Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others by Ruth Mazo Karras

Author:Ruth Mazo Karras [Karras, Ruth Mazo]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: History, Europe, Medieval
ISBN: 9781136343612
Google: AdXFBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-03-12T20:45:57+00:00

May takes a young lover. The pagan gods Pluto and Proserpine observe the couple having sex in a pear tree in the presence of January, who has gone blind. Jove restores January’s sight so that he can see what his wife is up to, but Juno grants May the wit to explain away her activity so that she gets away with it. The story was meant to be humorous and its purpose was not to license adultery by aristocratic women, but it does imply that an old man with a young wife was more or less asking for trouble – not necessarily because young women are especially sinful, but because old men who are so lascivious that they imagine they can satisfy a wife are ridiculous.

A similar situation appears in the “Miller’s Tale,” in which a young wife, Alison, makes a fool of her carpenter husband. Alison takes as her lover the young clerk who lodges in their home. The clerk persuades the older man that a flood is imminent, and when the time comes the three hide themselves in tubs hanging from the ceiling. Alison and the clerk, Nicholas, sneak out and spend the night together. While the cuckolded old man is clearly a figure of fun here, the young clerkly lover is as well. Another potential lover, Absalon, sings below the window and asks Alison for a kiss. She sticks her rear end out the window so that he ends up kissing it instead of her mouth. When he realizes what has happened, he goes to fetch a hot plow coulter from a blacksmith. Returning, he asks for another kiss. Nicholas presents his buttocks for the kiss this time. Nicholas ends up being burnt; the husband is injured when he hears Nicholas yelling for water and, thinking the flood has finally arrived, cuts the rope that tethers his tub to the ceiling; and Absalon has been shamed by the kiss. Alison is the only one who emerges from the adventure unscathed, except in terms of her sexual honor.

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