kill her husband, but since the event was such a rarity the law must be viewed as an abstraction. The separate space for men's work and women's work did not denigrate the input of the wife relative to that of the husband, nor is there evidence that medieval peasant men thought so. In folk literature both husband and wife expressed the opinion that they worked harder than the other partner. Furthermore, a predominant father figure does not appear in suggestions on childrearing even though there was a golden opportunity to elevate paterfamilias to such a position in instruction books and homilies on the commandment to honor one's father and mother. Instead, the mother, like the Virgin Mary, was chiefly identified with childrearing.
The Ties That Bound Page 27