The #MeToo movement would not have gained much traction in the fourteenth century. While today’s women are speaking out and naming names in protest of sexual assault, in Chaucer’s day a woman had no legal voice with which to object to such violations. As a mere piece of property, a woman’s worth was not centered in herself, but rather in the relative market value she commanded for the benefit of her father or husband. If raped or otherwise assaulted, the crime was felt by her male relatives as a monetary loss, rather than as an act of physical and emotional violence upon the woman herself. Geoffrey Chaucer, in The Reeve’s Tale, uses ownership, silencing, and fungibility to express this medieval concept of the commodification of women.
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We are told that he, “wolde no wyf, as he sayde, /But she were wel ynorissed and a mayde, /To saven his estaat of yomanrye” (RT 3947-3949). He has acquired his wife, who is well-educated and virtuous, as well as possessing a fine dowry, in order to preserve his status as a yeoman. This is the essence of her value to Symkyn. She could be a pleasant woman, or a shrew; it would make no difference to her value. Chaucer never tells us the wife’s name. This is a deliberate and dehumanizing narrative choice, which further emphasizes that the wife is property to be owned, not an individual in her own right. While Symkyn’s daughter, Malyne, is given a name, that is the only dignity accorded to her. Otherwise she is described in terms of her physical attributes, in an animal-like way, and her dowry, which Symkyn intends to use to elevate his social status: “His purpos was for to bistowe hire hye/ Into som worthy blood of auncetrye” (RT 3981-3982). He owns her and means to use her for his own ends. Her wants and needs are never …show more content…
They have no agency, no voice, and are subject to fungibility by the men in the story. Aleyn gives voice to the notion that by raping Malyne, he will be repaid for what was stolen from him. “If that I may, yon wenche wil I swyve./ Some esement has lawe yshapen us,/ For, John, ther is a lawe that says thus:/That gif a man in a point be agreved,/That in another he sal be releved” (RT 4178-4182). Raping Malyne is the equivalent in goods and services to the stolen corn. Symkyn will be the injured party, because Malyne is his property. John, in turn, is willing to rape Symkyn’s wife for no other reason than that he does not want to be made fun of by his friends. The feelings of wife and daughter are never considered, because they are unimportant and irrelevant. The clerks believe that they have taken a fair revenge on Symkyn for his thievery. Chaucer apparently feels the same, because he writes, “His wyf is swyved, and his doghter als./Lo, swich it is a millere to be fals!” (RT
We are told that he, “wolde no wyf, as he sayde, /But she were wel ynorissed and a mayde, /To saven his estaat of yomanrye” (RT 3947-3949). He has acquired his wife, who is well-educated and virtuous, as well as possessing a fine dowry, in order to preserve his status as a yeoman. This is the essence of her value to Symkyn. She could be a pleasant woman, or a shrew; it would make no difference to her value. Chaucer never tells us the wife’s name. This is a deliberate and dehumanizing narrative choice, which further emphasizes that the wife is property to be owned, not an individual in her own right. While Symkyn’s daughter, Malyne, is given a name, that is the only dignity accorded to her. Otherwise she is described in terms of her physical attributes, in an animal-like way, and her dowry, which Symkyn intends to use to elevate his social status: “His purpos was for to bistowe hire hye/ Into som worthy blood of auncetrye” (RT 3981-3982). He owns her and means to use her for his own ends. Her wants and needs are never …show more content…
They have no agency, no voice, and are subject to fungibility by the men in the story. Aleyn gives voice to the notion that by raping Malyne, he will be repaid for what was stolen from him. “If that I may, yon wenche wil I swyve./ Some esement has lawe yshapen us,/ For, John, ther is a lawe that says thus:/That gif a man in a point be agreved,/That in another he sal be releved” (RT 4178-4182). Raping Malyne is the equivalent in goods and services to the stolen corn. Symkyn will be the injured party, because Malyne is his property. John, in turn, is willing to rape Symkyn’s wife for no other reason than that he does not want to be made fun of by his friends. The feelings of wife and daughter are never considered, because they are unimportant and irrelevant. The clerks believe that they have taken a fair revenge on Symkyn for his thievery. Chaucer apparently feels the same, because he writes, “His wyf is swyved, and his doghter als./Lo, swich it is a millere to be fals!” (RT